Foto por Fernelis Lajara
He decidido mudarme.
He decidido mudarme al otro lado
de alambres con pullas
llevando en los pesones circulares conmigo
Mirarme con una lupa
hacia dentro
(dentro del de adentro)
y amarme
amarme sola…
•••
I’ve decided to move .
I’ve decided to move to the other side with wire barbs
carrying the circular nipples with me
Looking at myself with a magnifying glass
towards inside
(within the inside)
and love me
love me
alone…
My brown skin
won’t stop shining,
my brown hands
won’t stop creating,
my mind, my own,
will always dream.
DREAM
•••
Mi piel marrón
no para de brillar,
mis manos morenas
no paran de crear,
mi mente, la mía,
siempre sueña.
SUEÑA
Photo by Fernelis Lajara @Laj13
Baña your scars.
Baña your tears.
Bath your dignity.
Expose. Give your dimples to
the sun.
Dry your pain.
Become the today
no one will give you.
Be born.
Be born.
— the day I realized I am beautiful
I write with mi lengua. Words. Verdades.
I decorated them with the silence some of us
have.
Lo visto with courage.
Someone needs to begin.
It would be me.
—On breaking the chains
The destination
he intended to
have was more black
than white, luckily, he assimilated
like his ancestors, he ate the moon and thought it was magic.
—upon finding out she bleeds
El
destino
que intentó tener
era más negro que
el blanco, por suerte, asimiló
al igual que sus antepasados, se comió la luna y pensó que era magia.
—al descubrir que ella sangra
Photo by Joelle Santos @azuquita.prieta
“Perdóname”, resbaló de su boca varías veces terminando barriendo el piso. En cambio ella, hizo todo para que el perdón de la boca para afuera no se la comiera. Todo lo que se debía hacer se hizo; sacar la basura, quemar la furia, y prender la estufa con el café a todo dar. Saqueo el más mínimo recuerdo con anís y helado con sabor Oreos.
Para ella el perdón era eso: quemar lo desecho para que no reviva. Sin embargo, el proceso era más largo…se requería tiempo más que nada, ¡tiempo! El perdón que andaba buscando no son actos; como quemar objetos y ensuciar su boca con malditas malas palabras, más bien, es dejar los tetéres intactos. Perdonar es afirmar que ya no molestan las flechas lanzadas, caminando sin tener que llevar vainas cargadas en la espalda. Sobre todo, que el perdón no sea de la boca para afuera… es de adentro, si no comerá su víctima con ansias como un veneno silencioso.
•••
“Forgive me,” it slipped from his mouth several times ending sweeping the floor. Instead, she did everything she could so the forgiveness from the mouth out cannot eat her. Everything that has to be done was done; throwing out the garbage, burning the anger, and turning on the stove with coffee in full swing. Plunder the slightest recollection with anise and flavored ice cream and Oreos.
For her forgiveness was this: burn the waste so it can’t revive. However, the process was longer…time is required more than anything, time! The forgiveness she was searching for is not an act; like burning objects and soil your damn mouth with profanity, rather, it is to leave things intact . To forgive is to realize the thrown arrows no longer bother, walking without carrying pods loaded on the back. Above all, that forgiveness is not the one that comes out of the mouth… it’s in, if not it will eat its victim forward as a silent poison.
The world hurts me
like I am the sand seeing the storms approaching
I want to speak
I want to yell
It’s only a matter of time
I scream loud
but my language is in terms of nature
nobody hears me…
Photo by José Silva
“The bus left me this morning. It was damn cold. Don’t be. Don’t be fooled by this tin light you see across Jamaica Avenue. I am burning inside, I have the Dominican sun inside me. I survived. I don’t know. No me pregunten. ¡Que se yo! I don’t really know, how can one adapt? How can you pretend you don’t miss a single thing? Your hands are cold, freezing, hard-heartless-cold winter got me this time. I am lying, not only this time… multiple times. There, while waiting for the Q56. In front of everyone, it did not cared a bit. My twelve year old self was desperated. You would be too, if someone would take you away from the bright sun that burns your body while bringing happiness under a tranquil wooden house in the campo. It has mutilado lo que soy, ahora. I told you I was not lying, I was honest from the beginning. I, myself, no longer wait for the MTA to sent me the bus to go somewhere. I persist fighting against a winter that I did not give birth to, holding it like a child, even if it cries and pulled my brown hair, I still have patience to give him love. But this bus, the one I am waiting on, I don’t want to take me anywhere. I want to just go home. I hope, I really hope, with all my mixed heart that the driver have a pilot license, home is far–not here.” —La niña diaspora
F.P.
Photo by the author F.P.
Cada cosita tiene un sabor a ti.
Cada cosa.
Te dejo ir volando
a un árbol de almohadas blandas y
ramas bailarinas azules pálidas con maméis.
Antes de irte,
tu cafécito con nuez moscada de la tarde en la mesa ya está respirando.
Cuando lo apruebo…
estas metida como arena en
el cristal —en esas cositas que se manifiestan en grande y que hablan solas.
En cafécito esta colado en tus ojos,
y en mi ADN
aunque anden tus pies flotando…
en el ruido del amanecer.
Don’t date women with stretch marks.
Do yourself a favor… and run.
¡Corre! ¡Corre! Run far
away from them, like
you’re in a marathon to
a black hole, you’re not
going back to Earth.
Ellas son la Tierra,
swallowing your memory,all
up to the moment
you see her.
They know how to
use their white lines
against you.
They know what it’s
like to be stretched
all the way… into a poem
pull all the way back
like Afro-Caribbean hair,
pull back like a metáfora
and still be glorious
and still be alive
having a permanent mark
on you.
You would be missing…
under her curvy smile,
you, will be
like an empty black
and gray wall
in lower Manhathan
on a lower backstreet
finally…
finally…
full of colorful graffiti.
—F.P.
Mujer con Voz Poetry 