I press my ear intent against my chest
like, on the beach, a seashell from the sea.
I hear my heart beat as it bleeds
and always and never the same.
I know who it’s beating for like that, but I can’t say why.
If I were to start to tell it fantastically
with words and snares, on a bet,
I’d begin, trembling with suspense,
to invent the truth--
When I pretended I loved you,
I didn’t know then I was loving you!
like, on the beach, a seashell from the sea.
I hear my heart beat as it bleeds
and always and never the same.
I know who it’s beating for like that, but I can’t say why.
If I were to start to tell it fantastically
with words and snares, on a bet,
I’d begin, trembling with suspense,
to invent the truth--
When I pretended I loved you,
I didn’t know then I was loving you!
[Xavier Villaurrutia, ‘Inventing Truth’, from Homesick for Death--Dead Nocturnes: The Complete Poems of Xavier Villaurrutia]
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