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
Christmas Eve
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.”
It’s a Rosary
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
Longest Week
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
The Waiting Game
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
Birthdays
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.
The Good
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.
The Bad
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 rea
lize 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.
The Ugly
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.
Let Me Explain
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.
Verses
“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.”
Burn
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?”
Where There Is Smoke
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.
My Mother Tries to Grab Me
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.
Returning
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.
The Poet X Page 12