"State of siege"

I walk along the main avenues, the wide black surfaces, the sidewalks on which everyone fits and no one sees me; no one turns around, no one looks at me, not a single one of them. Not one person shows the least sign of recognition. I insist. Love me. Help me. Yes, everyone. You. I see you all. I try to magnetically draw them towards me; nothing retains them, their gazes slide over me, erase me. I am invisible. Their eyes avoid resting on any one thing, and I look at them all so intently, I imprint them on my soul, on my forehead; their faces bore into me, they accompany me; I imagine them, I recreate them, I caress them. We women treasure faces; in fact at any given moment life becomes a single face that we can touch with our lips. Love me, see me, here I am. I put all life’s forces on alert; I want to pass through the panes of the box-office window and say “Señora, señora, it’s me,” but nobody, nobody turns their head, I am as smooth as the opposite wall. I should yell at them, “Your comunity would be incomplete without me, no one walks like me, no one has my laugh, my way of wrinkling my nose when I smile, you’ll never see a woman rest her elbows on the table the way I do, no one buries her face in her shoulder... ladies and gentlemen, children, dogs, cats, inhabitants of the entire world, believe me, it’s true, you need me.”
I would like to think that they hear me, but I know it’s not true. No one waits for me. Nevertheless, every day, stubbornly, I take the road, I go out onto the wide avenues, to that great intimate desert so like the one I have inside of me. I need to touch it, see with my eyes what I have lost, I need to look at that black extension of tar, I need to see my death.

"State of Siege" escrito por Elena Poniatowska
Detalle de "Todos Juntos 2", oleo sobre canvas de Rafael Coronel