A letter to 17 year old me.

A letter to 17 year old me. 

Hi, Andrea, or now you everybody calls you Monique. By now, I mean back then. It’s three years later, a whole 36 months of numbing cuts, moments, pivotal instants in the cardiac arrest that will be your life. If I had gotten a chance to live all that I did knowing at least half of what I know now, maybe I wouldn’t have cried myself to sleep for so many nights. With these words I hope you feel as I softly caress you to sleep all those tears. First thing I should say? It’s okay. You’re okay. Everything turns out to be okay. Since then, you have learned that love is complicated, erratic, and not black and white at all. In reality, you learned that life in particular happens very much in the gray areas. You experienced freedom, crushing heartbreaks; you mourned somebody close to you. Emotions took you on a roller coaster on which to be very honest, you weren’t mostly in control of. Casualties, life, your parents, your friends, neighbors, and every point of conversation in life you’ve crossed were also a part of this. You are so brave. You crossed oceans for love, gave your last pennies away to anybody who needed it more than you, gave yourself but also did a pretty damn good job at standing up every time you fell. No, you are not in Harvard, or any Ivy League for that matter, but you’ll learn that there’s some bullshit you shouldn’t sacrifice to be a part of the in crowd. You’re already it. Pursuing your profession will be hard, and you’ll doubt it, but don’t give up. The multi-layered discrimination this broken society has attributed to your labels, have nothing to do with your capability to do what you love. You’ve finally understood why you feel, see, hear, and taste the world all at once.  You made our dreams come true… You’ve sung in front of crowds, you’ve made it to ISEF. You did it for you and your mom. You’ve let friends go, not because they were never your friends, but because you’re different people now. We’ve, you’ve, I guess I’ve molted. Like the tears that I know you hold back, you need to learn to let go. Everything will be all right, hugs are the cure for most of the pain that you feel, don’t underestimate the power of intended skin interactions. It doesn’t matter how hard I try to foreshadow thru words all I could think about to make it easier for you, life writes itself. You’ll catch on, instant after instant of accidents, choices, curves and dead ends, that there isn’t a dead end until we’re dead.

This is your life it won’t stop. We’ve gotten better at acknowledging that all we can do is stop and glance every now and then. 

Andrea 

Debajo de mi cama: Hija de los locos

Estaba sentada, encubierta  en varias sábanas escribiendo debajo de su cama un viernes al medio día.

Son las doce del medio día y yo estoy pretendiendo que el abismo del universo comienza cuando el espacio debajo de esta cama acaba. Siempre pasa, siempre pasa lo mismo. En un día cualquiera, paso al menos 12 horas siendo productiva, eficiente, responsable, madura, comprensiva, y presente. No es queja la observación, sencillamente hacer una lista de las categorías en las que mi vida se divida cada 24 horas.

Me levanto usualmente antes de que el sol salga, con una lista hecha desde la noche anterior de las primeras 5 cosas a realizar en un día, con aproximadamente 45 minutos de espacio para la higiene, nutrición y e incentivo para procrastrinar en la cama. Tomo dos clases y trabajo por una hora así que ya se fueron tres.

(Me tomé cinco minutos leyendo en el celular para calmar un poco el pulso porque acabo de fumar. Si, ahora fumo.)

 Entonces estoy escribiendo, en los 7 minutos que me quedan perdiendo tiempo antes de que tenga que ponerme de pie, porque tengo que almorzar, estudiar y prepararme para ir al trabajo. Hoy no iré al gimnasio, pero ayer corrí dos millas y me tomó 25 minutos, pero por 25 minutos solo tuve que mirar un árbol.

Tengo dos agendas, y un total de tres listas por día, y soy presidenta de dos organizaciones, y los martes en la noche le dedico tres horas a un grupo de 11 hombres tocando piano y cantando en tarima.

El tiempo que me queda libre, lo paso ansiosa, debajo de mi cama, queriendo sentirme segura.

La matemática de Lorenzo

Tenía ocho años.
Llevaba 2,920 días pestañeando, jugando bajo el sol, contando las estrellas.
Había conocido el inhalar y exhalar por solo ocho años, su nombre era Lorenzo.

Tenía ocho años.
Era una semilla más de nosotros cuya vida arrancaron.
Si estás escuchando esto, has tenido el privilegio de que tu corazón ha latido al menos, 29.2 millones de veces más que el suyo.

Tenía ocho años.
Dos hermanas y con ellas al menos mil mañas despertó, trascendió, amó.
Un padre que de lejos al menos dos veces en semana lo veía y una mamá que lo por nueve meses lo albergó antes de traerlo al mundo.

Tenía ocho años y por andar curoseando le hicieron doler hasta que no le quedó más sangre por sangrar.
Dos litros de sangre sobre un periodo de 300 minutos su cuerpo fue perdiendo.

Tenía ocho años y fueron tres las heridas punzantes y al menos dos centímetros hacia adentro del cerebro que le enterraron el tabique.

Tenía ocho años y por 18,000 reclamó en angustia a 4 metros de distancia, a aquella persona que lo convirtió en persona, que le permitiera vivir.


Tenía ocho años y en el escenario planteado, al menos hubo 4 personas que pudieron haberlo mantenido con vida. Quien lo trajo al mundo, bajo el mismo techo, permitió que se lo llevaran.

Her

Her

I give her my bones

I give her my heart beat. 

I wake up every morning to feed her, 

to dress her, 

to be her. 

Every breath of mine is hers. 

Every day I face her. 

I look in the mirror, 

I reach out to touch her. 

My vague smile tries to quiet her voice; 

It never takes me too long to realize, 

I can't control her volume anymore. 

She stares back at me.

She's done it once more...

Insisting on the fact, 

that my best isin't enough. 

I shamefully look down. 

Promise to do better..

But she doesn't care. 

I know that tomorrow, 

I'll make me remember, 

all my mistakes.

Love

Held me at gun point...while my criss cross stare tried to grasp the correct information to send to my brain.
Intervals of being lost, concave up, concave down.
A rush through my veins quite like nothing else experienced before.
"I am not, was not, will not become unafraid of this, ever." I uttered nervously-
His hand clasped suddenly to mine, forcefully.
Aiming forward to his criss cross stare he held my hand over the trigger of another pistol and gave me the option to run a bullet through his brain..
while saying I love you.

Fine

It comes in tides and waves,
missing you that is.
Most of the time I'm fine,
and then I lose myself.
In your exhales against my neck.
the sheets, the sighs.
Most of the time I'm fine
and then I lose myself.
In the first "I love you",
when one hopes to hear something twice,
just to feel your own heart stop and beat again.
The brushing of my hair behind my ear,
the pencil against all the papers of songs I wrote you.
Most of the time I'm fine..
But then it rains and I'm reminded of the screams, the whys, the last words that I didin't know were last.
And it's all one sad song, that replays in my head.
Its called "Most of the time I'm fine." 

Crimson

The crime scene is always different,
but the amount of blood stays the same.
Shades of crimson anger under my nails,
sounds of echoed pain in my head.
Shattered glass against the skin,
 and I'm the one digging deep,
instructed by all the standards I didn’t meet this time.
Again.
Because all the mirrors show the world that takes my life away.
Its walls of insecurity that shift to currencies of nations,
to the ground of ideals through which my heavy troubled thoughts always falls.
Again.
My nails scream crimson despair.
For all the bodies that fall like tears every second that goes by.
For the power that is never shared equally,
for the hope of something better that never lasts.
For the place I am given determined from what I have between my legs.
For all the things I wish I could change, but I know I can't.
So I fall through the cracks of an invented system, through the broken mirrors that I smash- the portrait of the truth I can't accept.
Again.
I keep wearing broken dreams as smiles,
walking through fractured mirrors building castles.
On which I'm safe from everybody else, but myself.