El bordo

EL BORDO Gidi Loza

EL BORDO

EL BORDO Gidi Loza

EL BORDO de Gidi Loza Primera Edición (CC) Gidi Loza Tijuana, B. C. @fivewordsbooks issuu.com/fivewordsinalinebooks Edición/diseño de interiores: Gidi Loza FIVE WORDS IN A LINE BOOKS Esta obra está protegida bajo una licencia de Creative Commons Atribución-No Comercial-Licenciamiento Recíproco 2.5 México.

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On April 1, 2015, I walked part of the border in Tijuana—from Playas de Tijuana to Downtown Tijuana—I walked all the way beside the wall that divides Mexico and the United States. It was an intense walk. I took pictures.

El bordo was written between November 9, 2016 and November 12, 2016, in La Jolla, California. Just after the US presidential election.

”Did you win? He asks.

It wasn’t a match, I say. It was a lesson.”

Claudia Rankine, Citizen

Limits exist.

We exist.

We have limits.

Limits that create boundaries between what we are and what we are not.

Eternal fight.

Becomes tragedy.

In the modern melodrama of what we call civilization.

We believe boundaries—must—exist.

We have proof of that.

Even if we don’t really know what that proof is.

We build walls.

We create walls.

Tangible walls.

Intangible walls.

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Then— we regret in doing so.

By then it is too late.

Walls are hard to unbuild.

So— we just leave them there, standing, as monoliths, of modern civilization.

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We love walls.

We build walls.

We home walls.

We walk walls.

We see walls.

We spit walls.

We hug walls.

We run walls.

We cry walls.

We think walls.

We fuck walls.

We shit walls.

We. 16

Nonetheless, we remain the same.

At least, we think we do.

But, that is a lie, walls lie too, they have that power.

Tangible walls.

Intangible walls.

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The landscape, the beautiful landscape speaks by itself.

We walk towards it.

We walk around it.

We see nothing, but the purest beauty that lies there, present, present, the earth.

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We stare at the sky, and we see nothing, but modern civilization.

We stare at modern civilization, and we see, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing but ourselves, Narcissus.

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We walk, as if we walked towards some sort of god, that has the name, of what we cannot touch.

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We see roads.

We see.

And we not see.

What is buried there.

What is left there.

At night.

When no one can see.

What we see in daylight.

We still see.

Or, at least, we try.

Not to see.

We don’t know—no more—where we are.

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We begin, again.

And—now—, you tell us, what you see.

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We stand still.

We look.

There is only one path.

Walls create only one direction.

We mimic the direction.

We scream the direction.

We progress the direction.

We solitude the direction.

Then, we find out, we don’t want to go on that direction.

We turn around.

And, there is only one direction.

We stand still.

We look.

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The wall is only one layer.

The earth is another layer.

The dirt is only one layer.

The trash is only one layer.

The grass is another layer.

The wall is only one layer.

The wall is only one layer.

The wall is only one layer.

Humans create layers.

Nature creates— not layers—stratums.

Humans mimic nature.

Humans think, nature mimics them.

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We see words painted in the wall, violent words, in fact, messages.

As if the wall was some sort of medium to communicate.

The only thing, is that this wall, is anonymous.

You can not really tell, who wrote, this tragedy.

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There is darkness and there is light.

We inhabit both.

There is darkness and there is light.

We think we are just one.

We are both.

One does not exist without the other.

We are both.

The night shines.

The day shines.

Both, in their own particular ways.

We are both.

We are both.

We are both.

We. 26

We cry.

We grieve.

Then, we laugh.

And, we do nothing, but exist.

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A flag stands as flags stand.

Immobile. Straight. Immobile.

Just staring at all that passes.

Moving with the wind, or, standing still without the wind.

A flag stands there.

Mocking, perhaps laughing.

A flag stands there.

As a flag stands.

Immobile. Straight. Immobile.

This is its nature.

Immobile. Straight. Immobile.

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We stare at the sky and we ask ourselves, what went wrong.

No one really knows.

But the thousand eyes of the sky watch us, as if in some sort of greek tragedy, we carry and roll a stone through a wall.

And, we fall back from recognizing that there is no stone and no wall but the one we are ourselves creating. —Illusion—.

That is the tragedy, believing what is not there to be believed.

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Gidi Loza is a poet and translator. She currently studies an MFA in Creative Writing at the University of California, San Diego.