You smelled like money when you pulled me out of the
Hudson, threw me a life raft in the form of a hundred
dollar bill. I wasn’t worth the 5 or 6 hours you spent
breathing the life back into me, as it’s all but
escaped by now. There’s an ache in me that even
fast food, JD, and nicotine haven’t succeeded at quelling,
and the familiarity of being comfortably numb beneath you has
worn off, and I don’t know which way to turn in
this dark room. Either way I go, I feel the reminders
in your knees, your elbows. My entire body is a jagged
edge, and there’s nothing left. I am an open wound.
They say that when I’m
happy, there’s a light inside of me that lights up, but I
haven’t felt the warmth of that light in years, and when you asked
me for proof that God doesn’t exist, I directed you into my eyes for
evidence that can’t be translated into any language.
You nodded softly and walked away as I sat on that staircase
that the entire world recognizes. It’s all there.
I was all the proof you ever needed.

They say I am a feeler
and today
it is all saudade.

inuit child, my fearless dancer.  let us not forget what happened here. lying in the grass, you are chasing birds you will never catch and disappointment is not a lesson that I am willing to teach today.  your father, slipping in and out of psychosis, will teach you about disappointment.  your mother will teach you about how empty filling your life full with cotton stuffing, like your existence is a misshapen teddy bear, makes you feel on the inside.  let us not forget what has happened here.  we will plan grand adventures through the back yard, where every blade of grass is an entire rainforest, and a decorative water fountain is the best entertainment for miles.  we draw our hopes and dreams in Crayola on the walls and wash it off before your grandmother sees.  frozen tater tots are the only thing you ever ask for, and you are so pure, untouched by insecurity and self-doubt  that a request to smile for the camera is fulfilled with lips spread so wide that your carotid and jugular tighten against your skin and your eyes are forced shut under the shine of that smile. million dollar baby, you can lie on top of me as we peer through the cat door looking for cat-cat's paws.  let us not forget.  the smell of sunscreen, a toddler's wet kisses on the nape of one's neck or the arch of one's cheek, flying above a spinning garden sprinkler, hobbling across stepping stones and always making sure I am no more than three steps behind. "'Thena, c'mon!" is a broken record that turns into a beautiful melody. let us not forget. handprints in concrete stepping stones, dirt between the toes.  you are an archaeologist here, finding artifacts of years past where I did not feel every breath like an overpowering ache.  if there is a God, he must be kind and loving to have sent me a savior in Elmo footie pajamas.  I needed this as much as you did.  I have to leave all too soon and I wish I could take you wish me and make sure you are always safe.  let us not forget what we have learned here about unassuming, no-strings-attached love, spelled out by a toddler’s excited shrieking of my name.  there is no good enough, there is no being better to get what you deserve.  there is never enough time. there just is.  eli ry ty.  let us not forget how the heart always remembers how to keep beating.

I know you won’t remember any of these days, scribbling in oversize Dora the Explorer coloring books or bouncing around in the backyard, trying to catch all the birds that you never will, where you won’t go too far without looking behind you to make sure I am there, where “thena! c’mon!” is a broken record that never stops playing, splashing in the kiddie pool and running through the sprinkler, but I will and I hope they can change something, increase your chances of surviving two parents who never deserved you, not for one second. I have to leave soon, and I wish I could take you with me and make sure you are safe always. I hope I can somehow reach out and touch you, and it is like the God that I am not sure I believe in most days knew we needed each other.

My heart is breaking.

I would like to take you to the ends of the earth to keep you away from growing up with a mother with only a few brain cells to rub together who only sees you as a trophy and the occasional family court chess piece and a father who spends more time in psychosis than out and who acts like he doesn’t really want you around a lot of the time.

But I can’t. So let’s lie on the floor together and peer through the cat door and talk to the cat who peers back at us and eat frozen tater tots and have grand adventures in the backyard this weekend. I will pretend that it can make some kind of difference in how my heart breaks.

"Anyone worth knowing breaks once.
Once.
No shame, no foul if you survive it."

what we are not told is that it is never a clean break.
it can never be stitched up
in the way that a surgeon with impeccable attention to detail
weaves the stitches
in and out, and over and under.
I cannot hide this scar you left when you drove the knife right into my chest
and twisted,
reversing the flow of blood through the heart.
I ask people to touch it, can they feel my heart beating beneath it?

My heart.
I don't wear it so much on my sleeve as I encase myself in it.
I am pulsing and throbbing, squeezing every breath out of life.
They hold me up at school assemblies.
This is your heart, and the mitral valve opens and closes,
and if you pay close enough attention you can see my soul tumble out.

I have tried to harden myself, toughen myself up
like the nicotine-hardened heart of the life-long smoker.
I gave up smoking a long time ago,
and all of that aside, people break from yearning, too.

In this room, right now, I can feel all of us
beating in perfect time.
While my mother always told me that I was too sensitive,
needed to learn to
laugh at myself,
toughen up &
grow a thicker skin,
I want no part in any of that.
The electricity that runs right through me
when I don't clear the person passing me in the stairwell
is what keeps me alive.

This only breaks you once.
Once.
Somewhere in breaking, you learn that if you want to be
someone who is trusted,
you need to be someone who trusts.

Your eyes are so empty.

Hold me tightly. Trace this scar in my chest.

It means I am still alive.

my mother tells me that I don’t need to tell
everyone
everything
I feel in the very moment I feel it.
but these words pound against my ribs,
and not the easily displaced floating ones,
but the true ones, stiff with desire.

so I don’t. I don’t tell you

how when you call me mami or nena,
my legs are as good as spread,
and how sometimes I stand at the Macy’s cologne counter
and smell your cologne, just so
I can remember how it is to take you in

how when I haven’t spoken Spanish in a long time,
the line between Spanish & English is as solid as the Berlin Wall,
but when you speak Spanish to me, you are Ronald Reagan.
& de repente, I’m at work, peering out a window, telling a coworker
dile que está lloviendo y...be careful when driving in the rain

how when these days pass and I don’t hear much from you,
I miss your voice, and could do without this unbearable ache
to wear you inside like a wall decoration

how when you tell me you love my intelligence,
it turns me on more than your hands on my body ever will,
and how we can just stay here all day instead of going out,
because I feel safe here with you and besides,
my books are here

until the words come pouring out
and I’m Harry and you’re Sally

and you’re telling me how funny it is
that you were always too scared to tell me
how you can’t stop looking at my legs because
you can’t stop imagining them wrapped around you

and you could just listen to me talk
for days