Que tal el lado del amor de que no hablan tanto? El lado que no sea de flores y mariposas en el corazón sino miedo y revelarse la vulnerabilidades más profundas de l alma? Lo dificil que fue para mi confiar en tus intenciones conmigo, que me pregunté, por que yo? si no me conoce? sera que solo me quiere usar? Mi inseguridad habla fuerte en la mente. El pasado me enseñó no decir las bellas palabras que incendiaban en el corazon, queriendo escapar, se quedaron atrapados en la garganta y sofoque en ellas. Intentaba reemplazar mis palabras con lo físico. Con las caricias, los besos, y abrazos. No fue suficiente.

Al darse cuenta de que sientes algo por alguien provoca la reaccion que te dice “quedate callada, ser vulnerable es la manera mas rapida para perder a alguien. No le des demasiado cariño, ni lo pidas, no seas demasiado. Te va a doler decir cosas y no escuchar el eco en la voz de tu pareja.

Que enamorarse de alguien realmente me da un panico

similar a cuando te depiertes en la noche sin poder respirar, gritando

me pregunto si soy idiota por acidentamente abrirte mi corazon

Quiero decirte que te extraño entre el día

y estar a tu lado quiero besarte hasta saborear tu alma.

Estoy empezando encontrar la paz en descansar mi cabeza en tu hombro mientras conduces

que me encanta tu voz, tu mirada cerrada con la mia tan intensa me pone un poquito mareada, el hecho que por ni un momento puedes dejar de tocarnos, que hasta en tu sueño si me sueltas me buscas a reenvolver en tus brazos. Me encantas.

Al final nunca encontre mi manera de decirtelo porque siempre tenia mis dudas de si duraremos. No eramos para siempre pero igual, te amo. No se si fue la vez que me pegaste en la cara, la vez que te vi saliendo de nuestro lugar con otra mujer en tu brazo y me ignoraste por completo, o cuando me atacaste a mi etnia cuando te dije que no. Me di pena amarte, pero te amaba igual. Hasta la ultima vuelta a mi casa en tu auto, sin arrepentirme por decidirnos no volver a vernos, me dolio a perderte.

Distraught, Daniel, a 23 year old frantically bursts through the doors of NeuPsych and pleads with the receptionist “I’ve got to have a memory erased!!!”

She peers over the desk bewildered by his urgent affect.

“I want to forget who I am”

The receptionist merely blinks “Pardon?”

“Yes, I want to erase it, my entire memory”

“Sir, that’s not something we can bill insurance for and ethically there are certain constraints...”

“I don’t care, you must have a waiver. Patient first, right?”

She looks at him over the rims of her black glasses, which are too big and overwhelm her small face, and passes him a clipboard. “You can fill out this form, I’ll check if Dr. Yanikian has any cancellations, but there may be a wait.”

What is the nature of your memory?

√Heartbreak

√Pathological mourning

√Substance abuse

√Sexual Abuse

√Military PTSD

√Complex PTSD

√Other

Daniel scrawls his personal information, checked other and sat down. In 15 minutes a short man with a scraggly grey beard and perfectly pressed white labcoat emerged from behind a solid steel door. “Daniel?” he invited me back and we entered a well-decorated office.

“There are several techniques. Experimental interventions with pharmaceutical drugs that inhibit certainreceptors or the synthesis of certain proteins, lowering the levels of stress hormone cortisol, electroconvulsive therapy and deep brain stimulation, behavioral approaches including neurofeedback techniques or subliminal exposure.”

“We’ve used it when terrorists killed 130 people in an attack on the bataclan theater in Paris in November 2015. Of the 320 treated, 293 indicated that the treatment was at least somewhat effective in allowing them to complete their daily activities of life without significant interference from the trauma-based memories. It doesn’t wipe out the memory but merely dulls the pain, think of it as an emotional anesthetic. Bengay for your heart and mind. It will still be sad but you will no longer be in a seemingly endless death grip by the memory.”

Daniel shook his head "I wasn't clear, this isnt to relieve trauma. I need to erase it completely, I cannot know this information that i know. It's a matter of global security."

The dr paused. “Daniel, why do you want to erase your memory entirely?”.

"I can't give you specifics but the information I know could cause the world we know it to cease spinning, in so many words.

The Dr. Looked at him with a surveyal attempting to determine if he was cognitively all there.

"I know it sounds ludicrous but please trust me, this is important," Daniel pleaded.

the doctor redirected his gaze to the empty area of desk just in front of his keyboard.

"Daniel I'm willing to try something unprecedented. An intensive treatment cycle of the memory numbing may lead to memory deletion. There have been some initial clinical trials but the outcomes have not been perfect. It has caused a low incidence of brain damage."

"It doesn't matter. If there is a chance this can erase everything it's worth it. I'd die without treatment if they ever found out what I' ve done."

We were still in second summer, the second wave of hot humid weather that emerges right before halloween. A summer energy still prevails, the days are still long, the weather is still hot, children still roam the sidewalks wearing sandals and short sleeve t shirts. The elotero and paleteros still hawk the corners outside of school at 2:45 when school got out, and kids pour out of the old moss-green double doors at the front of the school to crowd around the snack stands, pulling the dollars lining their school uniforms to buy after school snacks from the old men who had been fixtures on the sidewalk for generations of children before them.

Inside, The children were seated around the table in the library, the doldrums of winter had yet to sap them of their energy. Abraham and Tabita, brother and sister, chewed candy while surreptitiously holding the wrappers in their hands under the tables so the teacher couldn’t see it. The teacher, trained by years of experience as both a mother and a teacher noticed the shape of candy forming little bulges in the sides of their cheeks. “Do you have candy in your mouth? What are the rules?” “Sr. Morales lets us have candy in his class! Just not gum.” “Is it gum or candy?” Tábita opens her mouth wide to reveal the bright blue candy that temporarily dyed her tongue blue.

Tábita speaks rapidly, as if it were her last breath to speak on. Abraham is quiet, his wild curly hair often seems to express more than his mouth says.

“Estás limpiando casas todavía?”

“No ahorita pero si no empieza a trabajar mi papá me voy a poner a trabajar para cuidar a mi mamá”

“Qué pasó con su trabajo?”

“No sé, lo qué pasó es que vive en el salon con su novia y no paga renta y fuma mota todo el tiempo... No me importa si muera mi papá lo que si me importa es mi mamá. Si Abraham no está yo cuido a mi mamá; está malita.”

”Me voy a morir“ Abraham said with an air of frivolity.

“Por qué dices eso?”

“Me corté el dedo mientras cortar pepinos porque lo hago así de rapidez!” He started pretending to chop with his hands on the table.

”Yo sí me voy a morir, Porque salgo en la calle y me van a tirar”

She paused and added “No me puedo quedar en la casa todo el tiempo. Nos tiraron balazos a mi y a Abraham. Tenía playera roja puesto y los gangueros pensaron que era uno de ellos.”

"are you still cleaning houses?"

"no not right now but if my dad doesn't start working i'm going to work so i can take care of my mom"

"what happened to his job?"

"i dunno, what happened is that he lives in the living room with his girlfriend and he doesn't pay rent and smokes weed all the time. i don't care if my dad dies but i do care about my mom. if abraham isn't there, i take care of her, she's sick."

"i'm gonna die" Abraham said with an air of frivolity."

"why do you say that?"

"i cut my finger when i was cutting cucumbers cause i do it fast like this!" He started pretending to chop with his hands on the table.

"i will die, because i go outside and they're going to shoot me"

She paused and added "I can't stay in the house all the time. They shot bullets toward me and Abraham. He had a red tshirt on and the gangabngers thought he was one of them."

mothers are our first home

and daughters are their second home

as much as you lived in her for 9 months she lives in the shape of your smile

and winding pathways of hand written notes

how your romantic misadventures are mirror images of hers from 30 years prior

the way you take your coffee the same as her—

without sugar

she says she made you sweet enough already

#mother #family

A kilogram of meat

With two legs, with thick thighs

I'm afraid men have me confused

With their orders at the butcher's

That I am to be torn, flesh from bone

With their teeth

And suck on their fingers

As they finish me

Carne:

un kilo de carne

con dos piernas, con muslos gruesos

tengo miedo de que los hombres me tengan confundida

con sus ordenes en la carnicería

que soy para tirar la carne del hueso

con sus dientes

y chuparse los dedos

al terminarme

I slept in his room the last time I was at his house. His sister and I watched bad movies on Netflix the night earlier that summer in his room, and I slept in his room when she went to hers. That night, I went upstairs to wash my hands and was about to go back down to hang out with her, but then I noticed his door half open, across the hall.

He was playing my favorite songs on his guitar in his bedroom. We took shots of tequila together. I don’t even like tequila. It’s for the effect, nothing more. I opened his closet and tried on one of his shirts, struggling with the buttons in my tipsy state. I told him to do one of the buttons for me, laughing. I sat against him on the floor, and he wrapped his arms around me. Then he touched me and I did nothing to stop him. I stayed still and melted into his arms as he continued touching me through my jeans.

Later we were sitting outside with his sister and another friend. I said I was tired. That was our cue. He offered me his bed for the night, saying he’d sleep in the living room.

I stripped down to nothing, and waited for him, sitting under his blankets. Then he came into the room and undressed. He got in bed and and kissed me, holding my shoulders. I did not realize the words coming out of my mouth until after they reverberated in my mind. I said his name. His real name, not the nickname everyone usually calls him. His kisses tasted like cloves, sweet and smokey. Everything was perfect. I trusted him. I took his hand and brought him outside into the blackness of the summer night. Behind a big oak tree, he lifted me up and held me against the tree’s bark. He told me I was beautiful. I felt beautiful with him.

I went upstairs and tried to sleep. I couldn’t. I went back downstairs to look for my purse because my keys and underwear were in it. I found him in the laundry room and kissed him there. I said goodnight and went to his bedroom again. His boxers lay on the floor by his bed, they were fleur de lis printed. It was kind of cute, but mostly entirely lame and I kind of laughed at them. I smelled the cologne on his dresser. I traced the stitching on the quilt on his bed with my fingers. I slept for two hours before I woke up unable to fall back asleep. I stayed there for a long time, not wanting to leave, but unable to interact with him much in the morning. I was nervous that I’d give us away to his sister.

I left at 12:26PM on Sunday. I felt broken for three days. I wanted some kind of closure because he told me to call him on Monday afternoon so we could meet when my house was empty.. He never responded when I texted him. I couldn’t pay attention in class. I filled up half a notebook with angry words about how abandoned I felt and how he was so mean. I skipped my last class the day on Monday because of it. I left my phone in my car all day on Tuesday. I wondered if he sent me a text.

Later that night, about 20 minutes after I finally began to give up on caring about the whole ordeal, he sent a message. I spent an hour trying to figure out how to say the right thing back. Finally I got it right. It was more complicated to find the right words than it should have been. I never saw him again, but for years he reached out, missing me.

I was on solid ground, but still tumbling down, as though intoxicated. The ceiling spun from my near comatose position on the bed. I held my tiny hands up, my skin was softer, my vision sharpened. Held down only by my own forty pounds of weight. I had been here before. I had had this nightmare several times as a child and knew what horrors were to come. 

I braced myself against my bed, clutching the cold, white metal bars of the frame.

Just then, processing this reverse aging, the wind blew the dead trees outside, and two shadows moved in the dark. They crossed the room, and emerged two faceless men in suits. Step by step they came closer to me. I closed my eyes as tightly as I could with my face hidden halfway under the perceived security of my tattered pink quilt.

I did not feel a thing, as fear paralyzed my other senses, but I watched as they approached my small body

and the quilt flew away like a dove of hope

and the serrated blue-silver blade glimmered in the moonlight

its edge pierced the milky whiteness where the thigh meets the groin

the ersatz surgeons worked to saw through the bone

Screaming on the inside,Too confused to speak a word

But voiceless so even if I wanted to, I could not

They lowered the rest of my body into a bath of steaming water. The hot water enveloping me like a scalding metal ring as each millimeter of skin descended through it. And then my severed legs went in. And they floated there, dead and plasticine, like a doll’s. I felt nothing on my skin. The light above me in the bathroom was so blindingly bright reflecting on the water, it was only then that I saw the bright red blooms emanating slowly underwater like tea flowers blossoming in a glass teapot.

Let’s play a game. I’ll give you a subject and you tell me what you know about it. I like to figure people out, and you... You’re quiet and I haven’t gotten a good reading on you yet.” I felt the harshness of his eyes on me, like a manager evaluating a subordinate.

“Why do you want to figure me out of all people?

“I see you as a challenge.”

I felt a mona lisa smile crawl across my face as my gaze descended toward the table separating us. I couldn’t conceal the fact I was enjoying being the source and subject of his stupor or the object of his attention.

“What do you know about me?”

“I’ve heard a lot of rumors but I never cared to confirm if any of them were true.” “Like what?”

“REDACTED”

“What if I told you it was all true.”

“I guess I could believe that at one point...”

“Are you uncomfortable, Rita?”

“No” I said but I was sucking my straw out of my empty water glass just to occupy my body in some way to try to stop looking so tense. I could barely look up. Obvious, as always. I was so uncomfortable, it was exhilarating. “I mean, I don’t judge you for it.”

I knew that’s not the kind of opinion he was looking for.

“You know that’s not what I meant”.

I laughed, “I’m just playing dumb. It’s fun.”

“You still haven’t answered my question.”

“I’m not ready to give you an answer. Should I drop you home?”

“I guess that’s that.”

“It’s a conversation that can be revisited later.”

I walked along the lakefront in solitude for 45 minutes, tripping over large slabs of cracked lake-eroded concrete until I found the shore of Oakwood beach. It was one of those late fall afternoons, when summer comes back. Second summer was like an ex who came by your apartment to pick some useless article of clothing they remembered, then they disappear again long enough for you to forget the bittersweet excitement when you see their face again, knowing it's a fleeting moment. While less emotionally charged, I felt that way about summer too. Soon it would be too cold to even consider venturing here, let alone walk outside for more than ten minutes, or even walk around my apartment without pants on. A discarded sachet of pink lemonade flavored powder rested on the edge of the stainless steel sink basin, the only sign of recent human life.

Upon a boulder I sat with my feet in the cold water, as the sun began to draw my nervous energy away into a happy lull. A monarch butterfly flowed through the water, its antennae only mobile parts given that the water had paralyzed its wings. It appeared melancholy, being carried to and fro through the calm lake water against its will. Some beings were not meant to be in the water, but I have found throughout my life nothing cures my soul more than submerging myself, partially or completely in water. Life begins in fluidity, it is our natural mother. I felt at peace as for many days I had sought such solitude and found it nowhere.

After a few more tranquil breaths I began my trek back to my home, walking along the trail again however this time a man was walking on the other side of the rocks on the side walk. I wondered what might happen if we chose to interact on this encounter. Our instinct was to pretend we didn’t exist.

When I got home I turned the WiFi setting on my Cortex, hoping to make connection with that man.

"Missed Connections" I thought.

Missed connections 9/21/2015

“Hey, I saw you today. I wondered why you didn’t say hi. Did I look boring?”

“Oh, haha, sorry, I was afraid to bother you. In truth I had wanted to go up to you and see what you were doing, where you were going, learn all about who you are and listen to your story”

“Why?”

“You’re beautiful”

“Oh. Thanks lol.”

“Not like you think, I mean yes how you think, but in other ways too.”

“What do you mean?”

“I already know you, Winnie”

“What? No you don’t”

“We’ve known each other for several life times, but I only just found out yesterday when I saw you again. I recognize the way you look out over the water from miles away, the pattern of curls the wind makes in your hair, there’s no doubt in my mind.”