Demasiado tiempo
The letters do not recognize me. They gather into words, whispering, wary of my approach. I am a stranger they struggle to recognize through eyes clouded with absence and neglect. They trace the lines of my fingertips, slowly settling into the lines of palms that promise to hold them more gently, more closely, to not let them slip like grains of sand through hands too young to appreciate them.
Time places heavy kisses on my knuckles, one by one by one and my elbows feel awkward against this new table. My knees should be crossed and propped perfectly into the familiar corners under my desk. A desk now covered by pictures of faces foreign to mine, mementos of memories I did not make, homework that is not mine to finish before the sun rises. But those used to be crooked smiles of my parents, bracelets that adorned my wrists through adventures, notes of Spanglish from dear friends, mugs of tea carefully steeped by a woman who made herself my mother. My forearms ache for the strength of that desk beneath them as I write.
Some evenings come on so strong, like liquor that waits for you at the bottom of a glass to sign your tab with a tip you'll regret in the morning and the sigh of a bartender relieved to see you carry your emotional baggage safely out the door. Sometimes they just come on so strong.
And what I would give to unlock that gate, skip the steps to the door, turn they key and fall into their arms. What I would give to climb those stairs and drift my hand slowly across the pink wall as I wander up to my room. The whole parts of my life I would give simply to wake and follow the lines of the wood paneled ceiling with sleepy eyes in the light of a dawn begging me to grow young in morning's hope. I long to hold those lace curtains, to bunch them just so and tie the perfect knot so that the sun knew it was welcome in my space the whole day through after it managed to soothe the heaviness the tropical clouds always promised with their soft sulking.
I miss the smell of their perfume before school, far more than I was ever allowed to wear at fifteen, but so beautiful in its courage. And I would dance through its lingering cloud, sending my love on the wind after them to chase them through the day.
And Mama Tica. Her usually smoothed hair still curled and free from a night of rest she so deeply deserved. And if I could, I would slow the moments when her worn hands rubbed dreams from her eyes, brown and bright without glasses, before setting my coffee between my hands and warming my cheek with a kiss of home. She is impossible to put to words, to confine to the limits of language, hers is a beauty that steals your soul, and I would spend my whole life begging her to keep it. I miss the feeling of her fingers in my hair, peeling tear soaked strands from my face, the feeling of her breath in my ear as spanish prayers softened my worry, I miss the way that the slow curve of her neck held my laughter. My mama was a reservoir of love in which I was what was truly saved.
You should never give up on a gift.
And according to Peter Pan, you should also never say never.
So here I go, second star to the right and straight on till morning.
Because I feel alive when words are born of a passionate affair between my pen and paper. I am alive and breathing with flushed cheeks and a confident rhythm that echoes of my San Jose runs. I can keep that peace and do it justice. That free-willed girl, weaving through small streets in a small nation in Central America in this big world is still here, embers yet burning with the love for life.
Time places heavy kisses on my knuckles, one by one by one and my elbows feel awkward against this new table. My knees should be crossed and propped perfectly into the familiar corners under my desk. A desk now covered by pictures of faces foreign to mine, mementos of memories I did not make, homework that is not mine to finish before the sun rises. But those used to be crooked smiles of my parents, bracelets that adorned my wrists through adventures, notes of Spanglish from dear friends, mugs of tea carefully steeped by a woman who made herself my mother. My forearms ache for the strength of that desk beneath them as I write.
Some evenings come on so strong, like liquor that waits for you at the bottom of a glass to sign your tab with a tip you'll regret in the morning and the sigh of a bartender relieved to see you carry your emotional baggage safely out the door. Sometimes they just come on so strong.
And what I would give to unlock that gate, skip the steps to the door, turn they key and fall into their arms. What I would give to climb those stairs and drift my hand slowly across the pink wall as I wander up to my room. The whole parts of my life I would give simply to wake and follow the lines of the wood paneled ceiling with sleepy eyes in the light of a dawn begging me to grow young in morning's hope. I long to hold those lace curtains, to bunch them just so and tie the perfect knot so that the sun knew it was welcome in my space the whole day through after it managed to soothe the heaviness the tropical clouds always promised with their soft sulking.
I miss the smell of their perfume before school, far more than I was ever allowed to wear at fifteen, but so beautiful in its courage. And I would dance through its lingering cloud, sending my love on the wind after them to chase them through the day.
And Mama Tica. Her usually smoothed hair still curled and free from a night of rest she so deeply deserved. And if I could, I would slow the moments when her worn hands rubbed dreams from her eyes, brown and bright without glasses, before setting my coffee between my hands and warming my cheek with a kiss of home. She is impossible to put to words, to confine to the limits of language, hers is a beauty that steals your soul, and I would spend my whole life begging her to keep it. I miss the feeling of her fingers in my hair, peeling tear soaked strands from my face, the feeling of her breath in my ear as spanish prayers softened my worry, I miss the way that the slow curve of her neck held my laughter. My mama was a reservoir of love in which I was what was truly saved.
You should never give up on a gift.
And according to Peter Pan, you should also never say never.
So here I go, second star to the right and straight on till morning.
Because I feel alive when words are born of a passionate affair between my pen and paper. I am alive and breathing with flushed cheeks and a confident rhythm that echoes of my San Jose runs. I can keep that peace and do it justice. That free-willed girl, weaving through small streets in a small nation in Central America in this big world is still here, embers yet burning with the love for life.
:)
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