What My Grandmother Meant to Say Was
i glow. i am luminous. i flare in the sky, a light
gleaming in the Sierra Maestra at night, i am
the mountains, I sway the sun to rise, yearning, I dance.
i taste of salt. my fingers cannot sit still. i smuggled
tears. from smile to smile, i ran. when i was too tired
to run, i swam. love reached beyond borders. i swam.
i rose. i flew. i dreamed. i fell in love with little to no
belonging. i belonged to nowhere and no one. i was in
love with everywhere and everyone. i was hungry, cold.
i hated hunger and cold. i hated everywhere with no
food. i hated everyone with everything. it was different
then. i was stupid. i was a woman. i was waiting to
become more than what happened, more than a bird
fleeing my country, to bathe in being afar, more than
a landscape or an image to cast a shadow on, a clip
in a newspaper, more than a seductress or a magician
of visions to foretell. my children, riding on the wings
of my sacrifice, i left them. i turned back many times.
i almost became the devil they wanted, but i left
a devil---nonetheless. i was a woman ahead of her time
i shimmer in scars, mapped by our bloodlines
of living. i imagined more than broken families,
i come from the laughter of aspiring lovers, the lure
of trembling in another's arms. what about what
i wanted? who listens for what goes untold? i could not
protect my children from everywhere. i made offerings
to the spirits who attend. i am their mother. i am not God.
i was a candela, i was a witch they could not burn,
la fuega. i was their mother. i was not God. i made choices.
i made peace. i was a woman ahead of her time.
i am the road you took
here. i am la camina.
i was the way.
written by Aja Monet, My Mother was a Freedom Fighter, 2017.
