Author: nat

Fantasma

Posted on by nat

Septiembre 26, 2016

12:29 am

Pregunta. Respuesta. Pregunta. Respuesta. Pregunta…

Te acuerdas cuando jugábamos a las preguntas? Así empezamos tu y yo, con preguntas. Y por alguna razón todavía pregunto, pero no lo que te quisiera preguntar, y tu todavía respondes, pero quizás no lo que yo quisiera escuchar.

Hace frío bajo el sol. Las hojas aquí se están enrojeciendo, y me acuerdo cuando me enrojecía como las hojas al verte; un rojo tímido, un rojo vivo, un naranja acelerado como las puestas de sol que nunca alcanzamos. Pero ese naranja si me calentaba, tu me calentabas, con o sin puesta de sol. La piel se me eriza aquí, bajo luces que no te conocen y sobre asfalto que no has pisado; me tiemblan los hombros y se me inundan los ojos cuando la luz me dice que no te conoce, y me duele el pecho y se me enreda la garganta porque aquí alcanzo la puesta del sol, pero te busco y no te encuentro –ni siquiera en el anaranjado que es esconde sigiloso en el horizonte.

Me duele que se me olvidan las cosas. Se me olvida el color de tus ojos, solo queda en mi el verde y la miel cuando el sol te acariciaba. Se me olvida tu olor, pero el miércoles pasado pasó alguien con tu olor y la partecita de mi corazón que te tengo reservada se despertó y te busque sabiendo que no iba a encontrarte, te perseguí hasta la cafetería solo para seguir oliéndote aunque sabia que no eras tu, tu ya no estás. Se me olvidan también tus abrazos, no los siento a mi alrededor como antes, pero se que no eran como los de ahora, porque los de ahora son muy fuertes, o muy débiles, o de pronto son solo abrazos –pero no tuyos. Lo único que no se me olvidan son tus manos, es lo único que me queda aquí en mi soledad anaranjada y fría. Me acuerdo que eran grandes, más grandes que las mías, pero más que acordarme de su apariencia (con las uñas comidas como las mías) me acuerdo de ellas en mí. En tijeritas contra mi cachete, entrelazadas, entre mis dedos cuando contaba los tuyos mientras manejabas, junto a las mías en tus labios, sosteniendo mi cara, moviendo mi pelo, fundiéndome en ti.

Te prometí un cuartico en mi corazón, te acuerdas? Quizás fue en una de nuestras escapadas, cuando te hice bajar del carro para besarnos con los pies en la tierra, me parece ahora que nunca los teníamos así pero no importaba, por lo menos se que ahora ya no importa. Todavía entro y lo limpio para que nunca se llene de polvo, porque soy alérgica y si se llena de polvo no podría regresar. Hay un cojín en forma de zanahoria, y es lo único que queda (sin contar los libros que me dejaste). Las paredes cambian de color cuando las toco y en un día como hoy están llenas de moho y me toca sacar el tapabocas para poder sentarme en el piso a llorar. Todo el cuarto se siente como tenerte conmigo; se siente como un beso pero tus labios no me tocan, un abrazo tuyo pero los brazos no me alcanzan –en mi cuartico eres el presente, no mi pasado.

El problema es que cuando salgo del cuartico y te busco por fuera me encuentro con que tu estás armando casa en otro lado, y yo también debería, e intento, pero no puedo, porque me gusta el cojín de zanahoria y me gustan las paredes que cambian con el corazón y no puedo salir del cuartico porque mi cuerpo no me lo permite, solo regreso al maldito cuarto condenado, al principio y al fin de mi existencia. Pero vivir ahí es igual a estar sola, porque te perdiste en el mapa que dibuje de ti hace unos años y cuando te veo ya no estás ahí, eres un fantasma y los fantasmas son como las puestas de sol contigo y no se dejan alcanzar.

No hay nada que hacer. Con mis rodillas dobladas y mi cara inundada de Magdalenas me doy cuenta que contigo todo es difícil y dificultades como estas no las sé resolver. Y lo peor de todo esto es que cuando estoy en la mitad de una dificultad, de esas que me hacen doler el pecho como te explique hace mucho tiempo, siento que solo tu me puedes ayudar a resolverlas. Y no se qué hacer o a quién llamar porque esta dificultad duerme, come y respira en tí.

I Am Malala

Posted on by nat

“Let us pick up our books and our pens. They are our most powerful weapons. One child, one teacher, one book and one pen can change the world.” -Malala Yousafzai

I just finished reading the final page of Malala’s book, still with goosebumps parading down my arms. Everyone enjoys this book because Malala is a symbol of bravery and strength worldwide, and I think she totally is. But beyond the barriers she has broken in Pakistan, I value Malala because she is the emblem of endless passion. Throughout the book she continues to voice her love for books and her education, but her love for others supersedes all. Her passion for education; hers and everyone else’s is what really stuck with me after reading her biography.

As soon as I put the book down, I went over to the other room, where my sister was stressing over an essay outline she is doing for her Masters in International Law. When I asked her about it she began to explain, point by point, what her essay was going to address. While she talked law terms and analyzed the flaws and loopholes of international legislation, I thought about Malala’s words…”girls were expected to stay inside”, and “I wondered how a free daughter could ever be”. I also thought about her mother, who quit school at age 6, but most importantly, I thought about the millions of girls deprived of an education, and the millions of women who will never know how important education is. It bothered me to the core to think that the women deprived of knowledge are as worthy as any other woman; they deserve to know, like my sister does, about everything and anything they are interested in knowing. But unfortunately, not everyone thinks like me.

Watching my sister felt as if we were both a million years old, or as if light years before us I had read a book about girls without an education, as if a world where kids get shot for reading and writing was not the same world that was showcasing my sister writing her paper on ius cogens. But it took a split second to realize that yes, it is indeed the same world. I see the same moon the Taliban leaders plan under, I feel the night wind Malala’s mom felt the night her daughter was shot for going to school –I see the same things, but I do not experience them the same as the 62 million girls who don’t go to school.

I don’t experience the world the same way they do because they can’t read signs while they are in a car, they can’t feel a pen whispering their names on paper because they can’t write, and they don’t know what it is like to go outside with your uniform and brand new notebooks on a first day of school. They don’t know what is like to be free and I do, but their shackles somehow limit my freedom too, no matter how far away they are. I see my books piling up beside me and notebooks lying everywhere in my room. I know now more than ever how lucky I am to be here, right now. And because I am free, and because I am trained with the power of knowledge, I know I must speak for those who can’t. I remembered Malala’s words…

“As we crossed the Malakand Pass I saw a young girl selling oranges. She was scratching marks on a piece of paper with a pencil to account for the oranges she had sold, as she could not read or write. I took a photo of her and vowed I would do everything in my power to help educate girls just like her. This was the war I was going to fight”.

Malala’s wisdom reverberates within me, and I will continue to devote my life to those who are deprived of the world’s most powerful and nourishing right: the right to an education. I have been blessed with the tools and the power to speak up, to stand up, to say what I think is right and protest when I disagree. And for that reason, I will not be silenced by my own fear to speak my heart. I too, have chosen this passion. I too, have chosen to fight this war.

Contándote

Posted on by nat

con el corazón en la mano

y el cronómetro en el pecho

cuento cuánto tiempo ha pasado

y cuánto tiempo he pasado

contándote

 

contándote en el umbral del sueño

contándote en mis poemas

y en mis laberintos mentales

que ven los números

corriendo

 

detrás tuyo

buscan lo que algún día fuiste

en un puente colgante

entre las hojas de un camino

o lo que algún día serás

en una bestia que vuela

o en una ciudad estrellada

 

pero me estrello

con el reloj que palpita

y sobresale de mi camisa

y me encuentro con el corazón mío

que sangra

muere

pero espera.

 

 

Cupido condenado

Posted on by nat

Ambos flechados, aprendimos a vivir y a sufrir la condena, pero aprendimos a querernos sobre todas las cosas. Distantemente juntos no sobrevivimos, sino que vivimos: en un mundo que solo los dos entendimos, en un mundo que nos enloqueció a ambos, y un mundo en donde aprendí que amar no es la compañía física, ni las relaciones, ni la estabilidad.

Me enseñaste que el amor se puede imaginar, y que solo imaginando realmente se crea el amor. El color del amor no existe, pero si existe el color de los ojos, y de la sonrisa. El sentir el amor no existe, existen las manos que se rozan, o los humanos que se abrazan. Existen las miradas y las conversaciones; existen las risas, los secretos, las lágrimas, y los chismes. El amor es la compañía en la soledad o la soledad acompañada: el amor es la promesa de un compañero que te hará presencia en las ausencias. El amor es la amistad ante todo, es la necesidad de amar por amar y es el fruto que no se recoge con la boca, sino con el corazón. El amor es la locura; es la vida entrelazada, enredada, que sufre con nudos en los nudos. El amor es llorar; es gritar, es querer a pesar del grito y del llanto, y llorar de las ganas que se tienen de querer al otro. El amor no está cerca, está en la distancia: en montes con aguas turbias y estancadas que sueñan con ser ríos y océanos.

Me enseñaste a vivir enamorada y a buscar el amor en lugares recónditos. Te quiero porque no te supe querer, y te quiero por quererme a pesar de todo. Te quiero porque me enseñaste lo que es amar de verdad, y porque estuve contigo en un mundo que yo sola imaginé y guardé dentro de mi bolsa llena de flechas. Lo guardé para nunca olvidarte, y para quererte por siempre, pero más que todo lo guardé para nunca olvidar cómo se siente el verdadero amor. Sigo con mis flechas al hombro, y con mi flecha clavada en la espalda. He sacado los pedazos que pude pero aún quedan astillas y confieso una última vez… que me gustaría que se quedaran ahí.

Rewind

Posted on by nat

stranded

despite new places on the map

new songs on the playlist

and new notches on the belt

 

our life will be perpetual

rewinds

so hit refresh

hit shuffle play

run

away

still stranded stuck static

on a rewind

 

Your Hollow Home

Posted on by nat

Small tasks

turned fragile,

car seat corroded

my

skin

we stop,

by the streetlight,

whose red beam

burns,

too bright–

burns against

my sodden eyes.

 

The Great Reminder

sleeps within us,

sings to us,

laps around our clothes, sorted

black.

Beyond the silence, it screams

beyond prayers, it curses

words and sorrows,

it curses life.

 

The cold pierces my bones

that rattle

as we walk,

behind you

and your decaying

bones.

 

Freshly cut flowers

sit on wet dirt,

but it is still

cold

it is still

too late

and my skin is tarnished

and my eyes burnt.

 

We stand and pray

while a man, in uniform

thuds a shovel,

against wet dirt.

 

They lower you,

and open the casket

one

last

time.

It is closed now

you’re gone now

and the man strikes the gears

that scream

as you settle into your hollow home.

 

The uniform

man throws dirt over you,

checks his watch,

sweats and thinks

one more body

last one for today.

He shovels,

covers you,

he sweats but doesn’t feel

he doesn’t know

its you inside,

he doesn’t know,

what we know.

 

I look down, at

lumps of dirt

and rocks

inside his shovel.

The rock will hit you

it

will hurt you,

I don’t want it to hurt you

someone tell him

someone,

please

take

it

out.

 

It hits

your hollow home

and I, cry

in silence.

Blue Man

Posted on by nat

Plaid shirt. Khaki shorts. Headband held back the cover-up for an undiscovered brain, and the simplicity of his step smoothed the edges of Brewer Hall. His eyes were profound, and the absence of a smile reminded me of pain from long ago, perhaps in a land where its citizens never get to see the sunset; but his presence defied the laws of thought; and he was light in an opaque room: he was as unreachable as innocence, and as lovely as sin.

Walk. Shake hands. His jawline was tense, his hands were cold, and his eyes were hollowed and dark brown, with subtle yellow specks guarded by coy eyelashes made of silk. It began to rain inside the room as crystal raindrops suppressed the sparks emanating from his eyes. He kept a secret that no one could transpire, and stood up with an air of mystery as if Lennox Hall were an unresolved scene of crime.

He woke up curious and felt less old but not quite new. He never saw it coming, but it was rainy when I made him laugh, and he flew up to unrequited felicity amongst his teenage angst, and I felt him less new but not quite old. When he laughed he shyly looked down, so that all I could see were his crooked bottom teeth and lips smoother than his step. When he laughed his silky eyelashes battered, his sight focused on the ground, and his cold hands grasped the bottom of his denim backpack straps. When he laughed he was no longer eighteen, and his Oxfords scattered the leaves on the ground, and there was a spring in his step as he simpered, revealing the severity of a crossed line. And amidst the rain and the cold, in this single and ephemeral burst of emotion I discovered his peculiarity, and he discovered just how flimsy the walls between us were.

Green pants. Brown shoes paired with quirky socks. His cardigan brushes my arm and conducts electricity, but so does his voice. He lingers even when he’s not there, and his magnetism transcends in thoughts that echo inside me; he’ll exist beyond existence itself while I vicariously see life through him.

Ice. Teeth. Crack. He asked and listened as the crystal squares sang inside his mouth. He picked out the tomatoes in his sandwich, like I carefully picked him out amongst dozens. He’s confident in his embarrassment but I couldn’t see past his tall, blue walls.

Shadows growing. Hearts falling. He lives in New York Times, in photos under trees, and notebooks during bus rides. He appreciates my absurd questions and is the first one to ever ask them back. We walk and when we do it feels like we are standing still, and when we talk it feels like we are silent; we are present in absence, and we’re strangers who’ve known each other for years.

He lives on coffee, vodka, and gossip. He reads Sylvia Plath and translates Latin texts, but has an affinity for Gossip Girl. He likes to smile and purse his lips; he speaks in silences, and feels through space. He is the renaissance of a storm within whoever listens; he is a tempest, a paradox: he is rain during drought.

He writes and his long legs make him fly when he walks. He regrets Halloween, and wishes he’d tried harder in school. But what makes him special is what he provokes in others, and maybe even on himself: he exists beyond literature, politics, gossip, and quirks. I’m not really sure where he exists, or if he even does exist. All I know is that he can’t be from here or there; he doesn’t fit in a mold, in a country, or in any single group. He transcends, and when I’m with him, I do too.

He walked away and down Richmond Hall, suitcase in one hand and my heart in the other.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Writing: From Cradle to Grave

Posted on by nat

I sold my first batch of books when I was in first grade. The best seller was titled My Teacher, and it accurately described in four, one-sentence pages, my teacher Aura. I participated in my first writer’s cafe when I was in second grade, after writing a book titled Mi Pollito, a flawless narration –of ten pages this time around– of my pet chicken Manchita, which I read in front of thirty people with the same enthusiasm with which I wrote it. I won my first book writing competition with an apocalyptic short novel titled One Minute Left, which tells the story of a boy named Johnny, who walks into his parent’s attic and witnesses the repercussions of the apocalypse. Before long, I had also finished my first poetry collection, with top-notch poems like “The Jungle of First Grade”:

The lion comes,

threats (threatens) you,

you feel pressure,

scary pressure.

Although selling books, finishing poetry collections and winning writing competitions is not as easy now as it was in elementary school, writing has become part of my daily routine. I grew up writing, so naturally, my writing grew up with me. My poems are no longer about lions pressuring me, and my narratives are no longer about my peculiar pets, but they are still fulfilling the same goal: allowing daily realities to be reemitted as art.

“I had twenty-thousand wicked remnants

silently swimming about.”

I wrote this phrase in the corner of my favorite notebook last year, as I was sitting in my room with “parts of a candle” typed on the Google search bar, avidly trying to transform a melting candle into a “waxy tower”, that sits alone and cries a Jacuzzi of tears on a kitchen table.

“El corazón corre y yo lo tropiezo,

el estomago vuela y yo lo detengo.”

This verse was written in January on a notebook I got for Christmas –the one with a fly on the cover that reminds me of Lord of the Flies. I remember I was frustrated, flustered and infatuated, all at the same time; and amidst my emotional frenzy, I decided to transfigure an ambiguous, puberty-induced reality, into an athletic heart that has no legs and a flying stomach with no wings.

“He missed the quenching aftermath
of some fancy wine, waiting,
full and corked,
in a house where he no longer belonged.”

This was originally written in the corner of my English notebook, and later became a poem titled “Monk”. I decided to transform a boring lecture on Chaucer, into a sinful man who decides to become a monk: he is a tall, sun-kissed dreamer, who fantasizes about a woman with red ribbons in her hair, and enjoys naming blades of grass in fields, and grains of sand in shores.

Clearly, writing has been a part of my life for as long I can remember. I’ve been fond of keeping notebooks since the day I knew notebooks existed, and I’ve filled countless pages with poems, short stories, book reviews, character descriptions, and to-do lists. I still keep notebooks with me because I am usually left unsatisfied with reality as it is, with situations and emotions in their natural form. However, when I write, I feel I am given the freedom to turn these situations into new, and (somehow logical) irrational ideas. Transforming mundane realities into characters that name grains of sand, organs that run, and household objects that cry, satisfies my need to exist beyond the physicality that is given to all of us for free.

Writing has always been a natural thing for me, and it has always felt like the most liberating activity: to sit down and try to turn feelings into adjectives, decisions into verbs, and silences into commas and semicolons. Whether I was writing about my silly first grade adventures, or about my first kiss, or about an overweight man who decided to eat basketballs, putting my thoughts into paper is the only thing I know for sure I will be doing until the day I die. And even then, I might decide to take a notebook with me –six feet under– to write about dirt that whispers stories of worm families, or about a skin cell named Sophie that decides to run away from home.