Fresh picked goodness
Plucked from the farmer’s market
Tastes like honey crisp apples
And the snap of fresh celery
Crinkled eyes
Hidden smiles
That can’t be fully hidden by masks
A silent exchange
A muffled laugh
A small interaction
Brief but still meaningful
To get us both through the day
At home there are folders and folders
Of screenshots piled up on my desktop
It’s a constant battle
To balance order and chaos
But I have a stockpile smiles from the market
Love who you love without hesitation
What could go wrong if you fail
What could go right if you leap
People ask “What’s your back up plan if this fails?”
But what’s my plan if this succeeds?
And I don’t know
I can’t picture us clearly
Old and wiser for the seasons we could weather together
In the silent moments
Between my alarm ringing at 5.45am and 6.00am
I let myself dream
Of all the things I want to manifest
Of all the things you and I could be
Knowing there’s only so much energy I can give each day
Knowing that ultimately the places we want to end up are not the same
Knowing that I’ll need to forgive myself for choosing
To let some things go
To let some people go
To let you go
Knowing it’s not our time
I keep forgetting I’ve made myself another mug of tea
Distracted staring out a window
Instead of staring into the depths of my screen
Mind blank, smile dropping as soon as I hit “leave” on another Zoom meeting
I let my eyes register in 3-D instead of rendering real-time shifting pixels in 2-D
The sound of the timer can’t penetrate the back-to-back Google Hangouts haze
The steam from my tea curls through the morning chill
On the rough edge of my desk
Silent as it grows cold
Outside, it’s been raining
And I don’t know what time it is
I watch some birds fly free
Letting the wind carry them onwards and upwards as the rain falls
And I just want to step off my roof and follow
The medium spin cycle on the washer goes so fast I can only make out colorful blurs
And is a good representation of the anxiety I feel whirling around inside
As I wash away the last bits of a life that feels like it was a dream
One that ended in a constant struggle to wake people up to the need to evacuate the country
Even though none of us have a place to call home because we’re always on the move
One that ended with my partner and I pleading for our friends to go somewhere, anywhere else
To think beyond ourselves
To take things seriously
To think of our families, and of strangers’ families
One that ended in my best friend pleading with me to go and stay safe
Instead of listening to the urge to stay and try to fix and fix and fix
Instead of watching my people go to the supermarket to stock up
And only come back with 7 bottles of wine
Reminding me it’s not my responsibility to tell them how to live their lives
Reminding me I can’t tell others how to react when we’re in the midst of a global crisis they don’t want to wake up to
The timer on the washer has been stuck at 7 minutes left for what feels like 7 weeks
And I’m tethered here
With nothing left to do
But write another poem
Leaning on the wall opposite this machine
Feeling the ground beneath me tremble
One day, I’ll look back and unpause these moments
A slower pace of life
Quieter than I’m comfortable with
Tense anticipation, body primed for fight or flight mode and itching to leap
But there’s nowhere left to run to
And it’s “safer” to stay put
Under a roof I swore I’d never let myself be caged under again
But this time, this time I’m different
The shadows here are now strangers
An echo of a dark past I refuse to carry with me any further
I have more than enough baggage to check without carrying on familial duty out of obligation
And the SF fog and cold that seeps between the joints in my stiff fingers
Is somehow manageable instead of painfully blinding
And the suffocating pressure to be shiny and perfect and golden in a spotless trophy case that’s falling apart
Pales in comparison to the warmth of what I know familial love should be like
The energy from the places I do call home has burned itself into my lungs,
Making me think Purpose
Looks like jaywalking with confidence, fearless of oncoming traffic in NYC because we’re laughing arms slung around each other—
Looks like getting caught in the pouring rain on a rooftop as lilac thunder, clouds, and lighting barrel across a molten sky in Austin, as we are dancing together—
Looks like feet dangling and wind rushing, ground tilting over and over, spiraling higher and higher and higher, flowing wherever the wind carries us, paragliding over Medellín—
Making me think Love
Looks like hug I don’t feel like pulling away from because I know I’m somewhere safe—
Looks like staying up all night swapping stories about grief and loss, about toxic relationships and scars, about time and healing as a pot of tea boils—
Looks a little bit like a handwritten note penned in another language that says:
“Amanda, me encantó concocerte, mantén esa buena energia siempre”
Written after a ride on the back of a motorcycle on a night when the city lights looked like stars falling down from the hilltops of Medellín—
So when these old shadows come slinking across the floorboards
In this place I always ache for nourishment
I have realized that I will never find what I need here
And I know I’ve stockpiled enough sunshine and kindness and strength to get me through this temporary time
Sometimes I get nervous when people ask me if I believe in God
And then I think how endlessly human beings fall in love with the world
And with each other, over and over
And how my Lola always told me that you don’t have to like someone, but you do have to love them
When I said with all the hate I could store in my tiny 8-year old frame
That I hated the school bullies who pushed my friend Ilan into the dirt on the playground
And whether or not it’s God
Or the Universe
Or whatever Powers That Be
I know I have music running through my soul
Carrying the tune of every place I’ve come to call home
Echoes of melodies that have run through my veins for centuries across dynasties
From ancestral explorers following their own call into the unknown, like I’ve followed mine
This year’s symphony has been accompanied by harsh snow and crashing waves
Motes of sunlight and a firm breeze beating down on my back
Skin still healing from the new art I’ll get to wear forever
Enshrined upon my shoulder blades by another artist
Who saw my soul and my vision
And breathed new life into the sharp set of my shoulders
And gentled it with tears and starlight
Now, it’s a quiet shift before a new verse
But I anticipate the Brazilian funk, and forro, and samba music that’s travelled back with me
Nestled in the folds of my shoelaces
To eventually settle in my soul
And become another bit of the orchestra that I can choreograph a piece to
A dance no one will ever be able to replicate in its entirety
I’ve moved beyond the melancholy stanzas that echo bittersweet memories from childhood
Into a melody sweet with anticipation
Of a blessed life
A far cry from the shadows
So I think if I do believe in something
It’s that there’s always something bigger
And whether or not it’s God
Or the Universe
Or whatever Powers That Be
I’m humming new tunes laced with spiritual electricity
Wonder Woman.
I am wonder.
I think about how those words scrolls up the violet screen
In the feminist art wing of the Brooklyn museum
And how my team nicknamed me #wonderwoman
Do you ever think about how
You may wake up in the exact same place on Earth that you went to sleep,
But you'll have traveled thousands of miles in space.
And it’s 3.00am and I don’t know how far I’ve traveled in this small infinitesimal speck of time.
And I know that when you reduce life to black and white you will never see the rainbows.
Who am I in this moment?
I say my name like a spell
In the hushed breath of pre-dawn light
Shift it around on my tongue
Playfully slipping from syllable to sweet syllable getting my synapses firing as I take my namesake and organize that shit alphabetically
Amanda Kelly Rosal Espiritu
Letters slip off the Notes app on my phone
It’s all gibberish, but then…
Honesty sparks
Depression deceived me into believing that I was alone and made me bitter
And anxiety refused to let me reach out, retreating in moments
When a small voice inside me tried to say I was being silly.
I bought into the lies that started looping unexpectedly at a much higher volume,
Playing like it was the top hit on every frequency,
As if in some moments I was getting too happy,
Autoplay would choose my greatest doubts and the fattest tears
That pushed their way out ducts I try to keep shut with super glue.
Echoey ones that told me no one wanted to hear about my pain or see my tears
And would rather the wattage cranked up behind my smiles,
That they wouldn’t believe me if I told them my truths,
That they wouldn’t care,
And that the knowledge of my sadness would be an inconvenience
And not understood or welcomed.
I started to ration out when I would share the negatives,
Assuming a quest for perfect balance - the right amount to share.
Not too much because that would mean I was a hot mess
And my inner child still strives for those gold stars and going beyond perfect scores
To meet the impossible standards of family who thinks nothing is ever enough.
Nothing I do is ever enough.
I’m a black panther in a family of hamsters
More comfortable on their wheel taking up no space at all.
I try and try and try.
To be transparent and wrench a bleeding heart open just enough
To show wounds from my past I carry on my soul. And always will.
But not too much.
Just enough to show that I’ve been through battles
Come out with scar tissue stronger than unblemished areas that have not yet known pain.
To show that the war my demons fight isn’t tearing me at the edges,
Dragging me on auto pilot to almost daily worship on my knees at a porcelain throne,
A habit I thought I kicked but is something I’m simultaneously, secretly proud and ashamed of. My emotions numb as I amputate them in the aftermath that is floating down old pipes,
A massacre easily flushed away.
Leaving behind phantom limbs of worry and anger and self love I fight off when then cling to me Because they feel hollow.
But This is getting too dark. Too real.
Too near the depths of my stream of consciousness I try to wade into
But only along the shallows, ankle or calf deep.
Can’t ever reach 50% waist high because that’s a no go zone.
I remember my roots in the shallows,
The darkness in the deep, deep part of myself that is too twisted to ever see the light of day.
It would be bleached and bloated above the surface,
Ugly in a world that values sparkling, and beautiful, and perfect impermanence.
So I sigh and grin big, focus on being a Dreamer and go to battle, always to battle.
Every morning
I infuse a little more steel into my spine
Wrap myself in soft smiles and starry eyes
Diplomatic and balanced
Mantras and chants about virtues
Stock patience in my clenched palms and lodge it between my teeth
Lips glossy with lip balm
To hide all my cracks that are more prominent in winter
Like I’ve got it all together
But my friends see past the illusions
I spend hours weaving
I never had a poker face
And maybe I just don’t believe in fairies and their mystic arts as much I used to
Their mischief more malevolent in the light of adulthood I wouldn’t have chosen
If I could have stayed small
And innocent
And unblemished with scars
Self inflicted by time and carelessness
And bad intentions planted that sprouted with the sprinklings of good intentions from parents Who say “If you just lost this or did this you would be so much happier.”
All the tiny magical charms I used to stuff in my pockets and mason jars as a child
My hunts through clover patches for something more
Seem so far away and pointless
I remember I was Jealous of the four leaf my uncle found and framed for my little sister
Knowing from then on I needed to make my own luck
It would not always be handed to me
I would not let it be handed to me
I know now fortunes can change at the crack of a crumbling cookie,
A stranger too eager to get inside my walls and find their own fortunes
A scramble to be intimate and while nights away with someone I’m not invested in
Because my fortune will never be good enough for them and is so easily tossed aside
A scrap of paper and poetry to those looking for gold
But there is treasure I keep so closely guarded I’ve half forgotten where I hid it
And months go by some seasons before I recall I carry gems
My castle walls seem open, gate down across an empty moat,
Sun shining into courtyards and through windows
Beautiful until you notice how eerie and hollow it all is
The throne in the main hall made of porcelain
Because I can’t keep dinner down most nights and feel nauseated when it’s late
And I’m in a car watching the city fly by, bridges upon bridges
And I have to crack a window to feel like I can still really breathe
Like my lungs forgot how to operate
Because my brain is Elsewhere
When you ask what weather I am most like
My friends will likely respond Hurricane
As one did just last weekend
I didn’t ask why but I think it is because
Sometimes I bring
Total devastation
I am a force to be reckoned with
Uproot the old and beckon in the new
Rebuilding my foundations again and again
But there’s something about a search for perfection and fortunes and starting anew
That beckons me onward and others towards me
Charisma they call it
Maybe I still have some fairy charms left in me.
Eye gazing with orchids
Is a staring contest you can’t lose
Even when you blink away
The gentle curves of each gradient
And the pollen motes floating through the air
You’ve still absorbed a tiny universe
Into your soul
A memory of a cold blustery afternoon
Where you turned your mind off
And wandered through jungles and deserts
In the course of three hours
Pressing pause on work and play
And just letting daydreams manifest amongst flowers
You cracked open an hourglass
It’s curved reflections became jagged
Warping against floor boards
You picked up handfuls of glass and sand
Letting them run back through your fingers
Time leaving small cuts on your palms
Criss crossed life lines and branching river beds
Laugh lines streaming from your tear ducts
Minuscule grains making a home under your fingernails
There are less than 26 days till I turn 26
26 ways I could have been a better sister
A better friend
A better lover
I wasn’t ripe yet
Too scared to bloom
Afraid of getting plucked up
I’ve seen the flowers die slowly
Wilting in a pretty vase
Browning and fading
Drooping as they dry out
Bright petals wasting away on counters
And in the bottom of garbage bags
Sucking up water like their life depends on it, even thought they’re past the point of no return
But she says crack open the bud I’ve encased my heart in
Says this is the year
There are so many people who want to love me the way I need to be loved
She reminds me I’ve forgotten
Flowers can be uprooted
Repotted
Transplanted
They make beautiful hybrids
Change into something completely new
Change landscapes with their colors
Unforgettable in their brilliant newness
I marinated in the melodies
A symphony of violins
Another world within a train
That exists with my eyes half shut
Cracked to make sure I don’t miss my stop
I skip back tracks to keep the violin soaring
To make the world stop shaking
I retreat into classical music
A genre I haven’t immersed myself in
Not in the last three years
I find this song reassuring
When the anxiety builds
A deafening whispering
I have to drown out
She smelled like rain
The ocean about to heave
Tantrum stormy skies building
Energy churning miles high
Crackling with salt
Overwhelming
The tears fell
Washed her face
Covered it up
Smeared lines into skin
Shifting her cheekbones
And highlighting eyebrows
Till the glow of her face was
Blinding with sparkles
A neon painted smile
Over a bloody tongue
And muted screams
Every day she crunches the numbers on the scale mentally
Sometimes lets the silence stay sinister
Keeps breathing evenly
She says, “I believe in me”
Till she almost believes the words she mutters to the mirror
Pocket good questions
And turn them inside out
On the way to an interview
Spend the week reading every
Tweet, caption, status
Backlog the last 30 days
Tilt “creepy” off center so that
“Obsessed” ensures a
"You really impressed us today!"
But really, I just want to know
What was your earliest memory
Of music, of the rain
What was the last thing
That made you smile or laugh
Before you got here today
Trudging up from the depths of trains stations
What was the last thing
That made you feel okay
Before the day ran away
Distracting you for hours
The light flickering off glass
Blue to orange to pink to indigo
Till you jerk back
Careening off center
Into a staccato of
Half finished sentences
Thoughts ending in question marks?
And an auto generated email signature
Because you've run out of time
At the bottom of the thank you note to type
Your name
FOR HER: Falling into productivity at first sip
Is a bit like falling in love,
It requires lavender matcha lattes
And splitting a flaky croissant
An even 70/30
Without a second thought
Because the person across from me
Is enough to sate the endless hunger
That used to keep me up at night
Whispering, “You are not enough”
FOR HIM: Today, chasing after my dreams is easy
In softly lit cafes draped in green vines
Smile and sip my way down a checklist
Calculating my productivity by cups of matcha consumed
And the 22 poems I have left to write
Sometimes he looks at me with gentle eyes
And says, “I want to be you when I grow up”
Even though he has years on me
Even though I wonder what he’s doing with me
Even though I got the bigger half of the croissant
Moonlight was swelling through cracked window panes
Patiently undulating across floorboards
Sniffing around table legs
Flirting with the gap between couch and wall
Skirting around haphazardly stacked books
And two stools ensconced in full winter wardrobes
Graylight casts shadows, an ancient lunar spell work
Dark and deep, distinctly sleepy shades
The room became a colorless playground
Light and shadows dancing to the rhythm of
A heavy quiet broken by harsh breathing
Two bodies undulating
Shrouded in shadows
Passion bright in starry eyes
It starts with forgetting
Every night we travel through impossibilities
Live lifetimes with our eyes shut dreaming
Screaming, laughing, loving
Sometimes I wake up crying
Abruptly conscious, I’m left grasping
Mourning memories, sharp with blocks of color
A song I can’t quite remember
A feathered kiss that kept me centered
An endless moment where there are no expectations
Color ripples across the wall
Gently etching fractured sunlight in quick succession,
Lending movement to a flat space
In the stillness of your imagination your past selves wander,
Whiling away the hours in silence
Waiting for you to wake up, they pile up
Flimsily stacked masterpieces
Rough sketches on canvas stretched too thin
Abandoned for another time
In another universe
Where you stopped and found
You were finally content
Born too late to explore the earth,
Born too soon to explore the galaxy
Daily, we venture into Skyscraper National Park
A jungle of neon and buzzing electricity
Trodding well worn paths over discarded gum and cigarettes,
Flattened and black with heavy soles
Most days, we’re not conquerors out for blood
Recklessly careening past horizons into the unknown
Too often, we let our dreams cool
And only seek to explore our little patch of the world
We’re captivated by new gods,
Endless data streams and smooth glass
We conduct potential expeditions with quick fingertips
Plow through miles in milliseconds
Zooming in and out of streets and continents
Hopping around satellite composites for street views of the Taj Mahal
And silently promising ourselves, “One day.”
Even though we’ll no longer be the first
Or even close to the first
Why do we always have to be first
We’re standing in a puddle
Faces tilted upwards
Wet snow isn’t graceful as it plops down
Melting across the sharp ridge of his nose
And sliding down my cheekbones
Slinking past our hoods as we watch the wind
A mesmerizing cyclone of ice coaxed into a spiral
Rising, rising, rising with purpose
We don’t speak
He’s been trying to be better about listening
Striving to hear what I’m not saying
The silence is enormous
But I’m filling it with poetry
She’s quietly determined in her sincerity
Tells me she still daydreams of bombs when it’s quiet
Glancing out the nearby window her soft gaze turns inward
Searching for sparrows and cherry blossoms
Amongst muddied puddles and cracked pavement
Bursting with anxious roots scrabbling for new earth
She gathers the corners of herself
And polishes away the sharp edges till she’s smooth and round
Unblemished mercury, she slides her hand into mine
Lays her head softly on my shoulder
Reflecting back what she thinks I want to see
But I know the heavy weight of mercury, its every metallic shade
The sluggish track of its orbit, 58+ days crammed into one
That never seems like it will end
I’ve cradled the darkness between the stars in my palms
And have run inky fingers through tear tracks I didn’t feel fall
After a blitz attack, after a supernova, after heartbreak
I’ll stay close so she can find me when she’s ready
Sometimes dreams, lucid between memories slip through into the real world
Making you further question your sanity
Seamlessly melding with reality
Where bullets rain faster than smiles
And fake concern stretches around the syllables of newscasters’ grins
The train tilts along a sharp curve—
And I forget what I’ve been considering so closely,
Music blasts through plastic coated wires
And I people watch
As we speed by underground
Time illuminated in red, close to midnight
We’re stumbling as we’re rumbling along tracks
We hastily patch as they fall to pieces weekend over weekend
And we’re still impatient
So here we are, glitching out as train after train speeds by
I stand with feet planted on a train filled with people
Each with their own stories and challenges
Ones that will carry from this night to this new morning
And can’t be shrugged off as April Fools jokes
Making their way home, or making their way to something
As I am
A family of four sits down in a row on the train at 12.00am
Heading deeper into Brooklyn, a mother and two daughters,
One with her mother’s hairstyle
And the other rocking a mini version of her mother’s pink pants
A child sits in a stroller with a thin clear plastic covering draped over him
Small hands pressing against plastic
Eyes wide and very awake
His family throws bang snaps at each other and the floor
Mini fireworks popping as they make contact
The entire train car tries to brace for each pop, but jerks minutely every time one goes off
Here is childish glee they grit their teeth against
Perhaps it’s too much happiness they haven’t been invited into, in too small a space
Perhaps it’s too late, or too early for them
A man in a silver puffy jacket patches the cotton material
Back into the lining of his coat with clear packaging tape
Methodically ripping pieces which sharp white teeth
I’m happy to see him mending the sleeve
Instead of chucking the entire jacket aside as impossible to fix, as most people do
Thinking it’s too much effort
When they can more easily trek to the nearest Uniqlo
Grabbing up another jacket as quickly as they can swipe their credit card
A temporary session of retail therapy
It’s 12.05am
And the doors slide open
Some of us jump off
Dancing into whatever adventures the morning may hold