Poetry
The Most Important Thing That Remains
Journal entry 11/22/21: A Prose poem
Come speak to me in my dreams tonight.
November is at an end — it’s been two years and two weeks. the days and nights have been insane, unorganized, terrifying, uncertain — everything that makes you feel like you're free falling with nothing there to catch you except your own fleshy behind. what would you say of pandemics and masks and mandates, social distance, or them folks acting a damn fool on January 6th? spoiler alert: they all hit the same orange crack pipe without wiping. what would you say about me finally conquering the fear of my own voice? a choice I made in June of 2020.
I’m gonna write wonderful things, I already am. and people, the people are gonna love what I write, they already do. the people will pay for what I write, award me for what I write— praise me for what I write. the people will be inspired by what I write. I’ve seen it — like you were, like you did, like you would have been.
we women, in our family, have been too silent about our needs not getting met. That shit is old. too many of us have died miserable, angry, dejected having settled for less than what’s left after having cared for everyone else. you were Anne Frank’s candle both defying and defining the darkness that surrounded you — and me.
the world hates me for not taking on that role. for not bearing your grandchildren, for not marrying a man, for not burning myself as that candle. the world sees me as either useless or to be used. I’m not for that shit, ma. I’m writing it all. The good the bad, the nasty, the golden things too.
I wanna write about your teacups, that are at That house still. the delicate sound they made, like they were about to break, when their base met their mate. and how you never enjoyed hot drinks from them. and your Coke bottles that we never got appraised, that your mother kept for a reason. and everything else that you didn’t say, with your lips, but with the silent screams in your eyes, the ones that mirrored my screams in my eyes— sometimes.
I’m gonna write about the things that I’ve asked you after you died. I tried to remember every word you ever said. I think you answered me a few times — or maybe you answered me before you died. Did you?
did you answer every question I would ever have, while you were here? did your conversing in past tense blind you with sight and a fright so intense that you could not tell me? Why can’t I remember every word you ever said?
Come speak to me in my dreams tonight.
Did you know that your life is/was art? why people wanted to oppress you, and me. they feared every color on the pallet of your wit, extended to being afraid of seeing you at your best. the brush strokes of your wisdom — opaque, hindering their grip — on you. the canvas left inexplicably blank.
they failed, you know? they didn’t beat you there or me here. of course, you know now. the most important thing that remains, I’ll write about that. about your children and grandchildren and great grandchildren and theirs. the people you’ve loved and that loved you back. the hood man, that pressed secret money in your palm just because. the corner boy who would only listen to you. the ladies of the night who sought the moment of peace you kept under your wing just for them. what remains here? between us? in the world? what’s the most important thing to you?
Come speak to me in my dreams tonight.
©️KS Hernandez 2022 All Rights Reserved
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