The Poet X
by Elizabeth Acevedo

Tuesday, October 23

The day that becomes THE DAY

starts real regular. Same schedule,

and nothing changed ’til last-period bio.

It’s the first Tuesday

since “the Eve episode”

and with thirty minutes left of school

a fire alarm goes off.

Mr. Bildner sighs and stops the PowerPoint

that was showing us how Darwin

figured out finches.

Aman squeezes my hand beneath the desk

and stands. Slings his bag across his shoulders

(he never puts it in his locker).

Before I know what I’m saying

the words skip like small rocks out my mouth:

“We should go to the park.”

They sink in silence. He cocks his head.

“You know Bildner’s going to take attendance

if this is a false alarm?”

The class lines up to exit

and as we scrunch together

my ass bumps Aman’s front.

I don’t move away.

I whisper over my shoulder,

“We should still go.”

Aman’s finger pulls on one of my curls.

“I didn’t know you liked Drake enough

to get caught cutting.”

I lean back against him,

feel his body pressed against mine.

“Drake isn’t the one that I like.”

We are side by side

sitting on our park bench.

Aman slides his arm around my shoulder

and pulls me closer to him.

Today there are no headphones,

no music, just us.

He brushes his lips across my forehead

and I shiver from something other than cold.

His fingers tip up my chin;

my hands instantly get sweaty and I can’t look at him

so I stare at his eyebrows: cleanly arched,

no stray hairs, prettier than any girl’s,

and I lean in trying to figure out

if he waxes or threads.

Then he’s leaning in too and I know

I have one moment to make a decision.

So I press my lips to his.

His mouth is soft against mine.

Gently, he bites my bottom lip.

And then his tongue slides in my mouth.

It’s messier than I thought it’d be.

He must notice, because

his tongue slows down.

And my heart is one of Darwin’s finches learning to fly.

As much as boys and men

have told me all of the things

they would like to do to my body,

this is the first time I’ve actually wanted

some of those things done.

My train pulls slowly into the station

so I take my hand out of Aman’s.

He looks at me with a question on his face

and I can feel the heat creep up my cheeks.

He’s asking me something

but I can’t hear a word he’s saying

because I keep getting distracted by his lips

and the fact that I now know how they taste.

“X, did you hear me?

I’ll text you later. Maybe we can go out this weekend?

To Reuben’s Halloween party?”

I hop off the train without giving him an answer,

without waving at him through the window.

With too many things to say and nothing to say at all.

I can’t date.

I can’t be seen on my block with boys.

I can’t have a boy call my cell phone.

I can’t hold hands with a boy.

I can’t go to his house.

I can’t invite him to mine.

I can’t hang out with him and his friends.

I can’t go to the movies with any boy other than Twin.

I can’t go to teen night at the club.

I can’t have a boyfriend.

I can’t fall in love.

Whenever we text late at night

I avoid mentioning making plans.

I tell him “I just want to live in the moment.”

Because I don’t want to tell him all the things I can’t do.

But I also shouldn’t kiss a boy in the smoke park . . .

and yet, I did that, too.

Later, when I walk into confirmation class

I know I’m wearing Aman’s kiss

like a bright red sweater.

Anyone who looks at me

will know I know what it means to want.

In that way. Because I didn’t want to stop kissing.

And we didn’t.

Until his hands moved under

my shirt and I jumped at the chill.

Maybe I jumped at something else.

Guilt? How fast we’re moving?

I don’t know, but I knew it was time to stop.

But I didn’t want to.

I mean, I guess I did.

It’s confusing         to know

you shouldn’t be doing something,

that it might go too far,

but still wanting to do it anyway.

I don’t whisper with Caridad,

or make eye contact with anyone,

or question Father Sean,

or look at the cross

bearing an all-knowing God who, if he exists,

saw everything, everything

that happened in the smoke park.

And how much I enjoyed it.

Okay. I know. It’s not that deep to kiss a guy.

It’s just a kiss, some tongue, little kids kiss all the time,

probably not with tongue (that’d be weird).

Boys have wanted to kiss me

since I was eleven, and back then I didn’t want to kiss them.

And then it was grown-ass boys, or legit men,

giving me sneaky looks, and Mami told me I’d have to pray extra

so my body didn’t get me into trouble.

And I knew then what I’d known since my period came:

my body was trouble. I had to pray the trouble out

of the body God gave me. My body was a problem.

And I didn’t want any of these boys to be the ones to solve it.

I wanted to forget I had this body at all.

So when everyone in middle school was playing truth or dare,

or whatever other excuse to get their first kiss,

I was hiding in big sweaters, I was hiding in hard silence,

trying to turn this body into an invisible equation.

Until now. Now I want Aman to balance my sides,

to leave his fingerprints all over me. To show all his work.

Father Sean asks me if things are going well?

And for a second, I think he knows about the kiss.

That through some divine premonition

or psychic ability . . . he knows.

But then I see him glance at the altar

at the covered chalice full of wine,

the plate holding the soft circles of the body of Christ.

I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine. I don’t say.

I just shrug. And look anywhere else.

“We all doubt ourselves sometimes,” he tells me.

I look him straight in the eye: “Even you?”

He gives me a small smile that makes him look younger. . . .

You ever look at someone that you’ve known

your whole life and it’s almost like their face

reconfigures itself right in front of your eyes?

Father Sean’s smile makes him look different

and I can imagine the young man he once was.

“Especially me. My whole life I wanted to be a boxer,

an athlete. I thought my body was my way out

of the terrible circumstances I lived in—instead

it was the body of Christ that got me out,

but sometimes I miss my island. My family.

My mother died and I didn’t get there in time to say good-bye.

We all doubt ourselves and our path sometimes.”

I want to say I’m sorry, to bring back the young Father Sean smile

but instead I merely nod.

Some things don’t need words.

“Twin, you know Father Sean’s mom died?”

Twin looks up distracted from his phone,

where his fingers have been rapidly texting.

I try to read over his shoulder but he flips

it screen-down on the desk.

“Yeah, she died three summers ago.

Why you bringing that up?”

And I don’t know how I didn’t know.

How I didn’t notice Father Sean gone,

or notice the person who took over his sermons.

Have I been checked out of church for that long?

I don’t ask Twin any of these questions.

He’s already back on his phone.

“Who you been texting so much lately?”

The question shoulders past my lips

and I stop with one of my headphones

halfway into my ear.

Twin has never kept secrets from me.

His thumbs go still on his phone.

And he gives me a long, long look.

“Xiomara, we don’t have to do this, right?

Maybe with everyone else we need to explain.

But we both know we’re messing around

and that Mami and Papi will kill us if they find out.”

And I want to nod my head, and shake it no at the same time.

Our parents always say that as la niña de la casa

expectations for me are different than for Twin.

If he brought a girl home they would probably applaud him.

I don’t know what they would do

if the person he brought home was not a girl.

The next couple of days,

I wait for Aman

to bring up the Halloween party.

But he holds my hand in bio,

walks me to the train in the afternoons,

kisses me good-bye before I exit to the platform,

and doesn’t mention the party again.

Maybe he doesn’t want me to go anymore?

Friday, October 26

Is usually my favorite day of the week.

But this morning I got a text from Aman

that flavored my whole day sour:

A: Got a doc appointment.

Not coming to school.

See ya at the party?

And I know it’s going to be

a long two days between

now and when I’ll see him again.

Unless I figure out a way . . .

What kind of twin am I

who didn’t even notice

when my own brother

comes home with a black eye?

I mean I noticed, but not until

I heard Mami yelling at him tonight

while he was getting

something from the fridge.

“¿Y eso, muchacho? ¿Quién te pegó?

¿No me digas que fue Xiomara?”

But I’m already halfway to the kitchen,

then pulling his chin from her grip,

inspecting his eye myself.

I don’t say a word to him

and Twin’s face flinches in my hand.

“No es nada. It’s nothing.

It was just a misunderstanding.”

And although he’s answering her,

his eyes are pleading with me.

“Yeah, looks like some asshole

misunderstood your face

for a punching bag.”

Mami looks back and forth between us,

probably only catching

every other word of the English,

but even she knows          when it’s a twin thing.

I’m so heated

with Twin

for not telling me

someone at school

was bothering him

that I stop speaking.

It’s a silent Friday.

On Saturday

I wake up

with a different feeling

tightening my belly.

I want to go to the party.

I want to see Aman.

The boys in my life

will drive me crazy

one way or another.

Saturday, October 27

X: Hey, so, would you be really mad

if I didn’t go with you and Twin to the movies—

C: Is this about the boy?

X: Kinda . . . I’m telling my mother I’m hanging out with you.
I’ll be home at the same time as you both.

C: Is he making you lie to your mother?

X: He’s not making me do anything. Except meet him at a party.

C: Be safe, Xio. . . . Your brother’s been acting strange lately.
Are you sure he’s coming to the movies?

X: Yeah . . . he has a lot going on. Don’t ask about his black eye.
But he’ll be there.

C: Black eye? Did you hit him, Xiomara?

X: Why does everyone keep asking that? No!
But I’m going to hit the dude who did.

C: Don’t make it any worse.
You know your brother hates confrontation.

X: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thanks for not being mad at me.

C: Just don’t get pregnant. I’m too young to be a godmother.

I leave with Twin to “the movies”

although we go in different directions

once we get to the corner.

He walks toward Caridad’s house,

and I walk to the train station

on my way up to the Heights.

A block away from Reuben’s house

I sneak into a Starbucks bathroom

and put on green eye shadow, fluff my curls.

Tug on the hem of Twin’s Green Lantern tee

(it fits tight around my boobs and shows some midriff.

I’m glad Mami didn’t ask to see what I had on under my jacket.)

and voilà—a half-assed superhero costume.

When I get to the address in Washington Heights

I know I’m too early.

There are only a handful of people there,

who, like me, made bootleg attempts at a costume.

I see a couple of people I know from school,

but no one I would hang out with.

This is a party crowd: the loudest, the boldest,

the ones who smoke during the school day,

and drink their parents’ mamajuana on the weekend.

Someone hands me a cup of fruity drink

but I put it down on the TV stand, lean against the wall.

I don’t look at the clock blinking from the DVD player;

I don’t look at my phone.

I’ve got an alarm set so I know when to leave.

For now I just listen to the noise, to the music,

ignore the stares of a group of boys by the speakers.

When someone brushes my hand I brace myself, tighten my jaw,

but when I turn it’s Aman. Playing with my fingers, smiling.

“I didn’t think you were going to make it.

Do you want something to drink?”

I shake my head no. And take in his outfit. He went all out.

Face painted green, waves spinning, T-shirt stuffed with something,

all his lean self trying to look like the Hulk.

I can’t hold my laughter and he only smiles wider.

“We are meant to be,” he whispers.

“We both chose green superheroes.”

Someone lowers the lights.

Aman tugs on my hand. “Dance with me?”

When Aman asks, my heart starts thumping.

Because this isn’t bachata or merengue or something

with coordinated steps and distance.

This song is the kind you get close for.

I push off the wall and Aman shifts in front of me,

his hands holding my hips.

I close my eyes and wipe my sweaty palms

on the back of his shirt; we’re pressed against each other,

swaying, his mouth near my neck.

The shoulder pads under his costume

give me something to hold on to,

and I’m glad we have at least the padding between us.

Then his leg is between mine

and we’re dancing exactly the way people do

in music videos.

Like if they weren’t wearing clothes

they’d be . . . you know.

I can feel all of him. Not as scrawny as I thought.

When the song is over,

another reggae one comes on and Aman

rotates so now he’s behind me.

His body grinds against mine,

and it feels so good.

I push away from him.

“I need some air.”

Outside of Reuben’s building,

the Heights is on fire.

People dressed in all kinds of costumes,

laughing, and yelling, and singing,

you would think it was morning and not 9:30 p.m.

Aman holds my hand in his

but every time I look at him

I’m afraid my cheeks will burst

bright red, so I don’t.

And then he drops the bomb:

“I don’t live too far from here.”

And I don’t know if he means

he wants me to go to his house,

or if he’s just talking to talk.

“Isn’t your father home?”

I really hope his father’s home.

Aman shakes his head.

Tells me his father works tonight.

I pull my hand from his.

I can’t stop my fingers

from trembling.

I don’t have to fake when I tell him

I don’t feel great.

That I should get home

and make tea or something.

I get up to leave, but before I do,

Aman tugs at my hand:

“Read me a poem, X?

I want to remember your voice

when I think about tonight.”

And then he’s grinning again

and pulls me down beside him.

X: I’m on my way home.

C: Good, because Xavier and I been standing on the corner forever.

X: Thanks again. I know you hate lying.

C: Yeah. It better have been worth it.
Was it worth it?

X: It was . . . a lot. I have a lot of feelings. But it was fine.

C: ???

X: It just can’t last. Something is gonna go wrong.
I’m not allowed to be happy while breaking all rules.

C: Maybe you shouldn’t break them?

X: Oh, Caridad. I can’t wait until you like someone. . . .
I’ll make sure to send you all these wise-ass texts, too.

C: Girl, bye. With your hotheaded self?
You’ll never be wise as me ☺.

Sunday, October 28

I spent the entire Mass thinking about Aman.

And I can tell Mami is going to lecture me

for not paying any attention.

But thank goodness, as we are leaving church,

Caridad tugs on my hand.

“Señora Batista, is it okay

if Xiomara comes and braids my hair?”

I can tell Mami wants to chew me out

but she can never say no to Caridad.

At her house, Caridad sits between my legs,

and I run the comb through her long thick hair.

I learned to braid when Mami

didn’t have time to do mine anymore.

“Two long braids? I can make you look

like Cardi B for Halloween.”

I love the reality TV star, but she’s everything Caridad isn’t.

Caridad gives me a smirk and nods her head.

“Sure. I’ll put on old episodes of Love & Hip Hop

so you can feel inspired.”

Even after I’m done braiding, we sit and watch two more episodes.

Maybe, the only thing that has to make sense

about being somebody’s friend

is that you help them be their best self

on any given day. That you give them a home

when they don’t want to be in their own.

At least I have a feeling if I asked, that’s exactly

what Caridad would say.

Tomorrow is going to be a long-ass day.

But here and now, it’s okay.

Monday, October 29

On Monday afternoon,

I lean against the gate of Twin’s genius school.

When Aman asked why I was taking a train downtown

I kissed it off, but I’m sure he’ll bring it up later.

So much happened this weekend,

but still I prepared myself for what I knew

I would have to do this afternoon.

Twin gets out an hour later than I do,

and as the kids start filing out after the bell

I spot Twin shuffling my way, but he’s not alone.

He’s with a tall, red-haired boy,

with fingers the color of milk

that brush lint off my brother’s sweater softly

the way Aman sometimes squeezes my hand.

Xavier.

Twin’s name never leaves my lips

but somehow he hears me think it.

His head pops in my direction

like a bobble-head doll.

He stumbles back from the white boy so fast

he almost trips on his shoes.

I look between them, confirming what I’ve always known.

Twin rushes my way and speaks into my ear.

“Xiomara, what are you doing here?”

And I don’t need to tell him

I came to knock my knuckles into someone’s face.

To redeem his black eye.

To let them know Twin isn’t alone.

“You shouldn’t have come to my school.

I don’t need you to fight for me anymore.”

There is a balloon where my heart used to be

and it whooshes air out at the prick of his words.

I look at the boy who gazes at Twin

with love all over his face.

“Leave it alone, Xiomara,”

I think Twin says. But it sounds more like:

“Leave me alone.”

I’m not stupid, you know.

I know I’m not gonna be thirty

fighting grown-ass men.

I know I’m not always going to be

bigger and meaner than the boys

in my grade. I know one day,

they’ll be stronger and hit back harder.

I know I won’t always intimidate girls

with my height, with my hard hands.

I know I won’t be able to defend Twin

forever. But I thought when it happened

it would be because he would fight for himself,

not just find someone else to protect him.

On the train ride home

Twin steps into his feelings

like they’re a gated-off room

I don’t have visitation rights to.

He spends the entire time

playing chess on his phone.

“Twin. I know you’ve probably felt this way

your whole entire life but

if Mami and Papi find out about White Boy

they will legit kill you.”

His fingers move a rook across the screen,

attacking some imaginary opponent.

“Cody. Not White Boy.

And I know what Mami and Papi will say.

What you’re going to say, too.”

But I don’t even know what I’m going to say.

I only know I’ve always wanted to keep him safe,

but this makes him a target

and I can’t defend against the arrows I know are coming.

I’ve always known.

Without knowing.

That Twin was.

We never said.

I think he was scared.

I think I was, too.

He’s Mami’s miracle.

He would become her sin.

I guess I hoped.

If I didn’t ever really know.

It would be like he wasn’t.

But maybe my silence.

Just made him feel more alone.

Maybe my silence.

Condones the ugly things people think.

All that I know.

Is that I don’t know

how to move forward

from this.

A part of myself rebels against the discord.

It might sound dumb, and not all twins are like us,

but when he’s angry it throws me off.

I can’t think of anything but him being upset

and I’m afraid anything I say will make him angrier.

I don’t even know what I did wrong.

I’ve been fighting dudes for Twin my whole life.

Why did he think I wouldn’t show up at his school?

Not even Aman’s emoji smiley faces

and links to Ja Rule’s old romantic rap videos

are enough to make me feel better.

When I was little

Mami was my hero.

Because she barely spoke English

and wasn’t born here,

but she didn’t let that stop her

from defending herself

if she got cut in line at the grocery store,

or from fighting to get Twin into a genius school.

Because I’ve never seen her

ask my father for money

or complain about her job.

Because her hands will be scraped raw from work

but she still folds them to pray.

When I was little

Mami was my hero.

But then I grew breasts

and although she was always extra hard on me,

her attention became something else,

like she wanted to turn me

into the nun

she could never be.

Xiomara Batista

Tuesday, November 6

Ms. Galiano

Describe Someone Misunderstood by Society, Final Draft

I’ve always found Nicki Minaj compelling. Although she gets a bad reputation for being “overly sexual” and making songs like “Anaconda,” I think the persona she portrays in her videos is really different from who she is in real life. So, the question should be, “Does society distinguish between who someone actually is and the alter ego they present to the public?” For example, Ms. Minaj may have lyrics that some people feel are a bad influence, but then she’s always tweeting people to stay in school.
I also think society puts a negative spin on her music by saying she’s allowing men to dictate how she raps, but a lot of her music shows a positive outlook on physical beauty. She is well developed and people always have a lot of negative things to say about her because of her body and how she talks about it and sex, but instead of being ashamed or writing something different, she celebrates her curves and what she wants.
And all that is besides the fact that she also GOT BARS . . . by which I mean to say, she is very artistically talented! She’s not just a great “female rapper,” she’s a great rapper, period. Ms. Minaj has held her own on tracks with some of the best rappers in the world. She is a woman in a male-dominated world making albums that go platinum. I know she’s not considered most women’s role model like Eleanor Roosevelt or Mother Teresa, or even Beyoncé, but I think she stands for girls who don’t fit into society’s cookie-cutter mold. Misunderstood? Perhaps by some. But those of us who can relate, we get her.

Wednesday, November 7

At the end of class Ms. Galiano

brings in a student from her poetry club.

He’s a Puerto Rican kid I’ve seen around,

with glasses and a kind smile.

He says his name is Chris,

and he invites us to join the club.

Then he does a short poem

using his hands and his volume to grab our attention.

Ms. Galiano looks on like a proud mama bear,

and the class gives him halfhearted claps, and a dap or two.

Chris hands out flyers for the citywide slam

and personally invites everyone to come to a poetry club meeting.

The slam is three months away.

February 8.

Ms. Galiano says it’s open to the public.

And even if we don’t sign up

we should attend and support Chris, and our peers.

And I feel my face get hot.

I should be there.

I could compete.

When I was little, Mami would take Twin and me

ice-skating every year for our birthday, January 8.

She would work the holidays to make sure

she had the afternoon off. I always think of ice-skating as a gift.

And although Twin is super uncoordinated,

and I’ve always been a tank in tights,

we were real good at skating.

It was one thing we both did right.

We took to the ice, falling only a few times

before we streamed easily in the circular rink.

Mami would post up behind the glass,

never rented skates herself.

Just watched us turn in circle after circle.

This was a tradition for years.

Until one day it just wasn’t.

Until Twin and I stopped asking.

Until I forgot what it felt like to slice through the cold,

maybe like a knife, but mostly like a girl,

skating with her arms out, laughing with her brother

while her mother took pictures in the falling snow.

I completely forgot about the skating adventures

we used to go on until Aman asks me to go skating.

I tell him I have to be home straight after school,

and half days won’t give us enough time.

“What about tomorrow, no school since teachers are grading exams.”

And I’m stuck. It is a day off

and one when Mami will be at work

so it’s not like she’ll know I’m not home.

I begin to shake my head,

and then I remember how free I felt on the ice,

how wonderful it was.

And I know I want Aman to see me feeling all that.

Turns out, Aman loves winter sports.

It’s the last thing I would have imagined,

but he names professional snowboarders

and skiers, and figure skaters

in the same tone reserved for his favorite rappers.

“X, I’m serious. Even made Pops pay

for a special TV channel so I could keep up.”

At first I think he’s joking, but the way his eyes light up

I can tell this is really a passion of his.

Maybe like my writing. A secret thing he’s loved

that he never felt he could talk about.

He tells me that in Trinidad he was fascinated by snow.

And watching the Winter Olympics was the closest he could get.

And then that became a bigger love.

“X, I’m letting you know right now, I’m nice with the skates.

Prepare to fall in love tomorrow.”

And my heart stutters over the word.

How could I do anything but agree to the date?

 

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