Tuesday, September 11
It’s Only the First Week of Tenth Grade
And high school is already a damn mess.
In ninth grade you are in between.
No longer in junior high,
but still treated like a kid.
In ninth grade you are always frozen
between trying not to smile or cry,
until you learn that no one cares about
what your face does, only what your hands’ll do.
I thought tenth grade would be different
but I still feel like a lone shrimp
in a stream where too many are searching
for someone with a soft shell
to peel apart and crush.
Today, I already had to curse a guy out
for pulling on my bra strap,
then shoved a senior into a locker
for trying to whisper into my ear.
“Big body joint,” they say,
“we know what girls like you want.”
And I’m disgusted at myself
for the slight excitement
that shivers up my back
at the same time that I wish
my body could fold into the tiniest corner
for me to hide in.
If Medusa was Dominican
and had a daughter, I think I’d be her.
I look and feel like a myth.
A story distorted, waiting for others to stop
and stare.
Tight curls that spring like fireworks
out of my scalp. A full mouth pressed hard
like a razor’s edge. Lashes that are too long
so they make me almost pretty.
If Medusa
was Dominican and had a daughter, she might
wonder at this curse. At how her blood
is always becoming some fake hero’s mission.
Something to be slayed, conquered.
If I was her kid, Medusa would tell me her secrets:
how it is that her looks stop men
in their tracks why they still keep on coming.
How she outmaneuvers them when they do.
Saturday, September 15
With one of our last warm-weather Saturdays
Twin, Caridad, and I go to the Goat Park
on the Upper West Side.
Outside of ice-skating when we were little,
neither Twin nor I are particularly athletic,
but Caridad loves “trying new social activities”
and this week it’s a basketball tournament.
The three of us have always been tight like this.
And although we’re different,
since we were little we’ve just clicked.
Sometimes Twin and Caridad are the ones
who act more like twins,
but our whole lives we’ve been friends, we’ve been family.
Already we feel the chill that’s biting at the edge of the air.
It will be hoodie weather soon,
and then North Face weather after that,
but today it’s still warm enough for only T-shirts,
and I’m kind of glad for it because the half-naked ball players? They’re FINE.
Running around in ball shorts, and no tees,
their muscles sweaty, their skin flushed.
I lean against the fence and watch them
race up and down the court.
Caridad is paying attention to the ball movement,
but Twin’s staring as hard as I am at one of the ballers.
When he catches me looking Twin pretends to clean his glasses on his shirt.
When the game is over (the Dyckman team won),
we shuffle away with the crowd,
but just as we get to the gate one of the ball players,
a young dude about our age, stops in front of me.
“Saw you looking at me kind of hard, Mami.”
Damn it. Recently, I haven’t been able to stop looking.
At the drug dealers, the ball players, random guys on the train.
But although I like to look, I hate to be seen.
All of a sudden I’m aware of how many boys
on the ball court have stopped to stare at me.
I shake my head at the baller and shrug.
Twin grabs my arms and begins pulling me away.
The baller steps to Twin.
“Oh, is this your girl? That’s a lot of body
for someone as small as you to handle.
I think she needs a man a little bigger.”
When I see his smirk, and his hand cupping his crotch,
I break from Twin’s grip, ignore Caridad’s intake of breath,
and take a step until I’m right in homeboy’s face:
“Homie, what makes you think you can ‘handle’ me,
when you couldn’t even handle the ball?”
I suck my teeth as the smile drops off his face;
the dudes around us start hooting and hollering in laughter.
I keep my chin up high and shoulder my way through the crowd.
It happens when I’m at bodegas.
It happens when I’m at school.
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.
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
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.
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?
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.
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.
*
“I don’t want to take
the bread and wine, and Father Sean says
it should always and only be done with joy.”
*
Mami gives me a hard look.
I stare straight ahead.
It’s difficult to say who’s won this round.
“I just don’t know about that girl,”
Mami loud-whispers to Papi.
They never think that Twin and I can hear.
But since they barely say two words
to each other unless it’s about us or dinner,
we’re always listening when they speak
and these flimsy Harlem walls
barely muffle any sound.
“Recently, she’s got all kinds of devils inside of her.
They probably come from you.
I’ve talked to Padre Sean and he said
he’ll talk to her at confirmation class.”
And I want to tell Mami:
Father Sean talking to me won’t help.
That incense makes bow tie pasta of my belly.
That all the lit candles beckon like fingers
that want to clutch around my throat.
That I don’t understand her God anymore.
I hear Papi shushing her quiet.
“It’s that age. Teenage girls are overexcited.
Puberty changes their mind. Son locas.”
And since Papi knows more
about girls than she does
she stays silent at his reply.
I don’t know if it’s prayer to hope
that soon my feelings will drown me faster
than the church’s baptismal water.
Papi was a mujeriego.
That he would get drunk at the barbershop
and touch the thigh of any woman
who walked too close.
They say his tongue was slick
with compliments and his body
was like a tambor with the skin
stretched too tight.
They say Papi was broken,
that he couldn’t get women pregnant,
so he tossed his seeds to the wind,
not caring where they landed.
They say Twin and I saved him.
That if it wasn’t for us
Mami would have kicked him to tomorrow
or a jealous husband would have shanked him dead.
They say Papi used to love to dance
but now he finally has a spine
that allows him to stand straight.
They say we made it so.
You can have a father who lives with you.
Who every day eats at the table
and watches TV in the living room
and snores through the whole night
and grunts about the bills, or the weather,
or your brother’s straight As.
You can have a father who works for Transit Authority,
and reads El Listín Diario,
and calls back to the island every couple of months
to speak to Primo So-and-So.
You can have a father who, if people asked,
you had to say lived with you.
You have to say is around.
But even as he brushes by you
on the way to the bathroom
he could be gone as anybody.
Just because your father’s present
doesn’t mean he isn’t absent.
As repentance for not participating in communion last time,
Mami makes me go
to evening Mass with her every evening this week,
even the days that aren’t confirmation class.
When Communion time comes
I stand in line with everyone else
and when Father Sean places the Eucharist
onto my tongue I walk away,
kneel in my pew,
and spit the wafer into my palm
when I’m pretending to pray.
I can feel the hot eyes of the Jesus statue
watching me hide the wafer beneath the bench,
where his holy body will now feed the mice.
Monday, September 17
“Calling all poets!”
The poster is printed
on regular white computer paper.
The bare basics:
Spoken Word Poetry Club
Calling all poets, rappers, and writers.
Tuesdays. After school.
See Ms. Galiano in room 302 for details.
It’s layered behind other more colorful
and bigger-lettered announcements
but it still makes me stop
halfway down the staircase,
as kids late to class
try their best to accidentally
make me topple down the stairs.
But I’m rooted to the spot,
a new awareness buzzing over the noise.
This poster feels personal,
like an engraved invitation
mailed directly to me.
I crumple the flyer in my backpack.
Balled and zipped up tight.
Tuesdays I have confirmation class.
Not a chance Mami’s gonna let me out of that.
Not a chance I want anyone hearing my work.
Something in my chest flutters like a bird
whose wings are being gripped still
by the firmest fingers.
Tuesday, September 18
After two weeks of bio review,
safety lessons, and blahzayblahblah—
we’re finally starting real work.
A boy, Aman, is assigned as my lab partner.
I saw him around last year,
but this is our first class together.
He shifts at the two-person desk we share
and his forearm touches mine.
After a moment, I shift on purpose,
liking how my arm brushes against his.
I pull away quickly.
The last thing I need is for someone to see me
trying to holla at a dude in the middle of class.
Then I’ll really be known as fast.
But it’s like his forearm brush changed everything.
Now I notice how I’m taller than him by a couple of inches.
How full his mouth is. How he has a couple of chin hairs.
How quiet he is. How he peeks at me from under his lashes.
Near the end of class, as we both stare at the board
I let my arm rest against his. It seems safe, our silence.
Whispering with Caridad Later That Day
X: There’s this boy at school . . .
C: This is why your mom should have sent you
with me to St. Joan’s.
X: Are you kidding? Half those girls
end up pregnant before graduating.
C: No exageres, Xio.
And we’re going to get in trouble.
We’re supposed to be annotating this verse.
X: You and I could break this verse down in our sleep.
It’s not wrong to think a boy is fine, you know.
C: It’s wrong to lust, Xio. You know it’s a sin.
X: We’re humans, not robots. Even our parents lusted once.
C: That’s different. They were married.
X: You don’t think they lusted before the aisle?
Girl, bye. Anyways, there’s a boy at school.
He’s cute. His arm . . . is warm.
C: I don’t even want to know what you mean by that.
Is that code for something? Stop being fresh.
X: Caridad, you always trying to protect me
from my dirty mind . . . of warm arms.
C: Sometimes I think I’m the only one
trying to protect you from yourself.
As I’m getting ready for sleep, I’m surprised
to see the crumpled poetry club flyer
neatly unfolded and on my bed.
It must have fallen out of my bag.
Without looking up from the computer screen,
Twin says in barely a whisper,
“This world’s been waiting
for your genius a long time.”
My brother is no psychic, no prophet,
but it makes me smile,
this secret hope we share,
that we are both good enough
for each other and maybe the world, too.
But when he goes to brush his teeth,
I tear the flyer into pieces before Mami can find it.
Tuesdays, for the foreseeable future,
belong to church. And any genius I might have
belongs only to me.
Although Twin and I are super different,
people find it strange how much we share.
We shared the same womb, the same cradle,
and our whole lives the same room.
Mami wanted to find a bigger apartment,
told Papi we should move to Queens,
or somewhere far from Harlem,
where we could each have our own room.
But apparently, although Papi had changed
he still stood unmoved.
Said everything we could want was here.
And sharing a room wouldn’t kill us.
And it hasn’t.
Except. I once heard a rumor
that goldfish have an evolutionary gene
where they’ll only develop as big as the tank they’re put into.
They need space to stretch. And I wonder if
Twin and I are keeping each other small.
Taking up the space that would have let the other grow.
I’m one of the first students in English class the next day.
And although I promised myself I would keep my lips
stapled together when Ms. Galiano asks me how I’m doing,
the words trip and twist their ankles
trying to rush out my mouth: “Soyourunthepoetryclubright?”
She doesn’t laugh. Cocks her head, and nods.
“Yes, we just started it this year. Spoken Word Poetry Club.”
And my face must have been all kinds of screwed-up confused
because she tries to explain how spoken word is performed poetry,
but it all sounds the same to me . . . except one is memorized.
“It might be easier if I showed you.
I’ll pull a clip up as today’s intro to class.
Are you thinking of joining the club?”
I shake my head no. She gives me that look again,
when someone who doesn’t know you is sizing you up
like you’re a broken clock and they’re trying to translate the ticks.
When class starts Ms. Galiano projects a video:
a woman onstage, her voice quiet,
then louder and faster like an express train picking up speed.
The poet talks about being black, about being a woman,
about how beauty standards make it seem she isn’t pretty.
I don’t breathe for the entire three minutes
while I watch her hands, and face,
feeling like she’s talking directly to me.
She’s saying the thoughts I didn’t know anyone else had.
We’re different, this poet and I. In looks, in body,
in background. But I don’t feel so different
when I listen to her. I feel heard.
When the video finishes, my classmates,
who are rarely excited by anything, clap softly.
And although the poet isn’t in the room
it feels right to acknowledge her this way,
even if it’s only polite applause;
my own hands move against each other.
Ms. Galiano asks about the themes and presentation style
but instead of raising my hand I press it against my heart
and will the chills on my arms to smooth out.
It was just a poem, Xiomara, I think.
But it felt more like a gift.
Is this what Ms. Galiano thinks
I’m going to do in her poetry club?
She mentioned competition,
and I know slam is just that,
but she can’t think that I,
who sits silently in her classroom,
who only speaks to get someone off my back,
will ever get onstage
and say any of the things I’ve written,
out loud, to anybody else.
She must be out her damn mind.
Tonight after my shower
instead of staring at the parts of myself
I want to puzzle-piece into something else,
I watch my mouth memorize one of my poems.
Even though I don’t ever plan on letting anyone hear it,
I think about that poetry video from class. . . .
I let the words shape themselves hard on my tongue.
I let my hands pretend to be punctuation marks
that slash, and point, and press in on each other.
I let my body finally take up all the space it wants.
I toss my head, and screw up my face,
and grit my teeth, and smile, and make a fist,
and every one of my limbs
is an actor trying to take center stage.
And then Mami knocks on the door,
and asks me what I’m in here reciting,
that it better not be more rap lyrics,
and I respond, “Verses. I’m memorizing verses.”
I know she thinks I mean Bible ones.
I hide my notebook in my towel before heading to my room
and comfort myself with the fact that I didn’t actually lie.
Now that we’re doing real labs
Aman and I are forced to speak.
Mostly we mumble under our breath
about measurements and beakers,
but I can’t forget what I told Caridad:
I want to get to know him.
I ask him if he has the new J. Cole album.
Shuffle papers as I wait for him to answer.
Aman signs his name beneath mine on the lab report.
The bell rings, but neither of us moves.
Aman straightens and for the first time his eyes lock onto mine:
“Yeah, I got Cole, but I rather the Kendrick Lamar—
we should listen to his new album together sometime.”
When my family first got a computer,
Twin and I were about nine.
And while Twin used it to look up astronomy discoveries
or the latest anime movies,
I used it to stream music.
Flipping the screen from music videos
to Khan Academy tutorials
whenever Mami walked into the room.
I fell in love with Nicki Minaj,
with J. Cole, with Drake and Kanye.
With old-school rappers like
Jay Z and Nas and Eve.
Every day I searched for new songs,
and it was like applying for asylum.
I just needed someone to help me escape
from all the silence.
I just needed people saying words
about all the things that hurt them.
And maybe this is why Papi stopped listening to music,
because it can make your body want to rebel. To speak up.
And even that young I learned music can become a bridge
between you and a total stranger.
“Maybe. I’ll let you know.”
A boy’s face in my hands,
but he’s nearly a man.
Memories of Mami’s words
almost lash my fingers away
but still I brush upward,
against the grain and prickle
and bristle of a light beard at his jaw.
His cheekbones rise like a sun;
the large canvas of a forehead.
A nose that takes space.
This is a face that doesn’t apologize
for itself.
The boy moves his body closer to mine
and I can feel his hands
drop down from my waist to my hips
then brushing up toward these boobs I hate
that I now push at him like an offering,
his hands move so close, our faces move closer—
and then my phone alarm rings,
waking me up for school.
In my dreams his is a mouth that knows
more than curses and prayer. More
than bread and wine. More
than water. More
than blood.
More.
Thursday, September 20
When I get to school
I know I won’t be able to look Aman in the face.
You can’t dream about touching a boy
and then look at him in real life
and not think he’s going to see
that dream like a face full of makeup
blushing up your cheeks.
But even though I’m nervous
when I get to bio, the moment
I sit next to him I calm down.
Like my dream has given me
an inside knowledge
that takes away my nerves.
“I’d love to listen to Kendrick.
Maybe we could do it tomorrow?”
This doesn’t count as a date.
Or even anything sinful.
Just two classmates
meeting up after school
to listen to music.
So I try not to freak out
when Aman agrees
to our non-date.
Rule 1. I can’t date.
Rule 2. At least until I’m married.
Rule 3. See rules 1 and 2.
The thing is,
my old-school
Dominican parents
Do. Not. Play.
Well, mostly Mami.
I’m not sure Papi
has any strong opinions,
or at least none he’s ever said.
But Mami’s been telling me
early as I can remember
I can’t have a boyfriend
until I’m done with college.
And even then,
she got strict rules
on what kind of boy
he better be.
And Mami’s words
have always been
scripture set in stone.
So I already know
going to a park
alone with Aman
might as well be
the eighth deadly sin.
But I can’t wait
to do it anyway.