by Meryl Branch-McTiernan

After therapy, I walk into the bathroom of the Carl Jung Institute. It is completely dark. Darker than death itself, I imagine. Instead of touching the wall and reaching for a light switch, I find my way into a stall and sit on the toilet. Without the distraction of images, I can hear my thoughts more clearly, my thoughts about our session, about how my therapist doesn’t understand me. She is always asking me to tell her what I see. What images come to mind? I tell her I don’t think in images. I think in words. She asks me what I say to myself when I have these feelings. I tell her I don’t talk to myself. Thoughts flow through my mind, like waves crashing against the sand, picking up particles, shells, beach towels, and scraps of bread that the seagulls didn’t get to, and spit them back wetter, in a slightly altered arrangement. Tides go in and out.

I think about telling her I quit. I’m so good at quitting therapy, so much better than I am at getting out of any other unhealthy relationships. I imagine my dream therapist, someone who can help me see clearly the way the characters in Woody Allen movies do—a real analyst, oh how I want to be analyzed. I want someone to take the blinders off, but nobody can.

I am done peeing, and reach for the wall to find the toilet paper, and feel only the peeling paint. What a stupid idea this was, peeing in the dark. I worry that one of the Jungian analysts will walk into the bathroom, and turn on the light, and see that there is a lunatic who has decided to pee in the dark. And she will internally analyze me, but she won’t tell me what she’s come up with, because I’m not hers, her patient, her client, or whatever the proper term is these days. I dream that there is a person who can tell me something new, something I don’t know about myself. Why do I pee in the dark sometimes? What childhood wound am I trying to heal? What archetype am I playing out through this act of choosing to remain in the dark while I pretend to be looking for the light.

I decide to drip dry. Nobody will know. It’s my little secret. I flush the toilet and walk out of the stall. My eyes have begun to adjust. Right next to the door, there is a light switch. I turn it on and watch myself washing my hands, feel the heat of the water, believe in the power of the soap to make me clean. A printed sign next to the light switch instructs me to turn off the light when not in use. I defy the sign’s orders, and leave the light on. Nobody else needs to pee in the dark.

 

And The Other Hand Was…

Alanis Morisette had one hand in her pocket and the other hand was giving a high five. How novel giving high fives will feel. It always seemed like an annoying gesture. Last Spring, I went out to dinner with an old acquaintance from high school. Throughout the entire meal, she reached across the table, over the chips and salsa, and gave me high fives whenever we said something she agreed with. Afterwards, I didn’t know if I could see her again. Too many high fives. But now, I appreciate her gesture. I see her picture on my screens, wearing a mask, and wonder if she misses that physical intimacy, that social converging. Hands touching hands. Touching me. Touching you.

Alanis Morisette had one hand in her pocket and the other hand was flicking a cigarette. I’ve never had a cigarette. Not even once. I am orally fixated and knew I would instantly become an addict if I tried one. Every man I’ve ever loved was a smoker. In those last days in mid-March, when the city was still alive, however low its heart rate, I saw more people smoking than I’d see in years and I absolutely loved it. I walked around Chinatown and saw half the population wearing masks and the other half smoking. Yesterday, I passed a man walking down Great Neck Road with a cigarette in his mouth instead of a mask and I wanted to kiss him.

Alanis Morisette had one hand in her pocket and the other hand was giving a peace sign. We are at war, they say. Does that make Trump a wartime president? We are fighting a microbe, an enemy so much smaller than a pencil dot. We can’t see the enemy, but we can see each other. I have never felt such sorrow as when people jump off the sidewalk to avoid me as I approach. They are just following orders. Six feet of social distancing. Six feet that remind me that I am completely alone in this war. I have no team. No army. I am just an enemy walking amongst my neighbors, who are all enemies of each other. And I’m not even supposed to be walking.

Alanis Morisette had one hand in her pocket and the other hand was playing a piano. I used to play the piano, from second through fifth grade. I never took it seriously. It was something my mother wanted me to do because my grandfather was a musician. I took lessons, but didn’t want to practice. Instead, I pretended I was making up songs. Banging on the keyboard until my parents left the room. Eventually, my teacher, the serious Romanian pianist, with an ego even bigger than her teased hair, told my parents she didn’t want to work with me anymore. I never touched a piano again. Maybe when I get out I will.

Alanis Morisette had one hand in her pocket and the other hand was hailing a taxi cab. My last cab ride was on Friday the thirteenth. It wasn’t really a cab, it was a Lyft Line. It pulled up in front of my building on Canal Street. I saw that the backseat was already full. I would have to sit up front with the driver. As soon as I sat down, I started coughing. I thought about getting out. But I was already late to meet my date, a smoker, who I’d met in New Jersey the week before. We had a couple drinks at Fraunces Tavern, the oldest bar in New York City. We hugged goodbye, because we still could. And I decided to walk home.

by Mary Arda

Images flow
from memory
to fingertip
Enveloped in song
they become
a narrative

I am transported
Carried away
by you
to the stories
of your past
My present

Red lipstick
Crimson half moon nails
Ebony hair shines with the moon
Almond eyes
deep and transparent
My illusion

At 9 o’clock
cannon shots
fill the bay and
conceal the
cries of death
in the night

Royal Palm trees
with their lullaby
gift you
with dreams
Images
of a future
that lives in the past

The drums beat
for me to dance
The waves crash to wash me clean
The muse’s voice
calls me home

 

Home

Fly across the ocean
Where the deep blue sea
meets transparent aqua-colored waters
When you see it glimmer
Like a million diamonds in the sun
You’ve almost arrived

When you land
you will be greeted by a family of Royal Palm trees
You’ll hear them before you see them
Their fronds will play for you
swaying to the beat of Caribbean breezes
They will line paths
to offer you direction

You’ll come across a long road
lined by a sea wall
Stop and visit
many times
along the way
The peanut vendor will sing for you
The sound of the bata and the conga
will bekcon you to move

Stop and say hello
To the me that’s present
in the children that dive off the wall with expertise
The lovers that embrace
intoxicated by the scent of the ocean
The dancers that take you back to Africa

Follow the sun as it sets
Let it take you down cobblestone streets
To the cool darkness of the forts
The foot of the castle
Cross its moat
Meet Spain

Traverse the streets that carry the
scars of the trolly from yesteryear
Stop and cool off under the shelter
of expansive porches that sit
behind arches of buildings
They wait
for the sound of your footsteps
your voice
your laughter

The barber will point you in my direction
Walk towards the park
You’ll see it
The red Flamboyants and purple Jacarandas
in bloom
let you know you are near

See the wrought iron fence
The terracotta tiles
Smell the cafecito
Hear the laughter
Don’t knock
come in
We’ve been waiting for you

 

The Children

They didn’t tell the children
The pain was too deep
The loss was too great
The circumstances too harsh for developing minds

They didn’t tell the children
For them, they swallowed the torment
Each of them taking in huge gulps of tragedy
Consuming dread like morsels of lead fishing weights
Sinking to the bottom of their souls

They didn’t have to tell the children
They heard it
in hidden whispers and silent sobs
that came in waves that emanated from broken hearts
They felt it in the absence and not the lies

They didn’t need to tell the children
The children communed with it at night when their souls wandered
They saw the shadows and heard the voices
They bonded with it at night when no one was around
When they told each other they knew

They didn’t save the children
The children saved them

by Mark-Anthony Hudson

As I lay down in my bed
The confusion in my heart and pain in my head
begin to mix and spread
hope I’m strong enough to overcome
Being human doesn’t feel that fun
when it seems like I’m the only one
that’s tired of pretending
like I know the meaning and ending

of the lines in life’s movie

by Marina Bonanno

Quarantine. Quarrel. Quarter.
Dividing my time,
Sifting through sentiments,
Peering into prisms that obfuscate and confuse.

If we were together now, of what might we quarrel?
Would I love you unselfishly?
Praise your predilections?
Nourish every need?
Minimize mine?

Or would I quarrel with you mercilessly,
Meting out misery,
A spiteful shrew needling,
Internal rage reduced to rancor.
Nursing a salty loneliness of bitter, brittle brine.

I realize time with you was always quarantined.
Quartered into portions of too few rations to sustain me.
Quarrels that were avoided until we disappeared.

 

I Come To You As Moonlight

I seek you through space over enigmatic night.
I touch your cocoa skin, imprinting my longing for you, lest you forget me.
I shall not slumber to gaze upon you for eternity.

Your eyelids taste of almonds, your lashes, satin caresses.
Permit me to devour, cover you in chocolate kisses, paint you with my tongue.
You are my oxygen. Our breath, hotter than sun, commingling as one.

Your furrowed brow, a map of creases that hail from parts unknown.
I wish to explore these crevasses, learn their secrets from when you were young.
Follow their trail of gumdrops from childhood. Assuage your fears before they’ve begun.

I come to you as moonlight, covered in cloaks of gossamer.
Without illusions nor pretensions.
Transparent as truth, beautiful as night.

I will love you ad infinitum. Across galaxies, throughout millennia, in every lifetime.
Transport and transcend us beyond mortality. Bathe you in soft illumination.
Hold you in sanctuary, whilst we come undone.

by Marina Bonanno

His hands were rough calluses and splinters. Uneven nails misshapen. He held the head of the tweezers between two blunt fingers. Donning pharmacy readers, he still couldn’t see the wood sliver buried deep. It smarted. Under golden orb of the yellow kitchen light he kept on a dimmer, the youngest peered, fingernail touching dirt embedded into scales of skin. “Maybe if you washed your hands…” He jerked his hand back from the singe that stung, sulking “I did!” Heavy work boots stomped out of earshot. She startled in alarm.

He pitched the burnt lightbulb from rough fingers toward her post holding the ladder, the driveway now semi illuminated by a fluorescent beam. His other hand held the wooden ladder in a secure grip. The glass shards impacted unceremoniously, blood coursing from wound obscuring the extent of damage. Daughter sat fretting under a light not on dimmer now. Room silent, save the questions from saucer eyes watching in dread. Mother sat still as stone while thick fingers pulled pieces from flesh with tweezers, unskilled and impatient.

A black and white newspaper underneath a jar holding turpentine. A soiled rag in dark colors, edges fraying. An old brush with a laminated handle touting an irregular wood grained pattern. Abrupt instructions delivered through jerky movements and gruff commands, “Use the turpentine to clean the paint off.” A Dickies uniform in drab olive, a color of unease, inspired belts of Kermit’s, “It’s not easy being green” or spontaneous chases as the green monster. Rolled up sleeves on arms laden with thick untamed hair. A jangle of keys in palm.

The mixing doesn’t remove the stains. The brush won’t come clean. She doesn’t how to do this right. She hadn’t asked what to do if. Liquid spilled onto asphalt through newsprint too saturated to absorb questions.

Hiding upstairs when he returns and cleans up the driveway. Workman’s hands cover mistakes, transform miniature shutters black, paint turquoise accents onto plain white background.

She tries to explain the mess, though lacking the soggy words that had pooled onto pavement outside. But inside, that house, she knows she doesn’t care for it.

by Maria Lisella

There was nothing small about Joseito as we called him.

He looked half man, half boy, with glasses, a smile bright as Sunday almost all the time. Barely any beard, and a kind of joy only seen in kids.

And he was round, not fat, not skinny, not muscular but jovially round. So appropriate for the office he worked in as a mailboy … really what were we all thinking calling him a mailboy in the first place? No idea. Mailroom guy I switched to but he didn’t care and didn’t notice.

The office was always buzzing, we worked at a magazine but a weekly one so deadlines streamed in every day … something was always due. But if you saw Jose ito, you had a chance to look up, exchange smiles and put the world right for the moment because what’s more important than exchanging a smile for no reason at all …
In some ways he was ridiculously cheerful. I’d watch him dancing from desk to desk as if he were wearing earbuds and the latest Latin beats were streaming into his ears, but no, he carried that music in himself. I used to wonder what was Joseito’s secret to never getting mad, never feeling dissed?

Sure, Joseito’s job was pretty non-stressful and he seemed to somehow love it. He told me he loved seeing every single person in our office every day. A simple creature maybe? But he acted as if he were loved and I guess we did love him in that non-conscious way you get used to this little stream of light that arrived daily … the only time you missed it is when Joseito was on vacation, which he rarely did.

“At one time the manager suggested we put a bin at the front of every row of cubicles, but I said, no, I want to go to every single desk and meet every single person here … I want to give them their mail not deliver or dump it…” As long as Joseito could do that in the same amount of time, he got his wish.

That meant he could not linger. That meant he did not know tha t much about us or us about him. We just knew we could count on his good vibe passing through as we wrote our articles, interviewed people and rolled our eyes at the boss.

The other reason Joseito loved, loved the mailroom was that he played every single contest in creation. And he gave our office as the home address. He’d gather his own sack of mail and take it home with him as if he were going home to a big-ass dinner party with a menu of pernil, yucca, rice and beans just how he liked it and his mother’s flan. I never knew if he even had a mother. I did know he lived alone.

He asked me once as Latino to Latina, “Don’t you have faith in luck”? And I had to admit two things: first I was not Puerto Rican, which he wanted to believe I was as he always referred to me as a “credit to the race” and secondly, me and luck, well I tossed it somewhere in the back of my mind with god, angels and saints I did not pray to either.

This all shocked Joseito because he said it was important to court luck, to carry amulets, to try everything that could possibly deliver something good and that meant luck, it meant Santeria gods, it meant going to the botanica to get more stuff like herbs, leaves, and potions. It made no sense not to try luck, he was firm on that.

Instead of watching TV at night, Joseito filled out contest forms from everywhere … it was too early for as much internet activity as we have now, but Jose ito had his ways to scope out the next contest.

“People tell me I am wasting my life playing contest, that it is dumb and only stupid people do this, but Mami, someone is winning those contests, no”? With me he let his NYRican slip into his language.

Joseito knew better – if you did not enter contests and sweepstakes you could not win a single thing. He won appliances, computers, toiletries for a year, he won a microwave, a trip to Universal Studios, a cruise, and a trip to Disneyland … in fact, he did not buy that much, as long as there was something to win.

His dream was to win a weekend in Las Vegas and attend a Marc Anthony concert in Vegas. And so, he entered the Publisher’s Warehouse Contest over and over and over …

Not everyone found Joseito as fascinating as I did: some snickered underestimating our Joseito, thinking he was simple and had missed it but he smiled through clenched teeth and caught every gesture even if it happened behind his back … he was sensitive in his own way. He picked up vibes and I had the sense that Joseito had his own brand of power somewhere between the mailroom and his home.

That he could in a minute reach out to his favorite amulet, god or goddess of luck and wish you something entirely treacherous.

 

That Dress

Damned, I did it again. Am still not living up to your good habits of giving myself plenty of time to get anywhere, so am late again. Ever since you died, it is as if the world lost its direction, but mostly it is me. Ran breathless again up and down the steel-tipped stairs, raced for the train, squeezed into the doors shutting like a guillotine and am going again, in the wrong direction.

I try to move into the car, but I can’t, my dress is stuck in the door and I can see its rainbow stripes waving back at me, fluttering outside and it is my all-time favorite. Fear grips me as if this is a life gone wrong, a life at stake, but it’s just a dress I tell myself, not a living thing, not a precious person, it is replaceable. I am fast forwarding its demise, my frivolous sorrow. People are dying in the world, this is only a dress.

The woman next to me sees I am in distress, assures me that within four stops, the subway car doors will open on MY side of the car. “Stand still, you don’t want to tear it,” she offers. I feel better, she understands my dilemma.

I love this dress. Bought it when I was about 26. That was when I had my first “real” job and purchased a mini wardrobe to match my first real journalist job writing for a labor union. Glamorous, it wasn’t but I told myself it was what I was born to do. Lucky to be paid for doing something I loved.

Imagine all my ideals in one package: ok, it was not a progressive union but at least a union; I traveled around the country, wrote stories about people who were not famous, just the rank and file – all heart and loyal to the union in so many small towns and cities across the country. And I was working on the side of the angels.

That dress along with others was a sophisticated nod to my new station in life: it was simple, elegant, V-necked and backed, deep cuts at the sleeves, cotton with an eleastic band at the waist, covered with a cumberbun-size black fabric as a belt. Because of its cut, I could wear it into my sixties and now it was flapping outside in a filthy subway tunnel rife with rats and soot, and god knows what else.

I was tempted to yank it, but it would split off my body. Stop after stop, the doors slid opened on the other side of the subway car.

And did I mention the colors? It’s bold, vertical striped, Caribbean colors that calls attention to itself and the woman in it. It is unlike any other items in my closet – mostly Catholic school girl navys, grays, blacks – forgettable.

This dress worn with a wide-brimmed hot pink sun hat in summer announces me wherever I’d go.

Still I tried to inch and edge the thinning cotton fabric, tried to coaxe it out of the door little by little, but I knew it was already worn, thinner, the seams shuld be reinforced – does anyone do that with clothes anymore? I envisioned it would be lost and I’d arrive, god knows who remembers where, half clothed if I yanked it.

Just then a reprieve, the doors opened behind me, the dress intact. I exited and promised myself and the dress that I’d get those seams reinforced before I’d lose it all.

by Maria Lisella

It required a stitch or two and so I tacked it
the two tabs that were sticking out
of her cheap striped shirt—
made in Bangladesh reads the label
where women who know nothing
about raised fists of labor united or
the IWW, or the AFL-CIO, sweat
for 14 hours a day, and 35 cents an hour
turn out shirts just like this one stitched
with labels that read: H&M, Calvin Klein,
Ann Taylor, Zara, Target and, yet,
when a factory goes up in flames or
crumbles to the ground in New Delhi,
Bangladesh, Ahmedabad, collapsing
into tangles of steel, concrete blocks,
mortar, or fizzle in flames, the label-owners
deny those women have ever
been making their products and those
women have nothing to do with their
$2.4 trillion dollars in profits.

by Queen María

She has always been pretty sensitive. Living in a brown body requires a thick skin. She loves with a full heart giving her all to everything she does. She does not know how to love half way. She is an all or nothing kind of girl. For as long as she can remember, she has had an immense need for acceptance. She never believed she was worthy of love. She thought no one would really ever love her. Her own mother could not give her the unconditional love she craved so much.

She tried everything to get that maternal unconditional love that so many take for granted. She tried pleasing her mom, hoping she will get praise in return. She was disappointed so many times. She remembers every harsh criticism, as if her mom was still here. How could she forget her white mom repeating, “You are black. You must be perfect. The color of your skin does not allow you the luxury of making mistakes”.

“I will do better next time momma. I will work harder and I will make you proud!”, she answered when she got home with a 98 instead of a perfect score of 100. She must have gotten some praise, but she simply can not remember any. The concept of being loved just because one exists was so foreign to her. She thought all these years that she had to be really nice and love first in order to be loved back.

Growing up, she was so well behaved, except when she saw her dad drinking. She would transform herself in those moments screaming so loudly as if her life depended on it. She broke her dad’s bottles into pieces or poured down their content. Desperation invaded her. She felt as if she was possessed. No one could stop her in those moments, not even her mom’s intimidating voice promising a harsh punishment for disrespecting her dad.

She was determined to save her family. Her child’s mind believed it was her job to make sure everyone in that house was happy. She was led to believe that if only her dad stopped drinking everything would be OK. She was willing to do anything to get him to give up alcohol. She begged him, she fought, she rebelled, but she could not save him. They both lost their battle with alcohol.

Her dad tried so many times to get sobber. He succeeded temporarily, only to return to the same way of numbing his pain. She was too little to understand. She does now. She never tasted alcohol in her life, not even a drop, but she battles an eating disorder. Those demons, I guess, run in her family.

She fought battles that were not hers. Nothing changed. She kept trying though. She never gave up even after her mom’s death. She was so lucky. Her black dad was so nice. Even when she threw away his alcohol and disrespected him, he never offended her or lay a hand on her. Her white mom, on the other hand, severely punished her.

She kept screaming, trying to be heard but no one listened. She was alone in her battle. She kept trying to do the right thing, over and over, at her own expense. She only wanted the best for her family. She dreamed of seeing her mom smile and her dad sober.

She thought naively that her parent’s divorce was the answer. She kept repeating, “Mom leave him. We will be Ok without him. I will help you mom. I am here. I will take care of my little sister. I can help you. You are not alone mom. I am no little anymore, just leave him”. Little did she know, she only got one side of the story. She regrets not realising this while her dad was still alive.

She got so tired of screaming and not being heard, that she decided to escape, by going to study abroad. She went half around the world, but she never felt safe. Her mom never divorced her dad. Instead, her mom left the family forever at 45 years old, followed about a year after by her dad, who could not live without his adored wife. There they were, both sisters, orphans with no other family to support them emotionally.

She did her best, in caring for what was left of her family, now including a gorgeous niece. She never stopped screaming, but no one ever heard her. She finally realized the only person that could hear her was herself. Then she started tending to that desperate cry she has chosen to ignore for so many years. Nowadays, she tells her story so others realize they can choose to hear themselves.

by lynn parkerson

Life’s force driving us forward. Life’s force without direction – its own direction.
We are its creation, at its mercy. We have no choice,
But to try.

We get old – zapped by the long shadow of regret. But we tried – and failed.
We will always try and always fail.

Rooms

father ceiling, mother floor, 4 walls of sisters, enclosed, but there were windows. I flew out and went far away to faraway countries. At that time far away Yugoslavia, East Berlin.
How exciting, how strange, how bizarre –
The bakeries where the frosting on all the cakes was gray and there as only one author, Hegel, in the book store window. Alexanderplatz.
That faraway country my home then.

The rooms called me back. father ceiling, mother floor, walls of sisters.
Now the ceiling gone and the floor about to collapse. One sister wall up in smoke, gone.
3 walls left and now the structure like some 70’s crazy architecture, Vermont commune, geodesic dome.

I tried. We tried. We fail and we try again.

 

Love and Baggage

Acrobatics. You’ve got to be good, great in fact. The virtuosity. One word leading to another, just the right rhythm, the rhyme, the forgone conclusion, rap it up. It’s work, it’s play. I won’t work at it, not right now, maybe never. I’m already an acrobat. Twisting, turning, showing my good angle, balanced on the edge of tumult. No solid ground here. I’m inside the tube of the wave. Is the water fine?

My mother is dying. It was only just mid-February when I picked her up at the airport, home from her annual visit to California, visiting her sister. Now that she can’t think straight, is frail, they take her off the plane in a wheelchair. She will be delivered to me at the baggage claim. I watch the suitcases stream onto the conveyor belt.

Then – the real baggage arrives, the elderly in wheelchairs. There is my mother. The hard part, knowing that I too am baggage. My children will pick me up at the baggage claim. If I’m lucky. Or maybe everything will be different. I hope so. But the end is never pretty.

It is a brilliant day – pure perfection. I am alone here, a sister on the way. We’re going to see my mother. We’ll walk outside here; water, sand, sky, leaves, flowers. We’ll remember that place where my mother took us when we were small, when our family broke apart. The water, sand, sky, rocks instead of leaves and the beach roses. From now on every time I stoop down to take in the scent of this sandy rose I will say I love you.