I don’t always awake

with a smile on my lips,

or sleep with mystery

surrounding me.

Sometimes I am day

without morning and

other times I am night

without moonlight. It’s

when I get up and see

all gray that I am more

myself, this soul lost

in live shadows and

nothing to comfort me,

only empty walls, whose

color is peeling at the

corners, while I observe

youth evaporating

through a window that

slowly closes to life

outside myself.

---

Cristina DeSouza is a poet and physician, living in Vermont, where she practices medicine and writes. She was born and raised in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She has an MFA in Creative Writing, Poetry, by Vermont College of Fine Arts, and has had poems published both in Portuguese (her mother idiom) and in English by several magazines in both countries (in the States: Poetry Pacific, Sheila-Na-Gig, The Voices Project, San Diego Poetry Annual, Synesthesia Literary Journal to cite a few.) In 2011, she had a book of poems published in Portuguese (Brazil) and titled ‘Uns Poucos Versos.’ Her email address for contact is: colo2309@gmail.com.