Lo que un día construímos

Quiero tomarte de la mano y bailar contigo. Lo que un día construímos. Te doy una vuelta y te agarro de la cintura. Te doy un beso largo. Sonríes al final y me regalas tu risita dulce. Yo te sonrío de regreso y tú me besas en la nariz. Te paro de nuevo y te doy una vuelta de sorpresa. Un pequeño “¡oh!” escapa tu boca, pero tus pies se mueven con la gracia de una gacela. Tu vestido se mueve con el mío mientras nuestras caderas se mueven de un lado al otro, despacio. La canción ya va a terminar, pero yo no quiero separarme de ti. La canción ya va a terminar, pero aún no quiero despertar.

Writing

The last time I wrote in English, I wrote because I still held on to hope. I hoped that someday I would wake up on a college campus, happy to be doing what I love and surrounded by people who love and accept me for me. I don’t really hope for that anymore. Nowadays, I think I would rather be set free. Maybe that’s really all I wanted from the very beginning.

I remember writing all the time when I was in high school. It brought me some sort of comfort that I could get nowhere else. It was my safe place. I figured it was good that I wrote so much in English even if most of it was crappy. You’ll end up writing anyway. Thousands of useless poems are just practice. They’ll teach you how to truly write at college. Lies. That little voice inside my head that I believed for so long told me nothing but lies. And how hope is gone. I won’t wake up at Brown University after a fainting spell with all my friends by my side. That’s a dream, and if I’ve learned something is that dreams sometimes don’t come true. Even if you give it all you’ve got, sometimes it’s not enough.

I haven’t written anything since that poem. It was a sad night. It was also an embarrassing night. I’ve always been a bad poet. I don’t know why I show my poems to anyone. Maybe I’m better at prose. At least I’d like to think so. It doesn’t really matter anyway.

Why is it so hard for me to write? I honestly wonder. Maybe it’s not that writing is hard. It has pretty much always been easy for me to write out my feelings, but it’s been hard lately. My therapist said it was because writing became synonymous with pain. Maybe she’s right. It was easier to start writing in Spanish because I’ve never felt attached to anything I’ve written in that language. Sure, I’ve been proud. I’ve published my writing so that others can read it, but I’m not mesmerized by Spanish as I am by English. Heck! I don’t even know how to say “mesmerized” in Spanish. Maybe it’s because I’ve never read in Spanish, not as much as I’m reading now. I didn’t have time to build up vocabulary.

Spanish… It’s a language. But it never feels like my language. It feels like a foreign tongue I’m never able to fully understand. Even though they say it’s mine. Even though it’s supposed to be. Spanish is a feral cat. It comes every so often to my door and wraps its tail around my leg. It licks my hand and purrs when I pet it. Then it leaves. Because it’s not mine. It only wants to be fed. It sees the gestures as a needed courtesy rather than a demonstration of love. It will not stay inside my house. Often I see many people with kittens looking out their windows. They look at my visitor. They shame me without a word. It’s not their intention. It’s nature.

English, on the other hand, is a puppy. It’s the puppy you see when you walk by a store on a summer afternoon. You go in, happy and excited. It might just be yours. But it’s not. You can’t afford to bring it home. It looks at you so innocent from the little cage, but all you see is your reflection on the window. It isn’t yours. It isn’t mine. No one believes it ever was or will be. They think that the puppy is made up, that what I really want is to be American and that don’t appreciate where I’ve been born. That’s not it, but I won’t try to convince you. I’m sure I can’t.

I walk around wondering why I pursue this career when I’ve got everything to lose. All odds are against me. I conquer not one tool to help me. I craft stories that fall apart like a house of cards so painstakingly built but that withers when blown by the unforgiving breeze. I cry often. I tear myself apart. Many have told me to quit; they don’t understand what it’s like. Writing is like eating. Skip a meal, skip a day but you can’t simply walk away. Not unless you want to die, of course.