Maria Jose Ramos
Community Theater organizer
51
El agua hay que dejarla correr,
corriendo se pasa el tiempo, las leyendas, las enseá¹…anzas y el recuerdo.
El recuerdo es lo que nos hace fuerte, lo que nos une, lo que nos hace volver.
Volver a cuidar todo lo que es tuyo, mio, de elles, de todos.
De todos modos se sabe que en la naturaleza existen patrones que se repiten,
se repiten las tradiciones y los instintos de sobrevivencia.
Sobrevivencia es más allá que existir,
existir sintiendo que ciertos espíritus siguen aquí,
aquí, que es transcendental.
Transcendental es la complejidad de la sed,
la sed que siempre nos atrapa,
atrapa y recuerda
recuerda que la humanidad no es eterna,
eterna, eterna, eternos
eternos son los deseos de comunidad.
Comunidad, se vive y se protege.
54
There are parts of us so raw
That cannot be numbered.
My love is a being by itself
Which I cannot even tame
And, it gets worse when I try
​
Witnessing Operation Streamline trials
The court rooms smells like a nasty combination of excessive use of hand sanitizer,
expensive and cheap perfumes, colognes, tierra del desierto,
Mucho, mucho, mucho sudor, sangre, orines, lágrimas, ropa sucia, ropa húmeda, ropa from Forever 21, Border Patrol uniforms made in maquilas, hechos en Mexico.
People in court, eating candies, drinking their coffee with cream and sugar, sending texts, emails, laughing, talking, as I see my fellow immigrants walk in front of the judge to hear their sentence.
It takes less than 10 minutes for each person to be sent to prison.
The normalization of some else´s tragedy,
numbness, the inability to feel someone, the inability to see at someone else´s face, intentions.
Everything is disinfected after each use, including shit.
Saliva, coffs, hand sanitizer, hand sanitizer, hand sanitizer, hand sanitizer pffffuusss, pfffuusss hand sanitizer, perfumes, tierra del desierto, lluvia, lodo, mud, tierra, excessive make up, creams,
tierra.
15
Sometimes, I dont know what to do with myself.
Sometimes, I just become the other, the other language, the other body.
We should all cry in a redemptive motion,
deberíamos inclinarnos para sacrificar palabras.
El deseo es algo muy complicado and unable to be accomplished.
Stop desiring and you will stop being unfulfilled.
I should stop writing for hipsters who pretend to read Spanish
and stop pretending that the rain would bring me back to the coffee days,
to the days that bread and butter would be enough to make me sigh.
We should all start having a procession,
a sacrifice of unspoken words
and indescribable positions.
Awkwardness has become my single private fetish.
​
52
Las seres humanos somo cosas muy raras.
I enjoy testing levels of deepness.
How deep can someone be inside me?
How deep can I hold my everything without forgetting I am as mortal
As mortal can be.
I pretend that I am old while wishing I was 15.
Me gustaría que el tiempo fuera más despacio,
To embody every second,
To feel cada segundo
walking up and down my body
Teaching me bodies can be so fragile and so dangerous.
Secretly, I pray I could be less free so I would be less responsible.
I save old lovers´ messages
Para recordar que la ternura todavía existe.
Las humanas somos cosas muy raras.
POETRY
56
Sometimes, it takes me months
to call myself in, to catch myself.
The smell of rain and the faces of people of color
walking down the streets
makes me feel sweet.
I choose to think that
some people are afraid of the water
because it makes them soft
and softness can feel as if they were cut into pieces,
melting, hirviendo.