but still treated like a kid.
In ninth grade you are always frozen
between trying not to smile or cry,
until you learn that no one cares about
what your face does, only what your hands’ll do.
I thought tenth grade would be different
but I still feel like a lone shrimp
in a stream where too many are searching
for someone with a soft shell
to peel apart and crush.
Today, I already had to curse a guy out
for pulling on my bra strap,
then shoved a senior into a locker
for trying to whisper into my ear.
“Big body joint,” they say,
“we know what girls like you want.”
And I’m disgusted at myself
for the slight excitement
that shivers up my back
at the same time that I wish
my body could fold into the tiniest corner
for me to hide in.
How I Feel about Attention
If Medusa was Dominican
and had a daughter, I think I’d be her.
I look and feel like a myth.
A story distorted, waiting for others to stop
and stare.
Tight curls that spring like fireworks
out of my scalp. A full mouth pressed hard
like a razor’s edge. Lashes that are too long
so they make me almost pretty.
If Medusa
was Dominican and had a daughter, she might
wonder at this curse. At how her blood
is always becoming some fake hero’s mission.
Something to be slayed, conquered.
If I was her kid, Medusa would tell me her secrets:
how it is that her looks stop men
in their trackswhy they still keep on coming.
How she outmaneuvers them when they do.
Saturday, September 15
Games
With one of our last warm-weather Saturdays
Twin, Caridad, and I go to the Goat Park
on the Upper West Side.
Outside of ice-skating when we were little,
neither Twin nor I are particularly athletic,
but Caridad loves “trying new social activities”
and this week it’s a basketball tournament.
The three of us have always been tight like this.
And although we’re different,
since we were little we’ve just clicked.
Sometimes Twin and Caridad are the ones
who act more like twins,
but our whole lives we’ve been friends, we’ve been family.
Already we feel the chill that’s biting at the edge of the air.
It will be hoodie weather soon,
and then North Face weather after that,
but today it’s still warm enough for only T-shirts,
and I’m kind of glad for it because the half-naked ball players? They’re FINE.
Running around in ball shorts, and no tees,
their muscles sweaty, their skin flushed.
I lean against the fence and watch them
race up and down the court.
Caridad is paying attention to the ball movement,
but Twin’s staring as hard as I am at one of the ballers.
When he catches me looking Twin pretends to clean his glasses on his shirt.
When the game is over (the Dyckman team won),
we shuffle away with the crowd,
but just as we get to the gate one of the ball players,
a young dude about our age, stops in front of me.
“Saw you looking at me kind of hard, Mami.”
Damn it. Recently, I haven’t been able to stop looking.
At the drug dealers, the ball players, random guys on the train.
But although I like to look, I hate to be seen.
All of a sudden I’m aware of how many boys
on the ball court have stopped to stare at me.
I shake my head at the baller and shrug.
Twin grabs my arms and begins pulling me away.
The baller steps to Twin.
“Oh, is this your girl? That’s a lot of body
for someone as small as you to handle.
I think she needs a man a little bigger.”
When I see his smirk, and his hand cupping his crotch,
I break from Twin’s grip, ignore Caridad’s intake of breath,
and take a step until I’m right in homeboy’s face:
“Homie, what makes you think you can ‘handle’ me,
when you couldn’t even handle the ball?”
I suck my teeth as the smile drops off his face;
the dudes around us start hooting and hollering in laughter.
I keep my chin up high and shoulder my way through the crowd.
After
It happens when I’m at bodegas.
It happens when I’m at school.
It happens when I’m on the train.
It happens when I’m standing on the platform.
It happens when I’m sitting on the stoop.
It happens when I’m turning the corner.
It happens when I forget to be on guard.
It happens all the time.
I should be used to it.
I shouldn’t get so angry
when boys—and sometimes
grown-ass men—
talk to me however they want,
think they can grab themselves
or rub against me
or make all kinds of offers.
But I’m never used to it.
And it always makes my hands shake.
Always makes my throat tight.
The only thing that calms me down
after Twin and I get home
is to put my headphones on.
To listen to Drake.
To grab my notebook,
and write, and write, and write
all the things I wish I could have said.
Make poems from the sharp feelings inside,
that feel like they could
carve me wide
open.
It happens when I wear shorts.
It happens when I wear jeans.
It happens when I stare at the ground.
It happens when I stare ahead.
It happens when I’m walking.
It happens when I’m sitting.
It happens when I’m on my phone.
It simply never stops.
Okay?
Twin asks me if I’m okay.
And my arms don’t know
which one they want to become:
a beckoning hug or falling anvils.
And Twin must see it on my face.
This love and distaste I feel for him.
He’s older (by a whole fifty minutes)
and a guy, but never defends me.
Doesn’t he know how tired I am?
How much I hate to have to be so
sharp tongued and heavy-handed?
He turns back to the computer
and quietly clicks away.
And neither of us has to say
we are disappointed in the other.
Sunday, September 16
On Sunday
I stare at the pillar
in front of my pew
so I don’t have to look
at the mosaic of saints,
or the six-foot sculpture
of Jesus rising up from behind
the priest’s altar.
Even with the tambourine
and festive singing,
these days, church seems
less party and more prison.
During Communion
Ever since I was ten,
I’ve always stood with the other parishioners