The Poet X(7)

It happens when I’m on the train.

It happens when I’m standing on the platform.

It happens when I’m sitting on the stoop.

It happens when I’m turning the corner.

It happens when I forget to be on guard.

It happens all the time.

I should be used to it.

I shouldn’t get so angry when boys—and sometimes

grown-ass men—

talk to me however they want, think they can grab themselves or rub against me

or make all kinds of offers.

But I’m never used to it.

And it always makes my hands shake.

Always makes my throat tight.

The only thing that calms me down after Twin and I get home is to put my headphones on.

To listen to Drake.

To grab my notebook,

and write, and write, and write all the things I wish I could have said.

Make poems from the sharp feelings inside, that feel like they could carve me wide

open.

It happens when I wear shorts.

It happens when I wear jeans.

It happens when I stare at the ground.

It happens when I stare ahead.

It happens when I’m walking.

It happens when I’m sitting.

It happens when I’m on my phone.

It simply never stops.





Okay?


Twin asks me if I’m okay.

And my arms don’t know

which one they want to become: a beckoning hug or falling anvils.

And Twin must see it on my face.

This love and distaste I feel for him.

He’s older (by a whole fifty minutes) and a guy, but never defends me.

Doesn’t he know how tired I am?

How much I hate to have to be so sharp tongued and heavy-handed?

He turns back to the computer

and quietly clicks away.

And neither of us has to say we are disappointed in the other.





Sunday, September 16





On Sunday


I stare at the pillar in front of my pew

so I don’t have to look at the mosaic of saints, or the six-foot sculpture of Jesus rising up from behind the priest’s altar.

Even with the tambourine and festive singing, these days, church seems less party and more prison.





During Communion


Ever since I was ten,

I’ve always stood with the other parishioners at the end of Mass to receive the bread and wine.

But today, when everybody thrusts up from their seats and faces Father Sean, my ass feels bolted to the pew.

Caridad slides past, her right brow raised in question, and walks to the front of the line.

Mami elbows me sharply and I can feel her eyes like bright lampposts shining on my face, but I stare straight ahead, letting the stained glass of la Madre María blur into a rainbow of colors.

Mami leans down: “Mira, muchacha, go take God.

Thank him for the fact that you’re breathing.”

She has a way of guilting me compliant.

Usually it works.

But today, I feel the question

sticking to the roof of my mouth like a wafer: what’s the point of God giving me life if I can’t live it as my own?

Why does listening to his commandments mean I need to shut down my own voice?





Church Mass


When I was little,

I loved Mass.

The clanging tambourines and guitar.

The church ladies

singing hymns

to merengue rhythms.

Everyone in the pews

holding hands and clapping.

My mother, tough at home, would cry and smile

during Father Sean’s

mangled Spanish sermons.

It’s just when Father Sean starts talking about the Scriptures that everything inside me feels like a too-full,

too-dirty kitchen sink.

When I’m told girls

Shouldn’t. Shouldn’t. Shouldn’t.

When I’m told

To wait. To stop. To obey.

When I’m told not to be like Delilah. Lot’s Wife. Eve.

When the only girl I’m supposed to be was an impregnated virgin who was probably scared shitless.

When I’m told fear and fire are all this life will hold for me.

When I look around the church and none of the depictions of angels or Jesus or Mary, not one of the disciples look like me: morenita and big and angry.

When I’m told to have faith in the father the son

in men and men are the first ones to make me feel so small.

That’s when I feel like a fake.

Because I nod, and clap, and “Amén” and “Aleluya,”

all the while feeling like this house his house is no longer one I want to rent.





Not Even Close to Haikus


Mami’s back is a coat hanger.

Her anger made of the heaviest wool.

It must keep her so hot.

*

“Mira, muchacha,

when it’s time to take the body of Christ, don’t you ever opt out again.”

*

But I can hold my back like a coat hanger, too.

Straight and stiff and unbending beneath the weight of her hard glare.