“What Insists on Existing” is a visual poem about the need to create when nothing around you guarantees permanence.
As someone raised between two languages and landscapes, I’ve often felt like I was walking forward without a clear destination, just the need to leave something behind. I almost didn’t submit this piece.
It felt too personal, too quiet. Like something made to process more than to present.
But something in me insisted.
I grew up between two places, two languages, two ways of seeing the world.
Too much for one side, not enough for the other.
There are parts of me that still don’t know where they belong.
So I create.
Not to be remembered, but to not disappear.
To leave something behind in case I fade.
To make space for thoughts that never found their voice in either tongue.
When I learned this piece won third place in Claire Silver’s AI Contest #8, I was stunned.
Her reflection said everything I couldn’t. About legacy, mortality, and choosing to exist through what we make.
It reminded me that the act of creating, even in silence, can be seen.
Esta pieza es para quien alguna vez creó solo para no irse del todo, para quedarse un poco más, aunque sea en silencio. Sobre todo, va para quienes como yo, aprendieron a hacer arte sin saber si había espacio para ellos.
The poem below is where it all began.
Lo que Insiste en Existir
Hubo un tiempo en el que pensé que podía quedarme quieto.
Ser solo un espectador,
dejar que el mundo me pasara de largo,
como la brisa que apenas toca la piel antes de desaparecer.
Pero algo dentro de mí se resistió.
Algo en mis manos,
en mis ojos,
en cada pensamiento que no sabía quedarse dormido.
No es hambre.
No es ambición.
Es la insistencia de existir,
de dejar una marca aunque sea en la arena antes de la marea.
He intentado ignorarlo.
He intentado hablar más bajo,
andar con cuidado,
ser menos,
pero la sombra de lo que no he dicho
siempre regresa.
Porque no todo lo que se deja en el olvido muere.
Porque hay cosas que, aunque nadie las vea,
siguen respirando en la oscuridad,
esperando.
Y si el mundo un día se olvida de mí,
no importa.
Algo de mí quedará.
Algo que el viento no podrá llevarse.
Credits:
Written with help from ChatGPT
Music made with UdioAI
Images made with Midjourney
Videos made with LumaLabs AI
Directed by Diego Torres (Birddog)
Huge congrats to all the winners and everyone who entered. Such an incredible amount of work. Endless respect to all the artist walking this path.
