Poems

for Julian

Silently we dig your grave

as a prayer & a stage as if 

expectation doesn’t hurt the most

doesn’t start the bleeding. Still we 

dig your grave, we don’t know how to live

with you so we prepare to live without

the color red. No bloodshed or love

no red, no bed in your room

we will bury you with it, the ashes

and the cage replaced & your name

now the color we evade, your tombstone

painted red too, there is no escaping 

guilt & we are guilty of not loving you pink.

Waving white flags that only showed you

your reflection & you hate him enough

for us all, so maybe we should love you

a little more. Like lava & awe, name you 

Acatenango & watch the sunset with you.

For Clara

The only english words my great grandmother felt comfortable saying were 

“fucking bitch”

saved for when the Americans annoyed her on the one stop bus ride home, 

taken from the bottom of the hill up to Amsterdam Avenue.

Despite the walk being less than five minutes, she wouldn’t walk it. 

Wouldn’t take her diabetes pills either claiming the doctors said she was diabetic 

but she did not believe them.

And my siblings and I, Americans by law & ____ 

didn’t have the words in Spanish to express our concerns.

We’d point at things and say “cómo se dice,” hoping

that language could create understanding

like stars giving meaning to light.

Every evening she’d go play bingo on 125th street.

She’d come home with candy if she won 

and maybe a few dollars for each of us

standing as she waits saying, “y cómo se dice”

with our mouths still full we’d become a chorus of thank yous–

and I wonder what my grandmother heard 

when we spoke the language of our father’s colonizer

and she spoke the language of hers.

Love breaks that kind of history.

Like when her heart stopped in our kitchen

and we sat in the hospital for a week watching family arrive

cursing every fucking bitch who dared show up in death and not life,

fumbling through Spanish prayers hoping

language could surpass understanding

like light giving meaning to stars.

Used to pray for times like this

everyone screaming the lyrics we have recognized 

as puddle reflections, manifestations of our lives

We have always had dreams, and live nightmares daily 

but its Halloween in Harlem

& we are staring into each other, 

making sure lips are moving and we

are all baring witness to this moment 

where the pulse of the beat is the only thing dropping

Even the saddest of us are jumping

Hold up wait a minute, y’all thought [we] were finished?

Raven throws it back on Robin, leg on table

A couple in matching Mickey Mouse costumes make out

& the rest of us sway from left to right as the DJ commands

Our bodies one in motion 

Here in disguise we see each other with a clear eye view

Screaming All we know is murder, so sure

that we will all make it back home tonight 

Just like this, and nothing more

open and wet 

for a man who will use you

before he ever loves 

you, a passageway along his journey to

some foreign bitch

he will make his wife.

In this moment you could rise.

Pull from deep within and form tsunami-strength to walk away

Again.

But you are twenty, not the sea

so you let him touch you

but not fuck you 

and call that power.

And when you’ve had enough 

you send him home 

all wood untouched 

so he blocks you

Finally,

both of you dripping with pride.

Aunty meets me at the bar for the first time

a friend of a friend

old enough to have seen life fully

sitting in shades on this leather couch

she guesses my zodiac sign on the first try

takes the shot I bought her with a whip of the head

dances in her seat to Tupac, so I decide I trust her with my life

The music transitions and the bar swells

as she brings out her phone to tell me,

“I'm facebook friends with Rihanna, wanna see? And Angelina Jolie” 

She scrolls for two minutes then flips her Galaxy screen to me,

showing me an Angelina Jolie fan page.

“Everyday I talk to her, tell her how I'm feeling. Rhianna as well, and she sends me a lot 

of love. Sends me pictures too. That’s me talking to her”

She says this, showing me her comments on a picture of Rihanna

posted by a news account she does not even follow 

And I nod along,

rising to the bar when her glow fades, 

another shot on me for our local celebrity.

Brother, we scrub your blood off the walls

dry the floor, ignore the weed ashes,

we’re supposed to apologize for your gashes,

ones that you caused 

scarring us all

breaking the glass on the wall

but you’re alive

so we love you still

You see red and we see you

every time, blue

you smoke and you sleep and you feel better

and we live with the scars we’re not allowed to speak of

because it hurts you

we’re supposed to praise you the little you do

and when you don't speak to us for months 

silence 

until you get a car

as if a Honda makes you

as if a Honda changes you

when you drive back home 

we love you still

and i watch you,

speak about our father

and i hate him too but not like you

so much rage in your lungs

I don’t know how you even breathe

Brother i am so sorry

for everything you have endured,

childhood grieving 

and I worry for you

and this car you think makes you a man we should be proud of

I hate your car

I hate your pride

I hate your pain

brother we are watching you leak

letting your blood spill on us

there is no where else it can go

and through it all

I try to love you still

Sometimes moments are just that

Fleeting and eternal 

I lay on my bed

Music playing off the phone that holds this text I do not remember 

From my father I do not speak to now

You have grown so much,

Do you love me now

At times I feel like I have never changed

Still gripping your tie, still swing sets and dance classes trying to please you

This is the memory of never forgetting,

You lift that burden onto of me

I did not even notice that.

Papi, daddy, father, daddy

Do you love me I am aching,

How could you notice, 

If you enter a maze from the end 

Do you go back to the beginning

Do you need to?

Do you remember, 

There is so much I remember 

Broken homes leaking ceilings, leaking 

Not love less but a force overpowering thanks to loss, 

You left so much to over compensate for

Some of the things.

Everything, everything 

That is the problem 

I remember nothing at all

And yet I carry it around, unable to put it down

I worry this is how I’m always going to feel 

I have said to you,

We used to end calls with bye

Five minutes filled with more awkward silences than conversation 

As if you couldn't think of anything to ask the child you made but do not know

How do you feel about me, what do I mean to you

I could never hate you, only how much I want you to love me

( I cannot put that poetically)

In the past.

I was told your mom was a rough woman

Brittle and stiff

You almost take after her

The lack of correct grammar a give away to your youth

You weren’t born in America but you couldn’t tell now

Julian and I joke that people see you now and see

The perfect American dad

House, car, kids, wife by name and paper

And that is where you try not to leave us

I am overwhelmed now,

Memory is a funny thing

How it is extreme, 

All bad when it hurts because it is easier

And it is midnight so I text you for the first time in months

‘How are you’

Good!! What about you?

Open and leaking

Gaslighting myself, 

Still the same

‘Good very busy’

I imagine!!

My mom gives you updates about me 

Told you about my reading you claimed you wanted to come to

To support

I told her to tell you no

How do kids know their parent is supposed to love them

How do we feel the absence of something we never had

How did I fill this gaping hole you never really made with wanting and need

My mom tells me I came into this world crying and I think

It was in honor of you

I think I came into this would screaming your name

But you got this!!

Fully clothed, wells called my eyes 

I stand in front of you as your newborn 

Rema playing in the background- 

There is no sound as sweet as the music of a home  

You don’t even know you’ve lost  

There is no way to cry discreetly in public,  

At least not this hard. 

My words form sentences I have not even fleshed out in my head

I share with you these thoughts because I am on my period and I need you to know  

I would swallow myself whole without you and I am working on it 

You do not avert your eyes, 

Mirroring my rivers 

You say “I could never not be happy with you” 

And so I stand 

In front of you, 

Your creation, 

A puddle of curses  

You’ve created  

And I wish I had more clothes  

Poetic at best 

The way cycles occur  

My sister reads books that were my favorite  

Found first at their age 

The way flowers fall  

Planting new seeds 

Rebuilding remaking always  

This experience of mine  

That is never singular  

No matter how unique it seems 

The way the stars know they have been here before 

The legacy of light left behind  

This life of mine 

It is my sister’s, my brother’s, my mother’s  

Never only mine 

The way the day is always chasing the night 

Living so the other can have a name 

Wisdom to travel down the line 

Nothing if not the legacy of time

        Of each other