Letter to you…

I believed in you like I believed in religion. My legs, hands, knees, songs, and journey were searching for a man I could never be sure exists. A man whose scripture promised me eternity, a man who promised me that if I searched long enough that I would be able to find him.  I reached out my arm with my hand spread wide in the air, fingers separated hoping that you would fill in the spaces I left behind. My back against the bench hoping that you would see my Broad shoulders in the pack of slouched posture in the room, hoping that where you would put yours against mine and help me hold up every pain my core ever experienced and somehow I would hold yours and in that we would find happiness. Hoping all of my whispered messages would have been heard and somehow in a world full of wars, starvation, and diseases, I would be saved because you chose me. I kneeled down to you and stroked my head imagining it to be yours hoping that maybe if I bowed down to you, you would find me. Hoping that maybe being closer to the ground you would find me grounded longing for your scent. I got up and sang to you hoping that my voice would stand out from the hundreds others singing the same song to you. Hoping that you would see the light in me and embrace me with your warmth, your truth. Hoping that suddenly your presence would display our love and every hardship I ever experienced looking for you would have been worth it. Hoping that the sound of your voice make me turn around and land into myself while your arms held me. As if you carried a part of me I would never find without finding you first. As if the potential of my capabilities laid in your hands. As if suddenly hearing your words say the words you’ve written as repeated a million times by my voice would suddenly validate our experiences. 

As if I had to ask him to be there, as if I had to believe that he would be there for him to make his entry. As if I had to bow down and convince myself that everything he said was true and not believing in his testament was a reflection of me not deserving a good life. As if believing in his words suddenly meant I was more sure of myself and the world. As if my time spent searching for you was more valuable than searching for myself because by finding you I would have lived my full fleshed life. And just like God, you made me feel as if I had to validate my experiences by searching for your presence. As if drinking your blood and bread would make me more alive and equipt for the future YOU had set out for me. 

But I lost the grip to you the same way I stopped holding on to the belief that I would find myself through religion filled with stories that weren’t mine but would somehow make me. I stopped assuming that a man whose my whole life I devoted to without sensing his presence would be silly enough to devote himself to me. To believe in my stories enough to pray to me every night and try to stand out amongst the crowed. And of course he didn’t have to because religion raised me to believe that he didn’t have to do anything for him but I had to extend every aspect of my life to him. I stopped assuming that your presence would give me amnesia and all of my experiences and hardships of searching for you would no longer matter. 
Just like god, in my most gracious time of need I couldn’t find you. And just like god in the times you’ve asked me to give up my sins to have you, you never once stopped yours. Just like god, in praying to you everyday and Sharing my life I will never ever hear a response. And just like God, in my time of good gracious and accomplishments you were not there. Yet I was always told to thank you for being there, to thank god for bringing me here, to thank god for the miracle he had given me, to thank god to for alleviating me from harmful arms. 
And just like God, you asked for forgiveness. But it wasn’t in any form of you apologizing, but of me confencing all my sins of all the things I did wrong and abiding to you for how it would be most beneficial for me to forgive myself and for you to see me as worthy. Your three hail Mary’s and an our father became three texts and a phone conversation as if now everything was fine and nothing that happened before should matter. And just like god, you promised me you will be there as long as I would do right by you. 

And I did. 
But just like God, I could no longer find you. And I no longer seek broken churches to find your corpse there hoping you would hold an apology letter with three Hail Marys and an our father asking me for forgiveness for all the hurt you have caused me. And maybe your arrogance is just to high because everyone made you out to be that way. But my corpse will be in the same ground as yours and in our love death you would see that I was exactly like you as the maggots eat the flesh you once ate and suck the flesh I once did. And they will erase the moments you speak to me in a way that diminishes my character and builds yours up, but at the same time respects who I am, taking me with all that I have to offer.
It’s ironic that I stopped believing in you the day I confirmed my love to you drinking your blood and eating your bread. While the world congratulated me for being a kiss ass to you was the day I realized you weren’t worth my time. And The man who you made you, the man you would make in the future, and the spirit you had in you, the three aspects of you that are so desperately cherished no longer made sense to me. All of which I have never seen. My heart sank as I went against my wishes to trust you and although the whole world loved you, I couldn’t bring myself to love an absent man filled with empty promises.  

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Letter to you, ❤️

I wanted to tell you this but I didn’t know where to start. So I decided to begin where we last left off or where we leave off every single time. I wanted to tell you this but I didn’t know where it would end, or if I would say something in the middle that didn’t start off how I wanted it to and end in a way I was never expecting. I wanted to tell you this but the air in my lungs stopped moving and the wind froze. I was standing there in between fog and raindrops hoping you wouldn’t notice. Anticipating that the fog would hide my weariness, but like headlights, it seemed like I was the only thing you could really see, even with blurred vision. And I’m starting to think that I can be invisible and you will find a way to see me. I wanted to tell you, but as it turned out, it felt better, safer, wiser, and more permanent writing.
I love That I could sit beside you and not question it. That I could ask you to places and accept your no without questioning it. That I could kiss you and not question it.
I love that I could love you and not question it. That I could believe in us and not question it.
Every time you leave I am overwhelmed. Wishing and hoping you will stay forever but knowing its our circumstances. Wanting to hold you in complete silence and at the same time sit across a table and just talk for hours. And I haven’t been able to balance so till then I should just explain.
I love the way you care for people. The way you are willing to travel hours to be there, stop what you are currently doing to be there, stop your opinions, thoughts, and perspective to be there. I love the heart wrenching feeling I get when I see you, I’m not sure if you could notice the way my face brightens up whenever I get to the basement and you are staring back at me asking me how I am and reassuring me of how high you are.
And this may pull you back a little and I don’t know how you are going to take it, but it feels right to say.

I love the way I never met your father but the stories you tell me make me feel like I have. And maybe that’s too far and maybe your not ready to hear that or you might think I have no right or authority to say that. But I could see the similarities that people see between you and your dad. When you smile, speak, or just stare I can see the still moments in you that I see in your stories when you speak about your dad. And I can see the way you think about him in the way you view yourself.
And I hope you see yourself in the way I see you. You’re not just pretty. You are beautiful, smart, bold, creative, thoughtful, caring, persistent, genuine, lovable, generous, sophisticated, and kind.

A letter to you, Papa

A letter to you, Papa,

The last sunflower you planted almost made it through winter. It was like you with cancer, weathering through the storm until there was nothing left to keep it alive.  And you knew we would hurt, but you knew you lasted long enough. I stood over the casket hoping, wishing, it was a mistake. I thought I saw you breathing and all throughout the funeral with puddles of tears surrounding me, I hoped that I would see you walking.  But I realized that those physical movements were no longer possible, however the spiritual ones were. I found myself overhearing countless conversations of people saying they saw you after your death either sitting in that weird blue chair you use to love, standing outside the house door taking in the world like you use to, or standing over their beds. I prayed begging not to see you. I was too young to fully understand that it wasn’t really you and at the same time, I did not want to accept your goodbye.

You left leaving me memories of us too young to remember in my old age.

I fell down the concrete stairs in front of our house. My back was in excruciating pain to the point of immobility. You picked me up and took me to the sofa closer to the window where the sun shined on your face and I saw a hero. I remember grandma yelling at you for babying me when I would call you to change the channel from 31 to 33 and from 33 to 31. Even though the remote was right next to me.

Its Monday. You call me and I come running to you because I already know what its for.  I come close to the chair you are sitting in and lift my head up leaving enough space for you to put on the perfume pamphlet that come from  Macy’s magazines. You would rub it on my neck and then smell it, sharing your opinion of the smell. I stand there loving that I got to try on a new perfume. I was always a geeker for anything that enhanced natural beauty.  Nail polish, perfumes, hair styling, outfits, make up and you knew that.

You came home one day with the best shoes ever. I can still imagine wearing them on my feet. They were purple, sparkly, and hello kitty. The shoes were closed by my toes, but the heel was open. The bottom of the shoe had a black platform. I cried when I lost one of the shoes and held on to the other begging for forgiveness until I lost that one too. And I am unsure if I lost the last pair of shoe or you first, but I do know both are gone now and these are the only memories I have of us that are actually my own.

The rest I recollected from lost memories we combined together to tell your story. Strong, independent, straining from pity, even when Cancer was killing you and you laid on the coach closest to the the wall of mirrors. And I would look at you wondering why you were getting so lazy, because at six I did not understand cancer. I would take the control from your hands and change it to Nickelodeon or Disney and grandma would yell at me and you would yell at her for yelling at me.

We went to Dominican Republic, my dad, mom, and I. I walked in to the house from my friends house and saw my dad sitting by the phone crying for the first time ever. I asked my mom what is happening and she tells me you died. I ran to the room and started crying, not knowing what that meant, but knowing my father was hurt. We received another call, you have come back to life. He takes the first flight back to America and gets the chance to see you one last time. It is not long before  you are gone again, this time with no chance of coming back, but at least daddy got to see you.

They flew you back to Dominican Republic so that you could rest in peace in your homeland. I refuse to look at the casket, because by this time I understand that you are not being lazy nor are you sleeping. There were two guys who teased me. “Hahahahaha, you are about to cry! You are such a girl.” I told my mom and she told me that it was okay, I have the right to cry. And from that moment, it was hard to stop because I knew from then on sunflowers would no longer be the same, I would never find the same shoes again, and I would have to pick myself up the next time I fall. And I was devastated with my first heartbreak at the age of seven.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A letter to me…from me

Letters to you, 
Hi Jamerly, 

I hope this finds you well whenever you come back to reread what you once wrote to yourself. Sort of like ninth grade English class where you promised yourself you would be valedictorian and go to a four year private school. Where you promised that your friends will be your friends forever because you knew they were special. Except different, because before you believed that if plans do not turn out exactly how you have planned them, you have failed. But today, you know that things will never happen in that way. 

Thinking back to that letter you realized that even though you got everything you asked for, it was nothing you were expecting. 

You saw how you could be valedictorian in high school and wanted the same for college, but C’s on papers isn’t really going to get you there. And you fell desperately to the floor disappointed that you were not as excellent as you once were and that you may be losing yourself. I know how bad it hurt thinking you were disappointing everyone, and I stood there watching you. I was unsure of what to do. So we sat there and he held us and told us that it was okay. That college isn’t about grades, college is about experiences. And your best friend tells you that C’s get degrees. Going to a prestigious private expensive college is not the same as a public school in Brooklyn or a public high school in the middle of Manhattan with 90 students in your graduating class. Things are harder, success is more difficult. And it took you some time to understand that, but you are not giving up. Next semester will be better, you will make it better because Columbia is your goal for masters and you know you could do it and you will. I see you looking at yourself and knowing that you’ve change and maybe that’s why you can’t recognize yourself anymore, but that does not mean you are any less valuable. 
And friends, well not all of them stayed. You have lost a few since high school, but you have learned that they  probably were people who didn’t really care in the first place. They just say that they do and then invent a story of why you are not the same anymore. Time goes by and you change with the seasons, and that is fine because you are 19 and growing. You know the friends left from high school will be your forever friends, people you grow up with. And you made two new friends that would do anything for you and fell in love for the first time. Although this love is extremely difficult and has many more issues than cinderella, he is someone you are willing to fight for. No matter how upset he makes you. And you sit on your bed holding on to yourself hoping for forever.

So stop beating yourself about not being the same person you were before, things change. Tomorrow your memories of yesterday won’t even be the same anymore.