Tuesday, December 18
I let everyone know I went to an open mic.
They seem amazed.
Ask me for details.
Tell me they want to go along
the next time I perform.
And I feel such a rush
at the way Isabelle grabs my hand and squeals.
The way Ms. Galiano smiles
like I did something to make her proud.
“How did you do?” Chris asks.
I shrug. “I didn’t suck.”
And everyone smiles,
because they know that means I killed it.
Ms. Galiano asks me to read her something new.
With five minutes between classes,
I know I need to pick the best and shortest pieces in advance.
But every day I pick a new poem and I have learned:
to slow down, to breathe, to pace myself, to show emotion.
The last day before winter break
Ms. Galiano tells me I’m really blossoming.
And I think about what it means
to be a closed bud, to become open.
And even though it’s cliché, it’s also perfect.
When I see Stephan in the hallway,
he reads me his latest haiku.
When I see Chris on my way to the train,
he always has a smile for me
and a “Wassup, X! Write anything new?”
And I know that I’m ready to slam.
That my poetry has become something I’m proud of.
The way the words say what I mean,
how they twist and turn language,
how they connect with people.
How they build community.
I finally know that all of those
“I’ll never, ever, ever”
stemmed from being afraid but not even they
can stop me. Not anymore.
Monday, December 24
My mother doesn’t buy a Christmas tree.
Instead she buys three big poinsettias
and sets them on a red tablecloth
on the living room windowsill.
Noche Buena, the Good Night,
has always been one of my favorite holidays.
On TV white families
always open gifts on Christmas Day,
but most Latinos celebrate the night before.
During the day Caridad comes over,
bringing her mother’s famous coquito
that’s laced with a little bit of rum.
We play video games with Twin
and exchange cards we made for each other.
Mami has always made Twin and me
go to the Midnight Mass to celebrate Baby Jesus
and when we get back we’ve been allowed to open gifts.
This year when we get home from church
I go straight to my room.
I know better than to expect anything.
I lie in bed, with Chance the Rapper in my ear,
when there’s a knock on the door.
I look, imagining it’s Twin trying to be respectful.
Except it’s not. Mami stands there.
With a small wrapped box in her hand.
She shuffles into the room, sets the gift on the desk,
and like she doesn’t know what to do with her hands
she picks up Twin’s sweater from the computer chair
and neatly refolds it.
When she sits, I sit up in bed, unsure of what to do.
But just as fast as she sits down she stands,
gestures to the gift, and walks to the door.
“I had it resized for you.
I know how much you like jewelry.”
I think before I open the box.
My mother doesn’t believe
in any other kind of jewelry.
But when I lift the lid,
I see a small gold plaque
with my name etched on it,
a thin gold chain making
the bracelet complete.
And I know I’ve seen
this plaque before.
When I turn it over
I remember where.
Inscribed on the inside
are two Spanish words:
Mi Hija.
This was my baby bracelet.
Mami must have kept it
all these years.
But why she resized it now
makes absolutely no sense.
I lay it across my wrist
and cinch the clasps closed.
Her daughter on one side,
myself on the other.
And I feel so many things
but mostly relief that it wasn’t a rosary.
Wednesday, December 26–Tuesday, January 1
The week after Christmas is the longest week of my life.
I write and I write and I read poems to Twin,
who is still in his feelings and refusing
to talk to me about Cody, but I see him texting Caridad,
who’s the most sympathetic of us all,
so probably a good decision.
I read the poems so often and edit so much
that I begin memorizing them by accident
until my head is full of words and stories,
until I’m practicing the poems in my dreams.
And the more I write the braver I become.
I write about Mami, about feeling like an ant,
about boys trying to always holler at me,
about Aman, about Twin. Sometimes I’m still awake
writing when Mami gets up at the ass crack of dawn
to go to work. So many words fill my notebook
and I can’t wait to share them all.
But still another week to go until poetry club.
Wednesday, January 2
Because of New Year’s,
we don’t start school again until Wednesday.
So I miss poetry club by just one day.
Although I’m disappointed,
the extra week gives me more time to write.
Isabelle and I share some poems during lunch.
And if I catch Stephan or Chris in the hallways,
we’ll joke or talk about a new piece.
With my birthday in a week,
I realize that this new year hasn’t started off so bad.
Tuesday, January 8
On our birthday Twin and I exchange gifts in the morning
right before we leave for school.
I got him an X-Men comic, issue 17.
Although it’s not his usual anime,
Twin tears up when he sees it.
Iceman, the main character in it,
is a super-dope gay mutant.
I hug him awkwardly, and before he pulls away:
“I don’t know if I told you.
But I’m on your side. Always.”
Twin gives me a tight hug
and hands me a wrapped package.
I break open the tape and see the leather cover.
It’s another notebook, so similar to my first.
“Ran out of gift ideas?” I tease.
He shakes his head and nods at my old notebook,
fat and falling apart on the kitchen table.
“No, and your old one is so full I know you haven’t either.”
We pack up and walk arm in arm to the train.
Today will be a good day.
Caridad has left me five voice mails singing “Happy Birthday.”
They’re ridiculous and her voice is horrible,
but I laugh every time. I’m sure she’s trying to get up
to sixteen by the end of the day.
When I go put away my bio textbook before lunch,
an envelope flutters to the ground.
Inside I find a printed-out receipt for two admission tickets
to an apple farm just north of the Bronx.
Only one person at this school knows
how much I love apples. Aman.
A laugh uncurls in my throat and stretches its way to my lips.
By the time poetry club comes around,
I’m walking on air before Stephan pulls me into the classroom,
Chris takes off his fitted and croons “Happy Birthday”—
the Stevie Wonder version.
Isabelle hands me a cupcake.
Ms. Galiano gives me a wink.
I think I will remember this birthday for the rest of my life.
When we start going around the room
to read our poems I reach into my bag.
I find the new journal Twin gave me,
but after searching and searching, I realize
I must have left my old one on the kitchen table.
For a moment I feel so anxious:
all those poems I wrote over break,
and I don’t even have one to share.
But I try from memory;
one of my favorites
rolls off my tongue
as if I planned it that way.
It feels so good to do a new poem.
And so good to listen
to Chris, Stephan, and Isabelle.
And when I finally look at the clock
I realize I’m running late to church.
At some point Mami will find out
I haven’t been going to confirmation classes.
Probably when the class is confirmed
and I don’t have an excuse for poetry club anymore.
But for now, I’m going to keep frontin’.
I just need to get to church before she’s waiting outside.
I grab my bag in a hurry,
leave with a quick wave, not my usual good-bye,
and zip my North Face up tight.
I grab my phone to shoot Caridad a text
and see I have two missed calls.
My mother’s voice mail
spears ice into my bones:
“Te estoy esperando en casa.”
Click.
I’m breathing hard by the time I get home.
I ran from the train and my face is flushed.
I glance at the kitchen table before hurrying
to my room—my notebook isn’t there.
Mami is sitting on the edge of my bed
with my journal cradled between her hands.
When she looks at me,
I feel blood rush from my cheeks.
I hear a baseball game in the living room,
but I know neither Papi nor Twin can save me.
My hands pulse to grab the book from her
but I don’t move from the doorway.
She speaks softly: “You think I don’t know
enough English to figure out you talk about boys
and church and me? To know all these terrible things you think?”
My mother has always seemed like a big woman
even though she’s so much smaller than I am.
This moment when she swells up and stands
I shrink in the eyes of her wrath.
“These thoughts you have, that you would write them,
for the people to read . . . without feeling guilt. Shame.
What kind of daughter of mine are you?”
She seems lost. As if I’ve yanked an anchor
from the only thing that’s kept her afloat.
She grabs the book in one hand
and it’s then that I notice the box of matches.
The box that’s always on the stove.
The one that’s sitting on my bed.
I don’t know what an asthma attack feels like.
But it has to be like this:
like claws reaching into your chest
and snatching sharply every bit of air—leaving you breathless
and wounded before you know what’s happened—
she’s lit the match.
I tell her.
That no one sees the words.
That they’re just my personal thoughts.
That it helps for me to write them down.
That they’re private.
That she wasn’t supposed to ever read my poems.
That I’m sorry.
That I’m sorry.
That I’m sorry.
And I’m digging my fingers into the doorframe.
It’s the only thing holding me up,
holding me back.
My anger wants to become a creature
with teeth and nails but I keep it collared
because this is my mother. And I am sorry.
That she found it, that I wrote it, that I ever thought
my thoughts were mine.
She holds the lit match up
to a corner of my notebook.
“Get a trash can, Xiomara.
I don’t want ashes on my floor.”
If Your Hand Causes You to Sin
“If your hand causes you to sin . . .
If your eye causes you to sin . . .
If this notebook, this writing, causes you to sin . . .”
The smell of burning leather propels me.
I push from the doorway
and reach for her hand.
Hundreds of poems, I think.
Years and years of writing.
She turns before I can get my hand on the notebook,
shoves her elbow hard into my chest.
Recites the words loud again and again.
“If your hand causes you to sin . . .
If your eye causes you to sin . . .
If this notebook, this writing, causes you to sin . . .”
And for the first time in my life
I understand the word desperate.
How it’s a pointed hunger in the belly.
Please. Please. Please.
She holds me off with the lit match,
but I make another grab
and the smoking book falls to the floor.
We both reach for it
and just as my fingers grace the cover,
feel the etched woman on the leather,
my mother slaps me back hard onto my ass.
The Christmas bracelet rattles to the floor,
but as I breathe near the door, my cheek stinging,
all I can do is watch the pages burn.
And as she recites Scripture
words tumble out of my mouth too,
all of the poems and stanzas I’ve memorized spill out,
getting louder and louder, all out of order,
until I’m yelling at the top of my lungs,
heaving the words like weapons from my chest;
they’re the only thing I can fight back with.
“I’m where the X is marked,
I arrived battle ready—”
“Dios te salve, María,
llena eres de gracia;”
“I am the indication,
I sign myself across the line.”
“el Señor es contigo;
bendita tú eres
entre todas las mujeres,”
“The X I am
is an armored dress
I clothe myself in every morning.”
“y bendito es el fruto
de tu vientre, Jesús.”
“My name is hard to say,
and my hands are hard, too.
I raise them here
to build the church of myself.
This X was always an omen.”
“Santa María, Madre de Dios,
ruega por nosotros, pecadores,
ahora y en la hora de nuestra muerte.
Amén.”
Mami stares at me like I’m speaking in tongues
and continues praying.
We’re wild women, flinging verses at each other
like grenades in a battlefield, a cacophony of violent poems—
and then we’re both gasping, wordless.
Tears roll down our cheeks,
but mine aren’t from the smoke.
I cough on my own tongue.
I’ve never mourned something dying
before this moment.
I have no more poems. My mind blanks.
A roar tears from my mouth.
“Burn it! Burn it.
This is where the poems are,” I say,
thumping a fist against my chest.
“Will you burn me? Will you burn me, too?
You would burn me, wouldn’t you, if you could?”
I’m not sure when Papi and Twin tuned in
but I feel Twin rush past me;
he reaches for the notebook
but Mami hisses at him to step back
and stomps on the smoking pages.
Papi is in the room.
He speaks softly to my mother,
saying her name over and over,
“Altagracia, Altagracia.”
When he reaches for the book,
she hisses at him too,
but he is soft with her,
approaching a frothing pit bull,
he bends and grabs the book by a corner and tugs.
When she lets go, he knocks it against the wall,
trying to put out the burning leather,
yells at Twin to get the fire extinguisher.
Can a scent tattoo itself onto your memory?
That’s a mixed metaphor, isn’t it?
My notebook is smoldering,
my heart feels like it’s been burned crisp,
and all I can think about are mixed metaphors.
Things You Think About in the Split Second Your Notebook Is Burning
If I were on fire
who could I count on
to water me down?
If I were a pile of ashes
who could I count on
to gather me in a pretty urn?
If I were nothing but dust
would anyone chase the wind
trying to piece me back together?
Other Things You Think About in the Split Second Your Notebook Is Burning
I will never
write a single
poem
ever again.
I will never
let anyone
see my full heart
and destroy it.
Papi snatches the extinguisher from Twin
and puts out the small fire.
My mother has been standing behind the blaze,
but as the puff of dry chemicals rises between us
my knees know where she will lead me
the moment the air clears.
I scramble backward into the hallway,
push up to my feet
and away from her hands.
I stand up to my full height.
And I’m glad I’m still
wearing my coat and backpack,
because I need to leave.
I rush to the door,
turn to see Twin pulling my mother back.
She has her arm raised: a machete
ready to cut me down.
I take the stairs two at a time.
And when I am finally outside
I breathe in—
I have nowhere to go
and nothing left.
Twin begins texting me immediately.
But I don’t answer.
When I finally reply to a text
it’s one I received two months ago.
X: Hey Aman. I need to talk.
Can you chill?
I call Caridad.
And she answers singing “Happy Birthday,”
but cuts herself off early.
“What’s wrong, Xio? Are you crying?”
All I said was “Hey.”
But she knows by my voice
my world is on fire.
I take a breath.
She tells me to come over.
She tells me she’ll meet me.
She asks me what I need.
“Check on Twin.
Make sure he’s okay.
I just need to breathe.
I just need to leave.”
There’s a long pause.
And I can imagine her nodding
through the phone.
“I’m here for you.
You’ll figure it out.”
And that’s enough.
The train stops and starts
like an old woman with a bad cough.
But I feel more than jumbled
when I walk on, so a halting train
doesn’t faze me at all.
When I get off on 168th
it’s started snowing softly.
I turn my face up into the wetness.
I pretend this is like a movie
where the sky offers healing.
But it only makes me colder.
I stand there waiting.
Knowing he said he would come.
Believing he will.
A tingle on my neck
is the only clue I have
and then I smell him,
his cologne a cloud
of so many memories
I didn’t even know we’d made.
Aman’s fingers reach
for my hand but he’s silent.
I keep my face open to the sky.
I squeeze his hand in mine.
Aman asks me questions
but I barely hear any of them.
The only thing I feel
is the warmth of his fingers.
We walk nowhere for a while.
Until I notice: Aman is shivering.
I finally look at him.
Really look at him.
His hair is wet, his eyelashes
have droplets from the snow,
and he is wearing nothing
but a thin hoodie.
I can see his bare ankles below his sweats—
he must have rushed out without putting on socks.
I tug on his hand, and whisper against his cold cheek:
“You’re cold. Let’s get out of the cold.
You live near here, right?”
And although he raises both his perfect eyebrows
there is nothing left to say.
The long way up five flights of stairs
I have all the silence and time to think.
I know that Aman’s father works nights.
That at night Aman listens to music and does homework.
And I almost laugh.
All the time we were together and happy I avoided coming here.
And now that I’m nothing but a hot mess
I push my way into his home.
His couch is soft. Brown and cushiony.
No plastic covering like mine.
I don’t take my coat off. Or my backpack.
I just lean my head back and close my eyes.
I can hear Aman moving around me.
A table leg scrapes against the hardwood floor.
The refrigerator door opens and closes softly.
Then music playing.
But not J. Cole like I expected.
Not hip-hop at all.
Instead, it’s bass strings and soft steel drums.
Soca, I think, but slow and soothing.
When Aman tugs on my boots, I finally open my eyes.
And he is bending over my feet.
Staring at my mismatched socks.
Then he’s sitting beside me.
And I finally begin to feel warm.
He doesn’t ask what happened.
But the question floats like a blimp across the arch of his brows.
And so, I tell him all of my poems,
my words, my thoughts, the only place
I have ever been my whole self,
are a pile of ashes.
And smoke must still be lodged in my chest,
because it hurts so much when I’m done speaking.
Aman doesn’t say a word;
he just pulls me to him.
In Aman’s arms I feel
warm.
In Aman’s arms I feel
safe.
In Aman’s arms he
apologizes.
In Aman’s arms I
apologize.
In Aman’s arms I want
to forget.
In Aman’s arms my
mouth finds his.
In Aman’s arms my
hands touch skin.
In Aman’s arms my shirt
comes off.
In Aman’s arms I am
shy for a moment.
In Aman’s arms I am
b e a u t i f u l b e a u t i f u l
beautiful.
In Aman’s arms I feel
beautiful.
In Aman’s arms my
jeans unsnap.
In Aman’s arms I show
myself.
In Aman’s arms naked
skin rubs against mine.
In Aman’s arms kisses
and kisses. My neck and ear.
In Aman’s arms fingers
touch my breasts.
In Aman’s arms I stop
breathing.
In Aman’s arms I feel
good. So good.
We have to stop.
Because now we’re lying on the couch
and he’s on top of me.
And his kisses feel so good,
everything feels so good.
But I also feel him pressed against me.
The part of him that’s hard.
That’s still an unanswered question
I don’t have a response for.
And when his hand brushes my thigh
and then moves up—
I know why island people cliff dive.
Why they jump to feel free, to fly,
and how they must panic for a moment
when the ocean rushes toward them.
I stop his hand. I pull my face from his kiss.
He is breathing hard. He is still kissing me hard.
He is still bumping up against me. Hard.
“We have to stop.”
Sometimes I wear these really long three-strand necklaces.
And I love how they look. Like a spiderweb of fake gold.
But they’re the worst to put away.
The next time I try to wear them they’re a tangled knot.
No beginning, no end, just snag after snag.
That’s how I feel the moment I ask Aman to back up.
Like a big tangle. I feel: guilty, because he looks so
frustrated. I feel: hot and wanting. I feel: like crying
because everything is so mixed up. And I feel
the panic slowly die, because I can think.
I just need a moment, things to slow down,
so I can undo the knots inside me.
I wait for him to call me all the names
I know girls get called in this moment.
I sit up and hold my bra against my chest
with no memory of how I became undone.
When his fingers brush against my spine
my whole body stiffens. Waiting.
But he only pulls my straps up and
snaps my bra closed. Hands me my T-shirt.
We are silent as I get dressed.
I wait for him to hand me my boots.
To point me toward the door.
I know this is how it works. You put out or you get out.
So I am surprised when instead of my boots
Aman hands me his own T-shirt,
and when I look at him confused
he takes it back and uses the sleeve
to wipe the tears sprinting down my cheek.
That need to be said
but we don’t say any of them.
We watch YouTube highlights of the Winter Games.
I help Aman fry eggs and sweet plantains.
I sip a Malta. Aman drinks a bottle
of his father’s Carib beer.
Somewhere in New York City it is late.
But in Aman’s living room time has stopped.
I’m dozing off, with the lights dark
and the buzz of the computer.
With Aman’s soft breathing in my ear,
I think of all the firsts I’ve given to this day,
and all the ones I chose to keep.
And this is a better thought
than the one that wants to break through
because in the back of my head I know
today I’ve made decisions
I will never be able to undo.