The Poet X(12)

Why Twin Is a Terrible Twin (Last and Most Important Reason)


He has no twin intuition!

He doesn’t get sympathy pains.

He doesn’t ever randomly know that I had a bad day or that I need help.

In fact, he rarely lifts his eyes from the page of a Japanese comic or the computer screen long enough to know that I’m here at all.





But Why Twin Is Still the Only Boy I’ll Ever Love


Because although speaking to him is like talking to a scatterbrained saint, every now and then, he’ll say, in barely a mumble, something that shocks the shit out of me.

Today he looks up from his textbook and blinks.

“Xiomara, you look different.

Like something inside of you has shifted.”

I stop breathing for a moment.

Is my body marked by my afternoon with Aman?

Will Mami see him on me?

I look at Twin, the puzzled smile on his face; I want to tell him he looks different, too— maybe the whole world looks different just because I brushed thighs with a boy.

But before I get the words out Twin opens his big-ass mouth:

“Or maybe it’s just your menstrual cycle?

It always makes you look a little bloated.”

I toss a pillow at his head and laugh.

“Only you, Twin. Only you.”





Sunday, September 23





Communication


Aman and I exchanged numbers to talk about lab work but when I leave Mass I’m surprised to see he’s messaged me.

A: So what did you think of the Kendrick?

And because Mami is angry-whispering at me for sitting out the sacrament again (I’ll do another bid of Mass all week if I have to), I cage my squeal behind my teeth.

I type a quick response:

X: It was cool. We should listen to something else next time.

And his response is almost immediate: A: Word.





About A


Every time I think about Aman

poems build inside me

like I’ve been gifted a box of metaphor Legos that I stack and stack and stack.

I keep waiting for someone to knock them over.

But no one at home cares about my scribbling.

Twin: oblivious—although happier than he usually looks.

Mami: thinking I’m doing homework.

Papi: ignoring me as usual . . . aka being Papi.

Me: writing pages and pages about a boy and reciting them to myself like a song, like a prayer.





Monday, September 24





Catching Feelings


In school things feel so different.

Ms. Galiano asks me about the Spoken Word Poetry Club, and I try to pretend I forgot about it.

But I think she can tell by my face

or my shrug that I’ve been secretly practicing.

That I spend more time writing poems

or watching performance videos on YouTube than I do on her assignments.

At lunch, I sit with the same group I sat with last year, a table full of girls that want to be left alone.

I find comfort in apples and my journal, as the other girls read books over their lunch trays, or draw manga, or silently text boyfriends.

Sharing space, but not words.

In bio, when I lower my ass into the seat next to Aman, I wonder if I should sit slower, or faster, if I should write neater,

or run a fingertip across his knuckles when Mr. Bildner isn’t looking.

Instead Aman and I pass notes on scrap paper talking about our days, our parents,

our favorite movies and songs,

and the next time we’ll go to the smoke park.

If my body was a Country Club soda bottle, it’s one that has been shaken and dropped and at any moment it’s gonna pop open

and surprise the whole damn world.





Notes with Aman


A: You ever messed with anyone in school?

X: Nah, never really be into anyone.

A: We not cute enough for you?

X: Nope. Ya ain’t.

A: Damn. Shit on my whole life!

X: You just want me to say you cute.

A: Do you think I am?

X: I’m still deciding ?





Tuesday, September 25





What I Didn’t Say to Caridad in Confirmation Class


I wanted to tell her that if Aman were a poem he’d be written slumped across the page, sharp lines, and a witty punch line written on a bodega brown paper bag.

His hands, writing gently on our lab reports, turned into imagery,

his smile the sweetest unclichéd simile.

He is not elegant enough for a sonnet, too well-thought-out for a free write, taking too much space in my thoughts to ever be a haiku.





Lectures


“Mira, muchacha,”—

(I’m not sure if your eyes can roll so hard in your head that a stranger could use them as a pair of dice, but if they can someone just bad lucked on snake eyes)— “when I was waiting for you I saw you whispering to Caridad in the middle of your class.

Do not let yourself get distracted so that you lead yourself and others from la palabra de dios.”

And although the night has cooled down the fading summer heat,