The Other Girl
I hear the word but it isn’t me
It must be someone else ’cause it isn’t me
Brown skin obsidian eyes and hair sure, but that’s not my label
That isn’t me.
I’m programmed to see what I want to see
I am her of which you speak but I am also me
You see the her,
The Girl sitting at the bus stop on a sticky afternoon
The Girl hanging her damp laundry out in the yard
The Girl brewing sweet cinnamon tea
Is her not me
I am plugged in
I am aware
I am one of Fred Rodgers’ colorblind soldiers
Able to see the possibility of tomorrow
Able to use the technology of to day
Able to dream, to wonder
The rainbow connection
The college graduate
The creative
The political
The astute and prolific
But all you see is her not Me
Yes we are bound, forever intertwined
But I don’t speak how you want her to speak
I don’t know the origins of the Aztecs, Toltec and Maya
The history of Chavez of Villa
The glory of La Raza, Protected by La Vigren
Because I’m not her, I’m me
The older I get the more our lines blur
I use her to get a scholarship
Or a leg up in an interview
And put her away as the artist only to find her pop up again
White washed
Cocoanut
Beaner
White-xican
I am all and none of these
I am the Daughter of a District Manager, printer, gardner
I am the Daughter of an insurance claim adjuster, housewife, hairdresser
I am the contradiction, the second generation
The assimilation product of a suburban master planned community
I am the her that you see
I am the me that I am
I am the oxymoron, contradiction in terms
Thoughts from Gate 404
I don’t know what to do
Not that anyone does in this kind of situation. What am I going to say?
I am literally numb right now, it doesn’t seem real. I am sitting at the airport nose to nose through the glass with a giant of the skies and it still feels like I am watching all of this happen from the outside.
A heart attack on his birthday.
It’s unreal; this happens to other people not me. Not my family, not me. I cannot think beyond this moment, beyond typing keeping my hands busy because if I stop if I let myself pause and think I don’t know what will happen. My natural instinct is to keep calm and be strong but for whom.
Keep typing keep the sound of my fingers pressing the keys going and going helping to block the silence, keep typing, one letter after another. I need to keep moving. What will happen when I get there? I got the call and I moved, making reservations and fielding calls. I got home and I packed and fielded more calls. I got here and I am typing.
I am most afraid of looking my mother in the eyes. I don’t want to see anything different there I want to see the same sarcastic woman who is relentless in her nagging strength. I am afraid of the hole. That hole that people get; that far away look when you know they have gone somewhere else. Not in that room, not in that space or moment. I see it from both grand fathers I don’t want to see it in her.
What will I tell my sister who cries at the drop of a hat I can’t just buff her off and say it’s ok because I know nothing? I know nothing, and am not allowing myself to feel, because if I do I could fall apart. What happens when I have to support my mother, when I have to help her make those decisions that no one ever needs to make.
I know it won’t happen today, he is strong and he will get through this I need him to. However, one day I will have to make those decisions one day I will have to be the one and am not sure I will be ready, or really be good enough, be strong enough to make those decisions.
What the fuck do I do? Except keep typing, all I can do is keep typing, keep moving my fingers, keep thinking and keep going.
I brought my doll. My old ratty doll, for what I have no clue but I needed it even just to remind me of the smell of home. Something to keep me strong grounded anything because right now once I stop typing I don’t know what will happen.
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