I Left My Baby Unattended
You used to write poetry and be in love with life, and then one day, you’re sitting at a coffee shop—two years later—hopeless because you put all your poetry into the love affair and forgot that the page, unlike him, is reliable. You look at the page, next to the window, facing Bleecker, and realize that what he’s done to you, you’ve done to the page. Backburner, breadcrumb, neglect. Daddy issues. Mommy issues too.
I left my baby unattended.
How many lines of prose until you believe—or I believe that this will not happen again?
Here are a couple.
Bilbao
I
En la plaza de Don Federico,
el sol calienta las mejillas
frías de la anciana.
Poeta sin musa,
ciudad extraña,
mochila ligera y
alma pesada;
jamás ha sentido más
su juventud.
II
Idioma familiar y el
alejarse de todo
para ganar claridad.
Caminando—la lluvia
toca sus pies y no le
molesta.
Mortalidad y temporalidad,
suya y de las gotas cayendo
sobre su sombrilla.
III
Caminando en Abando
se encontró en un rincón
semiabandonado.
Las sillas
desiertas, tristes y solas.
Ellas fueron lo más familiar.
IV
Su amor se agotará y
se enamorará de nuevo.
Viajará y caminará calles
desconocidas,
será joven
luego se arrugará,
perderá todo lo que ganó,
y la risa la consumirá al
recordar su llanto.
Crecerá—
se hará más pequeña
de lo que se siente hoy.
A Shitty First Poem in French
J’ai arrivé à Paris en août
dans le neuvième,
j’ai souri — Paris a souri avec moi,
rapidement — il a changé.
Car Paris est un miroir.
Si tu es triste,
Paris pleure avec toi.
Si tu es perdu,
les rues et les musées
sont un labyrinthe.
Si tu es heureux,
le jazz rit avec toi.
Car Paris est un miroir.
Donc j’ai détesté Paris,
et j’ai adoré Paris.
Car Paris est un miroir.
It took me a while to understand—or even try to understand—why I hated Paris at first. Four months later, I see why. Unlike the cities I’ve lived in before, where I believed I saw myself mirrored, this one is, in its own way, more like myself. It is hostile, stuck in the past, and unwilling to move forward. It has a history, a language as central to its existence as is the act of breathing.
It did not open its arms and wrap itself around me like New York did, or Sydney, or my home. It did not attempt to open up for me—unless I tried, really tried, to place myself in it. Almost as strongly as it did in many other lands, asserting dominance rather than empathy.
I can’t decide if I admire it or abhor it.
Albertine
Does it make me a fraud
if I do not know what to do
with my freedom? What if
I don’t necessitate it?
At times, I find myself looking
straight into another’s eyes,
asking for instructions—
a blink, yes or no.
What to do with it?
What a limitation I find it to be,
not resisting anything.
“My newfound freedom imprisons me and paralyzes me.”
-albertine sarazzin
Wisdom Teeth
Thoughts of death, fairies,
a rat—or is it a mouse?
What’s the difference?
The year is ending. The right side
of your mouth aches, like it knows.
For things to crown means
they have been knighted,
birthed, made to fit. So,
when your tongue was dancing,
the spit accumulating in your throat,
the foreign language colonizing the
source of it all—a life was leaving you,
and four more were growing.
The old life clings, resists, and he kisses you,
with needle lips, as if searching for them
in the ruins of your mouth, with his tongue,
tying thread around the rocks and
shutting the door. You cry as you trace the empty
backs, dispossessed. But soon enough, you feel it:
the new year, the empty room, and the wisdom.
Eye Exam
Dilated pupils blur
my vision. I walk dreadfully slow.
The urge to run and leap never leaves
me, and I feel my bones calcify.
I grab onto walls, the scaffolding, the staircase:
your hands, your back, the past, the promise—I grip
Door handles without opening a door.
I wait for signals, lights, your voice.
Wait, wait, wait
I can’t see what’s down
the road or what’s in front of me.
New year, and I’m dancing in the kitchen. I’ve lost the conviction that I possess some kind of moral superiority—I know nothing, and it is not ignorance but humanity that overthrows my judgment.
I do not know how to love without letting it consume me. I do not know how to feel my feelings and also exist. I have zero clue what right and wrong mean.
My therapist used to tell me to embrace the gray until she realized I was too good of a student. Which meant everything was gray: the sky in Manhattan and Paris, my attachment to certain friendships, my ability to forget about a past life, my ability to love only enough.
For about a year, instead of living in Murray Hill, I lived in a gray area—somewhere between 33rd and Third Ave and 9th and First.
Y un día dejó de doler
tus manos de inquilino
soltaron
aquel hogar temporal.
Dejaron de decorar los pasillos,
de adornar la mesa, de traer
frutos nuevos a aquellos fantasmas
que habitaban los rincones más
oscuros de tu habitación.
Al dejar ir, supiste al fin
que la luz no existía en aquel
espacio que se ofrecía, con
fecha de expiración—
y saliste a la calle.
El semáforo te parpadea;
dos luces rojas te miran.
Paras. Mira hacia arriba.
Las nubes, el sol y la brisa
te reciben con la calidez
del abrazo de un desconocido
que te sonríe, besa y suelta,
todo tan breve—fugaz
como las gotas de sudor
derramadas un día de invierno.
Y cambia el color,
Cruzas la calle y al llegar
a un destino no fijado, te sentiste
más en casa que cuando la luz
estaba naranja.
A Pile Of Electric Potential after Chelsea Hodson
Half plugged in,
never working. Have I ever finished
anything? My thoughts know
no end—my anxieties, worse. Orgasm
never reaches me. I find myself hostage
to the perpetual pain of waiting—for pleasure,
an ending, a wall to hit, a
PARIS: I (algo diferente)
Why do we hide
If we want to be seen so badly?
What is so scary
We must still wear the mask?
Why do we arrive
Expecting to be met with anything
But the apathy with which we left?
Something about being here makes me want to be alone. I have not found myself writing often and, though I feel less observant and incredibly introspective, I have made note of the way this place has changed me already—fast. I have been in Paris for a month now. I told my friend I did not know enough about the city yet to write about it, and she said, “So write about how little you know.” While that seems entirely reasonable and is what I am doing now, it is my biggest fear—uncertainty, not knowing, not being good at something.
When I first came into contact with France and its people, like any newcomer, I was fascinated. Immediately, as I walked somewhere in the ninth arrondissement, I was able to conclude that, unlike any big city I have lived in, Paris was the best to be alone in. I walked around with my thoughts for hours. I went to the Louvre because it was the easiest landmark I could get to within twenty minutes. I found the city incredibly quiet—it almost bothered me at first. It was August, and it was hot. I liked the way the streets were not symmetrical and that there were small hills that kept the walk entertaining. I discovered that since I don’t speak French, all I was listening to was myself and my inner dialogue—everything around me was just buzz.
When I first got to the Louvre, I was slightly underwhelmed. I could see the tip of the Eiffel Tower from the gardens. I was not excited. The place itself, unlike others, did not instill any emotion in me. I am yet to understand why. My conclusion, as of now, is that I tend to minimize monumental moments that are often too overwhelming for my young and tired brain to understand. So I stared at the museum, got an iced coffee—my last iced coffee, though I did not know it yet—and went back to my hotel. I had made dinner reservations at an Italian restaurant I had found previously, for which my friend, the only person I knew in Paris, canceled on me a couple of hours earlier. I changed and took myself to dinner. The waiter sat me down by a window, and I felt seen and at the same time invisible. Was anyone other than me questioning my choice to have dinner by myself?
I had dined alone before, but never in a new city where I did not know how to order and felt bad using my second language. I was always so prideful in it, until now. It was a great dinner. I ordered gnocchi au pesto and the first chardonnay on the list because it’s all I could read, and I put my headphones in and listened to Spanish jazz for the duration of it. I said the only thing I knew how to say on the way out: “Merci, au revoir.” I went to sleep that night—happy.
I have always been okay alone. I enjoy my company more than anyone else's, except for the occasional lover where my body cries at any kind of separation. Here, in Paris, though, it has been hard to even look people in the eye. More so, I just find it so easy to go unnoticed. I am not flamboyant or intimidating physically, and so no one will question me if I decide to stare at the floor or deep into space. I have made quite a few friends, whose company I enjoy, and yet I do not crave to be surrounded by people or out drinking and talking like I find myself wanting in other places. I find myself craving literature and art, and even that is quite hard to do at the moment.
I went to the South of France my first week in the country. It was beautiful, it was peaceful, the rocks were all different sizes, the water was perfectly warm, it was breezy enough, and the people were roaming around with a freedom I have never met. My friend and I had two beautiful days. We wined and dined and grieved men who’ll never love as strongly or passionately as we do.
My mom asked me how I liked it, and I said, “It’s nice here.” It felt nice—it was only nice. I have escaped to a couple of other places, always hoping that I will come back and find myself more excited about Paris. I have felt zero hunger nor desperation to see it all. I wonder if Paris knows me too well already, or too little. Afraid of not being known here, I searched for shelter in the arms of the familiar, the warmth, two hours away. Even safe and in love, I have never felt more at risk.
I cannot tell yet if Paris has decided I will stay here or that I will not. The calmness and numbness that I feel sitting at cafés for hours on end, walking down the Seine, staring at Notre Dame, walking around Le Marais, taking the RER and the metro, reading at The American Library, staring at the Impressionists at Musée d’Orsay, is one reminiscent of home. It is the lack of rush or worry, or maybe the lack of desire and hope. I am not sure just yet. I ask myself every day if this is what Hemingway and anyone who ever moved here felt. I find myself thinking that maybe in another life I have been here before and that my excitement has been exhausted and/or wasted.
I find that the only moment Paris and I find ourselves in agreement and hungry for life is at night, after two or three glasses of wine. It is then that we simultaneously wrap our arms around each other and laugh at our familiar hostility. I see Paris for what it is, and it reads me back the secrets I think I keep well, only for me to forget in the morning. At night, crossing the many bridges of the city, I feel comfortable and much more excited. I can stroll around with no mind, get lost, and find my way.
Maybe I will do that more.
Ghosts
A Poem About Endings But Also About The End
How many lives can you try on before
you look at yourself in the glistening drop
and feel estranged
The body aches from each life
I have endured
I am having a hard time
Differing scaffolding from structure
from truth
Memory is a dangerous place
For it is never fixed
Longing to continue but
It has ended me many times
I am burning
Like a cigarette without an end
Prolonged suffering
I am trying to be comfortable
I attempt to be indifferent
But the more it drags
The more your lips inhale
The life out of me
I am dying.
After Melbourne Aftermath
I
When my first dog, Killer, died,
I was pained more by my mother’s pain
Than by the fact of his death.
I cried at my great-aunt’s funeral; I did
Not really know her. But everyone was
Crying, and so I did.
When my grandfather passed, it was a relief.
A year of one-sided conversation must have
Been exhausting, so when the time came,
It was a joy to appeal his suffering.
My grandmother's death shocked me. We
Talked about AOC and journalism vs poetry
The night before her cold, bruised, lifeless self
Was dropped off at the church.
I believe her
To be in the house on the hill; we don't talk
Often, but sometimes she comes to me in a dream.
II
I knew I was in love on the twenty-hour bus ride.
I read about heartbreak and love so often,
I studied it almost. I thought I could master it,
But when the time came, all my body had
The strength to do was stay.
I cried on my dad's shoulder and asked my
Mother why she never prepared me for the pain
That is giving yourself whole,
For that loss has been
Far more painful than any carnal separation.
I’ve Been Going Down to the River
I sit on the same block of grass
every day.
The man is still asleep
on the left side bench; he faces
the water—a mystery unresolved.
Somewhere
between 10:30 and 11 a.m.,
a bald man sits down
on a lawn chair, right in front of me.
At first, I felt unsafe, but
it’s been a month. We are a family.
The birds and the geese
make me smile. I sit under a tree
to catch enough shade so I can stay
and find myself thinking about why
I keep leaving.
I like the way the paddleboarders
stand in the middle of the water, looking
small, and
how small must I look to
the drivers on the highway above me.
The way the jet skis make an ocean out
of the sad and tired Hudson.
I think of home, and I think of him. I think
about the times I have denied myself living.
Look at the bees
I once ran away from. The monarch
butterfly kissed my right ankle today.
I am not lonely anymore.
I can smell the water, and I can’t remember
my best friend’s name. I open up my book
and re-read the same line over and
over.
The runners smile at me, and the elders wave,
The question of whether or not
you can go home again.
I have been going down to the river.
I believe that love that is true and real creates a respite from death.
—Ernest Hemingway’s ghost, Midnight in Paris
Autopsy: Postmortem
1. Black sweater, paint stains on both arms.
2. Terracotta shirt— fucking awful color.
3. Green and patterned socks under two pairs of boots.
4. Silver ring with an oval-cut black stone on a distant ring finger.
5. Chain-like gold-dipped ring on a familiar ring finger.
Tanning chair on the roof, broken yet steady. In a drawer, coasters from bars on the East Side. Two toothpicks with silver detailing. Time card from the neighboring coffee shop. Coffee, bagel, coffee, bagel, iced latte with sugar. Gimlet over rice and Geisha Vesper. Uber ride, 9 minutes. Bleecker Street, the B train. Cherry blossoms and laughing children. Mozzarella sticks and beer. Target bag. 8-ball tattoo and 8-ball sweater. Rummikub, orange wine, and mind games. Neutrogena makeup wipes and someone else. A third person’s body in a bed I wanted to be mine. The 6 train and four stops. Two birthdays, menthol cigarettes, and almost warm weather. The waltz at the bodega and the men grinning. Italian, finance, 25, betrayal, and other arms around me. The Whitney Museum, a second chance, and 10 minutes. Your dad, acid reflux, and a drunk sister. Hair on the floor, the pillow, and your mouth. Barcelona vs. Paris St. Germain. The West Side Highway, being chased by rats, running in opposite directions, the bus stop, and people on the way to Washington, D.C. Deli grilled cheese. Tennis, Celsius, and your ex-girlfriend’s ghost. The rain and soaked clothes, my soaked cheeks, and my first love and his ghost. Big revelations and immaturity, fear and big fear, pride and anger and denial. St. Patrick’s Day, twice. Two foreign tongues coming together to make a language unknown to its makers. Broken door and broken heart, and wishing to be new again. A poetry book, the night, the fire escape, and an argument. The Brooklyn Bridge and FaceTime, half-truths and half-asks, Central Park, almost the end, and something’s wrong. Philly and Philly cheesesteak. The Titanic (1). The construction and the complete breaking down of walls within me. Green, my ex-roommate, 3rd Avenue, pool, and
wanting things was not enough.
(1) Have you ever let the body bruise and rot and go bad?/ Have you ever let death inhabit you/ So closely that your only responsibility is to exhale/ Without inviting the next breath in?/ Not everyone loves but everyone desires./ Have you? And have you done it well? Did you splash the sake into the glass?/ Did you see us in the reflection?/ Drowning,/ Letting go.
Generational Trauma
Mortalidad/Elogio
Te tengo miedo
de la misma
manera en la
que alguna
vez temí el
fin.
Ahora temo el
final sin haberte
honrado, devuelto,
confesado.
Homecoming: As Close As I Get
For the sake of form, scroll through the gallery.
Notes:
“ASIAN AMERICAN LITERARY REVIEW TAROT (For a Honduran-American-Refusing Poet)” (p.3) Was written after cards by Jason Oliver Chang, Simi Kang, and Brandon Som for The Asian American Literary Review.
Somewhere In The After: After 'We Are Going' by Oodgeroo Noonuccal
I would like to first acknowledge and share my deep respect for all Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders, the original custodians of the land on which I base this poetry collection. These words are a humble tribute to their rich culture. My gratitude extends to elders, past, present, and emerging, for their wisdom enriches these pages. May this small collection contribute to the understanding, appreciation, and fostering of a dialogue between cultures.
This is to never forget, never not listen, never not feel, and never not write about injustice.
Table Of Contents
The Poet, The Spirit, Pleas
1869 Aboriginal Protection Act
Namatjira’s Palm Valley
In Conversation (a found poem)
Uluru Statement from the Heart
The Poet, The Spirit, Pleas
Tired, ashy, worn
Hands have touched
These pages for fifty-eight years,
And yet, her pen–somewhere at
The end or the start, somewhere in the after;
Where the smoke meets the spirit–remembers.
She says still;
The heart dies in you.
And in her grandfather, the dispossession did not end,
It began; and in her, was everpresent. But her voice
was loud and did not stutter. Her spirit inhabits,
Still, it reads;
So long the wait has been,
So slow the justice, due.
Noonuccal, O., We are going: poems. Citadel Press, 1965, (12).
1869 Aboriginal Protection Act
Aboriginal of Australia.
Every child shall be deemed
With meaning and justice.
The absence of judgment
Taken under this Act.
Enforce justice,
Recovery.
Aboriginal Protection Act (Vic), 1869.
Namatjira’s Palm Valley
The colonized brush
Strokes the heart.
You were conditioned
To be exploited.
Custodian of the land
Paints with watercolor,
He dissolves onto the page.
Central Australia, your Mother
Passed this image down
For you to show the world.
Greens and oranges,
Blues and gray, hues
Of red fill the frame,
The color of anger.
Perhaps your brush felt the pain
And in it, you claimed
The Palm Valley day.
Namatjira, Albert. Palm Valley, Art Gallery NSW, New South Wales, 1940.
Uluru Statement from the Heart
The people asked,
They plead once more.
For the recognition of;
The voice
They asked merely for what was theirs,
For reparation, for return.
If we can agree to acknowledge the land,
If they can welcome us,
If they can
Practice song and dance and ceremony
For us; How could it be otherwise?
That peoples possessed a land
for sixty millennia and this
sacred link disappears
from world history in merely
the last two hundred years?
This is the torment of their powerlessness
And it was never about power to them.
Uluru: Statement from the Heart, First Nations National Constitutional Convention, Uluru, Northern Territory, 2017.
In Conversation (a found poem)
The fascination of the white skin
Was too much.
Humans, in the past, sought
To assimilate into one group;
The colour bar!
It shows the meaner mind.
We’ve got to keep this fire burning.
What you reckon proper fee?
There are no trees, rivers
Hills, stars, that were not,
are not someone’s kin.
So,
I’ll be there -
to welcome you back, wrap my arms
around you, and say,
I’ve missed you. Welcome home.
Tucker, M. If Everyone Cared, Sydney: Ure Smith, 1977.
Coleman, Claire G. Terra Nullius, Hachette Australia, 2017.
Noonuccal, O. We are going: poems. Citadel Press, 1965, (12).
Heiss, A. Growing up Aboriginal in Australia. Black Inc, 2018.
Egan, T. Lingiari, V. The Gurindji Blues. The Aboriginals, 1997.
Kwaymullina, A. Living on Stolen Land. Magabala Books, 2020.
Roach, A. Tell Me Why: The Story of My Life and My Music. Simon & Schuster Australia, 2019.
Author’s Note:
I feared that I should not be writing about Aboriginal histories because I am not connected to the culture, but it is the way their stories have deeply moved me and Oodgeroo Noonnucal’s poems have informed me that has led me to challenge myself and the reader.
Confessional
04/20/23
It feels inherently natural to be back here; I am most myself when I’m suffering.
05/14/23
One of the hardest parts about being a writer is that by staying true to your artistry, you can hurt the people around you. Here, I am risking it all. I am giving you the truth as I know it, from the deepest depths of what I am. Every feeling, every doubt, every thought I have ever had, I attempt to immortalize. Life is too short for oneself to keep quiet, and I refuse to do that any longer.
05/28/23
People refer to the idea of a “weight on your chest” as something negative. I cannot recall when his weight became a necessity or when his presence became my own.
I have only ever been prideful in my ability to be alone, to need nothing, and so I denied the fact.
The difficulty of breathing was an unbearable feeling; at times I wished it away. His weight was lifted off me, not long after, and I found myself short of breath. I would stare at blank walls and find myself mirrored.
I want the heaviness back; I want the pressure, I want to asphyxiate; I want to see stars.
06/08/23
I’m not ready to stand back up. I don’t want to. I want to stay on the ground for as long as I can; I want this pain to inhabit me a little bit longer, a lot longer, actually. This is the last I will ever feel for this moment in my life. I know I will be okay soon, but I don’t want to be. Once I stand, once this pain is gone, it will all be over.
08/10/23
I roll my tongue into the back of my throat to stop me from spelling out your name. It’s hard not to recall the way you spelled it out to me. Your memory rests where you used to, almost like an angel on my left shoulder; devilish in your dictating of my every move. I’m sorry I never asked for you to try and stay the night, but you are the day, and there are people far more deserving of the sun. Your duality was always my favorite, and now I have grown to resent it.
08/15/23
Even now, I am terrified. I promised myself never to write about this; I did not want to place it out here, for anyone else to read; I wanted to be selfish with it; pero tambien le quiero gritar al mundo que por primera vez, todo tenia sentido. How can I not write about something that has altered and fundamentally changed the way I see myself and the world around me? I simply cannot.
08/27/23
It was your birthday a week ago, and I did not wish you anything. The heaviness of this grief impairs me. I want to free you from myself. I want to give you the luxury of keeping the wound closed. I want to give you what I do not have.
09/12/23
My spirit is broken, half-mended, with a void unglued, right in its center. A consequence of knowing and being known, all the while forgetting myself. I have never wanted to be like everyone else, but this is the human condition. I am every cliché ever written, and all I want is to write poetry. I want to write anything. Maybe then I will return.
09/18/23
I fear all I have done the past couple of years has been fear and worry. I worry about my path, knowing I cannot change it. I thought I would never find myself fearing a bigger monster than that of uncertainty, but I recently fed my body a drug I cannot fathom normalizing. I have tip-toed around the subject, terrified that I will somehow end up living in a world where this self-my-self can satiate her hunger without the need for connection. All I have ever wanted out of life is to achieve divinity–to get closer to myself and therefore closer to a higher power–but I am anything but holy.
I write to breathe; I breathe to write. I fear to live; I live to fear.
09/23/23
I want to become the person I would be if I just forget. If I were to put everyone after me. I want, no, I need to come back to myself. I have loved most lethally and it is now me who stays away from everything good that ever chooses her because God knows I would never choose it for myself, again.
10/04/23
I am tired. What is it that I am looking for? I grow dim every passing second. I am losing time and everything I have made myself to be; I am not anymore. I thought the end of my longing would be in him or the others, but what is it that I truly want? Passion? Success? Divine intervention? I want to not think.
I am never behind what I am; I find myself talking, and I am not saying anything. I don’t mean the words that I speak; I haven’t for a while.
I reinforce the chains that have long kept my grandparents, my parents, and myself captive. I agree, I follow, I submit. When do I become my own nation? When do I decolonize my tongue, my spirit?
10/10/23
I never thought of myself as a bad person until I met him. I was shown what I can’t have, what I don’t deserve. I have turned into the worst version of myself; my anger is now rage. I wasted my goodness. Bliss turned into agony somewhere over the Pacific. My thoughts do not belong to me; I don’t even belong to myself. My pain had been the only thing to ever belong to me entirely, but it now has a name.
10/16/23
I want to unlock the hungry writer I once was.
10/21/23
I’m estranged; from my family, my friends, my culture. I have big dreams and even bigger hopes of becoming. Is it possible that I should give those up? I want to be peaceful, so I no longer want to accomplish anything. This is not the fulfillment I envision for myself.
When I dream, I see in the distance, my body as it runs home. Somewhere near the waves; the breeze, the salty air, the weight of nothing, is falling on me, I am disconnected from everything but myself.
10/23/23
Can’t they see? I want to wake up every day and be someone entirely different. How are they to understand why I do the things I do when I don't even know where my thinking begins or ends?
10/25/23
I did not finish that thought. I tend to do that. I mean what’s the hurry? I am in no rush to become or vanish, yet.
10/27/23
My life keeps changing, and I give up hope. I am done holding onto people and things and places that do not hold onto me. The things that have once made me happy, eventually run out; as if I have reached the limit. I understand and I will not complain, I give up hope because the better things in life are fleeting and they are gone.
11/01/23
I don’t feel anything in particular nor can I make myself cry.
I was so caught up in my own pain that it never occurred to me to thank him for my heartache.
It is strange, to know that there is someone out there.
That there is, after all, one person who can translate what I mean to the whole world.
11/08/23
My trauma still feels not “traumatic enough” to deserve space anywhere but in my subconscious.
11/09/23
I keep letting myself make a habit out of inhabitable beings. I do not owe you anything; I never have, and I never will–but I can thank you sincerely.
Because in all this doubt, in all this anxiety, in all this grief, you have unknowingly saved me from my self-inflicted torment. I had forgotten what it was like to be reckless; I'm not sure I had ever been.
You made me feel again, even if it was not the most graceful of feelings. You put me off my pedestal, you let me be. I am sorry if my newfound self disappointed you, but thanks!
11/20/23
Me pesa en el alma, no serle buena hija a mi tierra.
12/09/23
Where do you go?
What do you reach for after you find peace?
Picking Up The Pieces
Afterparty
The floors are lathered in
a coat of unidentified goo.
Is it morning yet? Or is it
the middle of the night?
I see my body from above me,
a sad excuse of a person.
I return to myself as the music dims down,
only to realize I have nothing to return to.
I press my feet hard against the gooed-up
wooden flooring, trying to make the moment last.
I want to make a dent the size of a crater,
I want to let people know that–
despite my absence–I lived.
My pain becomes never more apparent
than when my so-called friends fill my home,
or my hollow body fills someone else’s.
A Person That Is No Longer
you didn’t die, you live,
i wish you away.
what is remembering,
if not fiction?
you offered
peace and i called you God.
“i have always been a martyr.”
you are my faith; i cannot
renounce You, but I wish you away
like a child does their parent.
“i repent.”
Storms
The breeze of a deity, the air
Of a witch, caresses my longing:
Breath for my compromised lungs.
Filling them, not with oxygen
But spiritual kinship.
Vibrations of melancholy
Penetrate skin, reach beyond—
Like my reflection reaching
Out the river—
finally a familiar embrace.
A wave of sorrow transcends, quickly becoming
your cries and mine and everything that has ever felt or been.
The lines were never blurry,
Sound is a god, and in sound, we live.
Pandora’s Box
I knew it back then,
some of us are just born
Bruised,
yet to become rotten.
I tried so hard to think otherwise
when you looked at me.
I’ve been no saint, never deserving
of that mythical force, but
It was nice to believe in you,
in your magic.
Your goodness is what God made
this universe thinking of
and I am a purgatory for
my self-induced sins.
What a gift it was to have been grazed by you.
How lucky, how damned, can one be?
I was only graceful,
for you
I would’ve been anything.
I was safe until
you tore me open.
Then came rushing the truth,
Like water out of a broken pipe
in a storm, flooded,
Blood gushing from within
a hidden wound, I died,
I drowned. I wished
for my angel
to never awaken me
again that was not my fate.
You stayed,
evergreen, ever peaceful, and:
“The troubles of the world
all belong to me.”
Me Comio La Lengua El Ratón
Mi abuela me lo dijo
tantas veces, que me ha pasado.
Cuando era niña, era fácil
decir lo que quisiera.
Enrollaba la lengua para articular
mis deseos, los canté.
Quien me iba a decir que solo se cumple
lo cumplido, y lo deseado te busca
cuando no lo queres encontrar.
Años anhelando esta vida y me ha atrapado.
Soñé tantas veces, dormí muy poco.
Nunca me dejé llevar por el destino, lo no creado.
Mi abuela ya no está, y con ella
se fue mi inocencia.
"Me comió la lengua el ratón,"
y la imaginación me la quitó la vida.
Dissection
I can’t kill a fly without seeing
a future in flames, but I can wish
death upon my brothers and smile
at my reflection.
You can search
for everything it is you long for in this life,
I’m afraid it’s gone.
Waste your time; I'll buy you some.
What currency
do they take anyway?
I’ll bargain with my newborn laughter and
bottled oxygen. I’ll label it one of a kind.
Breathless, I still fear
that despite our efforts to separate,
despite the truth of our composition. God or
this computer made us the same.
But please do look at me
with those eyes,
tell me I am something.
seasons
It was summer, and the asphyxiating heat of the city did what no other place had before: it melted my rough edges. I had, by the end of it, softened.
I have never liked change. The strangeness of knowing nothing has, in the last four years, destroyed me, and the rough, dry air of the Australian coast did just the same. The occasional summer breeze was a gift from the gods. I walked Newtown every day, but the unfamiliarity of it all quickly sent me into exile. I had to prove myself to Sydney like I once did to New York. So, I lived the last breath of that summer in the confines of my room, taking in the distance I so intensely craved, the separation of who I'd been and the possibility of my becoming.
It was summer, and the heat, once asphyxiating, melted my rough edges; I softened.
Lost On The Road
You don’t have to pretend
And yes, it's true,
We are all misunderstood.
But if you don’t know who you are
Just know:
I don’t know where I am,
Nor do I know where I am going.
I’ve been lost, but it led me
Here. It brought me to you.
So,
Stay humming in the kitchen,
Stay on the rooftop, stare down the sunset,
Stay laughing at nothing,
Stay.
Waste your days,
I will be wasting them too.
Because being found is not what
We have been told.
You and I both know
That the home we dream of,
Will never be again.
So roam the world,
Get lost,
Be lost,
Stay lost.
And when the road gets lonely
And you are running around in circles
Remember that,
No one is someone
Who is lost on the road
Willing, if not, longing
To dance around your thoughts once more.
*
How fitting, how cruel. It was autumn, and I was starting to fall. Waking up to the crisp air of March kissing my skin was a foreign feeling, one I sadly became used to. At the time, I was still able to get out of my bed to greet the sun as the night fell. I had made friends, some good and most bad. But I, for the first time in the year, had started to feel the excitement and thrill of uncertainty. When I first arrived, I was under the impression I could be anyone, but by mid-March, I had given up. The sharp, chilled air, though threatening, was healing.
I was healing, I was learning, and I was falling.
How to Write a Love Poem
Think about something
other than love. Think about
how bad it feels
to write about it, it hurts.
Allow yourself to be haunted
once more. Let them finish
what they started.
Think about love, the word.
Can you trust it?
Can you trust
that it will encapsulate the
resilience of this pain?
Scratch the word, love.
Don’t use it. Don't write with it.
Don’t feel it. Scratch the poem.
Instead, write about the first time
you realized that if you let
yourself go, you never make it back.
And try not to think about how
they said you would make it back.
Because you are not
back, in fact, you have never returned.
*
I had survived many winters with a hypothermic heart. Warmth was never something I had, and though I longed for it, I never wished it for myself. That is because now that I am no longer exposed, now that I have known that warmth, I will never find it again. I had always wanted to endure because no one could convince me that this pain was not beautiful, and though it is, I cannot take it any longer. Sydney had mended and broken me simultaneously, and I would be lying to myself by resenting it the way I believe I do.
Because through the seasons, through it all,
there was still spring.
*
It is now mid-June. I am sitting on the southside bench, a year later. The kids are still laughing and it’s summer again. I am back where I started. It will always be me, my loneliness, and Central Park.
a feather drifting in passing
I want so badly to believe that I can live a life without knowing, but my mind is sovereign. And there is so much more out there. There is so much more that I don’t know. It is an insatiable hunger, an appetite so particular about what it wants, that haunts me. A persistent craving for all of it, for omnipotence. When I hit my first decade, I promised myself that I would never feel naive again. I fear that I am only here to know, and though I know a lot, there is so much more out there, there is so much more I don’t know.
I want to be able to walk in a woman’s body and think like a child, forget what nurtured me into this self-sufficient being who’s unable to connect. I stand next to them as they look at each other, allowing themselves to believe they are saying something meaningful. How different my life would be? If only I’d been raised by ignorance and chosen to believe in it.
I want answers: How light could I be? A feather drifting in passing? A brush of winter air? Bliss, with a consciousness? A soulless entity? The sound of teenage laughter? The hollow cry of a baby? How careless? How free could I be? How long until?
I want to forget. When I shut the blinds and dim the lights, she’s standing there. It all comes back to me, loudly. Everything I did and didn’t do. Sometimes I remember. Sometimes I recall her love as my biggest accomplishment. And there is nothing like the burden of knowing I failed. So she comes back every now and then. I remain a prisoner of my past, but a much more devoted prisoner of hers.
I want to remember what it felt like to find peace. I could tell why people did it, the insane adrenaline rush of being nothing, no one. Having no responsibility other than breathing in this moment. To live in synchrony with the land, to awaken next to the sun and take the moon to bed. People tell you that nothing matters, yet you try to avoid the truth. And the truth is that it doesn’t, I finally understood that at Makapu’u.
I want to be a good person but I want to be a better daughter. For a long time, I’d convinced myself that there was something wrong with my home, but could it just have been me? I rejected it for most of my life, I resented the spirit that fed me. I tried so hard to detach myself from its roots, until that December. I’d been away, seen so much of the world that home– in meaning and place– went through this transformation where I could finally recognize it for what it was, what it is: a loving mother. One that continues to forgive those of us who’ve wronged her.
I want to feel the same numbness they all relate to. I want to make it clear to you that it is not that I cannot understand what being numb feels like. It’s that somehow my numbness is for all the things that they feel. I’m afraid that, no that’s it, I’m afraid. So here I am again at 2 a.m. in my pitiful confessional prose piecing me whole. Trying to shake the urge to relate, to be the same, to make things simple. So I apologize, for I have lied, there are still twenty minutes til 2.
I want everything life can’t seem to loan, whereas he enjoys the mundane life has to offer. He feels good. A feeling I haven’t been met with before, he is everything I would not think of myself and I think there is hope in that. I have this vision sometimes, my ambition and his gypsy dancing to our silence. Our truth can’t be spoken and even if it could, I would not choose it. This vision of our differences intertwining in physicality, breaking into sweet inner song, keeps me going. He stays sacred inside the realm of my longing.
I want to stop thinking that friendship threatens my being. To give yourself, to allow someone to have power or any kind of authority over you. To lose a bit of yourself with every single one of them. Gaining less than you ever give. I’m not a best friend and I am not a good one either. I am a lone being and it is in me to live like this. It is in my DNA to take after this loneliness. I find a connection to everything but the people around me because in that, there is sacrifice. There is a loss of autonomy, a loss, one I cannot endure any longer.
I want to fight back, but this ever-present feeling of being left behind pursues me like hunter does prey. I pray, every so often, for some star, a god, to show me how to leave this con act behind. But behind my friend's backs, it dawned on me that I do not trust anyone. Anyone, including the corners of my own mind who have access to all of it. And it is a different kind of pain not trusting anyone but believing everything they say. People tell me I should say what I feel. And I feel their love, but what even is love? “A concept the poet rejects,” that was rule number one. But one night I was walking by myself through what I recall to be 18th Street, mid-November, the week before my birthday, and I was lost. Lost after two years of living in the city, I couldn’t make it home. I haven’t made it home.
I want to stay true to myself but he stands at a distance, waving a white flag, asking for me to surrender to his ghost.
I want to know what it's going to take for me to break the wall between thinking and writing. I asked my favorite author for writing advice. They said I should write what I am most afraid to write about. I have been thinking about it a lot, last time I tried to write it down I lived in New York and the sadness of November and the soon-to-be holidays was starting to eat me alive. Sydney is getting colder, and it's now May. I can’t think about what I fear the most nor can I think about what I am most afraid to write. I wish there was a test I could take that pointed me in the direction of what I truly fear, but that would go against the author’s philosophy.
I think my biggest fear is that I don't fear the things I should. My biggest fear is that I can come here and tear myself apart, disregarding my own privacy. I guess I do fear. I fear that I am giving up ownership of myself. Is that a valid fear? I don't know. I let go, I become someone I don’t recognize. I think, I write, and I have a fear of looking back and sensing this excruciating intrusion that my higher self has allowed. What I am scared of the most though, is that I am writing this and much more worrisome is that it feels good. Am I scared of how good it feels to say everything I think? No.
I think I am just afraid of writing.
Falling for Xanadu
Preface
A seventeen-year-old novice
wakes in Irving’s Gotham
thinking of poetry and a home.
Nurtured by your motherly ways–
unlearning, relearning– I learned
how to walk amongst them all. Your August sun
wrapped around my abandoned child.
I first saw you with naive eyes.
A dainty skyline full of promise. I longed
for a yellow submarine to take me in,
but it took me under.
I shed my skin for you:
“Land of simple-minded fools”
make me new.
“¡Líbrenos Dios de estas honduras!”
Free me, God, from the black hole
that is culture cleansing. A citizen of no land
I ought to be. Schooled by privilege, raised to know:
Mi país cinco estrellas, but the finish line?
A mine of gold up north.
But, mi tierra, you have given me everything
And in your sweet crevices,
I failed to rest– now, light fails to project.
Though I'm merely a creation of
your own duplicity:
Tu hondura es la mia.
On My Building Desire For Silence
Recalling the moment I grew disillusioned
with you still brings the uttermost grief.
I cannot even begin to understand where
the asphyxiating air changed from thrill to burden.
Once, your streets heightened my senses
and rushed endorphins through my body,
a haze I could only come to recognize as love.
Yet, I wasn’t aware of my building desire
for silence. I tried to find it in you and I did,
occasionally, in the corners of Stuyvesant Square.
Unraveling my longing for refuge carelessly,
I fell for you. But, my literary mother
taught me early in my penmanship and life that:
“one does not ‘live’ at Xanadu.”
So I have no choice but to strip myself completely
from your tenderness and go.
My trust lies in our hallowed tie.
You once saved me from this suffering
and you will do it again.
Once my rebellion destroys you
and I mend us with well-traveled hands.
East and West
I wonder if I’ll ever be able to have what I like
or if my tastes are too various
to be sustained by one of anything.
I was in love with the city,
the way you love the first person who ever
touches you.
But, we forget
all too soon the things we thought
we could never forget.
I am trapped
in this particular irrelevancy
never more apparent to me
than when I am home.
I had come out of the West
and reached the mirage.
New York has a kind of
push, you never have time to think.
It’s one of its charms.
Six months can become eight years
With the deceptive ease
of a film dissolve.
People with brains went to New York,
it takes a certain kind of innocence
to like L.A., anyway.
I’ve been in love with people
and ideas in several cities, and
I knew that it would cost me something–
Sooner or later– because I did not belong there,
I didn’t come from there.
In California
i found myself staring at the blue
of a cold malibu morning, thinking
of my two mothers.
there’s a peace here,
one i’ve never known. i now understand
what Eve defended most: a home
not glorified, raw authenticity.
her california reminds me of my home and
the earthly desire, to tie yourself to
its roots. an almost paternal duty
to keep it safe, to keep it true.
though like Joan, i failed
to sit still. searching for some
faceless muse, moving east.
i am looking down, moving around
a sea of lifeless bodies, looking up, only to find
concrete dullness. the idiosyncrasies
once praised, now nothing more than satire
of a life we failed to settle with.
now I endure,
new york isolation,
california hedonism,
and lay between
these two, and my home
below
trying to fill the insatiable hole
of my never-ending longing. one who
has alienated me from ever feeling warm
under the sun of beachwood drive,
or feel excitement staring at the brooklyn bridge.
and worst of all feeling satiated, in my honduras, in
new york, in california–
anywhere.
On My Sheltered Existence
New York and I have a complex relationship
Trying to understand it, is merely an insult to our
Sacred bond. Oh, sweet purgatory.
•
There is pleasure in seeing everyone
Try and pretend like this life is natural,
As if we are all not fighting to stay awake in the midst
Of a hypercharged overpopulated town
And praying to every god, hoping at least one of
Them grants us sleep.
•
Making it: synonymous with
Survival of the fittest. Climbing your way
Up: tearing yourself apart, limb for limb. Home:
A shoe-box-sized illusion. Happiness: a fools
Only hope, a reason to be.
•
There is something about this place,
An ability to either welcome you or
Send you into exile. I walked the Highline
A cold evening in November– searching for the hands
That once took me in and the peace loaned to me
By Central Park the first time I decided to get out
Of Greenwich Village and up 60th St– questions attack
Me as I drift, ghostlike, with no direction. But New York is honest.
It never presented itself as an answer. In this way,
The city takes me in once more. Arms reach out
The reservoir, holding onto me as we mirror each other.
•
The hate I feel for this city–
A feeling so strong– It transforms.
Suffering here feels right.
NOTES
“Preface” (p.1) The quote “Land of simple-minded fools” is a reference to Washington Irving’s nickname for New York City “Gotham” in the literary magazine Salmagundi in 1807.
“On My Building Desire for Silence” (p.4) The quote “one does not “live” at Xanadu” is borrowed from Joan Didion’s novel Slouching Towards Bethlehem.
** “East and West” is comprised entirely of lines borrowed from Eve Babitz and Joan Didion.
Ode to Blind Spot by Teju Cole
July 24, 2018
What are we doing if not fighting to be remembered? I walk, quotidian faces around me, down the same avenues, stepping forcefully, attempting to imprint myself onto the hard concrete. I land on this bench like she once did, and we both stare into deep space. We escape philosophy and search for inspiration in the dark emeralds of this tiny square. What are we if not hollow bodies searching for purpose? We are the same. And so I carve my name around hers with desperate hands trying to become something, the encryption of a being, in this way, I solidify my existence.
Dusk
And when he leaves, I am merely a shadow sinking onto deep soil waiting to be awoken again.
Gateway to H
To be one with God is a battle I’ve wrestled with my entire life. Devoting myself is not easy, and remembering isn’t either. I long to talk to them, but I understand their indifference.
Stuyvesant Square
During my first couple of months in New York, I remember occasionally finding blind spots, places hidden from the big lights and vastness of it all. I quickly realized this is the New York I love, the New York I want. The quietness of the elderly park, the laughter of the children in quiet pristine neighborhoods, the air that somehow feels purer, the silence, and the lack of chaos. I found a safe haven inside you. I think about your history, the openness with which you’ve received me, like a nurturing mother you’ve tended to me. I will never know anything like you, in your corners, I forever long to live.
Falling
The air is thin and the streets are lonely. My ears can’t quite pick up anything, I can’t hear you. The earth is regenerating and my heart is too. It is strange to walk around this circle as if you never touched me. As if I am the same. The truth is I have never felt this far away from myself and so close to you. My leaves are falling and it hurts to know I’ll be new again.
Nonsense That I Can’t Speak
*silence*
THE LINES ARE BLURRY
I have stayed too long in the shower. I wake up every morning to a fogged-up mirror, I can’t see through. I get a glimpse of her drained and confused eyes, which I can identify as belonging to mine. Every year, I am further and further away from who I’ve established myself to be. Thinking that I know who I am and the claims of me being a strong-minded individual have been the biggest lies I’ve ever let myself believe. Every passing day I realize that I am weak. With that comes the realization that I am easily erased charcoal, people touch me and in one swift motion, I fade. I can walk an entire city and I continue to fail in my attempt to leave a mark, I deceive myself by believing in my relevance. Everything about me is easily washed away by the bright success of others and the ever-present superiority they hold. It’s as if a shadow has been cast upon me and it is darkness that follows, a gloomy sky and light rain playing in the background mocking the tears I’ve shed. The worst is yet to come, I can feel it creeping into my skin, itching and building up. I cannot be lost again. Have I ever really been found?
GOLD
People like him are godsent, they grow up with loving families that hold them until their dreams take over. He was accepted, embraced, and encouraged by them all. His only mission in life has ever been to be happy. I would be lying if I said I don’t envy that, I see him flying around gifting smiles with his every move looking for nothing but to connect with them all. I can't help but wonder: How many hearts were devoted to giving him this insufferable love? To love and to be loved is a luxury some of us can’t afford, that holy and sacred promise of blood sometimes falls short. Many days I ask myself: Is it worse to not be loved by your own or to have known their love and been maliciously stripped away from it? He would have the perfect answer for that, I don't want to know though. For now, I just want to enjoy his laugh, bright eyes, selfishly hear his voice, and stare at that golden smile– a smile we would all die and go to hell for.
What’s a performance and what isn’t?
INTO MY ARMS
Sometimes I wonder what kind of human I am, I sure don't feel like the rest of you. Don't we all? Surrounded by people, everyone feels out of reach as if some magnetic force is pushing me away from the crowd and into a black hole where my voice is muted by chants of “Have I met you?” You haven't, you won't. I go through life, I sit on this bench. Transparent. If only there was that one soul who could translate what I mean to the rest of you, maybe then you could all understand my why. Somedays I wonder if I think the same way you do or if something went wrong during my manufacturing. I am sleepwalking, who will awaken me? Autonomy feels so out of reach. I stand moving like a marionette to your song. I listen to your commands. I am a malleable being, as much as I would like to sit here and tell you that I play by my own rules, that I don't follow the crowd. Today I can admit I in fact abide by them, I encourage them. Without you, I am only a hollow body waiting for guidance, searching for purpose. On days like this, where I wake up to silence, where I walk through a faceless crowd, where their voices are the soundtrack of my life– it is on these days where that numbness and ache in my chest feels asphyxiating. Feeling lost after being found is a new kind of pain nobody ever prepared me for. To return to me, to open my arms and wrap myself around my other half, to meet once again. I wish for nothing more than to be pushed down the hill, for something anything really to send me spinning down into my own arms.
Loving you is to not love you because when I am not loving you I am acting out of love.
ROMA
I’ve always been a quiet person, you see me, I'm always there but I don’t speak. It is in my nature to keep to myself, to find what I enjoy and not share. It seems like coming into this world I made it a point to be self-sufficient and that had never failed me until Roma.
Before:
Always in the back of the room, I stood, I would wait and observe. I like spectating and trust me that’s how I have learned everything. It's a powerful thing, listening. You understand people and quickly realize that none of them are listening to each other. To be fair, I don't think they are even listening to themselves. I have always walked alone, I take pride in understanding myself knowing where I'm headed and why I am heading in that direction. For years, I followed my own northern star, the voice telling me what to do. My horoscope calls me the Sage, it likes to flatter me by saying I'm all wisdom and wit. Well, if you believe in horoscopes you might want to rethink that decision right now. The destination that northern star and said “wit” led me to was not wise nor reasonable, it was absolutely idiotic and I have forever lined myself up for failure.
During:
He was everything I have ever hated on a person. He was dependent, childlike, insecure, unambitious, and frankly boring. Somehow none of that mattered because the second I stepped foot on that plane to Roma I was doomed. I knew that I didn’t want to be with him but I knew that I wanted him more and that easily misleading in between is what got me into this mess. I swear I’d never seen him, not metaphorically or anything but I had never seen him. It took a twelve-hour flight for me to see him truly and piece together who he was. He’d always been somebody else’s I’d never thought of him as his own. It must've been something in the air, the literal lack of ground or some otherworldly power that decided what this stupid muscle in my chest wanted. He is insufferable, sometimes I think I truly despise him. Ever since that moment, my life has only ever felt like a terrible anxiety-inducing romantic tragedy. Roma was secrecy, intrigue, passion, danger, and–I never understand if this four-letter word is used correctly here but– love.
After:
Have you ever burned inside out, ached for one and one person only to stay near you forever? I don't like thinking about love because it is terrifying to think one day someone will come into your life and invalidate whatever you thought love was. But he somehow made sense, in the midst of this stupid opposition I have always been at his disposition. Up until meeting him did I believe that love could not be blind. That there is rationality to that feeling, that we can pick and choose right from wrong. All of that was easily forgotten by my brain, the sound of my sage muffled by his voice. I have never doubted him once because I have bonded myself for life. If today we do not stand together, something in the air of Roma has forever stitched me to him. Currently, in the dark and possibly the furthest we’ve ever been from each other I write this. Somehow I still feel connected, and in touch with him regardless of my empty text message box. Not lovers, occasionally friends, that northern star has forever led towards balance. The one where we are acquaintances with a past. Where I can stand in the back of the room and he can have the spotlight, a place I have come to terms with. A place where everything makes sense because we had each other and we had Roma.
IT’S YOUR RIGHT NOT YOUR WRONG
I hope you know that what they taught you in that school was really wrong. That choosing as a woman and protecting yourself from the evils of a patriarchal world is your right and not your wrong. I hope you know you are not a sinner. I hope your family can show you the love everyone deserves, the love you desperately need. I hope you are okay. I ache knowing that I can’t reach you, that you are long gone and I truly hope you make it through. I can only pray that you know that I’m here and that some forsaken force of thought sparks and lets you know that I am thinking about you. That I am here and you are not alone. As much as I shouldn’t care, as sovereign as you are, I am here stuck in some limbo trying to get to you. Letting you all know that you are not doing anything wrong.
My roots have grown out, I stick out from under you and our bodies are no longer united by your deceiving nectar. The one I willingly devoured.
TIME
I am so scared. I am scared that I’m grieving you when you are right here. The fact that you are not six feet under and I already miss you twists my heart. I fucking miss you all the time. I miss being your little girl and your password. I miss meaning something to you. I sometimes feel like you are gone, I don’t want to go through life as if you didn’t exist. I don’t want to find someone until I have you by my side and what if that is never? What if when you are gone I’ll feel just like I am feeling right now? That is not right. It has to hurt more, I can’t get used to life without you when you are here. I can’t help but feel like I did something wrong, what is it that took you away from me? Please tell me so I can fix it before it’s too late.
Is it too late?
Everybody wants to be somebody to someone, but I’ve found comfort in not being anyone to you. I appreciate your apathy and expect nothing less than your indifference.
DOUBT-SELF-DOUBT
Maybe I’m not a good writer. That might be true, but I am a writer and that’s all I know. Because when it all goes wrong I’m here and when everything is right I find myself in front of my computer smacking the keys. Maybe I am not a good writer but I am one.
I find comfort in my sadness. Perhaps because it’s the only thing that has ever held me and wrapped itself around me, “you have never failed me.” It has never left and I’d rather remain devoted to this sadness than be a happy fool waiting for disappointment. My heart has been shattered and I live in peace knowing the realist in me persists.
I am tired of being the writer writing about tragedy. Can’t I for once experience and write a story with those sappy totally annoying happy endings? I am stuck writing this inevitable stream of pity party essays. Bear with me.
Maybe my therapist was wrong when she said I was okay and could go home. How could I explain this double life I carry on that has merged into one? My fiction has deceived me. I am my own victim.
Ivy Read & Her Whispers
INTRO CRWIR: Fiction Short Story- Shoutout to the historical fiction God TJR
(I don’t write fiction so making this world up was so fun.)
———
Everyone has heard and read about Ivy Read, a nepotism baby who of course is drop-dead gorgeous. She is thirty-two and unmarried which means she is only seven years older than me and my mom should stop pressuring me about building a family. She has never really crossed my mind except for when an article about her comes my way, they are always the nastiest and juiciest. I sit and think about what it would be like to have her privilege, to try acting and fail miserably yet have everyone praise you. Having the ability to screw up many times and be famous for it. Yet, us commoners sit in our cubicles watching these elitists go through life like nothing has ever mattered to them. I for one, have had to work my ass off, drowning in student loans for my journalism degree and trying to prove to my parents that this career is worth something.
Her father is the one and only Bill Read, head of Patron Pictures, and her mother is the famous Hollywood real estate agent/ reality TV star, Lily Adler. However, to many of the people living in the real world, Ivy Read might just be the most hated person in America after that orange president with the terrible wig. Why? You might ask, well from her teenage years up until two years ago she was involved in all the biggest scandals. The biggest one I can think of right now is her two-year affair with Tom Walker who at the time was married to American sweetheart Julia Jones. Not to mention Julia was pregnant with their second child. I mean, no judgment but I am not a fan of home wreckers. My friend Julia has set up my profile on many dating apps, she like my mother, is convinced I’m going to die alone. I have encountered my fair share of married men with full families, but I know when to leave– I know it's wrong.
Ivy Read is the woman your mom and her church friends tell you to stay away from and the woman all men picture in the lonely confines of their rooms. To me though, when I think of Ivy Read not only do I think about her statement fiery red hair, sex, the drug scandals, and affairs. I sense that there is a story yet to be told, you don’t do all of that for nothing–right? So when my boss Ana called me in last Wednesday to pitch me an article and the name Ivy Read came out of her mouth, though my instinct is to always stay away from celebrities and report on relevant news instead, I anxiously said yes. I mean it was an opportunity to get to know this woman who I am yet to make up my mind about and well, distance myself from all the tragedy going on in the world. Which brings me to this week, where I am speaking to four major people in Ivy Read’s life and Ivy Read herself.
Cara Davis was Ivy’s best friend until they weren’t, for many years there have been rumors about them being romantically involved. No one is sure what went down, all we know is that for years they were only seen together making headlines and now we don’t see them at all. Cara did not want to speak with me when I reached out, but during my third try, I told her this was the way she could tell her side of the story without any rumors making news. Then I told the next four people the same thing, Tom Walker, of course, Chase Felix (former drummer of LUV aka her former husband), Cassie Jones her childhood nanny, and Ivy Read herself whom may I add said will file a lawsuit against me if I twist her story, so there is a lot at stake.
—
What is it about Ivy Read?
Cara Davis: Ivy always had that thing you know? The thing that you know you shouldn’t gravitate towards but it draws you in and wraps itself around you disguised as a safety blanket. I can’t say she’s all bad though, I loved her. She did so much for me as I did for her. I owe her a lot and even though she ruined our friendship, I can confidently say some of the best moments of my life have been with her and I thank her for it.
Tom Walker: Oh, she was the most beautiful poisonous human I have ever met. She is just asphyxiating, she blurs your vision and intoxicates you with her thoughts, she never agrees with you and always talks back. I tried to deny my feelings for quite some time, I mean I had everything going for me and I feel like I knew the second I fell that she was going to find a way to ruin it. She fucked me up but I love her, I don’t think I’ll ever stop, you know? Loving her.
Chase Felix: I mean, for starters she is stupid smart! I was living it up like a rockstar, but the spotlight was always on her. I would be lying if I said I didn’t grow to hate that. I think the attention being on her didn’t bug me, it was more how she fed on it. She loved it. Ivy is wild, the image of true freedom. The way she chooses to use that freedom though is what kills. He chuckled and thought about his next words with humor But then again, I will always look back at our marriage with an equal amount of love and hate. It was surely bittersweet. Wait that is a good song title… Surely Bittersweet.
Cassie Jones: Well, I practically raised Ivy. I mean, that's what happens when your parents are busy running empires. You get the privilege but lack the love, I tried my best to give her that love but I don’t think it was enough for her. I don't blame Mr. and Mrs. Read, you think you are doing a good thing by giving your children everything. Ivy’s mind works in ways normal people can’t understand, including myself. Ivy was never the nicest, I learned to live with it and while I have never been a fan of her behavior I don't think she's all bad.
Ivy Read: What about me? I’m sure people have their own ideas about what it is like to be me or what they think I am like, but I am Ivy Read. For people to understand what that entails it would take more than your little article, it would take a goddamn novel.
—
I was truly intrigued by Tom’s answer and to be honest, maybe I was just being nosy and wanted to hear more about their affair. How did it happen? Why was he willing to give up everything he had worked for, for someone like Ivy? Most importantly, how did he still love her after all these years? I think my intrigue must've come from my lack of experience with such passion, something I hated myself over. Not being able to love like that, not seeing why it would be worth losing my reputation and hard work over. So I dedicated a good amount of my interview time to Tom, I set up a reservation at The Beverly Hills Hotel and of course charged it to my work card. In what world could I afford a fancy lunch date with Tom Walker?
TOM: We met at the Cannes Film Festival afterparty, she stood tall and gorgeous in what I remember was a black silk dress–He smiled and somewhat blushed–I was introduced by a mutual friend, I was alone my wife at the time was getting rest because of her pregnancy. I was really only there for work, showcasing my film Dead of Night. My management made me go to this afterparty, something about a director casting for the remake of A Star is Born. It was supposed to give me my first Oscar for Best Actor as a lead. Of course, after everything that went down in the following months that didn't happen. Ivy and I danced all night, it had been a while since I had partied like that. I think it was while they played Arrow Through Me by Wings and she got up on a table and sang to me, that I realized I was in deep trouble.
I knew Ivy’s reputation since day one, I knew she was a rebel of sorts and that’s not what I stood for. My life had been so peaceful, I had achieved so much and I was married to a respected, smart, and beautiful woman who had given me the biggest gift a man can receive– my children. However, it wasn’t until I met Ivy that I realized how miserable I was, I had been playing a character my whole life. I loved how free she was, I loved who I was around her, I loved the way she made me feel, and I became addicted to that. Ivy has made many poor choices in her life but not once has she not been Ivy Read. I apologize for the way it happened, but I don’t apologize for having met her that night.
Shocked I kept going, hoping that I wasn’t crossing a line because of my own personal interest in their story.
“How do you live with your decision? I mean, forgive me but you have been blacklisted from Hollywood. Your work has been criticized and ruined forever because of your personal life. How do you look back on this affair with–”
“Relationship. Ivy and I were in a relationship. Calling it an affair infers that it was only sexual, Ivy and I loved each other. We were no different than you and your boyfriend I assume.”
“Oh, I am sorry. I mean how do you look back at your relationship with love when it was that love that destroyed you. Also, I do not have a boyfriend so I wouldn’t know.”
“Well, I’ll explain it to you. This relationship mended more than it could break. Ivy gave me so much more than my career ever did, I look back at it with love because it wasn’t just about sex and scandal. Up until then, I was a marionette doing whatever my management wanted whatever would make the most money. There was no integrity to my career whatsoever, being “blacklisted” from Hollywood like you say opened many doors to projects I am truly passionate about. In that way, I don’t regret a single thing I learned and happened because of Ivy.”
It made sense, I mean I was trying to convince myself that it made sense. That love made sense. I gained a new sympathy for Tom. I still didn’t know about Ivy but Tom seemed like a good guy, he spoke with so much respect and assertiveness that it was hard not to agree with him. I was trying to understand this Ivy he praised, so I next decided to spend some time with Cara Davis. She was nice enough to invite me to her home where she could feel comfortable, her house was something out of the movies. She lived with her current boyfriend Hector Neil, I hear he is just a regular guy compared to Cara and Ivy’s statuses. I was still starstruck when entering this world I never saw myself being a part of, something you never imagine exists outside your boring life. Cara took us to her garden, where she told me to ask away. It was a beautiful garden, filled with vegetables on one side and a beautiful array of flowers on the other. I wanted to know more about her friendship with Ivy, the nature of it, and why it turned bitter.
CARA: We grew up together, our families were really good friends and we met very young. We did school together, we dominated that school by the way. People feared Ivy, I was her only friend for a very long time. She was never good at playing nice, she would tell you how she felt regardless of how nice it was. I didn’t want any other friends, Ivy was everything to me. It took me a really long time to realize my love wasn’t reciprocated and she wasn’t ready to accept it.
She looked at me as she toyed with some flowers, picking at a long orange one with shades of red and yellow.
“Tulips. They were her favorites, you don’t expect someone like her to be a fan of Tulip's. You’d take her for a rose kind of girl, pretty and dangerous. Thorns and all you know?”
“Hmm, I see. Why do you think Ivy acts that way? I mean, reckless and impetuous.”
“Ivy has always been self-destructive, she used to say it was her best trait. One time she told me “People are going to destroy you, hurt you, they will ruin your life. Don’t you think there is freedom in being the one to do it to yourself instead?” I can honestly say I have never been surprised by anything she’s done, to me that is just Ivy. People benefit from her and her behavior, she’s giving everyone what they want. I don’t think the media understands that when they talk about her. I don’t think she understands how much pain she is putting herself in by submitting to their desires. Wrestling the good and bad that Ivy brings is the hardest part of knowing her, she will give you a million reasons to love her but a million more to hate her.”
“Do you?”
“Do I what?”
“Hate her.”
She looked distraught, for a moment I thought she was going to either cry or say the interview was over. And then she laughed.
“I hate the Ivy she pretends to be, I hate what she did to me. I won’t go into detail because that is between us, but I do hate that she’d rather lose us than give up this stupid character. The worst part of it is that I could never hate her. I wish I could, it would be easier to make sense of things.”
“Would you say you can still make amends?”
“No. Even if we could, it's over. Me devoting myself to her, forgiving her, putting up with her shit, I could never do that again. I love who I am now, without her. I am doing better than I ever have in every possible way and I think that speaks for itself.”
I sensed pain when speaking to Cara, it felt like she had repressed a lot of hate but was too nice to speak on it. She was always taking back her statements and her voice would crack every once in a while, I felt terrible for making her relive what seems like some of her most painful memories. I could see myself in her. I could see Julia comforting me after yet another failed relationship and I couldn’t imagine losing Julia above everything else. I could see through Cara, she genuinely cared for Ivy and it stung to know that over everything that had gone on between them she still did. Being betrayed by a friend is the worst kind of betrayal, you never heal from it.
I was not excited to talk to Chase Felix, some of my colleagues had interviewed him before and they did not have very nice things to say about him. He reminds me of those guys in high school that bullied me for being studious, for staying in instead of putting up with their intoxicated stupid red cups and sexual remarks. So I decided to talk to him in his studio where I could make up an excuse easily for leaving if I got uncomfortable or fed up. I can’t say I wasn’t intrigued though, why would someone like Ivy choose him as her first husband over other men dying over her? Was this her trying to prove a point or make people mad? Was it real at all?
CHASE: Ivy came to one of our shows at the Troubadour, alone. How does Ivy Read manage to be alone at my show? I mean have you seen her??? Her body is insane and her personality did not disappoint either. I knew I had to approach her, I had to spark her interest. I brought her backstage, we got high, and ended up having one of the best conversations of my life. I can’t remember what it was about to be honest, something about Fleetwood Mac’s best album? It might’ve been the weed or something else but I knew that very night I wanted, no, I had to marry her.
I was, well, still am a rockstar, but even I was surprised with Ivy many times. She did have a problem, she depended on sleeping pills to rest and coke to stay awake. Who was I to judge though? I have been high for most of my life and I think we both were for most of our relationship. I mean we got married in Vegas! She wasn’t out of it all the time though, we lived together like a normal couple, we went out and had fun but we were also in love at least I’d like to think so. It is no surprise that Ivy is viewed as a sex symbol, especially after our tape was leaked. It didn’t affect me when it happened if anything people looked up to me, but I felt so guilty because all of it would weigh on Ivy. She didn’t care though, I think that’s when I realized she was more complex than I thought.
As much as I was intrigued I couldn’t help but agree with my colleagues. He was blowing smoke in my face every time he talked, I didn’t even want to ask more questions because I had started feeling lightheaded. Either I was getting high from him hotboxing this shitty studio and was hallucinating or he was spilling anything and everything he knew about Ivy. The way he spoke unfiltered was great for my article, yet I would never want someone to be so open when talking about me. Especially someone I was married to and confided in– romance is truly dead. I didn’t get much from him, I got the nasty gossip every other magazine would die for but I would never use.
I did not know what to expect from Cassie Jones, I thought she was really sweet when I talked to her on the phone. She wanted to defend her, she made me promise I would also try and see Ivy for Ivy and not the way she was made out to be. I wish my mother defended me like that, I think she’d be the first to give out every flaw and mistake of mine. I am not the daughter she wanted, but I've learned to live with it. For someone like Cassie (a nanny) to be so maternal over Ivy, meant there was something I didn’t know yet. Something the world needed to hear.
CASSIE: I met Ivy when she was only ten, yet she was already so troubled. I was her sixth nanny, nobody had ever managed to either stand her or control her. I think that was the problem though, you can’t control Ivy, she knows what she wants. You have to allow her to be herself and hopefully knock some sense into her once in a while. It’s funny because occasionally she would bring young boys into the house knowing it wasn’t allowed, expecting me to flip and tell her parents. I found that not saying anything about it was the way to do it, she would end up kicking them out when they had other expectations and then apologizing to me for it. She eventually stopped bringing guys around, from then on it was just her and Cara the rest of the time I worked there.
Those girls loved each other, I was convinced they would make it. I regret not giving Ivy more advice when it came to the threats of substances. They were so easy to find in her social setting, when I decided to intervene she was already caught up in the high. It was then that her parents didn’t believe I was worth keeping around. I knew Ivy had problems, many kids that are born in the spotlight do. I think everything she has done is only a reflection of bigger issues. Ivy is a sweet kid though, she doesn’t show it or like it but she is. The world is doing her a favor by keeping this image of her, it has kept her from working through her problems.
“I hope that helps, that’s all I know. No matter how many stories I could bring up, I don’t wish to feed gossip. I wish for people to see the truth.”
When it came down to interviewing Ivy Read, I was feeling less intimidated by her and her entire persona. I was confident that if these people believed she is not what people make her out to be she couldn’t be that bad. So I met Ivy for coffee at her beach house in Malibu, I had to drive for two hours, but I didn’t even mind because an equal amount of anxiety and excitement had taken over my body. An excitement that died down the second I was met with her. Cara was right, she was not nice. She was bitter and indifferent and judgemental and god did I want to leave once she spoke.
IVY: Everyone can tell you what they want about this “portrayal” of me, but all I know is that I’ve done what I have done and the only reason it’s important is because my last name is Read. I don't apologize for that. I have never and will never care what all these people have to say about me.
“What about Cara?”
“Excuse me?” she stared me down, a wave of anger consuming her. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t terrified.
“I mean, do you care about what Cara thinks of you?” The way her stare subsided with those words made me forget who I was speaking to. “Or Tom, Chase, Cassie? Because they care, they care about you..”
“I might’ve cared what they thought in the past, but I can’t afford to care now. What good could it do? I am guilty on all counts, for ruining Cara and I’s relationship, having an affair with Tom and having no respect for Julia and their family, getting married to Chase while being high, and mistreating Cassie for many years. I’ve paid my dues and I have learned to live with it. I won’t change, I am still the one behind all of it. After all, this is what Ivy Read does right?” The uncertainty and somewhat hurt she said that with made it hard to ask anything else, so I didn’t.
“Write about that, tell the world there is no hidden story. I am an open book. You want to believe there is one so badly, you forget some people are just wired this way.”
I see why people could hate her guts, she was dismissive and arrogant, even narcissistic in some ways. She did not answer one of my questions with more than three sentences. She stood there unfazed by the uncomfortable, but after hearing from everyone I can see her façade. She has done so many things wrong, yet not one person involved with her hasn’t loved her at some point. Doesn’t that count more than a shitty headline? Ivy Read is human. The way she deals with the same demons you face might not be the best, but you distract yourself with her. You go through your life feeling better because she is allowing you to. You deal with your problems by judging her. If that makes her a monster, well what can I say?
She is just Ivy Read.
This Freedom Is Satire
Sweet Thief of Nectar
Mid conversation, the thought of you comes back to haunt me
My best friend, oh those sapphire eyes
I swore eyes that pure had to allude to her soul
Sweet thief of nectar–
They were supposed to be a window, they were supposed to let me know
My best friend, oh those sapphire eyes
Her betrayal tainted mine a dark gray
She stole my honey–
No longer a window, now they're more of a prison cell, the color gray
Locked up with her betrayal, I stand in darkness
She stole my honey, now I can’t stick to those I love
Those who are devoted to me, who willingly offer amity
Blinded by heartbreak I stand in darkness
Oh, it's so dark in here–
How do I stop drowning in her treacherous seas?
Those who are devoted to me, don’t try and get me out
She has blurred my vision, her deception is engraved in me
Why am I still devoted to her treacherous seas?
I can swim, I can see– Can I see past her?
Could I take a chance on sapphire again?
Her deception remains engraved in me, as I look at you
Reignite my pigment, pollute my soul
Could I take a chance on sapphire, on you?
I look through your windows, catching a glimpse of grey specks
Have you been locked up? Has the sweet thief of nectar stolen from you too?
Pollute my soul and I’ll feed you royal jelly
I’ll make you my Queen B if you promise not to steal from me.
18
Swaying away, stepping on foots
Embarrassing movements
That broke hell loose.
“Drink to remember
Not to forget.”
Sounds and beats that played
As the world spun in my bed.
My head consistent with its melody,
The sound of danger, an infinite crescendo.
Constellations form with every blink
Building a universe that enables him to say:
“You want this.”
Waking up to a sunlit day,
In and out of consciousness
Hell has unleashed again.
The pounding refuses to dissipate
Anticipating their whispers
I look back at yesterday,
What words did I speak?
Did my two left feet guide me?
Into the arms of a stranger,
One I know too well?
For a moment peace asphyxiates me,
Fogs my brain with pure bliss.
Minutes of relief are cut short by flashbacks
Of my limp body being devoured by a faceless enemy.
Static fills my vision and
Internalized blame dictates my actions
A drink wavers in my hand as I finally gather the courage
To stare at myself:
“To remember?
Rather now just forget.”
Comfortably Numb
I Guess That’s Why They Call It The Blues
That 2800 km and some decimals stand in between us
That I don’t mind, that I love being in the dark,
that I allow myself to believe that’s where I belong
I willingly let you have authority over me
“I will forever be devoted to you”
No regret, to the exception of whenever I relax in my seat
and write a poem–
a mirage of you playing in my head.
My favorite song on a loop,
I’m starting to hate it.
Words and your image are asking to be released
Through my keyboard. Words digging like swords,
I bleed out.
Elton in my eardrum, loud thumps making me sick
“Don’t wish away, don't look at it like it’s forever”
Skip, shuffle, next.
Tom Petty, Stevie
Please, Stop Draggin' My Heart Around.
Why is it that no love song can encapsulate us?
Paul, Riri, Ye– maybe there are
FourFiveSeconds 'til I'm okay?
Will you sing to me until then?
Until I grow to love:
The drunken texts
The “i need you” when you want me
And the “i can’t live her”–
with the awful grammar I can’t stand.
The “take my pieces”,
No begging.
Just orders, commands
From the ruler of my swollen,
Most important muscle.
Has Anyone Ever Written Anything For You?
Stevie, Tee Dee, please
You know I'm the one writing
How could awful grammar write something,
For someone disposable, someone
In his use and throw-away pile.
I Guess That’s Why They Call It The Blues.
Please, Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around.
FourFiveSeconds.
Has Anyone Ever Written Anything For You?
Comfortably Numb
Pink Floyd, that’s where I’m at.
You get me, in a way he never will.
THIS FREEDOM IS SATIRE
To my old life that seems to have been torn apart and savored by a pack of starving wolves. I bet it’s salty. They relish the bitter acquaintances I’ve made and the countless battles won with bitten fingernails. I walk down fifth– side note, that is something I never thought I would say. Only an impostor living in this hellhole of a city would say that. But I walk, the air feels good on my skin. I look back on the days when I did not have to cover half of my face because of humanity and its flaws, “just a pandemic” you know? I keep walking until my legs start dismissing my brain. I enter the red-lettered signed store with the annoying obnoxiously loud checkout lady. I can’t remember why I am here. I look around the aisles lazily, some chocolate could be nice, perhaps wrapped in bunny printed foil. My legs go numb at aisle 4, I think I saw her. My flesh and blood, laying six feet under. I stick around like some stalker, I stare. She is a couple of inches smaller than me and I can almost feel her embrace. Raisin hands tuck expired candy in my back pocket, she then taps my back three times. She looks up at me, it’s not her. My legs regain consciousness and are now urging me to run, I try to convince my brain to catch up as I head for the exit. “Sorry, help is on the way” A bell-like sound rings in my ears as I try to catch my breath. Their ghosts are haunting me. My ancestors, all the versions of myself I’ve sent into exile, relationships I have murdered, a family whom I have buried alive. This plastic-like barrier on my face suffocates me, they’re all collectively pulling it tighter. My head pounds, I might’ve let my brain back at aisle 5 on the way out. I strip it off my face, I rip some of my skin in the process of trying to unmask this person I have become. Their voices get louder and their faces start merging with other people’s as I stumble across the streets of what should have been my safe haven. Breathing like a maniac, I try to get back. To my life, the one I have full ownership of now, at least that’s what they advertised. I run to a shoebox I am meant to call home, ignoring their screams and the way they scratch my arms as they reach for me in anguish. I try and dial the number of the omnipotent being responsible for this.
“Where can I get a refund? Is my thirty-day trial over?”
I make a mental note to get microwavable noodles somewhere else. “Guess I’ll starve tonight.”
Out-of-Body after I Could Live Without Speaking & Autoportrait by Chelsea Hodson & Eduard Levé
“I sometimes feel like an impostor without knowing why, as if a shadow falls over me and I can’t make it go away”
- Eduard Levé
I
It was my senior year of high school when I figured out I would never not be “sad”. I don’t eat fruit. I drowned when I was four and I haven’t stopped since then. The middle child is always an overachiever. I don’t know my blood type. I convince myself that I'm a good writer by reading articles on the worst-rated books. I am still not convinced. I don’t hold grudges. When I was young every adult hated me. Rainbows don’t make me happy. I am very young. I am in love with a guy who’s in love with an anti-feminist. My life always feels like it’s ending. I suffered suffer from an eating disorder. I post obsessively on social media. People describe me as everything I don’t think about myself. My teachers always thought I was ordinary. Pizza will make me nauseous. I don’t trust religion, I don’t trust humans taking on God's words. I am ordinary. I am that one person you hate for absolutely no reason other than you hate me. I meditated for three months and I can’t remember if this emptiness started before or after it. My friends always leave. During my first therapy session, we talked about trauma, I am traumatized now. I hate my name. No one will date me, I can’t figure out if they are smart or blind. I sometimes feel like there are two people within me. I am attracted to men that look both hypermasculine and hyperfeminine. I don’t want to be famous, but I long to be known. I broke my elbow when I was three, my father didn't catch me, I like to think of it as the origin of my trust issues. I believe in God. I have touched dead people before–life is truly meaningless. I have never been in love, I don’t think I am capable of it. Old music makes me feel alive, not in the cliché way though– it genuinely makes my heart race and pump blood to my brain releasing endorphins that make me question if I am anything without it. When people ask me where I am from, I forget every word I’ve ever learned. I used to have a guy best friend, a queer best friend, and a blonde best friend, now I am my own best friend, and their bodies are piled in my closet next to a box full of the stupid post-it notes I always wrote about them. I will never know if I had a good childhood, it is hard to define that when you were dead for half of it. I am convinced that aliens walk with us. Sometimes, when I am walking through the endless avenues of New York City, I think about the many times they told me I was going to hell. I now whisper back to the crowd of faceless people “I am already here.” My mom likes to say my negativity will murder me before someone or something can. I wonder why my grandmother hates me, I am not affected in the slightest by it, but I still wonder. My 70s playlist keeps me from thinking about the blade currently slicing my soul in hopes of regeneration. This is not even a thought, just a fact, I am dying of cancer. My smile is fake in the most literal way. I wonder when I’ll start thinking about living instead of dying. My depression is not depressive enough for therapy but too depressive for my friends. I once read that the way you perceive your reflection is ten times uglier than what other people perceive– I must be really hot. I forget that I can speak Spanish, twelve years of culture cleansing will do that to a person. Someday I will wear a bikini. I don't know if it's Satan or God who’s rooting for me. I regret everything I have ever said. My ancestors made a deal with the devil, my soul has been loaned for money. Fuck it, I’ll sin.
II
My first acting role was in 2019 in a starlit backyard when this guy wearing excessive cologne kissed me for the first time. I am sadly straight, I have to bear him mansplaining literature to me– he is a business major. If I could write a letter to all the people that have died after touching me, I still wouldn't write it– I’ve put them through enough. I have never understood why I’m hunted by envy from privileged people. I still feel like masturbation is a sin. I think of myself as a puppet, easily deceived by kindness. I hate disappointing people. I got a tattoo today, my middle name in all caps ANGELIE. Did I mention I am a narcissist? My friends think I'm maternal, but I think if I ever was given the chance of being a mom I’d take the out. I think very highly about myself, which is probably why people think very lowly of me. I joke about it but I don't think I am attractive. I know something is really wrong with me, there has to be something. I have devoted myself to this one person whom I haven’t seen in three years. I am not a good sister, I will never be. My addiction will eat me alive, my teeth will get yellow and my hair will fall off. I am a fan of Giuseppe Verdi, I geek out on classical composers. That one thing they always complimented will be gone soon. I miss my grandparents all the time. I am terrified to live, which is why I live through you. I like the idea of being immortal through paper. I don’t enjoy partying like I used to, I hate the one-night wonder, and I live off consistency. I hyper-fixate on random people, I will use my last breath to mouth their names. I don’t care if people hate me, I hate myself. What makes me crazy is when people like me, why would you do that to yourself? I am writing this as their chants play loud in my eardrum through the looking glass. I think back on the time I was a part of them, their purpose was my own. I praise unattainable beauty. My heart has been burning for two winters, my ashes are fading now– Spring. I hate that my favorite song is other people’s favorite song. Light beams through my shut curtains and wincing is a reflex. One time I taught myself how to play this game for a guy, I ended up being really good at it, better than him. I wish I never met many of my friends, it would make this so much easier. Achieving is the worst form of success. Have I ever been truly happy? Can one ever be truly satisfied? I rather people think of me as a bad person than a good one. I love when people underestimate me. My face haunts the walls where they tried to imprison me for having a mind of my own. I want someone to write a song for me, to say “Can I stay?”-- to ask for once. When I go on the subway I have to rethink what I know about myself, why do I stay away from people who just had it harder than me? Drinking makes me sleepy. I can’t bring myself to care about recycling. When I was in high school I used to loop Got to Be Real by Cheryl Lynn to make it out alive. I believe romance is dead. I have punched people before. I wish more people knew about the nature of enlightenment era opera singers, castratos did not have a choice. I hate that I was born in this era. I feel more sympathy for dogs than I do humans. I like to read the Bible, the Book of Revelation (Apocalpsis) I am reminded there is an end to this. I have an open mind, but you can’t get me to like rap music. Inspiration is the biggest gift of life. I wonder why I was sent here, in what kind of world am I sent to make this make sense?
Nothing Here Makes Sense
*little nonsense in my notes*
Love Letter to New York City?
I’ve never felt more dead when people kept telling me I was supposed to feel alive. I could start rambling about all the things that are wrong with me and this city and the chemistry between us. But frankly, I wouldn't change anything about it. In the words of Hodson, the hate I have for this place feels religious, a hate so poignant it becomes romantic, it transforms, it is love in the purest form. There is one thing I do love about New York, one thing I admire and want to attain as my own. New York is honest. It doesn't lie to you, it could disguise itself under the glimmer of a dainty skyline but it chooses not to. New York is sad and lonely and crowded and annoying and beautiful and frustrating. Not for one moment does New York make itself heaven because it's the furthest thing from it. New York encapsulates humanity. New York City is me and I am New York City.
My Eulogy? :
Tell them that I died.
Tell them she was exhausted of this back and forth and she is ready to move on and accept her lonely sin. Tell them she was done playing this carefully curated character she can recall piecing together since the moment of her conception. Tell him she won’t be waiting at the door to welcome him with open arms. Her charm and niceties won’t be at their disposal because she’s gone. Tell them she was never there. That every memory and action she ever performed was merely ink on teardrop smudged paper. Tell them that every word she spoke was empty and the ones with meaning were wasted on fools. She grew tired of the adoration and apathy that came along with knowing her. She became bored of success and its hollowness. She decided to pack her bags and leave a world full of deadly ultimatums.
Tell him, she wonders if he’ll miss her or if he’ll dance on her grave while holding his lover’s hand in triumph. Will he remember her name? The name of a ghost that lived for him and him only.
Not to give him credit but she did come to life for him and that was her biggest problem. A curse from which she could never be freed. For him she wasn’t pale or doubtful, she was everything but that. It wasn’t until that day when she dug her grave with her own two hands and painted her tombstone green, the color of his eyes, only then did she allow herself to think of him as the object of her affection: one of her biggest mistakes.
Congratulations, you have been admitted to hell:
Silence, infinite stinging silence. I swore it would be over once I left, I thought I'd finally be free. I chose to believe that moving a sea away would make me feel alive. I’ve been stuck on deadly living, I’ve been living on hope and it isn’t enough anymore. What is it that won’t let me enjoy what I’ve become, the fights I’ve won? Can I beg you, brain of mine, to adjust this chemical imbalance? Can you please try? The lights of this city aren’t enough to let me see the light, Music won’t awaken me from this bad dream, all the history here can't erase mine. I am stuck, living in a body that can’t feel. I can’t keep living the same day, unfazed, waiting for my time to run out. I can't. This clock ticks slowly, purposefully dragging my pain out. I have everything, yet I have nothing.
I won’t actually:
When do I stop looking for excuses and see what I have? I can have three-hour-long conversations with him. They are not dreadful, in fact, I want to keep talking until my mouth runs dry and we start tackling the big existential questions with frowns on our faces. But he isn't what I had in mind, he's not what I'm looking for. He is not what I've waited 18 years for. He is the furthest thing from it, he understands me and that's not what I had in mind. I want the deciphering, the puzzle, the mystery, the passion, the hate, the desperation, the loss of air until my brain can’t get a proper oxygen supply and finally bursts in big bang fashion. He can read my mind, his brain and heart seem to be attached to mine and they take control over the beat of it all, including my playlists, which I swore to never let anyone into. I still keep my favorites hidden though, because this bliss is not for me. He is too right and I wonder if that could be enough. Would I take it? I won't actually.
My Stupid Romanticizing of a Stupid Moment with a Stupid Person:
You are the poet of my dreams, with a masochistic desire for anything other than me. Words are your constant and so are mine, but in two different realities or so it seems. The night we met I was wearing black head to toe, in that magnetic moment, I would’ve never thought the clothes I picked out foreshadowed the grief that was about to arrive. You’ve spelled me with your words and stupid music taste. How is it that you play the part of all I need and I so selfishly agree? There are nights when if I am quiet enough I can hear your voice in my ear asking for my next card, knowing your hands had them all. If I stay still long enough I can still feel your knee grazing mine in the most intimate of touches. I hate that I am so infatuated with the idea of having you. I would be the girl in your songs, a muse that assails as you battle your eyelids from imagining my smile. Would we then finally find reciprocity inside our words?
Longing is a silent murderer, it draws you in and allows you to believe that dreaming and aching for something, for someone this badly is okay. Nights spent bleeding for this one malleable soul-crushing outcome are reduced to a new ache in your chest. Will this longing ever stop?
Your words and catastrophic bass lines can’t meet common ground with my narcissistic poetry that makes an exception for you. Why does life present you on the most gorgeous of pedestals, wrapped in everything that I love and you seem to gravitate towards? Rhiannon is forever stained with your name, you’ve ruined one of my favorite songs. December no longer feels innocent, it feels colder than ever before without the burning intrigue of the unknown and the promise of our fire. As I sit here writing this during the most lethal capitalist holiday, I collect all the pieces of myself the ones my deadly longing for you has shattered. The one that hasn’t but should stop.
—-
"You’ve never seen a woman taken by the wind”
“And wouldn't you love to love her?"
—-
I won’t sanctify you, I won't lie. But for a moment on that December holiness, you really did look like an angel with the most beautiful deceiving eyes. I should’ve known from the way you poured a stream of vodka down my throat that it was never your intention to not be invasive. You knew you’d leave damage done. And you did.
Please sing to me, put me out of my misery.
Eviction Notice To My Success:
Centuries, since that one bacteria reproduced itself. Since Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden tree. Centuries since the universe imploded and the earth was conceived. And yet there hasn’t been one innovation that can craft an antidote to reverse the effects of getting what you want. That aching pain that takes shelter in your success-driven soul. The shattering of a muscle, broken by your own two hands, and the chase of what you long for. I stare at my prescriptions, trying to find something that will evict this self-depreciation from my warmest bones. I overdose on overthinking, trying to come to terms with the end of the chase and move on with it. But after the hustle, all I want is to frame it, stare and praise it until I eventually put it down from my walls and leave it to rot in a box at the top of my closet. I don’t want it to stick like toilet paper on my nice heels at the club on Saturdays. It's soul-shattering what getting what you want can do, it will eat you alive. I start asking myself why I idolized the idea of obtaining him, her, and this, as the solution to the equation of life. In the end, this is a floating rock and I, well I still don't know what I am.
Adore: My First Short Story
SONYT 2021- CREATIVE WRITING FINAL PROJECT
(I don’t write fiction, this is a fun one for sure)
This was my first time writing fiction and attempting to step out of my comfort zone. By no means is this good or the next best-selling novel, but I am proud of creating something different from anything I've ever written. This was my final project for my School of The New York Times creative writing course, I had the best time with authors Nakfote Tamirat and Joss Lake, it truly was such an amazing experience to get to write with complete liberty in a different genre. So here's "ADORE" my very first attempt at a psychological thriller short story.
ADORE
The first time I saw Elle Miller was the summer of 2018. It was about 2:25 p.m when I started seeing some movement in the house that’d been up for rent for a year now. I was sitting on my windowsill drinking my afternoon tea when I noticed the movers arrive, they started lowering all kinds of furniture and boxes. I was curious to see who my new neighbor could be.
“It'll probably be one of those annoying grandma’s that will ask to meet for tea and criticize my patatas bravas,” I thought.
I gave up on my intrigue and stood up to leave my cup and wash the dishes, like the good housewife that I am. When I was done, I grabbed my Márquez book from the studio and headed to my living room. That was when I saw her, not a grandma but a drop-dead gorgeous ashy blonde. Through the window I could tell she was about twenty, she looked young but old enough to move into a small townhome. She’s probably one of those women who move to Barcelona thinking their lives will suddenly have a purpose. When I looked back she was glowing, smiling like she had just been told she won the lottery, she was ordering the movers around her new home.
“Poor gringa”, I sighed.
Only an American would be happy in this neighborhood, doesn’t she see this place is a trap? This neighborhood is filled with women like me, mothers who love their children to death but can't stand them, and husbands who spend all day “trabajando” when we know they’re in Calle Can Bruixa leaving fidelity out of their vocabulary. Without any other thoughts, I shut the curtains in the living room and opened my book hoping nobody would intervene with my alone time and this new neighbor wouldn’t bother me either.
It was a Monday at about midday, I had just finished making lunch for Marcelo and Mauri, my 12 and 8-year-old boys. I was washing all of my utensils, and I could see her from the window above my sink. She was drinking straight from the bottle of what seemed like Calafuria rosé wine in her living room, looking completely at peace. She suddenly stood up with those beautiful long legs of hers, she had absolutely zero cellulite and beautiful olive skin. She went to turn up some music and out of nowhere she started dancing, she danced like no one was watching probably because she didn't know I was. She swayed her hips in every direction, she jumped now and then, she threw her hair up and down and side to side. Her image was one of freedom, she was pure bliss. I couldn’t help but reminisce on my twenties when I used to look like her.
“Wine at midday! God, look at me washing dishes for chicken nuggets and Mac n Cheese!” I shouted in frustration. I couldn’t help but feel pity for myself.
“Mami?” I heard Marcelo from behind the kitchen counter.
“Yes, Mijo?” I could already anticipate he wanted something. These kids I swear, they can’t go thirty minutes without asking for something.
“Can I go play fútbol at Jose’s?” He asked doubtfully.
“You know how I feel about his Tia, I wouldn’t want her to be speaking with you,” I looked at him seriously.
José’s Tia, Mary was about ten years younger than me and lived with her sister Teresa, Jose’s mother. She’d always made harsh comments about me or my appearance. She would flirt with John, my husband in front of me as if I were invisible to them. I’ve spoken about it with John and thankfully he keeps his distance from Mary at least, I truly hate her.
“You won’t have to see her and I’ll make sure she leaves Jose and I alone,” Marcelo pleads, hoping I’d allow it.
“Only if you promise to come back at 3:30 and she won’t speak to you! ” He comes around the kitchen counter and kisses my cheek.
“Thank you, Mami!” He didn’t bother staying one more second in the house, he ran to the door and closed it behind him leaving me and Mauri alone. Mauri spends most of his time drawing, he truly believes he’ll be the next Picasso and who am I to destroy those dreams. He draws with crayons, often the ones we steal from the diner on Sundays. The drawings consist of stick figures and badly drawn landscapes but I’d adore those drawings any day because he is my little boy.
With Marcelo out with Jose and Mauri upstairs drawing in his room, I find myself wishing John would be here. John was just another gringo living wildly when we met, he was so unique or so I thought at the time. We met at a bar, I know, so wildly romantic. My cousin Lucia and I went to meet with some friends we had made over our relationships. I was dating this guy called Mateo at the time, just another bad decision in my twenties. He came from a good family and was known as a good husband to be, but in all honesty, he was such a dick. He would leave me in a corner and get drunk by himself, that was where John found me that night, in a corner.
He came up to me with a charming smile. I could tell he wasn’t from around here because he had such different features to Spanish men. He was tall, probably double my size, he had beautiful emerald eyes, a pale complexion, prominent cheekbones, and his brown curls fell in a messy but beautiful way. God, he was such a sight.
“Buenas Señorita,” He spoke in his thick American accent.
“Hello,” I said shyly. He was wildly intimidating but inviting and calm at the same time.
“You speak English?” He asked with a slight smile.
I nodded, feeling very new to this kind of interaction. I’d never been one to catch guys' attention, especially guys like John. Guys like John feel entitled to everything, they expect to get what they want and they always did. I wasn’t what society deems beautiful, I was not skinny, I had a genetically curvier body but not enough to be thought of as overweight. I was Spanish in every way, relatively tall, with brown eyes, dark hair, a broad nose, and a round face. I knew I wasn’t unattractive, but then guys like John would never come up to me.
That night he asked me to dance and of course, I accepted. Mateo raged and there was a small fight between him and John, I still think that was the reason John wanted me, he thought I was wanted and chased. After the fight, John asked for drinks and we danced all night in each other's arms. Then it was all dinners and family. I got to know him well enough to know both of his parents died in an accident and that was what attributed to his rebel move to Barcelona in his twenties. Once he took me on four dates, he asked me to be his girlfriend and I said yes. We were very much in love, it only took him two months of dating when he popped the question and suddenly I was his bride. I still think the rushing is to blame for all our problems.
For the first couple of years, we were on the best of terms, honeymoon, work, goals, sex, love, and all. Then I got to see his flaws, he loved isolation, and he wanted space when I wanted to be with him which drifted us apart greatly. And then came the anger issues, I couldn’t express my anger because he would get so mad he’d lay hands on me. Then came Marcelo and Mauri and for the first 4 years of our new family, he was a good man, a good father. He still is a great father, he looks after them and spends time with them but not me. I don’t know what it was I did, maybe it was age that repulsed him from me. Maybe he had been blind to my lack of beauty or maybe he just didn’t love me. Then, I noticed our problems probably had the shape of a woman, and when he started to deny it less, I understood. I could leave him if I wanted to, but it’s been fifteen years and I am not twenty-five anymore. I am a forty-year-old woman with two children and no job, my best chance at stability was this life. And so even if every day was the same, this was all I had.
The middle of the week came around quickly, you would be surprised at how little I had done since Monday. After Marcelo left I went back to my living room and sat on the couch to read, that was until my curiosity sparked up again. I went to sit at my windowsill, across the cement, and over the fence, I could see her. She was in her living room and seemed to be working on something. I couldn’t help but adore her features in their most casual state. Her hair fell on her shoulders like effortless waterfalls, her side part seemed so fitting for her narrow face, and her eyes were shielded by violet eyeglasses, ones that only made her emerald eyes pop. I smiled to myself, I took pleasure in her most modest fault, she couldn't see properly, but then I kept watching. That small fault was erased by her glowing collar bones, looking ever so delicate as she arranged her hair in a ponytail. I could see her face better now, she had a small crease on her forehead as she stared at her computer, seeming to be very focused. I stared for probably an hour that day, when she finished whatever she was working on she stood up and I felt a similar feeling to grief. I went back to my room, checked on Mauri, and then proceeded to fall into a stream of hateful thoughts about my life.
“How did I end here?” I whispered to myself, staring at my old somewhat wrinkled, and depressing reflection in my bathroom mirror. I knew I wasn’t starving or homeless, I had a family, I loved my kids, I had a home, and I cared for my husband, but when would that be enough for me? There was so much more to life that I had been stripped away from.
Thursday came around and I woke up excited only to go and sit at my windowsill, once again. It was very uncomfortable with just a thin blue layer of foam keeping me from touching the hard concrete, but it had quickly become my favorite spot. A month ago I had never sat there and it was sort of an abandoned spot in the house but after Elle’s arrival, it felt like it called me. I had sat there for the entire week, staring, waiting, and dreaming. I knew more about Elle by the end of the week, she had a best friend who had come around since Wednesday. I could tell they were unpacking and changing things up inside, her friend was pretty but not as much as Elle. She looked American and in her twenties as well, but she was much duller. Elle woke up at around 10:30 a.m, a luxury she could afford. I concluded that she worked from home since she was always stuck in her computer from 11 to 5 p.m. She ate the same thing each day, leftover pasta with tomato sauce and a soda. I was in awe of her simple living, how she managed to look divine doing the simplest of actions. After she finished her work, she would either watch T.V or invite people over. I was impressed by her social skills. I had imagined her as a loner, but I quickly found out even though she was new to this place she had a bunch of friends. By Tuesday she had people over every evening, and I could finally see her in a new space. She was wild and it seemed like everyone adored her, she was a lighthouse in a dark room. She had about six people over, this one brunette guy who was tall and not going to lie very attractive was chasing her in a not-so-subtle way. I thought about how many guys would die for her, she could have them with the snap of her finger and she didn't have to commit to any. She was the deity of liberty.
It was Saturday and John had taken the kids in a father bonding effort. For the first time, I was truly alone and I took that time for myself. I decided I wanted to do something nice so I went to the plaza, I did some shopping and looked for things that I would never usually buy. I decided to enter the salon and treat myself to a spa sort of day. It had been a rough week, I tormented myself by watching and adoring Elle. I am not going to lie I felt a wind of fear because I could be possibly missing something Elle was doing. But I needed to do this for myself to ensure I wasn’t living the same day over and over again. I finished my spontaneous trip to the plaza by shopping at the Bodega, it was something I hadn’t done in years. After that, I headed back home where John and the kids had already arrived.
When I got back, I unloaded the car and headed in, and quickly organized the stuff in the pantry and fridge. I sat in the living room and just when I started settling down John came downstairs to join me. He was wearing his casual attire, it seemed like he wasn’t going out today. I thought that was weird since I knew he usually fleeted during the weekend.
“What have you done?” John said in a perplexed tone.
“Hello to you too!” I said, dismissive of his comment.
“Why did you dye your hair?” He looked at me astoundingly and for the first time in years, he looked at me for more than five seconds.
“Oh! Do you like it?” I said shakily, he still intimidated me with that authoritative stare of his.
“I mean okay? But why would you go fully blonde, it’s almost white! You have never been the kind of woman to do this stuff.”
I stood up and went to hug him, something in me wanted to fuel his already troubled mind. I kissed him on the cheek and then I went to kiss his mouth, he didn’t deny me which already made me feel much more confident in myself. We kissed and I felt alive, it wasn’t until I deepened the kiss he pushed me away slightly he was flushed and my heart broke immediately.
“Carmen, I don’t know what's happened to you lately. The kids say you haven’t spent time with them this week and now this?” He said, anger starting to rush through his veins.
“What? I have spent more time with those kids in the past month than you have their entire lives! And this” I pointed between us. “This is how it should be but you're too busy “working” am I right??”
“I am too tired for your delusion right now, I am just telling you how our children feel about you.” He said before heading upstairs.
I was furious, first, he dared to speak about my children as if he knew any better and then he diminished me as his wife. He discarded me like I meant nothing to him, he didn’t even want to argue, he simply did not care. I went to get a glass of wine, I was so glad I bought it after all. I needed something to soothe me at that moment. I was about to sit down when the bell rang, I was estranged because it was about 5 p.m and I wasn’t expecting anyone. I went to get the door and when I opened it I forgot how to act. It was none other than the gorgeous ashy blonde I'd been staring at the entire week.
“Hi! I am sorry to come by at such an odd time, but I wanted to finally introduce myself since we are now neighbors!” She spoke, her voice sounding a bit deeper than what I assumed. Up close she only looked more angelic, the sunset gave her such a beautiful shimmer. I was completely in awe of her.
“Uhm, hello! Nice to meet you Ms?” I hinted towards the fact she had not mentioned her name.
“Miller. Elle Miller. Please, just call me Elle!” she said, smiling graciously.
“Well, nice to meet you uhm…Elle. W- would you want to come in?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t want to intru-”
“You certainly are not, please do,” I said, not letting her finish her sentence, she was finally standing in front of me. I couldn't afford to let her go.
“Okay. I suppose I’ll join you for…?” she stared at the glass in my hand.
“Wine,” I said, smiling lightly trying to hide my nerves.
She walked into my living room and it was a surreal sight, to have her here at last and not be watching her through my living room window. I told her to wait for me in the living room while I went to bring a new glass and the bottle I was drinking from. My hands were sweaty and I couldn’t focus on what I was doing, I was in such a nervous state it took me about three minutes to realize I had placed the wine in the fridge already and it wasn't outside. I finally made my way back to the living room and she was sat on the edge of my windowsill.
“Wow, you can see my living room from here!” She smiled excitedly, I felt accused and forgot how to speak for a moment.
“Oh! Well, I suppose you can, but with the children and all I never have a moment to sit down.” I tried to dismiss her comment.
“How long?” She asked.
“Excuse me?” I felt trapped, she knew I’d been watching.
“How long have you been a mother?” She turned to look at me.
I sighed in relief, it was as if the oxygen had been brought back into the room. “Oh! Uhm well, my eldest is twelve and my youngest eight!”
“That's amazing! I bet they are gorgeous!”
“They truly are.” I started pouring her a glass and went to sit down on the sofa.
She joined me on the sofa and quickly summarized the events leading to her move into the neighborhood. She mentioned she had been offered a transfer from her publishing job back in Boston, she took it because it was a major opportunity considering she was only twenty-two. The publishing company hired her to come here and she barely had to go to the office. After telling me a little more about her she reached for her glass on the coffee table, she took a sip elegantly. It was such a different image to the girl I saw dancing and drinking from the bottle the other day.
“Mmm! Is this Calafuria Rosé??”
“I believe so, yeah.” I downplayed her enthusiastic and almost shocking question.
“It’s my absolute favorite wine!”
“It’s also my favorite!” I responded by taking a sip. I couldn’t help but scrunch my face at its bitterness. I did not like it at all. But I had a feeling after Elle many things would not be the same as before. She had awakened a new part of me, at first, I thought it awakened my longing for freedom but it was far bigger than that.
I wanted to be her. She was freedom.
My Ever-growing Monologue: Making Sense of Me
I am trying to draw the line between being a writer and being a narcissist.
There are mornings where I wake up and feel so far away from myself my body doesn’t even belong to me. My bed feels like a sinking hole, I wake up breathless haunted by my past and my fears masqueraded as dreams. I run to the bathroom first thing and stare at the mirror for what feels like forever, probably way too long for my own good. I stare at my reflection and sense that something bigger than myself is staring back. It is sort of an out-of-body experience, you realize that your body isn’t yours anymore. There is something distinct staring at that flesh and I can feel my thin soul craving to get out. Is my body the one trapping me and my potential? I feel like I am meant to be something bigger than flesh and bones.
People don’t understand the power I hold within me. I am trying to find the source of my strength, what makes me this self-assertive being. I excavate into the darkest most vulnerable parts of me that might have remnants of the strength I used to arrive here, at the golden gate. I search for the magnetic force that pulled me out of the water, the source that forced me to stop counting, the source that disassembled the crimson program. Nobody will ever understand my power, and I am certain about that because I don’t understand my power.
You know I rant and rant about my darkness and brokenness, but I don’t think anyone will ever get to face the part of me that has battle wounds of every confrontation I’ve had to stand up to. The closest thing I think I’ll ever get to opening up are these coded messages that only I get to decipher. I have become accustomed to this state of indifference, never knowing if tomorrow will be a wind or a war. I appreciate the underlying fear and uncertainty of everyday life, I have programmed myself in a way where my code runs in fears, triggers, and skills. This darkness that I continue to talk about has been provoked in ways and raised in others, I think I might have been the one to keep feeding it.
I had a dream, I was naive again. It was lovely.
I am starting to understand that my writing isn’t meant to be polished, incredible, intellectual or The New York Times best-selling anything. My writing is raw, unpolished, brutally honest, and I’d even dare say it’s broken. My writing is broken. I can’t think of something more beautiful than piecing together a narrative to the reader's desires, to the reader's affairs. My writing isn’t meant to be understood, it is meant to be crafted into your very own. If anything, I think I am the only one who knows what’s behind my words, how often I use the word liveliness because of my attachment to deadly living. How often I say I long for everything and everyone because longing is the only thing gluing me together. So yeah, I don’t expect to be Shakespeare or a best-selling author, but I hope my stream of thought envelops you in its incandescent waves and heals, awakens, or enlightens your soul or whatever we are made of. I promise to never betray the honesty behind each and every word I ever publish. My writing is broken and it has never been more beautiful.
I fear that without my darkness and my illness every scrap of me will go to waste. It’s idiotic but I truly believe they are meant to be part of me, even if that means I have to keep drowning repeatedly and collecting the weight of everything and everyone. I fear that in my darkness lies my substance. I fear I’ll find myself in an endless stream of desolation and purposelessness. This darkness is tattooed in me, it’s my essence, my script. It’s the nature of my being.
I have the urge to dial 911. There are those moments whenever you breathe in the smell of childhood meals or you replay a song you used to listen to starting your teenage years. That moment where you are taken back to a time when life didn’t feel so complex, so inhumane, I feel the inevitable urge to dial 911. I can’t think about a bigger emergency than the realization that I can’t stop time. I can’t be expected to stay in the moment, reminisce and go. When nostalgia rushes in I am frozen, a knot starts to grow in my throat, and my hands start sweating. I want to make myself so small I am able to get back into my mother's womb. I wish I could just go back and not take my childhood for granted. I need to dial 911, I can’t stop time.
I look up to the sky in search of the colors I can’t find within myself. Whenever there are no pigmented shades, whenever the sky turns gray I wonder if it carries that insatiable darkness I relate to. Could I be the one projecting it? Did I take your brightest colors away?
The world is loud and in words I found silence.
It’s nice to talk to someone from your past knowing that they don’t know you anymore. It’s the most beautiful feeling for someone from such a distant reality to acknowledge your change and embrace it without a single ounce of discomfort. I’ll eulogize the feeling of becoming strangers with someone you once held close, forever.
Therapy is scary not because I fear talking to a stranger because frankly, I am all for it, but because of the idea of being “okay”. What if someone actually manages to teach me that I am not meant to drown every day, that I can get myself out of the water if I want to?
I have a thing for the broken. I am so mesmerized by how carelessly you try to disguise your pain and the number of people you manage to fool. The way you so effortlessly give in to a world that doesn’t deserve you, the way you are a people pleaser but manage to break boundaries. I can see through you, I see the scattered pieces of your soul through your emerald eyes, I see crystal clear through your fainted woods. I am so astonished by the way you impact, the way you manage to dominate everything and everyone, but remain so broken. Your brokenness is beautiful and lord I wish I could hold it. You are a misfit and I am the outcast, I see myself in you. I see your rage, your fire, your stardom, your questions, and I think I might just have the answers.
We are made of the same substance of dreams, overachieving idiotic thinkers who can’t see straight.
I wish I didn’t have to keep proving myself. I wish every time the spotlight shines on me, they didn’t question how deserving I am of it. I wish people weren’t surprised when I achieve greatness. I yearn for people to see my potential. I long for them to see the part of me that isn’t reckless. I wish they wanted to see me succeed. I wish they didn’t say “Congratulations” if they were trying to spell “I hope it doesn’t last long”. I wish I couldn’t see through people, I wish their hypocrisy blinded me. I dream that someday they come to terms with my fire and don’t try to put it out.
Can you see us looking into the corners of ourselves trying to find something, anything that feels familiar? We used to stay up until 5 a.m talking about how you dreamt of saving lives and how often I didn’t know who I was. What happened to those 730 days? We were two lost souls trying to find purpose within each other, we so desperately tried to make sense of our unison. Our connection will remain forever unexplained, we might as well stop looking for answers.
“I think I might hate writing”, my subconscious says after way too many sober words. I have compromised myself and writing, but what if I actually do hate it? Writing scares me, it hurts me. When I start writing, words, thoughts, and ideas that I’ve never actually had the opportunity to give into arise. As a writer that desire to have the upper hand fuels me, the ability to paint my sky a different color. But what if I don’t have that ability? When I write my head goes into autopilot, I have no control over the things I decide to put down. I have no control. It is a reflex, I start pouring, barfing all these words that seem so foreign but feel way too familiar. Writing is another one of my contradictions, it’s where I feel safe the most but it also bends me until I break. I am no longer sure if writing is healing me or just throwing me way deeper into nothingness.
I think words make me fuller, I truly believe they fill me up, they define how much of me I own. When I decide to publish them, you own these words, they belong to you. You have access into the perplexity of my troubled world and that, it makes me as empty as one can be. Maybe one day I’ll find emptiness alluring, but for now… “I think I might hate writing.”
People think the worst feeling is grief… I beg to differ, the worst feeling is outgrowing someone or knowing they are outgrowing you. That moment when you know it’s about to end but you are not quite sure when yet. Conversations run dry and you no longer wish to be around. You think about saying something about it but fear it will shatter the fragile atmosphere you are both set in. When someone outgrows you though, that is the worst feeling. You know you aren’t a victim, you can’t blame them, you knew it was coming. There is nothing left for you to do but wait for a prolonged, painful goodbye.
You were a heatwave on my wildest winter.
It’s funny how you can become a prisoner of your own dreams. It’s been three days, and he is still here watching me, waiting for my voice to crack as I cry out for mercy. He is in every dream and for once it’s not romantic, it's the furthest thing from it.
I love the self-destructive nature of humanity. They give us a pack of smoke with the image of a poor man struggling to breathe, a tube on his throat, sorrow in his eyes. Somehow that never makes us stop, we will always take the smoke if it means we get to tune out reality for a while.
Maybe it’s because I know what’s behind my walls that I let the undeserving in. Maybe it’s because I am not blind to the other half of the shadow, the unsettling contrast. I let unworthiness take control of my every move. It’s because I know I am not better than anyone and somehow everyone is better than me. It’s because I know what happens at 2 a.m, how my mind searches for leverage inside my darkest sins. The feeling of being unworthy comes with a cascade of remorse for feeling this way. How ungrateful can one be?
It occurred to me that while all the people in my life were opening up and getting closer, raving about their triumphs and miseries I never dove into the perplexity of my own. How could I ever unleash my mind in such a casual fashion?
I can’t believe I live in a world in which I overthink if I should wear a skirt every time I step out of my home. For years, I’ve second-guessed my every move and for once I don’t know what to care about anymore. I feel like so many people are mad at me for being happy, it’s almost a superpower. I idolize myself so often I forget I have to look out for my well-being, I am an actual person, I am human. I forget that I am bound to make mistakes.
I forget that I can’t be it all, I forget that I won’t be it all.
Yesterday’s sight was manic. I stood at the mirror searching for bruises, cuts, bumps, searching for some sort of switch that would give me the answer to all my self-loathing and self-doubt, the absence of my control. I was searching for a device, an outlet that would prove to me that someone was in control of my body, of my decision-making, of my mind. Certainly, it must be impossible to be such a self-deprecating fool. After what felt like forever I stared into the dreariness reflected in my eyes, the daunting realization that there was no switch. It’s just me. I am a self-deprecating fool.
I want a love that shatters me, something that makes me feel so overwhelmed I forget what reality and reason mean. I don’t want a love story, I don’t. Isn’t the most intriguing part of love, heartbreak, and self-destruction?
I try to blacklist all the versions of myself that have led me into exile, but the more and more I select, the more I realize all the versions of me have some twisted relationship with isolation. A relationship with destructive secrecy. It is carving into my bones, twisting into my heart, pulling me apart, all I’ve ever known is being stripped away from my very own control.
I bet that not being your type meant I had ambition and dreams. People can’t seem to fit the idea of me and who I am together, it’s almost as if they knew two completely different people. It’s lovely, isn’t it? The picking up the pieces, figuring out you can make yourself whole again. I hate you because you've made blonde hair and blue eyes the symbol of treason. I wonder if there’ll be a chance of owning myself someday because right here, right now there are people who own more of me than I will ever belong to myself. My relationship with food is so toxic, it's the only thing I've never posted on social media. I call 2 a.m the grieving space, there is something that collectively pushes the memory of all the people I’ve lost into thin air and screams how I might just be the one behind it all. I have never felt more guilty about being alive than right now. Art is such a beautiful thing, what some would deem ridiculously idiotic and unnecessary might be the most gorgeous and astonishing thing to people who understand and resonate with it. I’ll always remember you as the one who taught me I didn’t have to be anything but myself to be loved. I feel sorry for those who weren’t told they could be anything and everything. I picked up: ballet, swimming, karate, orchestra, drums, cheer, soccer, business, crafts, photography, and finally writing. I did everything until I found the one thing I’ll spend forever with. The memory of you is much more romantic than you coming back.
You were deception, the way you stepped on my name, the way you walked out, the way you betrayed me, the way you said “sorry”, the way you didn’t mean it, the way I still loved you after the fall, the way I still do.
I don’t trust my intuition anymore, it led me here. There is an emptiness that comes along with achieving. The hopelessness, the end of the high, the questioning, the doubts. Sometimes I wish I’d never accomplished anything, I would be free. It wasn’t until I was mid-air, that I finally allowed myself to feel relief. I am here, I made it.
To you, the reader: I am sorry I am not better at this, I am sorry that I come here only when the wave hits, I am sorry I make myself a victim, I am sorry I am a narcissist, but I am not sorry for writing because it’s all I have.
-D
The Essay That Got Me Into NYU
NYU has been my dream school ever since I knew I wanted to become a writer. I started my college application the summer before my senior year began, I wrote four essays total and had an amazing teacher to help me through the process. I followed my own prompt instead of picking one of the Common App prompts, it was a risky move but I wanted my essay to tell my story and not spend 600 words trying to answer a question. I worked on my essay for five months total and it was a stressful process, but by the end of it I felt proud of my work, and thankfully it paid off! I am posting my essay in hopes that it helps someone who is about to apply to college.
Without further ado, here is my essay:
My Diary
Words locked and hidden away, secrets of shame and embarrassment: that is what diaries have traditionally signified to most people. Yet, growing up in Honduras my diary was my biggest treasure, my essence in every page, and every word my childhood self could come up with. I still remember the thrill of picking up my diary and that horrible green Crayola marker. With green ink, I wrote about princesses, pizza, and at some point, poems. Sharing my entries with my friends was the best part of my day; however, they refused to share theirs in return which left me curious and often upset. That was when I realized there was something that set my diary apart from the others: It wasn't secret.
To many, a diary is a private item - something forbidden - but to me, a diary was a story: one that my childhood self would love to share. I remember taking it to family gatherings as a 9-year-old, battling for the stage with my uncle and his Vicente Fernández karaoke. I would take that time to grab the mic and tell my aunts and cousins about my dreams, my stories, and the way I perceived the world. To me, a diary was a gateway to new concepts and incredible perspectives. I wondered why people chose to hide something so wonderful.
As I entered middle school my perspective of the world around me completely shifted, and that was when my real diary began. Living in Central America was a gift as a writer. The culture and its people were unique, as were the stories that surrounded me as a kid. Conversations at the dinner table opened my eyes to an uncomfortable reality. As I sat there listening to how our presidents were stealing money from healthcare funds and treating sick people with flour pills fabricated as a scam instead of real medicines, my perspective on things started to change. Everyday sightings like watching kids my age perform tricks at stoplights in order to survive inspired me to turn my diary into a blog— A Teenage Perspective. My voice needed to be heard. My entries became articles documenting the reality of my conservative nation, politics, and society.
Throughout high school, I became more aware of the lack of voices in my community. This made me realize how much I truly wanted to use my voice, although it would be harder than I’d anticipated. As third-world countries, we deal with misconceptions and stigmas all the time, but people fail to see the lack of freedom and media corruption that governs everyday life. For years Honduras has lived under a masqueraded dictatorship. Murders, attacks, and threats against human rights defenders and journalists are rampant and go largely unpunished. My community was facing conformism and fear, provoked by the sense of normalcy that corruption and violence held in the country. Growing up around these situations was the main reason I’ve always felt like my diary was worth being shared, hoping that anyone would find their voice through my own.
As I embarked on the challenge of using my voice, my community did not fail to impress me while they embraced what was perceived as an act of bravery. Writing my blog still gives me that same thrill I got by holding that awful Crayola marker, but the rush that gets my heart pumping is when I see my articles help in the slightest ways. I recently received a text message from a youth group called “Heroes 504” after I wrote an article on their attempts to change their town, which was struggling with severe poverty. The text read “Thank you for amplifying the voice of those of us who can’t be heard.” My diary was the beginning of a love story: my love for words, the world, and the stories my community makes me strong enough to tell.
Here are some tips I would suggest keeping in mind when writing your college essay:
DISCLAIMER: These are tips that worked for me and in no way am I suggesting this is what will get you into college. What worked for me may not work for you so don't run with it, do your research about the college you are planning to apply to and the essay writing process. Find what works for you.
- Set yourself apart from others: Talk about a situation that is unique to you, don't generalize your story. Try to fill your essay with vivid imagery about what your life has been like and how it has shaped you into the strong candidate you are.
-Paint the picture: The admissions committee doesn't know you or your story, they are reading thousands of files at a time. Try and elaborate your point concisely and concretely.
- Be yourself: You can craft a story, yes-but make sure it tells your story and there is truth behind it. Show the admissions committee who you are, and make them remember you. They want to get to know you in 600 words, make sure by the end of it they know you and your world.
- Don't try too hard: I wrote an essay that used words in the English language that I didn't even know existed, I tried to sound polished and refined. The essay you read has no special words and no out-of-the-ordinary metaphors. What ended up working for me was the rawest essay I wrote.
ps: HAVE FUN WITH IT. The admissions process is stressful but it can also be really fun and rewarding.
All the Contradictions of My Life
How come what makes me feel alive takes away my liveliness?
I love myself but I can’t stare at the mirror without wincing. I feel but have lost my senses. I am a good person with an evil gut. My heart beats but it stops every time grief comes around. I loathe social media yet I can't live without it. I feel sorry but won't say it. I want to be better but won’t change. My soul is heavy but feels so empty. I miss you but I don't want you back. I love putting my life in words but hate the feeling after I hit send. I speak too much but don’t say anything. In my lies there is truth. My hands touch but I can't feel anything. That night under blue lights when I told you to stay away, I needed you the most. I am fine until the interrogation is over. I love being recovered yet long for my illness. I hate being misjudged but show myself in the wrong light. I believe in myself but don't trust my intentions. I praise but doubt. I swallow my insecurities but spit them out to others. I want to fall in love but don’t trust anyone to catch me. I want to forget you but I hope you don’t forget me. I want to run away but tie myself to the ground. I want to scream but can only bring myself to whimper. I try to convince myself that I love him but I don’t even like him. I want to eat chocolate cake but keep counting my calories. I feel like I am a good person but hold so much unholiness inside. I trust that my friends know me well enough that they know that they don't know me. I wanted to be blonde but couldn't stand any sign of brightness in myself. I want to shine but spill water at my flame. I cry but my tears dry. I despise people but can’t stand watching them suffer. My legs walk but have no clue where they are heading to. I am writing this but my gut is screaming not to publish it. I want to live but can only manage to exist. I want to be different but compare myself to them. I want to tell them how much they hurt me but I stop myself. We did something bad but used "I love you" as an excuse. I have written 106 poems about you but won't let you read them. I can't wait for the future but miss the past. I run away from my past but put up my own stop signs. I hate my addiction but cry at the emptiness they leave me with when sober. We grow up but we grow apart. I get an A+ in every subject but how much do I really know? My best friend wasn't my best friend. I feel better but I can't stop turning the wrapper. I feel better but keep waiting for the avalanche. People die, people close to me die, and I feel guilty because I am alive. I read but can’t read you. I am excited about life but can’t stop thinking about death. I am loving but remain unlovable. My eyes project confidence but my mind says different. I tell you my secrets but I don't trust you to keep them. I convince myself the attacks stop but keep digging holes in my head. I tell myself this is what’s supposed to happen but warning signs are flashing, screaming that I am mistaken. I am strong but I am not strong enough. I am drowning but don't want to get out of the water.