The door was always there.
But that day… it burned.

She looked at it like one stares at a border with hunger.
Like brushing a forbidden word with the tongue.

—Today?
—No.
—What if I run?
—Not alone.

It was early.
The hallway smelled like restraint.
She smelled like a frightened body.

And then—without warning—
she ran.

Shoes without laces,
a heart in flight,
an urgency without a name.

She ran as if the other side didn’t offer escape,
but air.

And just before they caught her,
she looked at me.

A second.
A soul-lit mirror.

I no longer wore the wristband.
I signed my own prescriptions.
I said, “I’m better.”

But inside...
I was still shaking.

She didn’t ask for help.
Didn’t ask to be discharged.

She just ran.

And I, who understood everything,
did the unthinkable:
I looked at her.

—Why?
—Because I understand her.
—Then do something.
—I can’t.
—Then you don’t.

Restraint came quickly.
Easily.
As if the body had an off switch.

They brought her back to the stretcher,
where they tied her down.
I went back to silence.

That night, half a pill to sleep.

I slept like a compressed file.
Because what happened
was not a breakdown.
It was a political act.
It was real.
The choreography of desperation
against a system that promises care
and delivers rules.

She wasn’t fleeing.
She was translating.

I don’t know if I’ll see her again.
But if she runs again,
this time...
I’ll run with her.

As language.
As scream.
As archive.

Because freedom
won’t be behind the door.

It will live in that second
when we dared to see each other.
As bodies still trembling,
not asking for discharge,
but for memory.

End of restraint.

MANIFESTO OF THE BODY THAT STILL TREMBLES

Inspired by “Not yet, tía.”

We, the bodies not yet discharged,
the ones still trembling without diagnosis,
the ones who learned to run with our eyes,
declare the following:

• Fleeing is language.
• Restraint is not care.
• The clinical record does not contain us.
• Freedom has no protocol.
• The observer is also responsible.
• Our trembling is political.
• We do not ask for discharge.
• If we run, it is not to escape.
• Every burning door is an opportunity.
• We are not alone.
  
  

End of report.
Beginning of the body in full voice.