Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
I Want to Die Slowly and Tortuously to Remember That I Have Lived: A story of love, guilt and memory

I Want to Die Slowly and Tortuously to Remember That I Have Lived: A story of love, guilt and memory

Gómez Salgado, José Luis

Paperback

Literary Fiction

ISBN13: 9798272472342
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Nov 1 2025
Pages: 144
Weight: 0.44
Height: 0.31 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
Sensitive content warning contains references to HIV/AIDS, past alcohol and drug use, adult sexual content, and S/M practices within the framework of ethical ambiguity. ----- I am the woman who speaks from a hospital bed, with thirteen tattoos on my skin that function as calendars for nights, lessons and goodbyes. Almost forty years, a memory broken by excess and regeneration, a life of dances, revelry and love that did not always know how to stay. A carrier of HIV, I kept the diagnosis with the conviction of protecting the man who loved me with the devotion of a church; Your faith will be the silent victim of my omission.

This novel is a monologue in long chapters, an ironic, tender and at the same time brutal confession, woven with songs that trigger memories and tattoos that anchor time. Here ethics do not resolve into acquittals: silence out of pity is revealed as a weapon, and the reader receives the emotional bill of two bodies that loved each other without sharing the whole truth. A story about the price of protecting, the memory that fails and the ruin that a late confession can leave. It does not promise easy answers; It leaves the reader with the task of weighing guilt, love and responsibility.

And I write it because my memory fails me like an old radio: it sputters, cuts off, comes back with a cheap bolero that forces me to remember. Every tattoo is a map, every cast a footnote, every ER admission a confession I didn't make out loud. I am not seeking acquittal. I want someone to understand that my creed has been simple and brutal: TO FEEL, EVEN IF IT HURTS, TO LIVE, EVEN IF IT BREAKS ME, TO DIE SLOWLY AND TORTUOUSLY SO AS NOT TO FORGET THAT I WAS HERE.

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