Saudade

There is a Portuguese term that I love; Saudade.

It has no direct translation to English, because more than a word, it is a feeling, a perception of a longing and desire for something that may not even exist or something that may not happen again.

The awareness and sentiment is constant, lingering and ambiguous. There is no proper way to do justice in explaining, it has a melancholic nostalgia, both happy and sad. It is steady, eternal, ever-present. It lingers behind every breath. Behind the eyes it dawdles, the message it tries to convey lost in a sea of fear, misunderstanding and shrugged shoulders. Dead end streets past what you thought was the last turn, indifference it meets in every corner.

If only the term had a voice besides my own, it would drown your sorrows in longing, yearning whispered into the vessels of your heart. Its grip hugging your form, cradling with warmth and realization that nothing is how it should be, nothing was as it should’ve been, nothing will be as you dreamed. Find yourself awaken with an empty start.

It is a poetic sentiment, ingrained deep in the soul, no explanation enough to justify, no vindication waiting through a forest of bamboo. It sits in your heart, heavy as a stone and leaves you with a burden of thought, memories not yet told, or formed, languishing, all fractured, disheveled and blue.

-A.Garcia