The Poet X
by Elizabeth Acevedo

Friday, September 21

All last night, I held the secret of meeting Aman

like a candle that could too easily be blown out.

Any time Mami said my name, or Twin looked in my direction,

I waited for them to ask what I was hiding.

This morning, I iron my shirt. A for-sure sign I’m scheming

since I hate to iron.

But no one says anything about the shirt,

or my new shea butter–scented lip balm.

And when I slide my jeans up my hips and shimmy into them

my legs feel powerful beneath my hands

and I smile over my shoulder at my bubble butt in the mirror.

And the Word

Was Made Flesh

Because I wouldn’t go to his house

(not that he asked me to!),

we both know that our secret friendship

can take place only in public.

Every Friday our school has a half day for professional development,

and today Aman and I shuffle to the smoke park nearby.

I’ve never smoked weed,

but I think Aman does sometimes after school;

I smell it on his sweater, and know the crowd he chills with.

But today the park is ours

and we sit on a bench with more

than our forearms “accidentally” rubbing.

His fingers brush against my face

as he places one of his earbuds in for me.

I can smell his cologne

and I want to lean in but I’m

afraid he’ll notice I’m sniffing him.

For a moment, the only thing I can hear

is my own heart loudly pumping

in my ears.

I close my eyes and let myself

find in music what I’ve always searched for:

a way away.

After an hour, when the album clicks off

and Aman tugs on my hand to pull me up from the bench

I hold on. Link my fingers with his for just a moment.

And walk to the train feeling truly thankful

that this city has so many people to hide me.

Twin is the only boy I will ever love.

I don’t want a converted man-whore like my father

so the whole block talks about my family and me.

I don’t want a pretty boy,

or a superstar athlete, more in love with himself

than anyone else.

I wouldn’t even date a boy like Twin,

thinking people are inherently good,

always seeing the best in them.

But I have to love Twin.

Not just because we’re blood, but because

he’s the best boy I know.

He is also the worst twin in the world.

He looks nothing like me.

He’s small. Scrawny.

Straight-up scarecrow skinny.

(I must have bullied him in Mami’s belly

because it’s clear I stole all the nutrients.)

He wears glasses because he’s afraid

of poking an eye out by using contacts.

He doesn’t even try to look cool, or match.

He is, in fact, the worst Dominican:

doesn’t dance, his eyebrows connect slightly,

he rarely gets a shape-up, and he’d rather read

than watch baseball. And he hates to fight.

Didn’t even wrestle with me when we were little.

I’ve gotten into too many shove matches

trying to make sure Twin walked away

with his anime collection.

My brother ain’t no stereotype, that’s for sure.

Twin is a genius.

Full sentences at eight months old,

straight As since pre-K,

science experiments and scholarships

to space camp since fifth.

This also means we haven’t been

in the same grade since we were really little,

and then he got into a specialized high school,

so his book smarts meant

I couldn’t even copy his homework.

He is an award-winning bound book,

where I am loose and blank pages.

And since he came first, it’s his fault.

And I’m sticking to that.

He has no twin intuition!

He doesn’t get sympathy pains.

He doesn’t ever randomly know

that I had a bad day or that I need help.

In fact, he rarely lifts his eyes from the

page of a Japanese comic or the computer screen

long enough to know that I’m here at all.

Because although speaking to him

is like talking to a scatterbrained saint,

every now and then, he’ll say, in barely a mumble,

something that shocks the shit out of me.

Today he looks up from his textbook and blinks.

“Xiomara, you look different.

Like something inside of you has shifted.”

I stop breathing for a moment.

Is my body marked by my afternoon with Aman?

Will Mami see him on me?

I look at Twin, the puzzled smile on his face;

I want to tell him he looks different, too—

maybe the whole world looks different

just because I brushed thighs with a boy.

But before I get the words out

Twin opens his big-ass mouth:

“Or maybe it’s just your menstrual cycle?

It always makes you look a little bloated.”

I toss a pillow at his head and laugh.

“Only you, Twin. Only you.”

Sunday, September 23

Aman and I exchanged numbers to talk about lab work

but when I leave Mass I’m surprised to see

he’s messaged me.

A: So what did you think of the Kendrick?

And because Mami is angry-whispering

at me for sitting out the sacrament again

(I’ll do another bid of Mass all week if I have to),

I cage my squeal behind my teeth.

I type a quick response:

X: It was cool. We should listen to something else next time.

And his response is almost immediate:

A: Word.

Every time I think about Aman

poems build inside me

like I’ve been gifted a box of metaphor Legos

that I stack and stack and stack.

I keep waiting for someone to knock them over.

But no one at home cares about my scribbling.

Twin: oblivious—although happier than he usually looks.

Mami: thinking I’m doing homework.

Papi: ignoring me as usual . . . aka being Papi.

Me: writing pages and pages about a boy

and reciting them to myself like a song, like a prayer.

Monday, September 24

In school things feel so different.

Ms. Galiano asks me about the Spoken Word Poetry Club,

and I try to pretend I forgot about it.

But I think she can tell by my face

or my shrug that I’ve been secretly practicing.

That I spend more time writing poems

or watching performance videos on YouTube

than I do on her assignments.

At lunch, I sit with the same group I sat with last year,

a table full of girls that want to be left alone.

I find comfort in apples and my journal,

as the other girls read books over their lunch trays,

or draw manga, or silently text boyfriends.

Sharing space, but not words.

In bio, when I lower my ass into the seat

next to Aman, I wonder if I should sit slower,

or faster, if I should write neater,

or run a fingertip across his knuckles

when Mr. Bildner isn’t looking.

Instead Aman and I pass notes on scrap paper

talking about our days, our parents,

our favorite movies and songs,

and the next time we’ll go to the smoke park.

If my body was a Country Club soda bottle,

it’s one that has been shaken and dropped

and at any moment it’s gonna pop open

and surprise the whole damn world.

A: You ever messed with anyone in school?

X: Nah, never really be into anyone.

A: We not cute enough for you?

X: Nope. Ya ain’t.

A: Damn. Shit on my whole life!

X: You just want me to say you cute.

A: Do you think I am?

X: I’m still deciding ☺

Tuesday, September 25

I wanted to tell her that if Aman were a poem

he’d be written slumped across the page,

sharp lines, and a witty punch line

written on a bodega brown paper bag.

His hands, writing gently on our lab reports,

turned into imagery,

his smile the sweetest unclichéd simile.

He is not elegant enough for a sonnet,

too well-thought-out for a free write,

taking too much space in my thoughts

to ever be a haiku.

“Mira, muchacha,”—

(I’m not sure if your eyes

can roll so hard in your head

that a stranger could use them

as a pair of dice, but if they can

someone just bad lucked on snake eyes)—

“when I was waiting for you

I saw you whispering to Caridad

in the middle of your class.

Do not let yourself get distracted

so that you lead yourself and others

from la palabra de dios.”

And although the night has cooled down

the fading summer heat,

sweat breaks out on my forehead,

my tongue feels swollen,

dry and heavy with all I can’t say.

Xiomara,
Although you say you’re only “dressing your thoughts in poems,” I’ve found several of your assignments quite poetic. I wonder why you don’t consider yourself a poet?
I love that your brother gave you a notebook you still use. You really should come to the poetry club. I have a feeling you’d get a lot out of it.
—G

And their words are like the catch of a gas stove,

the click, click while you’re waiting

for it to light up and then flame big and blue. . . .

That’s what happens when I read Ms. Galiano’s note.

A bright light lit up inside me.

But now I crumple up the note and assignment

and throw them out in the cafeteria trash can.

Because every day the idea of poetry club is like Eve’s apple:

something you can want but can’t have.

Friday, September 28

Today when Aman and I sit on the bench

I wait for him to pass me his headphones,

but he plays with my fingers instead.

“No music today, X.

Instead I want to hear you.

Read me something.”

And I instantly freeze.

Because I never, never read my work.

But Aman just sits patiently.

And with my heart thumping

I pull my notebook out.

“You better not laugh.”

But he just leans back and closes his eyes.

And so I read to him.

Quietly. A poem about Papi.

My heart pumps hard in my chest,

and the page trembles when I turn it,

and I rush through all the words.

And when I’m done I can’t look at Aman.

I feel as naked as if I’d undressed before him.

But he just keeps fiddling with my fingers.

“Makes me think of my mother being gone.

You got bars, X. I’m down to listen to them anytime.”

Aman and I don’t really talk about our families like that.

I know the rules. You don’t ask about people’s parents.

Most folks got only one person at home,

and that person isn’t even always the egg or the sperm donor.

But I feel like I said too much and too little about Papi.

And now I want to know more about Aman’s family.

“Can you tell me about your moms? Why is she gone?”

His mouth looks zipped-up silent.

We are quiet for a while and there’s no noise to cover my shiver.

Even lost in his thoughts, Aman notices,

tucks my hand clasped with his inside his jacket pocket.

I’m glad the cold breeze is a good excuse

for why my cheeks go pink. He finally looks at me.

His eyes trying to read something in my face.

I don’t expect him to ever answer.

“My moms was a beautiful woman.

She and Pops married when they were teens.

He came here first, then sent for us.

I was old enough when I came here

that I can remember Trinidad:

the palm tree behind my grandma’s house,

the taste of backyard mangoes,

the song in the voice every time someone spoke.

I was young enough to learn how my accent

could be rolled tight between my lips

until this country smoked it out

into that clipped ‘good-accented English.’

My mother never came, you know.

She would call every day at first

and always tell me the same thing,

she ‘was handling affairs.’ ‘We’ll be together soon.’

She calls every year on my birthday.

I’ve stopped asking her when she’s coming.

Pops and I get on just fine.

I’ve learned not to be angry.

Sometimes the best way to love someone

is to let them go.”

Aman and I walk from our park

but instead of walking straight to the train

we skip the station, then the next.

We are silent the whole walk.

Without words we are in agreement

that we’ll walk as far as we can this way:

my hand      held      in his      held

in his coat pocket. Each of us keeping

the other warm against the quiet chill.

Tuesday, October 9

Pass by like an express train

and before I know it,

October has cooled the air,

and we’re all pressed into

hoodies and jackets.

I try to avoid Ms. Galiano,

who always reminds me

I’m more than welcome

to join poetry club.

Aman and I don’t share

a lunch period but we walk together

to the train after school,

listening to music or just enjoying the quiet.

I think we both want to do more,

but I’m still too shy and he’s still too . . . Aman.

Which means he never presses too hard

and I have to wonder if he’s being respectful

or isn’t feeling me like that.

But he wouldn’t be hanging out with me so much

if he wasn’t feeling me, right?

And although I still want to stay seated during Communion,

I get up every time, put the wafer in my mouth

then slip it beneath the pew.

My hands shaking less and less every time I do.

The hardest thing has been Tuesdays.

I sit in confirmation class

knowing I could be in poetry club instead,

or writing, or doing anything other

than trying to unhear everything Father Sean says.

And I do a good job of pretending.

At least until the day

I open my usually silent mouth

and decide to ask Father Sean

about Eve.

Father Sean explains,

could have made a better choice.

Her story is a parable

to teach us how to deal with temptation.

Resist the apple.

And for some reason,

either because of what I’m learning

in school and in real life,

I think it all just seems like bullshit.

So I say so. Out loud. To Father Sean.

Next to me Caridad goes completely still.

“God made the Earth in seven days?

Including humans, right?

But in biology we learned

dinosaurs existed on Earth

for millions of years

before other species . . .

unless the seven days is a metaphor?

But what about humans evolving

from apes? Unless Adam’s creation

was a metaphor, too?

And about this apple,

how come God didn’t explain

why they couldn’t eat it?

He gave Eve curiosity

but didn’t expect her to use it?

Unless the apple is a metaphor?

Is the whole Bible a poem?

What’s not a metaphor?

Did any of it actually happen?”

I catch my breath. Look around the room.

Caridad is bright red.

The younger kids are silent,

watching like it’s a WWE match.

And Father Sean’s face has turned

hard as the marble altar.

“Why don’t you and I talk

after class, Xiomara?”

C: Xiomara, if Father Sean says something to your moms
it’s going to be a hot mess—

X: So what? Aren’t we supposed to be curious
about the things that we’re told?

C: Listen. Don’t come at me like that, Xiomara.
I’m just trying to help you.

X: I know, I know. But . . . they were just questions.
Aren’t priests obligated to confidentiality?

C: That wasn’t a confession, Xiomara.

X doesn’t say: Wasn’t it?

Tells me

I seem distracted in confirmation class.

Tells me

perhaps there is something I’d like to discuss besides Eve.

Tells me

it’s normal to be curious about the world.

Tells me

Catholicism invites curiosity.

Tells me

I should find solace in a forgiving religion.

Tells me

the church is here for me if I need it.

Tells me

maybe I should have a conversation with my mother.

Tells me

open and honest dialogue is good for growth.

Tells me

a lot of things but none of them an answer to anything I asked.

After Father Sean’s lecture, he seems to expect answers from me.

I stare at the picture behind his desk.

It’s him in a boxing ring holding a pair of gold gloves.

“You still fight, Father Sean?”

He cocks his head at me, and his lips quirk up a bit.

“Every now and then I get into a ring to stay in shape.

I definitely don’t fight as much as I used to.

Not every fight can be fought with gloves, Xiomara.”

I stand. I tell Father Sean I won’t ask about Eve again.

I leave church before he asks me something I can’t answer.

And that’s how Xiomara,

bare-knuckled, fought the world

into calling her correctly by her name,

into not expecting her to be a saint,

into respecting her as a whole grown-ass woman.

She knew since she was little,

the world would not sing her triumphs,

but she took all of the stereotypes

and put them in a chokehold

until they breathed out the truth.

Xiomara may be remembered

as a lot of things: a student,

a miracle, a protective sister,

a misunderstood daughter,

but most importantly,

she should be remembered

as always working to become

the warrior she wanted to be.

Xiomara Batista

Monday, October 15

Ms. Galiano

Last Paragraphs of My Biography, Final Draft

Xiomara’s accomplishments amounted to several key achievements. She was a writer who went on to create a nonprofit organization for first-generation teenage girls. Her center helped young women explain to their parents why they should be allowed to date, and go away for college, and move out when they turned eighteen . . . also, how to discover what they wanted to do in life. It was an organization that helped thousands of young women, and although they never built a statue outside the center (she would have hated that) they did hang a super-blown-up selfie of her in the main office.
Since her parents were distraught that the neighborhood had changed, that there were no more Latino families and the bodegas and sastrería were all closed down, Xiomara used her earnings to buy them a house in the Dominican Republic. Although she was never married and didn’t have children, Xiomara was happy with a big pit bull and a brownstone in Harlem not too far from the neighborhood where she was raised. Her twin brother lived down the street.

In bio

Aman’s hand has started

finding mine inside the desk.

I hope I don’t sweat

as his finger fiddles

across my palm.

I wonder if he’s nervous

like me. If he’s frontin’

like me.

Pretending I’ve played

with someone’s hand,

and done even more.

And even though

I’ve dreamt about him before,

there’s something different

about touching a guy

in real life. In the flesh.

Inside a classroom. More than once.

His hand lighting a match

inside my body.

In bed at night

my fingers search

a heat I have no name for.

Sliding into a center,

finding a hidden core,

or stem, or maybe         the root.

I’m learning how to caress

and breathe at the same time.

How to be silent

and feel something grow

inside me.

And when it all builds up,

I sink into my mattress.

I feel such a release. Such a relief.

I feel such a shame

settle like a blanket

covering me head to toe.

To make myself feel this way

is a dirty thing, right?

Then why does it feel so good?

Tuesday, October 16

“So you go to church a lot, right?”

Aman asks as we walk to the train.

And any words I have

suicide-jump off my tongue.

Because this is it.

Either he’s going to think

I’m a freak of the church

who’s too holy to do anything,

or he’s going to think I’m

a church freak trying to get it on

with the first boy who tries.

“X?”

And I try to focus on that,

how much I love this new nickname.

How it’s such a small letter

but still fits all of me.

“Xiomara?”

I finally turn to look at him.

“Yeah. My moms is big into church

and I go with her and to confirmation classes.”

“So your moms is big into the church,

but you, what are you big into?”

And I let loose the breath that I was holding.

And before I know I’m going to say them

the words have already escaped my mouth.

“You already know I’m into poetry.”

And he nods. Looks at me and seems to decide something.

“So what’s your stage name, Xiomara?”

And I’m so glad he’s changed the subject.

That I answer before I think:

“I’m just a writer . . . but maybe I’d be the Poet X.”

He smiles. “I think that fits you perfectly.”

In science we learned

that thermal conductivity

is how heat flows through

some materials better than others.

But who knew words,

when said by the right person,

by a boy who raises your temperature,

move heat like nothing else?

Shoot a shock of warmth

from your curls to your toes?

Twin doesn’t ask who I’m texting

so late into the night that the glow

of my phone is the only light

in the whole apartment.

And I don’t offer to tell him

or to hide my texting

beneath my blanket.

I’ve never been superfriendly,

and Caridad is the only person

we really talk to, unless I’m working

on a class project or something.

But now I have Aman,

sweet and patient Aman,

who sends me Drake lyrics

that he says remind him of me

and asks me to whisper him poems in return.

Who never grows tired of my writing

and always asks for one more.

Twin doesn’t ask who I’m texting.

Though I know he’s wondering

because I’m wondering who he’s been texting, too.

The reason why he’s smiling more now.

And giggles in the dark,

the glow of his phone letting me know

we both have secrets to keep.

Twin is singing underneath his breath

as he pours milk into his cereal.

I watch him as I sip on a cup of coffee.

He slices up an apple and gives me half.

He knows they’re my favorite,

but I’m surprised he’s being so thoughtful.

“Twin, you been smiling more lately.

This person got a name?”

And my words make the smile

slip and slide right off his face.

He shakes his head at me,

pushes his cereal away.

He plays with the tablecloth.

“Is that why you been smiling so much?”

And to cover my blush,

I gulp down the last of my coffee.

“I’m just happy; you know what we should plan?

Our scary movie date for Halloween. You and me.”

And we both say at the same time:

“And Caridad.”

C: Girl, this angry cat meme reminded me of you.

X: Smh. Ur dumb. I was just about to text you.

Scary movie Halloween date?

C: Duh! How you doing? How’s that boy you feeling?

X: I’m good . . . He’s fine.

C: Why “. . .”?

X: I know you don’t approve.

C: Xio, I just don’t want you getting in trouble.

But I like seeing you happy . . . Like this happy cat meme!

Friday, October 19

The smoke park is empty again.

And I’m so glad we finally

have another half day.

The afternoon stretches before us.

No Mami to call me. She’s still at work.

Twin’s genius school runs on a different schedule.

Caridad never texts during class.

It’s just me and Aman

and his hand brushing my cheek

to insert an earbud.

“You ever smoked a blunt?”

I shake my head.

“Word. Drake is better when you lit.

But we can listen to him anyways.”

And so I shut my eyes,

pressing my shoulder closer to his

as he settles his iPhone between us,

as he settles his hand on my thigh.

for A

Placing my head in the crook of your neck

makes me happy         to be alive.

Eyes closed         hands clasped.

Don’t breathe            and maybe

we will live    like this forever.

It be gibberish            but everything

you whisper            sounds like poetry.

I            missed            you.

This was supposed to be a question.

Not a poem         confession         or whatever it’s become.

I just wanted             to know if            you would listen

with me            to the sound            of our heartbeats.

 

Contents Continue ➔