In the obscurity
Of time and space
I feel your breath next to mine
Cold yet warming to my soul
Like iced Moroccan tea,
Layered with honey
That slips down my throat
And into my core
With hints of mint
Soothing my stomach
From the knots of yesterday
From that day on
Always wanting,
Always dreaming
In the palm of your hand
Didn’t you know that
when I say sometimes
I mean
Siempre?
Before I met myself,
I met you.
I remember the way your laugh filled my soul
It felt like a balloon being filled with air,
becoming dependent on that laughter,
just as balloons that function depend on air.
Until there is too much pressure
Not enough space for anything else
Causing the balloon to pop.
The loud noise still fills my head and causes a throbbing sensation
Reminding me of what I did wrong
And how I can never make it right.
One day (the/your) (air/laughter) disappeared
And I was left with a body
That didn’t feel like my own
It wasn’t my own.
I didn’t know it.
And it didn’t know me.
A stranger to myself
Without you to guide me
Without you to tell me how to feel
What to do
And when to do it.
On Wednesdays we ate raspberries
our last Wednesday
We held a container of them
but they were spoiled and rotten.
We searched for the ones
that were still edible (there was only one)
and you gave it to me.
As the feverish haste of nervous adults worrying about the storm surrounds me, I feel invisible and my mind wanders. It leads my gaze to the last case of eggs, encased in a gray, dull cardboard that seems eerily similar to a home that is not a real home, just as mine is not truly mine without you in it. And my body is not mine when you are not there to caress it. A man in a big blue coat bumps into me, and I instinctively think its you. Not acknowledging my presence, I discover that it’s just a stranger. His mind occupied while talking to someone presumably reciting a list to him, his eyes focused on the last case of eggs – something we have in common. I am brought back to my surroundings of frantic humans making purchases to stock up and prepare for the blizzard. As time slows down and my sight becomes more blurred, clarity enters my mind next to you and I realize the irony of it all. We cannot prepare for the storm, yet here we are, telling ourselves we can. The storm comes unannounced and we will never be ready. We warn ourselves and others to be prepared, but we are not prepared for the most impacting storm of all. Maybe that’s what makes us human.
Surrounded by the blurriness of the crowd, you sneak into my mind like a bug shimmies through the crevice in a wall to find some light and perhaps some company. Your presence in my mind is quick, but the feeling will last forever. I hear you whisper that it’ll all be okay, and I don’t see how you could possibly know that. A chill from the opening of a door trickles down my spine, giving me goosebumps just like you once did. A child drops a jar of pickles and the memory from then on is spoiled. You escape from my mind down into my gut, causing a pain that is unlike any other, one that I enjoy and deserve.
“Racism is dead”
They shout
While erasing the past
And hiding the truth
While ignoring the bodies
That lie dead in the street
Cold, alone, and gone
One more to mention at the end of the year
Just a number to you
But a somebody to someone else
A story to tell
To ensure children of color
Stay out of trouble
“But, we had a black president”
They plea
As they search their souls
For justification to be rid of their guilt
But white will always be superior
While we still bleach our hair
Our food
And our past
of its truth
Rewriting the past
As our future.
A Myriad of Thoughts 