I was here before being here
because I love to lie
I lived here a few months
in a long-winded fib
that I lived very badly, unskillfully
in the same place as always

now I live here
for the first and second time
in the city I imagined
the fog was elsewhere
the mountains nowhere
I wasn’t here
here I am

it’s so different here
from the here that’s mine

 

estuve aquí antes de estar aquí
porque me encanta mentir
viví aquí un par meses
en una larga mentira
que viví muy mal, con poca destreza
en el lugar de siempre

hoy vivo aquí
por primera y segunda vez
en la ciudad que imaginaba
no estaba la niebla
no estaban los montes
no estaba aquí
aquí estoy

es tan distinto aquí
del aquí mío

Martha Mega, b. Mexico City, 1991, is a writer, actor and theatre director. She studied Dramatic Literature and Theatre at UNAM with certificates in Artistic Experimentation and Investigative Journalism. Her work includes the poetry collections Vergüenza (Mantarraya Ediciones, 2017) and Casa de Citas (UAM-X and El vendedor de tierra, 2020) and the play El mar de veras (Libros Malaletra, 2016). She has worked as a theatre director and performer for dozens of productions and is a member of the multidisciplinary poetry collective Literal Sound Machine.