November/December

Winner of the Weekly Writing Prompt: Spirit

NOVEMBER

A trill at the corner

of East 180th

and Morris Park Avenue

under the roaring freeway

on your way home

from ‘uela’s apartment:

you imagine a big

carton of milk

and polyester suits

piling the subway platform

and flowing down

the mezzanine

with subtle grace in moonlight

cold midnight

but that’s not it.

No, no, this is quite different

indeed

it creeps.

it door-knocks:

Knock Knock Knock

Knock Knock Knock

a knock at the door.

Giovanni once told you

it may have been from

under

your            bed

Didn’t believe him

until a vertigo strung up

from the garbage chute

that you saw through the window:

the waterbug.

The window shut with a

!!! SLAM !!!

And you didn’t hear

from me

for the next hour

as the messenger with wings

invited herself in.

DECEMBER

After getting up from

under the sheets

and peeing my pants,

I am looking at the ornaments

glow           glow              glow            glow

  sparkle       sparkle           sparkle

 shine            shine 

  garland

This very pattern

ostinato, downward

{AM}

—————————————————

in

↑

spiral.                        O          →          a

 clockwise

—————————————————

The bachata reverberates

down Southern Blvd., home,

and Christmas is near.

My mom is pissed

because you can hear

the music playing

from the Duane Reade

down the block,

every single horn stab

and vocal inflection

and conga hit

from the highest treble

to the lowest bass.

She will call the NYPD

shortly to shut them down

and return to her crab legs

in white carton on mattress

and the roll on her lotto ticket

with green, brief dust and smoke

shortly.

I can’t touch the gifts

until                                                morning

and it’s so far away.

As I lie in bed,

I think of one particular gift,

one of mine, the biggest present

under the tree.

It is labeled as follows:

To: mi Carlito…

I Love you Very much…

It’s from A‘uela.

Her handwriting

her discordant smiley face

with the shut eyes

in a slant

any kid with half a brain

would know it

I missed her then

more than I usually do

on Christmas nights.

I drift off, slowly to sleep…

…into a deep dream…

…about my train ride home.

the thumping still there

Thump Thump Thump

Thump Thump Thump

I heard the corner’s rumbling

past even the train yard

that we run by

down the line, in the dark night light.

As we were heading back downtown, I forgot exactly from where, probably another long meeting for my mom in a boring, brown office, the train’s engine had a breakdown at East 180th, and some MTA workers had to be called in to repair the engine and get it running. There was a halt in service, and it took 20 minutes just for the repair workers to get to the station, another 35 for them to fix up the engine.

Me and my siblings had been extremely hungry all evening, and didn’t eat anything since around 3pm. It was gonna be midnight soon, and the repair workers weren’t there yet at the time. We were getting restless, and my mom saw it in our faces. So, she took us down the block to see if there was a store open, so we could at least get a quick snack, maybe a pack or two of Oreos. She hadn’t a lot of money, so it was all she could get for now until her food stamps came in the following week.

Thankfully, we found a store just on the next street over from the train station. It was still open until 1:00AM. As we walked, I felt a faint ringing far in my ears. A stillness dawned on me as we crossed the street. I look to my right, beckoned by the quiet.

I notice someone in the middle of the street, under the bridge where the freeway is (unusually silent, even for midnight rush hour), bent down and knocking the concrete ground with his fists as if it were a door. He wore a gray trench coat, with a black facial mask with teeth on the fabric, and some Timberland boots. He spoke to the ground, but I couldn’t make out the words.

What’s weirder is that the ground seemed to respond. She opened her mouth, gaping and huge, and he began descending down the steps into the sewage and into his shadow dimension, under the city, probably to knock more ground. And even weirder yet, it seemed like no one else could see it but me. My big brother and little sister kept walking, and my mom held my hand while we crossed the street, and she was also starving.

I told Mommy about what I saw after we arrived at the store, gravelly but with childish fervor. And she responded, despondent and sleep deprived: “Carlos, he’s just a man who needs a lot of help. That’s lots of people in the Bronx. Do you really know what you saw?”

And I couldn’t respond. Maybe I didn’t yet know what I saw, and my mind played games on me. It was late and my stomach was rumbling, anyway. I didn’t think of it much further after that, not even in my dream.

My brother asked for some AriZona, but my mom couldn’t afford it. Just the two packs of cookie sandwiches as she promised. It was $7.50 total. He was a little disappointed.

And we ate Oreos all the way home.

 I'm an autistic high school student who's been living in New York City all my life, and I try my hardest to be a lot of things. Am I great at all of it? Not necessarily. I've been making music for three years, and writing poetry on and off for even longer, and drawing / editing images for even longer yet. I take pride in my experiences and memories in the Bronx, and I love emulating them in all of my art in some way.