Pablo Neruda and the Unfaithful

I read Pablo Neruda after twelve months.

I read Neruda’s words on his website and in a swift, time-stopping motion, something rushed back. It felt like someone was blowing air into a thin reed pipe and it was pillowing against my face like soft cotton on a summer day. It felt good, but suffocation is not supposed to feel good. The days when I used to sit for hours in front of a blaring, full-lighted computer screen, my head throbbing with the pressure of noisy color and electricity, and read rows and rows of lines written by Pablo Neruda. 4am in the morning, words skid and slide just below my eyelids- only barely touching my eyes. But I read because I was hungry. It hurt me not to read. Something itched and allowed a fine red, Neruda rash to grow through my blood.

There was a different man then.

I read for myself, but Neruda was him. Actually, scratch that. I am still confused about where I made love to Neruda, and where, through Neruda, I was actually making love to him. I was unfaithful, and I do not know who was wronged.