Let it Go

Mariana Berenice Bredow Vargas
Translated from the Spanish

Come now with me, let it go, pause, you               deserve it, then go back, nothing                             will have changed, life fines awayso quickly! we die               while we’re saying words to people                             we barely know, who hardly matter to us,words that only hide us from sorrow, forgive me               for saying so, but facing death, there’s just no place                             for dissimulation, and I can’t imagine whatyou carry, so many losses piled               one over another and you still dispensing                             smiles to those who expect smilesand words from you, but come with me and               you won’t need to pretend or speak or be silent,                             we’ll walk to the sea, releasing into the sunsetall that weight you’re carrying, and we’ll stay for               sunrise in the Galapagos with centurial turtles                              teaching us to live and birds dawning, come with me,so we can laugh at simple things like children and               tickle each other without even touching, read the scribble                              of clouds, the tongues of stars, the trails of bugs in the sand,and we’ll kiss like never before, this is my way               of asking you not to let yourself fall                              into the vacuum of grief, there’s lifedreaming you past the pain, let’s go, I want               to dream it too, to let ourselves be taken by some nascent hope                              born from wildest illusions, the ones that in our sadnesssave us, save us. Dejar IrAhora ven conmigo, suelta todo, haz pausa,               lo mereces, luego vuelves, nada                              habrá cambiado, ¡la vidase desgasta tan rápido!               nos vamos muriendo entre palabras para gente                              que apenas conocemos, que poco nos importa,palabras que solo nos ocultan de la pena, disculpa               mi descaro, pero ante la muerte, no hay                              cara para disimular, y no puedo imaginarlo que tú cargas, tantas pérdidas               juntas una sobre otra y sigues levantándote                              con sonrisas para quienes esperan sonrisasy palabras de ti, pero ven conmigo y               no tendrás que fingir ni hablar o callar                              caminaremos hasta el mar, a liberar ese pesoflotando en el atardecer, y ver nacer el sol               en las Galápagos, con tortugas centenarias                              enseñándonos a vivir y pájaros amaneciendo, ven conmigo,a reír de cosas simples como niños, hacernos               cosquillas sin tocarnos, mirando escritura en las nubes,                              lenguaje en los astros y en las trazas de los bichitos de arena,y besarnos como nunca antes, esta es mi forma               de pedirte que no te dejes caer                              en la aspiradora del duelo, que hay vidasoñándose contigo después del dolor, vámonos, quiero               soñarlo al menos, dejarnos llevar por la esperanza que nace                              de las ilusiones más salvajes, son ellas las que en la tristezanos salvan, sálvanos.

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Mariana Berenice Bredow Vargas was born in 1980 in La Paz, Bolivia, into a family of theater artists. Her actress grandmothers, her mother Ana María Vargas Alexander, and her father Luis Bredow taught her the craft in their family company Teatro del Umbral. At the age of nineteen, she left home to study theater and lyrical singing at the Conservatoire de musique de Genève, then dramaturgy and direction at the RESAD in Madrid. Upon her return to Bolivia, she encountered the work of Jaime Saenz; this changed the course of her life, and she began more intensively to explore writing in relation to the body. Bredow earned graduate degrees in musicology and creative writing at the National School of Theater in Santa Cruz. Later, she worked in Paris with actor-writer Jean-Paul Wenzel, and then moved to Buenos Aires before returning to Santa Cruz where she works as an actress, director, theater photographer, cross-genre artist, and as a jazz singer and writer.

Forrest Gander was born in the Mojave Desert. He is a writer and translator with degrees in geology and literature. Awarded a Pulitzer Prize and fellowships from the Guggenheim, Whiting and United Artists foundations, Gander has most recently published Twice Alive: An Ecology of Intimacies (New Directions, 2021) and Knot (New Directions 2022), a collaboration with photographer Jack Shear. Gander translates books by poets from Spain, Latin America, and Japan.

April 2023

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