on the impossibility of ever forgetting fernando pessoa
one of my favorite traditions of the fall (one that also goes to the detriment of my good mood, as if the shorter days and lack of energy weren't enough) is reading fernando pessoa. this recording just published a selection of his love letters to ophelia. the translation is not great, but it works.
Those who really love don't write letters that read like lawyers' petitions. Love doesn't examine things so closely, and it doesn't treat others like defendants on trial.
The day I decide to play the clown (which my character isn't really suited for), I'll offer my services directly to the circus.
What happened, you ask? I got switched with Alvaro de Campos!
Time, which grays hair and wrinkles faces, also withers violent affections, and much more quickly. Most people, because they're stupid, don't even notice this, and they imagine they still love because they got used to being in love. If this weren't so, there would be no happy people in the world. Superior creatures cannot enjoy this illusion, however, because they can't believe love will endure, and when they see it's over, they don't kid themselves by taking what it left — esteem, or gratitude — for love itself.
It's possible that I fooled myself and that these qualities I attribute to you were my own illusion, but I don't think so, and even if they were, it did no harm to have seen them in you.
(...) and I've reached the end of the page, and this doesn't seem like it could be written by a human being but it was written by me.
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