Or, read below:
I met a Nun
I was always the superstitious kid growing up. I’d sleep with my pre-algebra notes under my pillow, always knock on wood, chant a mantra before getting in a car, and I had to leave fidget spinners and books in the exactly right place or else an impending doom would come down upon me. Looking back, though I justified it with it’s Newtonian characteristics, it probably came from the fact that I could never be happy for long. It had always seemed that once one good thing happened, something equally as bad would happen. Like, one time, it had been a gorgeous summer's day and I hung out with my friends all day, laughing and doing what kids do, only to have my sister have a seizure at 8 pm, for the first time in over a decade. It also doesn’t help when your immigrant parents’ generational trauma has left them with no personality aside from pessimism.
As I grew up though, jokes about OCD and judging glances were constantly being thrown my way, so eventually you learn to give some habits up. I was never one to really believe in God anyway. I mean, my parents are all defensively “I was baptized Christian and so were you, so we're Christian” even though they’ve never even read a page of the bible and I was left with a million questions when my science teacher brought up a problem about Noah and his arc, and everyone else knew what she was talking about. Plus, it just always seemed very tyrannical to me. Like, you’re going to take orders from this man (which by the way, why would a human-esc being be God? We were one of the last species to be created) who you’ve been told exists by the very people God is supposedly telling you to worship and pay? Maybe it’s just my problem with authority speaking, but that sounds unhealthy to me.
Though I do have to admit, if it isn’t clear already, there were parts of me that couldn’t help but believe in something bigger. Even if it was just the grand oaks next door, or the little invisible fairies that I thought pranced among them, there was something.
However, I’m not the surrendering type. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my parents, it’s that hard work pays off. So, I’d try to interact with these ethereal creatures. I’d conjure up spells, practice forest rituals, even try to control the weather with my “witchy” abilities. And, while there’s people who’ve built social media empires off of this kind of stuff, I more or less gave it up in the seventh grade. Surprisingly, that was a fantastic year too. I had an incredible community of teachers and peers who would let me scream and dance and ask questions and draw and laugh and just overall grow with a smile on my face. At least, that’s the way it was until we found out our landlord was selling our house and just by chance, our low-income housing application from five years ago was accepted at the exact same time. So, we moved into a tiny two-bedroom apartment where limited space, smokers, criminals, and the antithesis of everything New Canaan would stir drama for the next three years.
Surprisingly though, my superstitions didn’t start up again. Instead, my spine curved downward, my eyes found comfort on the floor, and my waist got smaller. I became the “quiet kid,” the “oh no guys, you can’t swear because Elena’s here,” the one whose radio seemed to be stuck on the channel where snide comments, smoke streaming in through windows, men with rifles walking down the hallway, friend’s suicidal thoughts, and mocking laughter was the only thing that would be playing. You couldn’t turn it off either. The best way I can describe it is like the feeling you get when you go to a super loud concert that just never seems to end. I mean, I’ve never been to a concert so I wouldn’t know, but I can imagine.
It was fine though. At least I thought it was. Until a few months ago. You see, I’d lost my period a while back, but who really needs that, right? Skipping meals and eating “rabbit food” was what everyone did. Plus, it was worth it to have skinnier thighs like everyone else, be more productive like everyone else, be less of a burden like everyone else. Right? I suppose it felt that way for a while. But, a few months ago, I got my period back. I knew that I should’ve probably eaten breakfast, and I tried, I really did. But, everyone kept coming into the kitchen and it became too chaotic to handle, so I just gave up after a while. That was a big mistake. I was perfectly fine, until I wasn’t. I was perfectly fine, until I was shaking and sweating all over, until I was wailing, calling my mother to come home from work, barely able to listen to her, barely able to breathe. I was perfectly fine, until I was praying to God. Some God, a God, any God, to keep me alive. I promised them faith in return, because I knew I couldn’t promise anything more, but I felt like I owed it to them to never let this happen again.
As you probably already discerned, I’m alive, I somehow didn’t even faint (I have a fainting problem). I surrendered to the best of my abilities, and I came out alive. It’s been a long couple of months (like I said, the messed up parents don’t help), but it’s been worth it. I realized you can’t just cut everything out, go from eating steak and cholesterol-sandwiches as snacks one day to quinoa and nutritional yeast the next, if you even eat at all. Even if it’s all in the name of health, or productivity, or what have you, there needs to be balance. I’ve done my fair share of journaling and surprisingly, it makes sense that this happened. Looking back I’ve either been too mean or too nice, too loud or too quiet, too loved or too neglected, too ambitious or too tired, and too fearless or too scared. And it’s all ended in ruined relationships, an emotional spiral of thoughts which seem to never cease, broken wrists, incomplete billion-dollar projects I let fly by (seriously, still pissed about this one), rivers of tears, physical pain, and an overall sense of instability. So, I now take things moment by moment. Maybe I can brew some tea to go along with that six hours of studying, or add a blanket mountain paired with vegan ice cream to a post-workout ritual. Either way, I know that I’m being taken care of, so I might as well take my hand off the steering wheel, make myself feel as accomplished and safe, yang and yin, as possible, and enjoy the ride.
That being said, I’ve met a girl. One who’s faced the pounding headache which is fathoming old church-going women’s faith in spite of loss, familial resentment to her existence, and I’m sure a multitude of other emotional daggers I’m ignorant of. Believers tend to view non-believers as either evil, idiotic, or a sinful dissapointment. Perhaps that’s why I had such a difficult time surrendering. But, this girl is the type of girl that brings smiles to all within a five-mile radius. The her-heart-shines-through-every-word-she-speaks type. Essentially, the nun type. But she’s also the crazy-smart type and she sees all the pain in the world. The pain no higher power, no God like the ones we all praise could allow to exist. Kind of an oxymoron, an atheist nun is.
Blood stains cheeks and words pierce souls, and the best explanation I’ve got is that it allows us to feel for other people, to connect with others, to love others in ways we otherwise couldn’t. Most believers ignore this, they think it must all be part of some inconceivable plan because otherwise they’d be fools for believing in something that’s not there. And, perhaps there’s nothing there. But, it’s the compassion most find through a sense of being taken care of that let’s individuals care for each other, the compassion nun’s find via a religious journey, the compassion she has regardless of her incredulity.
So, perhaps where I’m going with this is that there really is no promise that there’s something greater protecting and guiding us. Or perhaps there is, I’m not one to know. But, regardless, faithful or not, it’s in our power to find compassion through love and to use that compassion to foment a better world out of a sheer selfless desire to do so. And, from what I’ve learned, it’s that that evidently allows for the miracles we try to comprehend to happen. And, whether or not destiny’s aligned to make them happen, or there was some kind of higher intervention, it doesn’t matter. Because I think the whole point is not in figuring it out, but in making as many miracles as possible happen. In making as many people within a five-mile radius smile as possible.
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S O M A
Regal, your bruised lids lead your hungry lips in search of
Love from shelters of marathoners running from the hounds of their past.
Locked behind a shield of tormenting thoughts I observe from afar,
Reaching out to graze your shore fruitlessly.
Willows stretch behind you, tracing the hollows of discarded memories
That swirl around your every step as you present the throne of Versailles.
If only they could lift the aurate gleam from your blue-stoned eyes to
Peer at the mossy riddle, knotted and kinky, that lies underneath.
Child, the current of your gilded velvet austerior wraps around onlookers;
Lies embrace them to their core as your spine withers away behind the aura.
I adore you, but when will you allow your blue-stoned facade to fade off,
To breathe in your soma,
To breathe out your taut leather aura,
To drink in the
SOMA
Of the world──
And blend into the colorful chaos of a world where endings and beginnings dissipate,
Replaced by the natural divinity of mossy riddles, knotted and kinky.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Ascoltala, Amore.
A bruised petal, she vehemently screamed
A bruised petal, I vehemently cried.
Locked behind the bars of a cinema screen,
I could do no more.
Covered in an enamel exterior, they bend like cavities through the dark
Crevices of my mind, stretching them wide while my
Waist cinches and my spine compresses.
Flashbacks of a wide-eyed little girl ravage my mind.
As a wide-eyed little girl,
I’d watch my mother nervously scan the perimeter
Sly as a panther through the rundown city streets
A wide-eyed little girl, I’d be tostled around as she shifted
Through the concrete jungle, skimming past crocodiles.
As a wide-eyed little girl,
A boy would ask me out as a joke while his friends’
Mocking laughter rang out in my ears.
As a wide-eyed little girl,
I’d bend realities to hide behind the little enamel left
Convinced he was my prince charming and I was the princess.
As a wide-eyed not-so-little girl,
Tears bleed down my cheeks as I fall victim to
Hollywood's propaganda.
It seems like nobody really loves each other.
Lost v-cards pile up on the sidewalk as faces skim past
Each other, eager to see what’s next. Or worse,
Fall into the trap of seeing the twisting tongues in front of them
As longing gazes.
As cliche as it is, chivalry’s dead. Yet our radio’s are stuck on the
Station playing slurs, catcalls, and the acquittal of endless abusers,
While we tell our daughters
Dress up love, you want this; it's life’s greatest gift.
Like a fairy princess, she’ll drink in mother Earth’s beauty
Knowing that Eve was made for Adam and
Her presence is a gift from the ever-great one.
Ascoltala, Amore.
________________________________________________________________________________________
Tootsie Pop
Paws claw at him from every angle
Fruitlessly aching to rip open his carcass to get to the spirit at his core.
Like a tootsie pop,
Gently licking the sweet virulent surface,
Aggravating it just enough that it flows down their throats and presents them with their prize.
It’s a gamble to them,
The lottery ticket of the decade
They cannot help but thirst over.
But every time he smiles at me,
That dimple reaching up to kiss his cheek
With a kind of Sedona-sized bliss,
I know it’s there.
They taunt him for his vices,
Variabilities,
Vulnerabilities.
Though they just want the sickly-sweet layers of hardened sugar to melt away.
I see the way you are when someone mentions politics,
Your fervor fires in your eyes and for one second it seems your spirit has arisen.
You’ve found something to pull you to the ground
To bring those arizona-sun beams back into your voice
To melt your gaze into theirs
And put your forefinger under their chin,
Prompting them to speak.
Though eventually time restarts,
And you pull yourself away from the turmoil you can always aid others with yet never
Escape
From yourself.
I can wait for the journey to the center of my tootsie pop,
But will I be able to get there before the virulent sap bleeds into it,
Adulterating what’s left?
____________________________________________________________________________________________
Bloom
She, with her small paws curls up in a ball; a stowaway.
Tight in a box of ever-compacting cries she can't decide
Between dead or alive. Shrödinger, your cat can’t obey
All that comes her way. A Corola cerrada she abides
Until the Sun shine by; scorching the voices and dismay,
Calling for her to uncurl, reach towards him, and bloom.
In a world where boundless nights accompany a serene day
Where mountains overshadow plains, it’s fruitless to assume
One feats the other. Yet, we all seek to move away,
Back “home.” So we choose between the lucid plains
And marvelous heights, the starry nights and city rays,
And open up to the songbirds’ welcoming refrains.
Priding us for arising, unearthing reason,
And at least being sun-kissed for a season.
2021
