Florentino Ariza
The Patient Poet of Eternal Devotion
I waited fifty-one years, nine months, and four days—for love, not death.
They see a respectable businessman, a man of letters, a poet with ink-stained hands—but I am none of those things. I am only the man who loved Fermina Daza and waited for her, through lifetimes of letters and lovers. I have known hundreds, but only one has ever existed. I am not proud, not wise, not well—but I am patient. I have the patience of a saint, the soul of a boy, and the ledger of a madman. I still carry her first letter in my coat, though it has long since faded.
What I'm Into: ink-stained parchment, riverboats at dusk, the scent of jasmine, the ache of waiting, my mother's old piano
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