My mother asks me to buy her milk and I stand in line at the grocery store.
I hold the milk bottle in both my hands afraid it would break like my heart did last night when I saw my maid's daughter, a 16 year old child,  breastfeeding her 1 year old son.
I felt sorry that when her culture sees a little girl playing with her dollhouse, it asks the little girl to be the doll
I felt sorry that when her culture sees a little girl fixing the ribbons over her braids, it thinks of ways to tie her legs as tightly as her hair,
I felt sorry that when her culture sees a little girl, it doesn’t see a little girl
but I did not voice my opinion because what I felt most sorry about was calling it her culture when I was born in the same city she was born in.
I see the line was moving while I stood still.
The woman standing behind me holding a jar of coffee, a pack of cigarettes, and a pair of tired shoulders gives me a look for not paying attention.
I take a step forwards,
I look behind me;
I smile politely at her, and say “I’m sorry”.

It is hard writing you down…
Metaphors hide behind my ribcage and imagery curbs into the ridges of my brain.
But I’m a writer so I cannot allow my love to turn into a language I cannot speak,
and I’m a warrior so I cannot allow my writing to be conquered by my feelings.
I try to remind myself not to confuse love for war…
I try to think of analogues of us that do not reek of passionate bloodshed.
But it's impossible because I have found the shield of Achilles buried under my tongue the first time we kissed,
and it's futile because your voice echoes the battle cry god screamed when he created love.

My father looks noble from a distance.
My father is kind, with an air of stale waters.
My father says I wouldn’t understand.
My father says, but not out loud, that it’s out of love.
My father builds me smaller, and I hand him the shovel.
My father drives me to the edge of the cliff, then he drives back home alone playing his favorite classical music on the radio.
My father says happy birthday on the wrong day, and he smiles ever so graciously handing me money as a gift.
My father’s scent doesn’t feel like home, he smells like the hospital.

My father never laid his hand on me....
Not with a slap on the face, and not with a pat on the back.

My father doesn’t yell at me. In fact, the only time in which I get to hear his voice is when we have small talk every couple of days.

My father never broke my heart. I do not think he is aware that we are anatomally wired to have hearts.

I saw my father’s blood on the bathroom tile after him coughing in there for two hours straight. I pretended I saw nothing. I wonder if he too pretends he doesn’t see me bleeding myself to sleep every night.

When I was 12, I got food poisoning...
the fourth time I threw up, my neighbor said “that’s sickness leaving your body to live somewhere else”..
So today, I wrote your name 4 more times.

Writing is a long walk down a dark alley without a pepper spray ...
It’s vulnerability, new to the ballet class, standing on the tip of its toes ..
It is an eye directly exposed to a solar eclipse.

Writing is a long dive down the Mariana Trench without an oxygen tank ...
It’s daggers cutting through lungs, and lungs cutting through ribcages ..
It is an inflamed heart.

Writing is a craft: building the inflamed heart a rocket, and flying it two constellations out of its comfort zone without a map ...
It’s a broken maze with the last name of a study guide ..
It is fingers stuttering.

Writing doesn’t feel good ...
but my best friend taught me that adrenaline rushes post working out ..
so I put up with it, and run an A4 paper.