Themes: Love // Silence // Desire // Ghosts // Queerness // Bilingual

en el cafetín with my ghost body

i ran into the graying mother by chance,
sixty and unafraid on her birthday.
she remembered me from work. i didn’t—
already a ghost in my own body.

her daughter passed drinks of the hour
like blessings.

she recalled surviving men who loved her wrong
and still lifted her glass:
when it’s meant to be, love stays.
i wanted to believe her.

i was with my ecuadorian lover
who called me un gringo once in bed,
my face going blank,
twice when we met strangers in the packed crowd. 
the same lover who said i was his summer love
in old san juan’s stone streets empty into night.

he laughed with strangers,
sang bad bunny songs
i couldn’t name.

his joy skipped past mine.
strawberry vodka sweating between us.
people said we a cute couple.
an island boy brushed too close.

my lover leaned in,
whispered something
not quite a promise.

i wanted it to be.
as if our hands held
and meant more.

the bar smelled of lime and sweat
and tomorrow.

fans hummed overhead.
music fueled desire.

i stood inside my silence,
trying to fill the space between us with love.

the graying mother texted next morning.

she pressed a blood-red rose into my palm.
the thorns stayed.

i left it on the table
before it could burn me.

slow.
without mercy.

i’m sorry i’m not rican enough.
i am a stranger in my body to my own people.

perdón my spanish breaks
when yours soars.

i wish to hear you say my name again as you tell me
my ass is a marble bubble butt.

perdón i don’t know every latin love song.
i don’t know what normal asks of me.

perdón i don’t know how to be loved out loud,
and keep it.

i keep listening to my pulse,
remembering the lift of his laugh,
the way he called me his summer love.
something meant to end,

like everything standing at the edge.

waiting to be
whole.