Your Sunday Sip #6
My grandfather lived in black and white. The only way he could make sense of the world was through numbers. There wasn’t a time when he sat on his cream ribbed couch without his rectangular notepad, covered in hieroglyphics he wrote with one of those miniature pencils you take from a lottery kiosk, laying on the armrest. His white manila folder was an extension of his body that stuck out against his sky-blue collared shirt as he strode through the front door of my house and straight to my father’s bedroom every afternoon. “Did you do your homework today?” I would ask him in my own blue collared shirt and khaki skirt. As a little girl, I imagined Pandora’s Box opening before them behind those closed doors, the only explanation for their alternating curses and laughter.
I knew him with hair as bright and smooth as a white orchid, but in his previous life, there was no telling where the midnight sky ended and where his hair began. Dominoes were his music, his love, his mistress. His life was a game of priceless ivory that clacked together under his swirling palms, a uniform line of seven tiles, a rhythmic tap of his wedding band against the pieces he concealed. That same ivory that made up his beloved game made up his bones, for he was a man who lifted me in the air when I was 12 and he was 81. He was stronger than an old Toyota and at 22 years old, I might finally believe that it truly was his daily breakfast of banana and raisin bran that kept him running laps around the lake like a racehorse until his dying day.
In my house, there is an onyx telephone. Since 2023, it has sat on a shelf in my bedroom, sturdy and shiny, with a roulette wheel that spins if I stare at it long enough. But it never rings.
Your Sunday Sip #5
I couldn’t get the metallic tang of the gun out of my mouth. The taste was permanently lacquered to the back of my throat. My chest carried the weight of a thousand bullets, tightening like hands wringing a rag of its liquid, unaccustomed to the sensation that slithered into my pores and dug its fangs into my core, releasing me only when I was nothing but a limp body on the floor, soaked in someone else’s remorse. Through blurry eyes, I stared upward, the sky nothing but a puddle of maroon, hoping to feel warmth move through me and render me mobile again. The back of my body stuck to the ground beneath me, the sweat seeping from my skin fusing with the freezing asphalt. I’ve never liked the cold, and I’ve never understood people who jump at the first opportunity to dive into a lake in the winter or hike through a forest in snowshoes just so they can hear the snow crunch under their feet. I preferred warmth in all its forms. In the humidity that moved through the air like molasses, in the turquoise ocean that bubbled around my shoulders, in the flames that struck through the darkest sky, in the white velvet sand that cushioned the soles of my feet. The ice underneath me would have sent a shock up my spine and made me jump to the tips of my toes on any other occasion, but not today. Maybe not ever again. The only sign of life coming from my body the sporadic spasms that made the center of my back arch suddenly and fall heavily, my feet twitch from side to side like white flags in the wind, my wrist bend upward for a split second before smacking the floor again. My head was a pinball machine, my memory the ball that shot in every direction and caused a deluge of sounds to reverberate off the walls of my ears. Ringing, igniting, singing, cracking. Silence. I tried swallowing, something I never thought I wouldn’t do automatically. My mouth was as dry as a dune, my shallow breaths the wind in the desert. As my eyes rolled shut, I pressed my quivering lips together, cracked from being ajar for so long, pushed the tip of my tongue against the back of my top front teeth, and forced the muscles of my throat to pull any remnant of saliva down. It felt like someone was pouring a bottle of alcohol down my throat. The fear of a thousand generations ripped my sealed eyelids apart as my lips tore open in a cough that seemed to claw out of the depths of me, a torrent of lava pouring out of my mouth. I was choking on myself, and I couldn’t stop it.
It’s funny how when the putrid smell of death invades your body, the people you love most envelope your mind. Amid the towering clouds, they appear in white-hot lightning bolts, untouchable flashes you try to grasp onto while the gods laugh above you. When death is near, your memory becomes a stack of sticky notes, your subconscious the thumb that presses on the bottom edge of the stack to fan them before you; each note a timid smile in the morning light that revealed itself only after the teasing graze of fingertips up the spine, a wet tangle of wild hair and firm limbs foaming with guava soap under the noon light, an etching of wrinkles around squinted eyes that swayed as smoothly as palm fronds, a sunburnt arm that stretched out of the car window and melded with the breeze like a macaw’s wings, flat and motionless again in an instant.
Your Sunday Sip #4
I’d arrived by train just before sunset, one of those antiquated trains that jerks from side to side like a wild horse and has a wire rack for an overhead luggage compartment, leading you to spend possibly the last hour of your life wondering whether you will die by train wreck or by a boulder disguised as a backpack falling on your head. The station was surprisingly modern: an air-conditioned lobby with a sparkling, grey and white speckled floor, an escalator that softly buzzed like a bee, an elevator that rose and fell swiftly like the tide, self-service train ticket machines that flashed with neon yellow and green lights, giving an impression of a casino slot machine. With a jet of cold air from the automatic doors, I stepped out of the station and into the noon heat, a wave of warmth rushing through my body, as if I had just opened an oven. Suddenly I was on that old train again, my wrist cranking the saturation down on the world around me until it could twist no more, my violet veil replaced by parchment paper, coating everything in a grainy layer of grey like the sea beyond.
With a ding of my glass slippers, I began walking toward my carriage. The first two steps had fallen off (death by jumping children, I’d been told). The driver, his brows cinched and his lips slightly parted, looked like he had just watched a portal open its mouth and spit me out in front of him. He opened his palm before me to help me on, brutally tanned by the scorching sun and rough like sandpaper. Pink and white splotches of chewing gum and sunscreen, scratches of black pen, windows lathered in a thick layer of salt adorned the sides of the bus. It seemed like someone had robbed a classroom of its plastic grey chairs and dragged them onto the bus, holding each one in place with a metal tube that attached to the floor. The center of the seat had a thin felt cushion resembling the grey rugs covered in colorful abstract shapes that could be found encrusted with tears, mucus, and eraser shavings at a pre-school. I sat on the edge of my seat, my knees bumping against the seat in front of me, the backs of my thighs itching from my sweat droplets mixing with the felt seat underneath me, like morning dew on grass. The sea blended with the sky at the horizon in a smooth stroke of greyish purple and for miles down this two-way street, the only bright colors I saw through the cloudy window came from a patch of turquoise and yellow umbrellas on the beach; I had the sensation of being in Wonderland, the umbrellas suddenly springing up out of the ground like giant mushrooms. The feeling was short-lived, as the blur of dust quickly returned along with the feeling of being trapped in a vacuum filter, sending my mind inward again.
With a slipper on the verge of cracking on the asphalt, I waited for the bus to pass by in front of me, deafened by the starting engine, rumbling like thunder. I lifted my gaze and when the thick, grey cloud it left in its wake finally subsided, I saw it. A soft, ashy pink, it stuck out like a pig standing in a dirt pen, illuminated by a lamppost at the end of the street. It was three stories tall, with three white balconies stacked on top of each other like dominoes and a single entrance door with a smooth, white ceramic handle. The sharp scent of basil flooded my nose, trailing down from the highest balcony. I stood directly in front of the balconies, watching every movement reflected in the glass sliding door, every forearm pinned back, every wrist gone limp, every jaw tilted up, every neck curved down, every nose nestled in. The echo of muffled breathing and tortured whispering reverberated off the walls and burned through my ears.
I stared up at the second story apartment long enough that the lights around me began to shut off one by one, a car horn that set off being the only thing making me blink. I rubbed the inner corners of my eyes with my thumb and middle finger, passing the palm of my hand down my face, stopping at the base of my damp neck. Slow, inebriated steps took me to that patch of soil inches from the entrance door, muscle memory forcing my eyes and knees to the ground. I loosed a long, labored breath and, with my delicate, gloved hands, I began to dig.
Your Sunday Sip #3
On the tip of my tongue and in the back of my throat, I taste passionfruit when I think of you.
I feel your skin slide on my palm, charred to a deep purple by the fire that trails you from ocean to air, wrinkling effortlessly by a press of my nails.
I cut and cut and cut, until I see your perfect strip of white teeth, where you encase the glowing bubbles of sunlight that pulse through me with every swirl of my tongue.
With passionfruit, I never know whether it will melt sweetly or bitterly in my mouth, but there’s never been a time where I’ve wanted to go without.
Cupped between my hands in the early cream light, your eyes radiate heat through my body, a whirlpool of crushed arabica beans and ochre honey.
The three lines that appear on the outer corners of your eyes when you smile take me to the place from which I was exiled, tropical green palm fronds that sway in the wind every once in a while.
Across the burning caramel sand, my fingers slither up the rocky path to grasp your hair, a hidden cliff whose violent wind I can barely withstand.
When I finally unclench and spread my arms out in a T, my hair around my guava cheeks flying toward you like branches on a tree, I lean back on my heels and plunge through the air, accepting my fate for refusing to flee.
My spine breaks through the foaming crest of a wave, the salt permanently speckled on your skin floods my airways and gaze, and again on the tip of my tongue and in the back of my throat melts that familiar taste.
From an unreachable height, you dangle above me, holding on tight, knowing that swirling me to sleep was the only way to relieve my plight.
En español
En la punta de la lengua y en el fondo de la garganta, siento parchita cuando pienso en tu alma.
En la palma de mi mano, siento tu piel resbalarse, quemada de un morado profundo por el fuego que te persigue desde el océano hasta el aire, arrugándose fácilmente por la presión de mis uñas.
La corto y la corto y la corto hasta que veo la tira de tus dientes blancos perfectos, donde guardas las burbujas de sol incandescentes que pulsan dentro de mí con cada vuelta de mi lengua.
Con la parchita, nunca sé si se va a derretir dulce o amargamente en mi boca, pero no me puedo imaginar estar sin ella.
Entre mis manos en la luz cremosa de la mañana, tus ojos irradian calor por mi cuerpo, un remolino de miel color ocre y granos de café arábico.
Las tres rayas que aparecen en las esquinas exteriores de tus ojos con tu sonrisa me llevan al lugar del cual me tuve que escapar con prisa, hojas verdes de palmas tropicales que bailan de vez en cuando con la brisa.
En la arena ardiente color dulce de leche, mis dedos se deslizan por el camino rocoso para aferrarme a tu pelo, un acantilado cuyo viento violento nunca resisto.
Cuando finalmente aflojo mis brazos y los extiendo en forma de T, con mi pelo que enmarca mis cachetes guayaba y que vuela hacia ti como las ramas de un árbol, me inclino hacia atrás en los talones y por el aire caigo, aceptando mi destino por no haberme ido.
Mi columna rompe la cresta espumosa de la ola, la sal permanentemente moteada en tu piel inunda mi vía aérea y mi mirada, y de nuevo en la punta de la lengua y en el fondo de la garganta se derrite aquel sabor de tu alma.
Desde una altura inalcanzable, guindas encima mío en el aire, aguantándote fuerte, sabiendo que arremolinarme hasta el sueño era la única forma de aliviarme.
Your Sunday Sip #2
Vienna creeps up on you. The first time I met her, she was meticulously well-mannered, poised, appropriate, concealed to the collar bones in ivory tulle that strangled her waist, the kind of city that smacks you on the wrist with a baton for not following cues. Or rewards you, slowly and delicately, for behaving, making you dart around frantically when she disappears again, wondering how you can earn another silky caress.
I had never seen such a limpid sky like the one she painted me the day I arrived, as if she had scooped up an open can of the Tiffany blue paint she splattered on the roofs and spun around in a circle, her slender arms stretched out in front of her chest, her pearl-white teeth bared in a frenetic smile, her face pointing toward the sun as if the ground had dug its fingers into her ankle-length hair and pulled her head back. At 12:00 pm on a Friday in May, the black backpack swishing side to side against my caramel leather jacket that hadn’t fit in my suitcase was the loudest thing inside the Vienna International Airport; my suitcase glided over the sterile, white floor like a bar of wet soap, couples interlaced fingers and whispered, lone travelers with white spheres in their ears delicately flipped pages, rosy-cheeked children chewed magenta berries instead of pulverizing potato chips, the crisp wind barely made a swoosh when the automatic doors opened up to the street.
The drive in the silver Mercedes-Benz sedan consisted of several glances through the rearview mirror - not cold, but alert - and house music that softly played on the speakers and bounced off the moon grey leather interior that smelled ever so slightly of violets, as if I were at the cocktail hour before Vienna’s grand entrance. Yawning and staring out the window to prevent my eyes from being imprisoned by the driver’s again, I caught a flicker of warmth in this snow globe of a city. My spine contorted toward the road behind me as my palms pressed into the headrest of my seat, my chestnut brown eyes glued to a pedestrian signal with two stick figures holding hands and a small heart floating between their heads.
“Stop the car.”
The only moment she stopped watching me, pretending not to hear me.
“Stop the car. I need to cross the street.”
“We’re still 27 minutes away,” she said, replacing her Ws with her Vs.
I didn’t care where I was off to in that moment, nor how near or far I was. I was going to cross that street. Untwisting my spine vertebrae by vertebrae, I aimed my eyes forward, rolled my shoulders back, and stabbed her straight in the eyes with a glare that would have killed her all over again.
So there I was, backpack behind my shoulders, suitcase to my left, enamored stick figures to my right. Aside from the gentle beeping of the signal, all I could hear were my even breaths; not even the dusty wheels of my metallic pink suitcase groaned, for the asphalt under me was as smooth as the Formula 1 racetrack I accidentally walked onto in Monte Carlo a month prior. Despite the lack of life around me, I felt watched by the doors, the windows, the roofs; even the enamored stick figures seemed to look at me and back at each other, as if to quietly indicate the presence of something that didn’t belong, that would reveal their true nature, holding a finger to their lips, reminding each other to remain silent.
En español
Viena se te acerca poco a poco. La primera vez que la conocí, era meticulosamente educada, equilibrada, apropiada, tapada hasta las clavículas en tul color marfil que le estrangulaba la cintura, el tipo de ciudad que te pega en la muñeca con una batuta por no seguir indicaciones. O te recompensa, lentamente y con dulzura, por comportarte, haciéndote entrar en frenesí cuando se desaparece de nuevo, preguntándote cómo podrás recibir otra caricia sedosa.
Yo nunca había visto un cielo tan límpido como el que ella me pintó el día que llegué, como si hubiera recogido una lata abierta de aquel color azul Tiffany, que había zumbado en los techos, y dado vueltas con los brazos extendidos frente al pecho, su sonrisa exaltada que mostraba sus dientes color perla, su cara hacia el sol como si la tierra hubiera enterrado sus dedos en su pelo que le llegaba hasta los tobillos y halado su cabeza hacia atrás. Al mediodía un viernes de mayo, mi morral negro que se movía de lado a lado contra mi chaqueta de cuero color dulce de leche que no había cabido en mi maleta era la cosa más ruidosa dentro del Aeropuerto Internacional de Viena. Mi maleta deslizaba por el piso estéril y blanco cómo una barra de jabón mojada, las parejas entrelazaban los dedos y susurraban, los viajeros solos con esferas blancas en los oídos delicadamente pasaban páginas, niños con los cachetes rojos masticaban frutos del bosque en vez de pulverizar papitas, el viento fresco apenas hacía un silbido cuando las puertas automáticas se abrían hacia la calle.
El viaje en el carro Mercedes-Benz plateado consistió en varias ojeadas por el retrovisor – no frías, pero alertas – y música house que tocaba suavemente en las cornetas y rebotaba en el interior color gris luna que olía apenas a violetas, como si estuviera en la hora del cocktail antes de la gran entrada de Viena. Bostezando y viendo por la ventana para evitar que mis ojos fueran aprisionados por los del conductor otra vez, noté un destello de calor en este globo de nieve de ciudad. Torcí mi columna hacia la calle detrás de mi mientras las palmas de mis manos presionaban el reposacabezas de mi asiento, mis ojos marrón castaña fijados a un semáforo peatonal con dos figuras de peatones de palitos aguantados de mano y con un corazón pequeño que flotaba entre sus cabezas.
“Para el carro”.
El único momento que paró de mirarme, fingiendo no oírme.
“Para el carro. Tengo que cruzar la calle”.
“Aún faltan 27 minutos para llegar”, me dijo, remplazando sus Ws con sus Vs.
No me importaba dónde iba en aquel momento, ni que lejos o cerca estaba. Yo iba a cruzar aquella calle. Destorcí la columna vertebra por vertebra, apunté los ojos hacia delante, eché los hombros hacia atrás, y le apuñalé en los ojos con una mirada que la hubiera podido matar de nuevo.
Así que allí estuve, morral detrás de los hombros, maleta a mi izquierda, figuras de palitos enamorados a mi derecha. Aparte del pito suave del semáforo peatonal, lo único que oía era mi respiro estable; ni siquiera las ruedas empolvadas de mi maleta color rosado metálico gemían, el asfalto bajo ella tan liso como la pista de la Fórmula 1 en la cual había terminado sin querer en Monte Carlo un mes antes. A pesar de la falta de vida alrededor mío, sentía que las puertas, las ventanas, y los techos me miraban…parecía que hasta las figuras de palitos enamorados me miraban y luego se miraban entre ellos, como para indicar sin hacer ruido la presencia de algo que no pertenecía, que revelaría su naturaleza verdadera, aguantando el índice frente los labios, recordando uno al otro permanecer en silencio.
Your Sunday Sip #1
There’s a lot I could say about you. Almost too much. The last time we saw each other, we shook hands as if it were the first time we had met, as if you hadn’t snuck into my mind and had a look around with your arms crossed already. I can imagine my brain must have looked like a disorganized desk: scattered tickets, monopoly bills, plum-stained napkins, store receipts, scribbles underneath uncapped pens, a green and black rectangular camera. The kind of desk that breathes at you, that makes one person reach for the waste bin and another for the chair.
I wish it hadn’t taken me this long to talk about you, but after we met, I became the person that reached for the waste bin. Dragging my forearm across the desk and sliding everything into that void was natural, routine. I had lived 9 lives in the season preceding our encounter and I was still living in 8 of them. But I couldn’t anymore.
I bet the first sign that I was losing it was that camera. That damned camera. It practically lived glued to me, my hand being its source of nutrition for months, it’s no surprise you saw it the moment you held my head between your hands and looked inside. It had survived the bottom of that piece of beige cloth I called a grocery bag, with its squiggly sketch of the Teatro Italia, the rotting wood of my nightstand drawer, courtesy of the Venetian humidity that rose from the lagoon and floated past the emerald green shutter of my window, the hard walls of the black plastic storage compartment of a milk white Maltese moped whose back wheel jerked from side to side at every left turn, the Mediterranean air that made my hair stick together like sugar cane.
Then it would have been impossible for you to miss the gold-edged leather journal, its covers the same shade of green as my window shutters. Suspended above the cobblestone in that ragged cotton grocery bag, it would spend its days bouncing lightly between a curvy, cerulean bottle of water and a mountain of wrinkled brown paper bags stuffed with cherries, apricots, dates. It was entirely impractical, placing an elegant journal in a bag that shriveled up as soon as it touched liquid and that was filled to the brim with fruits that couldn’t wait to drip at the first sinking of teeth. At least something would stain it. After hours of waltzing under the stinging sun, the night promised silence. In the darkness, it rested shut on the emaciated white pillow next to mine, like someone who stares hopelessly at the back of their partner’s head. I rarely turned over to face it, but I wanted to, I wanted to twist around and hear the thin mattress squeak under us as I reached for it, ripped it open in a drunken craze and left it vandalized by my scratches and beads of sweat, but instead it lay there, smooth and untouched, a shiny reminder of the time that would always remain immobile.
You saw all of that and asked me how my flight was. Opened the door to the back seat for me and shoved my bags into it with me, crushing me rib by rib. Hands stacked in my lap, red-rimmed eyes toward the rear-view mirror, I forced the corners of my mouth to curve up as I said, “It was great, thank you,” as if I were assuring the server at a restaurant that my food was up to par. The one who had offered me sanctuary had now shut the door in my face.
En español
Hay mucho que podría decir de ti. Yo diría demasiado. La última vez que nos vimos, nos dimos la mano como si fuera la primera vez que nos conocimos, como si nunca te hubieras metido en mi mente a darle una ojeada con los brazos cruzados. Me imagino que mi cerebro habrá parecido un escritorio desorganizado: boletos dispersos, billetes de monopolio, servilletas teñidas de ciruela, recibos, garabatos bajo bolígrafos destapados, una cámara rectangular verde y negra. El tipo de escritorio que respira en tu cara, que hace que una persona agarre el basurero y que otra se siente en la silla.
Nunca quise que me tomara tanto tiempo para hablar de ti, pero después de que nos conocimos, me convertí en la persona que agarraba el basurero. Pasar mi antebrazo por encima del escritorio y zumbar todo en aquel vacío era natural, costumbre. Había tenido nueve vidas en la temporada precedente a nuestro encuentro y yo seguía viviendo en ocho de ellas. Pero ya no podía más.
Apuesto que la primera señal que estaba perdiendo la cabeza era aquella cámara. Aquella maldita cámara. Vivía prácticamente pegada a mí, mi mano su fuente de alimentación por meses. No es sorpresa que la viste en el momento que aguantaste mi cabeza entre tus manos y miraste adentro. Había sobrevivido en el fondo de aquel trapo beige que yo llamaba una bolsa de supermercado, con su dibujo infantil del Teatro Italia, en el cajón de mi mesa de noche con olor a madera podrida, gracias a la humedad Veneciana que salía de la laguna y flotaba más allá de la contraventana color verde esmeralda, entre las paredes duras del baúl plástico y negro de una motoneta maltesa color blanca leche cuya rueda trasera se movía toscamente de lado a lado cada vez que agarraba hacia la izquierda, en el aire mediterráneo que dejaba mi cabello tan pegajoso como la caña de azúcar.
Luego hubiera sido imposible que no vieras el cuaderno de cuero y hojas doradas, con sus cubiertas del mismo color verde de las contraventanas. Suspendido encima del empedrado en aquella bolsa de supermercado harapienta, pasaba sus días saltando ligeramente entre una botella de agua curvada y color cerúleo y una montaña de bolsas de papel marrón arrugadas y llenas de cerezas, melocotones, dátiles. Era completamente impráctico, colocar un cuaderno elegante en una bolsa que se arrugaba apenas tocaba el líquido y que estaba llena hasta el tope con frutas que no veían la hora de que alguien les hundiera los dientes para empezar a gotear. Por lo menos algo lo mancharía. Después de horas valsando bajo el sol ardiente, la noche prometía el silencio. En la oscuridad, se quedaba cerrado encima de la almohada demacrada al lado de la mía, como alguien que mira desesperadamente la parte de atrás de la cabeza de su pareja. Casi nunca me volteaba a mirarlo, pero quería, quería torcerme el cuerpo a mirarlo y oír el colchón delgado chillar bajo nosotros mientras lo agarraba, lo abría a la fuerza en una locura ebria y dejarlo vandalizado por mis rasguños y gotas de sudor, pero en cambio se quedaba acostado allí, liso e intacto, un recordatorio brillante del tiempo que se quedaría por siempre inmóvil.
Viste todo eso y me preguntaste cómo estuvo mi vuelo. Me abriste la puerta del asiento de atrás y allí también zumbaste mis maletas, empujándolas hacia mí, aplastándome costilla por costilla. Con las manos apiladas sobre las piernas, los ojos delineados de rojo hacia el retrovisor, forcé las esquinas de mi boca hacia arriba mientras decía, “Todo bien, gracias,” como si estuviera asegurando al camarero que mi comida estaba buena. El que me había ofrecido santuario ahora me había cerrado la puerta en la cara.