everything is ending except the world

all of the detours,
and the airplanes,
and the searching,
and the dancing,
getting lost in Chicago
when street names turn to sketchy numbers,
dark rain,
and the drunk running,
the jammed umbrellas,
the twirling in caves,
spinning and spinning
in a drunk man's arms
in Spain,
where they search for American girls,
to devour and escort
out to tired
streets at dawn,
the spinning and spinning,
the flying over seas,
the speeding ferry,
the nauseousness,
the bus tipping over the mountainside,
and now I sink into him
as in a bubble bath,
the past buzzing
like a concert I just left,
and I'm in warm water,
the sound of loud speakers
still resonating
in my ears

November

I prayed for a sign,
                                 -and behold-
there it is
not,
the neon red cardinal emerging
from the dead, barren view
of earth,
the decrepit backyard fence,
the unpleasant sound of
dry wind
scraping the weeds,

and the neon red bird
not there.

And behold,
the absence of the sign
more shocking than its presence,
teaching me that God is not a hotline.

your head is so beautiful floating above mine, with a silver shadow of blinds on the ceiling above

I love you the best

His white pick-up truck. Passing through the green light while I stop at the red arrow, a frail winter rain, the car driving achingly slow, almost as if it were on a treadmill, moving but not leaving. It was as if none of it had happened, as if I woke up from a three-month dream or a three-month coma, and all I have as a memory is conversing with God for the first time, loving myself, and the vague smell of raspberry sangria candles. All I took with me in this dream was a new sense of self, a new identity, and I've forgotten the taste of cilantro and curry, the smell of men's deodorant on my shoulders, and the normality of it all, the security, the depth, the presence of God, as if I knew it all along, as if I had lived this way my whole life, as if I always knew my worth. His presence again, hugging on the least most comfortable couch and grazing his warm shirt, soaked with nervous sweat, as if his back were sobbing into his shirt. All of this, rubbing his tattooed back, the grazing, the familiar bulge, the hair getting stuck to stubble, and him whispering, you're fine, as I move the strands out of his face. All of this was like conversing with ghosts, like revisiting the lost memories which God had secretly archived, like secret Google searches after a missed period. It was reuniting with dead emotions and shaking them out of place, like accumulated phlegm, as the Muse arrives uninvited. I return home to a shipped box with my cap and gown inside. I return to the Stephanie in August the way we wiggle our toes and flutter our fingers after meditation, shattering our dreams, brushing them off like crumbs, and deciding that reality does not crown us, but crucifies us, and I could be wrong, and I could indeed be "fucking stupid," and God could be taking side streets, not main streets, a longer more difficult route. I wake up from the delightful dream of Having, omelets and Ezekiel bread, Ubermensch muscles bulging from tight under armor, and the power of I love you. Namaste.

the first Chicago snowfall, humble and forgiving

listening to Alt-J's "Ms"

Sleeping beside a bag you touched too recently,
and a can of Sprite.
The noise --
you're awake when you're
sleeping,
you're from Australia
in borrowed pajamas
and pillows that smell like
other heads,
other oils,
sharing a bed with mum
in Chicago

The rusty yellow moon is on its ninth month, still
like a backdrop,
painted for the theatre.

I miss hearing a song through a wall

The way she opens her eyes. The way she closes her eyes. The way she blinks.

Someone's loss bought me ice cream. And breakfast: strawberry waffles.

Regina Spektor,

The Book of Revelation is not the final chapter. The reformed bible will mention us. And we'll be the newest names.

The walks with my brother, Paul, wearing shorts and a sweatshirt, turning left when we always turn right, and sitting on a dark bench. So many bats.

"For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst? Verily, when good is hungry it seeks food even in dark caves, and when it thirsts it drinks even of dead waters."

-Khalil Gibran

You are like an alarm I keep snoozing. You come back to aggravate and to reiterate your existence.

I'm awake. Just let me sit in my sheets.

life is both intuition and equation. I want to see the equations I feel or have someone look at me and say he's reading them like watching a baby kick in an ultrasound.

díme cuando volverás, díme si me amarás

I sit watching a vibrant green grasshopper creep up a twig,
achingly slow,
its long, thin legs bending as far as they can,
and I whisper to myself
it's gonna jump
and I tremble when it does
and lands on the sunflower leaf.
I wipe my arms and legs
as if it jumped on me.

I have to preserve these feelings

Jose helping me with my Spanish homework, our legs under the tablecloth, heating from the calefacción. The dim light and sitting in it. Listening to the Beatles and him making me sing. The intro to Across the Universe, Jose messing up. Hugging him for the first and last time, telling me this wouldn't be the last time, to meet him someday in England. Eating sour gummies as tapas, drinking cocacola, playing jenga with Alicia. Coming home intoxicated with beer, and hungry, laughing and hiccuping with Maria, Maria laughing at me, sitting in the dim light, under the lamp beside her couch where she'd sit with the laptop on her lap.

When I'd learn songs on the piano and create new ones. All I remember of my senior year of high school are the nights, when I was given roses for the first time, not for a birthday or graduation, but for love. I remember sitting by dark windows and playing music, discovering a piano and playing for the first time and knowing. I remember an arm around me, a chin on my shoulder as I played Moonlight Sonata. A black cat on the stairs. I remember darkness, but falling in premature love in it.

Mosquitoes at the bend of our sticky knees. A field behind the Starbucks. Saganaki. Reading Plato's Meno and saving myself from Salvation.

Discovering folk music in Roosevelt's library, eyes stinging from dust, the library darkening, someone pulls the pull chain and there's rich light.

god, you are so beautiful in my mind. When I caught you thinking of marriage.

I think of you riding away on your bike, passing the McDonald's, passing Wrigley Field, turning right onto Addison. I said a prayer for you as you turned and finally said goodbye.

Orion

I've been having dreams of this belt in the constellation of Orion. The night sky is oftentimes ominous in my dreams, but when I saw Orion's belt in this particular dream, the sky was kind and dark, and the halo around the stars was a midnight blue. I was leaving a building and walking into a parking lot. And the stars were out, and people were sitting on their cars.

I remember seeing Orion's belt in Spain, behind La Alhambra, and I don't know why I was so amazed that the same stars I saw back home were the same stars in Granada. I was confused with what was home, and I decided that home is wherever those stars are. It still doesn't make sense to me, but it feels like home. It feels right. It feels like swimming in our outdoor pool at night. In Turlock. Baba telling biblical stories about serpents. Mama telling us to come inside. The moon's reflection blinding us in the black, moving waters. Baba only swims backwards, floats on his back, sighs in ah's, looks up at nothing, or everything, and whispers khzee dunyeh (look at the world). Shivering as we leave the pool. A luscious chill. Eating ice cream or melon or spicy ramen when we get inside. When I see those stars, I think of those nights. And I think of La Alhambra, and meeting Juan and realizing we have the same orange birthmark. 

I had another dream that I was moving out of my apartment, and I had remembered-- while leaving through the door-- that I had forgotten my black purse, hanging on my closet door. I wasn't able to get it back, my dream had decided. 

                    It wasn't the purse that I wanted to get back so badly; it was the keys to my suburban home that were in the zipper pocket.

Today, a jog ended early because of heartburn because of hunger. A vibrant green insect was on my left shoulder.

I wanted to be like those dogs in the lake, hopping, sprinting around other dogs, barking to claim superiority, barking to protect their boundaries, barking to invite them to play.

she's getting married

It's not that time went by fast; I just didn't expect it to end.

What did the little one drop today?

his milk, his artwork on paper, a sweet pear, himself, he screamed when his hands caught the fall and scratched the sidewalk, I yelled at the sidewalk for hurting him and he laughed through his tears, he dropped a few books after begging for one more, and then one more after one more passed, he dropped a kernel of corn in his bib, he slipped off his shoes as his feet dangled from the seat, he threw all of his colorful paper after placing them on his head, he let the sheets slide apart and teasingly sway as they fell.

I met a man at Merz Apothecary last summer. He had a headache. He saw me entering from the revolving doors and he called, trouble! He asked me who wrote "In the room the women come and go. Talking of Michelangelo." He recommended I read Eric Fromm. That is when I tried to love and loved and still love and it was a curse.

He emailed me back telling me not to drop all the things kids do.

Stephanie,

It's not a shame to die and it's not a shame to love.

Being a mother is chalk boards, framing light scribbles, saving Trader Joe's stickers, hummus and peppers, apple juice mixed with grape juice, white noise, getting used to the smell of urine, pretending the diaper is a hat, he laughs, pretending a banana is a phone, being chased with a toy potato, Pop, 80's, or Country are his preferences, Moses Moses eskimoses I love you from your head to your toeses, brokeded, I want one more song, okay, I want one more, okay, I want one more, I close the door, I want one more, then he starts singing to himself.

sometimes the water spills from the glass
and I let it drip and linger
without wiping my chin

"It is no more pleasant to be killed by a cruise missile than it is to be killed by gas; you're still dead."

About December 20th

I felt pounded getting out of the car and seeing more black sky, the trees were gone and it snowed. It felt like a divorce, so much little time committed to living and loving and now it's gone.

You will believe me in tomorrow's headline.

Tom Waits's "Dead and Lovely" started playing on my phone and woke me up.

I don't know how it played again.

a warm, relaxed hug that doesn't resist. That lets the warmth heat up. 

To touch his back with my palms, too, not just the fingertips

and just stand there

this coffee smells like Potemkin when I'd order a tostada con mantequilla y miel

Orion's belt behind La Alhambra

there are stars in Spain?

I don't believe in god. I just believe something else is aware of me.

midnight mass

While partaking in the Eucharist, one of the deacons called out, Rabbi! I need a refill!

dangling conversation

Boomerangs are awesome. Have you ever used one?

     Yeah, but they never came back to me.

I wonder who else knows this violin instrumental is U2's "With or without you."

Leaving Chefchaouen

I saw the ends of
two rainbows
after a bus tipped over
and fell into the hillside.

Abdeslam sang Ajini
after saying, pobres
and tisking.

the hush
brush of clothes
tiptoeing in the living room
while I sleep
knees and denim grinding
whispering

and they lock the front door.

I was humming this song. The little ray of sunshine, two years old, picked up on it and started humming it perfectly.

the sound I liked

of his beard. He strummed it with his guitar pick.

I loved that sound.

I've worked so hard for all of this. To have the memories I have, to have the two best jobs in the world where I can tutor, and essentially teach, students, adults, a two-year-old, whose mother studied in Granada 11 years ago, and who tells me stories of Almuñecar and eating all the hotdogs. I'm reaching graduation in several months, I live in a beautiful place, where I can dwell with the loud people on the streets or hide away and listen to them with the blinds down. I don't feel guilty anymore, and I don't know how this happened.

Martha, my dear

she reuses envelopes as folders.


silly girl

I saw something very beautiful a few weeks ago. I was sitting in class and out the window was the American flag blowing in the wind. But all I could see were the red stripes, and it was so beautiful. Red and white stripes of a large flag filling up the window. Not because it was just red and white stripes, but because I knew there were stars, and I liked that they were hidden.

I was mad at the cold until

I saw a long sheet of plastic flying and twirling in the air. I was still bitter, and when I made it a few steps from my door, a neighbor said, "C'mon. Get up." I looked over and saw her dog dead on its side on a huge heap of snow. The dog didn't move its head, but its eyes, and looked over at me. "He's lazy," the neighbor said.

I wonder who else knows that this slow guitar instrumental is the Beatles's "I will."

hermana

A friend asked me when her wedding is, and I said in October. I noticed that in less than 8 months, it'll be here. I can't wait to see her blossom after this new chapter and pursue her passions, expand her possibilities, have space and time [to herself]. No need to worry about anyone else. Pluck out who and what is best for her. She needs this freedom to be the colorful, strong person she's always been. I never loved someone right. I never was loved so much. Some people love only what is lovely. They didn't see the parts that she saw. They didn't stay up with me many, many nights when I was at my worst. Their love didn't change me, and I don't mean change me in a summer romance and teach me some important things, but truly change me and push me to finally grow up. But her love did. Her love for me shows her strength. It's not a shame to love, it's not a weakening action or pursuit. I wondered what it was for many years, but never followed through with it, never was transformed by it, until I grew in love with her. I couldn't grasp the idea of living monogamously with someone and loving them every single freaking day, how annoying and tarnished it would be. But every day, I love her, though I don't like how she handles things or cares too much. I love her but want to be away from her. I love her and want to be next to her. I love her because she is not like me, but because she is like me. That because she is like me, she chooses different routes, she chooses to be different. And then I learn to be different, for the betterment of myself. As her sister, I was forced into this relationship, but learned how to love because of it.

She's leaving home. bye-bye ~The Beatles

Fog's rollin' in

still not over

Everyone had a love story in Granada. Not just the Granadinos, but the lovers from Argentina and Belgium living and loving in Spain. The Hawaiian and the Czech. The Italian and the Italian. My Spanish mother and her once French boyfriend.....

Ok. Now I'm done. Time for homework.

(After my nostalgic writing, I read a funny headline in the Chicagoist that read, "War has been waged." The photo was of a crowd of people snowball fighting. I read a woman's comment and snapped out of my nostalgia. She wrote, "My god, I miss the HECK out of you, Chicago.")

the time to be nostalgic isn't over

the emotions I wanted to elicit were clearer when translating the story to Spanish. It told a new story.

que será, será

My memories, my memories, of Granada, watching the sky swallow up mountains and hills whose homes turned to stars as it reached night and we left Salobreña, the yellow sunset with a silhouette of large rocks that made me feel so afraid, afraid of pure beauty, the soft hands of María and her silky white robe, a woman speaking to her dog in Spanish, the water dripping down from flower pots when they'd siesta and I'd walk and hear every footstep and sweep of the broom. The walks home at night, at evening, mornings, all the time. And I remember thinking over and over, trying to picture how it would all be, telling myself I'd die before it happened because the future wasn't clear to me. But now, that emptiness of my mind that longed for the future, is tainted and fermented with memory, collecting flowers in hand as I stroll. And maybe love is along this path. And maybe I won't die.

alma

I tried to escape into their body,
to morph into the oppressed forms.
The violinist on the street,
fingers so red from the wind,
my god, I wonder how they wiggle languidly.
I tried to become woman,
but I couldn't;
my body followed me everywhere I'd go.

Last night I realized I could go on Hulu and catch up on New Girl, and I cried out,

"I'm in America!!!"