Asfixiada

Ayling Zulema Dominguez

photo credit: Ayling Zulema Dominguez

Asfixiada

Es que tú te asfixias, hija,
my dad says with a soft smile that divulges a degree of pity I find silly.
I know that I love too damn much and too damn hard.

I know,
but I also hold
that it is more than okay.

This world could really use some more brazen, sometimes clumsy, spilling-over type TLC.
And if God – She – has willed it to be at my expense,
so be it.

If it means I will see more partners’ backsides once I say the three words
than I ever will an equally as full heart-cup to match mine,
that is alright.

I will continue to pour,
like mami did into the masa de harina,
like papi did into the güira.

I will continue to pour
to the question of whether I have not yet given enough
love the answer will remain no,
there is still room for more.

Es que tú te asfixias, mija,
he says with a soft smile that pretends this is news to either of us
even though he knows I’ve had difficulty breathing, since birth.
Since I came a-knocking on our world’s front door​.
I have loved too much and too hard
and with my excess I have adorned,

much in the same way
I did my own mother’s womb,
mother earth’s churchyard.

In doing so I have learned
that you do not blame the water
for the cup being too small.

Una sola voz de corazones

Inspirado por la canción "Voz de Corazones" de Alex Cuba

Espero que no tenga miedo
Espero que le guste cantar y que suene como Celia Cruz
Que no me regañe
Que me dé luz.
Fingers crossed it likes to sweet talk
not catcall.
Que me baje la luna y las estrellas
Or at least between guiding whispers teach me how.
That it demand attention when it enters a room
but in the soft, charming way birds in the springtime do.
Que sea de seda
A silky touch on my ears so tender it could bring me to tears
reminding me of voices previously marked absent – force of habit – on my life’s attendance sheet.
Hope that it sounds like little kids’ feet slapping concrete
running through fire hydrant rain.
Cuando hable, I think it’ll be like the first time
I heard Mami in my voice even though I swore all up and down we were not the same
I think it’ll take only the good and leave behind all the intergenerational pain
Or so I pray.
I hope she is not tame,
but like Michelle Obama,
Became.

Aventura

Llora guitarra
por esos días con nubes tan grises
como cuando han pasado meses y aún mami no ha cubierto sus raíces,
pelo natural más joven un negro profundo y brillante tal como los cuervos los
que en esta ciudad nos visitan en forma de pigeones
sosteniéndose en sueños muertos
pero solo esos de los viejos,
por supuesto
porque los míos siguen muy,
pero muy,
vivos
Mine are still kicking
ves que, para mí,
Llora la guitarra
y sobre sus lagrimas,
como niños saltando en charcos de lluvia,
regocijan mis pies.
Llora guitarra,
‘Cause it’s not that often
someone weeps over me.

Sucking on Sugar Cane

Papi’s always said the only anxiety he’s ever felt
is when things were going a little too well.
Said it made him feel like Cinderella; like all the good in his life
was only there per fleeting spell.

I wished he could sense the permanence
of the magic in our hands and in our hair,
in the way our feet never fail to make love to the dirt when we dance,
kneading the ground;
in the way the sun poured into us so much
that our skin browned
made us darker even than herself
because she yearned for us to be as sweet as the azúcar mascabado
sitting atop ‘buelita’s kitchen shelf.

I wished Papi would calm
would trace the lines that run the length of his palm
—the color of soil, hardened by toil, looking as though it had survived an awful
storm, and maybe we had, but do you still call it that when a storm becomes your
norm?—
for they will always lead directly to me
and in the way my nose crinkles when I laugh, the way my eyes are a replica of his mamá’s,
they will always help him see
that good things can happen to ​us,​ too—that we can be joyous and carefree,
that we are not rendered transient for our joy, and not for being at ease;
that we are deserving of and overdue reprieve,
that our constant state shall not be one of grief.

He claims to have been a poet in his youth,
and if that is true, I’ll urge him to write about the lyricality
we carry in our veins
the beauty in our everydays,
the way our tall tales help relieve our short bodies of pain,
the way storytelling helps us remain,
helps us persist in abundance,
helps us forge and adorn a domain,
think up a future so sweet he would think he’s been transported
back to a time when the only skyscrapers he knew were palm trees
and he was so rich in hours he could spend them endlessly under the sun,
sucking on sugar cane.

You Bring Worlds Together

Dear Younger Me,

Begin to look for yourself in the hesitance and five quiet seconds
before a teacher calls out your name
In their mention of butchering
the ceiling-high eyebrow raise
That is your space

Like a sunflower reaches for the sun, you do a conditioned tongue
I implore: do not get deferred
by the lure of normalcy;
to stand out, to cause strangers pause
That is your imparted prophecy

No matter how unconventional,
your mother was intentional
in stringing your letters together
planting the seed for confidence
prompting you to be a bellwether
born out of pressing, yearning necessity

A motley of syllables your dance partners
The curves of your signature a well-built armor

Do not bend down to help up those who stumble
Let them try again
and again
Your nomenclature a lesson in being humble
in stopping to smell the marigolds woven throughout your claim to fame

No, you will not find yourself in gift-shop keychains
But in custom-made gold-plated earrings
in the way the wind whispers your name
when palm tree leaves move and you come to realize you have nothing to prove just by virtue of being the only [insert name and/or identity here] in the room

Begin to look for yourself in the union of history and opportunity held within your name
You bring worlds together
A truth that should never bring you shame

With love,
The girl whose name rhymes with mean and whose nameplate necklace, even in the darkest of lights, glistens with a warm sheen

Ayling Zulema Dominguez (she/her) is a first-generation Dominicana-Mexicana living in Bronx, New York. As a poet and creative in an abolitionist mindset, her work is the stuff of forging community; of affirming belonging as the first step toward liberation; of imagining new, better, and more radically loving worlds. @rhymeswithmean