the day started with a theft.

but not the kind that makes you tremble or call the police,
this was one of those intimate, sneakier ones:
they stole my soap.
my five-euro L’Oréal Men Expert.
my silent luxury.
my attempt to still smell like something close to success,
even while sleeping on a metal bed with a blanket that covers nothing.

I searched the bathroom like I’d lost a child.
opened shelves, looked under the sink, inspected like a CSI gone broke.
but it wasn’t there.
they took it.
and with it, a part of me that still believes I’m allowed to have things of my own.

I left a note.
sarcastic, obviously.
I’m not going to beg for soap.
but I can leave a reminder that even here, there are people who take care of themselves, who spend five euros on something that’s not food or drugs.

the next day, in the bathroom, one of the Arab guys asked me:
—did you get your soap back?
I said no, it’s alright, I’ve learned.
and he looked at me like he got it.
like he, too, had lost things that never came back.
that look without drama. just truth.

later, another guy told me:
—you seem smart.
I said:
—I’m not.
and he replied with something that got stuck to the back of my neck:
—in this life you either shine or you stay invisible.

he said it while smoking, like it was some ancient law.
I laughed.
thought maybe I’ve been trying to do both, and that’s why I’m exhausted.

same guy, chatting with the girls later, said he couldn’t understand the Colombian guy.
I told him not to go to Andalucía then.
he laughed.
said he understood people from Madrid better.
and there we were, all of us trying to speak a language no one ever taught us,
crossed accents, weird silences, glances that say “me too.”

all of that, after a checkup with the clinic’s doctor.
a woman who listens without listening,
who looks at you like you’re a form to be filled,
who asks technical questions but skips what really matters.
she told me I was fine.
I felt I wasn’t.
but I signed anyway.
you sign everything. even your own exhaustion.

that night, my roommate offered me some ham.
I told him I couldn’t because I had coffee.
I don’t know why I said that.
I don’t even understand it myself.
and yet, I said it.
like there was some secret rule that said the two can’t mix.
like it was a sin.
and that’s when I knew:
I had just founded my own religion.

a religion with no god, but with absurd rules.
where ham and coffee cannot coexist.
where losing a bar of soap is enough to write a testament.
where laughing at yourself is sacred.
where earplugs are offered as signs of peace,
and sarcasm is the most honest prayer I’ve got left.

I don’t know if this is surviving or just writing so I don’t rot from the inside.
but if they steal something else tomorrow,
I’ll write again.
because it’s not about the soap.
it’s about how, in the middle of all this noise,
we still find ways to talk to each other.
even if it’s in broken accents, clumsy jokes, or ironic prayers.

and that, too, is a way not to disappear.

I. Here, we believe in…

— Dignity as a scent you choose.
— Humor as a legitimate form of protest.
— Sarcastic notes as divine messages.
— Made-up rules as spiritual defense.
— The right to smell good even when everything else has been taken.
— The spontaneous religion born between coffee and rejected ham.
— Absurdity as a common language.

III. Here, we state that…

The soap wasn’t just soap.
It was the quiet gesture of self-care when everything around screams abandonment.

That bathroom conversation wasn’t small.
It was communion.

Saying “I’m not smart” is also a form of intelligence.
And someone answering, “Then you better stay invisible”
is a political act,
a declaration of how the real world works:
you either shine or disappear.

IV. We reclaim…

— The right to contradiction:
I take care of myself, but I still don’t get why mixing ham and coffee gives me anxiety.

— The right to laugh when everything smells like failure:
Because if I take it too seriously, I’ll break.

— The right to found your inner religion when the institution treats you like a number:
My god is called irony. Its temple, the shared bathroom. Its prayer, a half-laugh.

— The right to tell your story without needing degrees, diagnoses, or excuses.

V. We demand (and couldn’t give less of a fuck at the same time):

— That stolen things be returned,
but mostly, that no one should ever have to justify their right to own a fucking bar of soap.

— That the system listen not only to symptoms,
but also to the cracks behind every phrase.

— That health be more than medication:
Let it be conversation, laughter, real rest.

You won’t see us on protest banners.
We won’t shout.
You’ll find us in the bathroom mirror,
with a handwritten note,
where irony and dignity coexist like ham and coffee:
incompatible, but honest.

We’re still here.
Alive.
With soap or without it.
Rolling cigarettes, inventing dogmas, resisting from the bare minimum.
And yes, writing.
Because every line is an act of presence.