Your caresses through my hair.
Your words continuously echoing.
It's your laugh, the true sound of happiness.
The roughness of your wisdom filled hands.
Those casual kisses and storm-calming embraces.
Your smell of untold secrets, well aged love and world forgiven sins.

Lost but not forgotten.
Gone but forever loved.

The questions;
Ongoing.
My body deceives my mind
And my mind, fruitlessly, tries to return the favour.
The fear of committing,
Committing to the confession,
Is overwhelming
But mostly it's The Uncertainty.
It slowly
Takes
Over
And then once again I'm at peace.

47 years kept in your mind,
A secret none thought to find.
It shook them.
Left them to wonder.
An uncle, cousin, son,brother.
And then the search began in thunder:
Discarding thoughts of irrelevance,
Piecing together the evidence.
Although still fearful of danger;
"Welcome to the family",
Stranger.

Close.
    Your.
       Eyes.
The world becomes morphed by something you should never have done,
But you have.
You do.
And you will again and again.

I know that insecurity isn't pretty,
*which is how I also know that I'm not beautiful

your mouth is a door,
and someday you are going to be told that it's just better left closed.

your eyes are the windows to your soul,
and someday people are going to tell you to draw the curtains.

your heart has been unpacked from the basement,
and someday someone is going to tell you to put it away.

and your optimism is a candle in your windows, and someday everyone's going to try and blow it out.

i'm telling you this,
because when that someday comes i want you to know what to say.

you say,

"my mouth is a door, and i hold the key."
"my eyes are the windows to my soul and i'll wash them regularly."
"my heart will not be put away, it goes with everything."
"my optimism is a candle, and it keeps me warm."

when that someday comes,
i want you to know what to say...

you say,
"this is my house, and it's not for sale."

you are leaving again.
i find myself saddened without tangible reason.
and i know that with my sadness should come some joy,
and if not joy, 
then relief,
because when you are half the world away,
it becomes just a bit easier
to forget the times when you were so painfully closer.
i can look up at the moon — a pale phantom sliver —
and know that you do not gaze upon it at that same time.
in that moment,
the moon is mine.
i do not mind that the sun rises for you
so long as i cannot see it.
so i should breathe easy;
your absence gives me a little more room to love myself.

and yet —
there is always an “and yet” with you — 
when the easier breathing begs for entrance to my lungs,
i turn it away.
to forget you would mean to forgo grieving,
and god knows i live for a good ache.

so i think of you,
faultless in the dim yellow glow.
images i shouldn't call upon.
small, soft moments when you seemed to see me.
i remember the time when you crowned me with a halo, deemed me an angel.
i imagine that you are the only one who could ever make me believe that i fit the part.

glowing.
i don't know if you were but i was.
glowing.
if we have to share the moon, then so be it.

i find myself saddened without tangible reason.
this is the part where you come in.

but you are leaving again.
i could ask myself if you were ever truly "here,"
but it always hurts the most to ask the questions i already know the answers to.
so i think, instead,
of you,
faultless in the dim yellow glow.
the pain is a little bit more bearable.
i imagine that maybe you were glowing, too.

(a.m.)

jan from the corner store doesn't understand me,
I told her I wasn't mixed; my parents are just different
shades of the same color but she doesn't believe me,
and the man behind the counter silently agrees.

the old white lady that always takes the 5 train
stares at me curiously, her eyes say they don't trust me
and I don't understand why. I never thought I had to
explain myself to strangers or that my race was the most
interesting thing about me but that's always the
first question everybody asks.

my aunt told me the other day that I was jabao,
in other words, nobody knows what to do with me.
I am unidentifiable. my skin screams the sun and
stars too small to recognize; it says I am the product
of a collision between the blackest sea and the whitest sand.
some parts of my body sing a ballad so dark only certain
people would ever want to listen to. maybe these are the
parts that the old white lady on the five train is scared to
listen to. maybe the curls I tried so hard to straighten are
what terrifies her, maybe the black in my kneecaps keeps
her up at night, maybe the sound of boisterous music in a
language she could never understand makes her skin jump,
sends shivers down her spine makes her think twice
about who I am.

jan from the corner store doesn't understand me,
I told her I was jabao, a mix of summer glow and
muted winter skin. but she doesn't believe me; says
she has never met a Dominican like me, that in some ways
I must be a mixed breed. and the man behind the counter
silently agrees.

(h.l.)

If you ever wondered what do I sound like
and pictured me like untamed winds on rainy nights,
humming melodies in chorus with raindrops
and spilling dulcet tones off holy concert

Or contemplated I would be as synchronized
as the sound of a calm water fall,
off a sharp cliff erupting euphony
every time its hits the bottom in a xylophonic fashion

Or believed I would be as patient
as a cuckoo reciting her syllables religiously,
calling out to her mate every evening,

let go

Let go your fallacious thoughts.
I am not a piano, violin, xylophone, flute or a guitar
I am
A tender heart who squeaks like squirrel
when exposed to unprecedented depths of uncertainty.

An introvert who sounds like a voice narrowed down into a tunnel
cascading echo in batches when exposed to unfamiliar faces.

A small town girl who orchestrates her crescendo in vain
when the slightest ray of hope is felt.

A fearless soul singing silently while her hands spill cacophony
when exposed to prejudiced ways.

A fiery lover whose heart beats on high tempo of passion
and spill music off desires.

Come in, know me better.

-Pallavi