"I Want to Live, Live, Live" by Rodrigo Palacios: Poetry, Memory, and Mixed Media Art

“Ahora que usted quiere matarme, yo quiero vivir, vivir, vivir”

(Now that you want to kill me, I want to live, live, live)”

Unamuno, Niebla

I want to live, live, live

You and I, my beloved Escribidor, who have
been so many masks and yet, in sum, just one,
who have inhabited language, our homeland,
slept so many dreams, from dawn to shadows,
afterward waking up to hope or else a reflection in a puddle
and in the interim, frequented countless gas stations,
street intersections, freeways, injected sunsets by the sea—
and there was always a particular liquor store…

You and I who went to all those estranged places that
we will now try to forget lest we go crazy.

Who would have ever thought
that aside from perduring as a reflection

in a painting’s mirror,  we would end up—
with nothing?