Lisbon is for Lovers

Launched into Lisbon at the cool pace of a beating heart,
I’m on the train, along the coast, heading west. 

A familiar route. Cascais is to Lisbon what Malibu is to LA: the outskirts, a getaway.

I’ve been here before. Almost a year to the date. Traveling alone to meet the same boy before I really knew him. This time the familiarity of it all lulls me into a bone-deep ease as I lay my head on the window and watch the world unfold all around me.

Two rappers jump on board and blast a beat as they freestyle from one cabin to the next until they reach mine, the last one. Their moves and rhythm and shameless expression makes me realize how long it's been since I’ve seen any live performance and I’m magnetized to it. Our eyes meet and they start to rap to me in Portuguese. I smile, catching a few words here and there that make me blush. I dig for a euro and drop the coin in their hat. Passengers’ eyes roll as if I’ve just thrown bread to seagulls, but these boys are the happiest company here and that alone is worth some token.

A woman sitting in front of me grabs the ends of her crusty hair and wraps it in a tight bun, the dandruff catching the sun and sparkling as it falls off. I marvel at the odd beauty of it. Across the way, an elegant elderly woman sits alone, making her silent observations. She looks too refined for a place like this. I wonder why she’s here. Behind me two girls bicker over the window seat until one storms off. A man walks past with two new tattoos emblazoned on both sides of his neck and sits on the far end of the cabin. 

I see a boy not older than 17 loosen his school uniform tie and unzip his backpack. He takes a swig of a half-empty bottle of wine stashed inside. He seems sad. Everyone here does. There it is again: that sense of pervading loneliness I keep noticing, no matter where I am. Where the line between solitude and loneliness feels so fine I keep losing my footing too.

But for now, I feel rather peaceful riding a train at sunset by the ocean. The warm evening light breaks up and dances across the metro seats, the passengers’ faces, the pages of my notebook.

I relish this part where the feeling and the doing overwhelms what might otherwise evolve into over-thinking. The remembering. The dwelling. That the boy I really love is in the village I left behind. That he doesn’t want me and I don’t know why. That it stings so I’m searching for ways to soothe the burn. That I ran out of aloe vera and thought another lover might be the right prescription.

It’s a magic trick I’ve pulled out of my sleeve so many times I could do it with my eyes closed. The one where seduction happens smooth and fast and tender. Where I know which words to say and how to brush my fingers through my hair and when to lean in halfway so he meets me for a kiss. 

I write his address on my hand so I can still find my way to him when my phone dies. I seem to never remember a charger but I always have a pen. I like this about myself.

The train arrives. A twenty minute walk and with each step, added anticipation. I find the building. I buzz the bell. A woman walks out and asks me why I’m there. Com licença, não fala português. I show her my hand. She lets me in. 

His apartment is exactly as I remember from the surfboard rack to the cluttered kitchen counter to the pet snake I’ll pretend isn’t there. The familiarity makes me feel like there’s some impression of home in a place so far from home. I relax a bit more.

He is beautiful and kind and really listens when I talk and I can’t stop talking because there is so much room to fill and the distance between us keeps getting smaller and smaller until we’re tangled up again, body against body, submerged in each other’s affection. Way better than aloe vera, I think to myself. 

There are wine glass stains on the floor and blood on the sheets.
We make love in a violet mess.
Must be a new moon, I tell him, and watch his eyes grow big. 

I indulge in his realization that women are, in fact, magical creatures, synchronized with cosmic movements… orchestrated oceans inside each of us… mysteries waiting to be unveiled for those who have the endurance to try.

I like the way he talks in his sleep and the way he kisses my feet. How he hogs the blanket on the far side of the bed so I inch closer, nestled in his arms. I don’t sleep a wink but feel restored nonetheless. Something inside feels crooked and needs mending. This feels like a start.

The next morning we unwind as slowly as time allows. He needed this too. We drink coffee and pull on our denim jeans and then I tell him I have to go.

I walk 10km in the rain through the city, finding my way back to the beginning with Google Maps and intuition. People try to sell me an umbrella but I shake my head, Não obrigada. It feels good to not care so much. To live for new experiences, for lust and on the rare occasion, love, risking at the most a broken heart or at the very least a common cold. 

I tell myself to take it as it comes. To tuck these memories away for safe keeping and pull them out when I need to remind myself that this, all of this, every last drop, will one day read as the poetry of my 20s.