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Military
Keeping your side of the bed free of stray kicks
Keeping your spot at the coffee table clear of clutter junk
Taking out the trash half as often
Sitting wondering, “why” twice as much
Missing you is just that: you’re missing
You’re not here because you’re there
Whenever I can’t sleep
Whenever I’m overwhelmed
I wonder why you’re that: missing
Xxxxxxxxxxxxx says this and that’s final
my words are empty next to his
Just because he’s your boss
Didn’t have to mean
That you would keep him happy over me
At least that’s what someone like me thinks
Someone who has told bosses “no” before
Someone who has gotten
Fired as a result
And had to trot the globe
Like a nomad
You are not a nomad
You are not obstinate
You listen to orders
And then follow them
But that means that you leave me
Alone
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Russian Lessons
“Priviet”
“Preevet”
“No, priviet. Priviet. That’s how you say ‘hello;”
“Priviet”
“Priviet”
“Ok. Dosviedanya.”
June 18th 2020 was the day we did it. He drove down from his military base to meet us at a hotel. My girlfriend had established the rules. No sharing a bed. Other than that, we were going to have fun. We’d ordered chipotle and bought an entire case of Corona. To make things fair we decided to über around the city. That way no one had to drive and my girlfriend and I could stay h***.
At around midnight it was time to hit the p*** again. I didn’t want to leave the hotel room because I thought it would be too complicated.
“Come on!” She insisted
“Will you come with us?” I asked him politely
“Of course, yeah” He jumped up with that elegant military readiness
As my girlfriend and I walked down the hallway hand in hand I reached one hand back to grab his. His fingers brushed mine in a quick but humble gesture. He wanted to hold my hand. This was obvious. But none of us wanted anyone to feel left out or upset.
When we got to the car he settled in to the back and watched us with eyes wide. We pulled out our p*** with Floridian confidence and lit up right there in the car park.
“Should we open a window for you? So you don’t get second hand smoke?”
“It’s ok” He said “I’ve smoked w*** once before.”
I reached my hand back through the crack between my car seat and the door. After feeling around for a minute I finally found his leg.
“What a good friend” I tried to tell him with my eyes. And slowly I started rubbing his leg up and down.
My girlfriend and I passed the p*** back and forth to each other slowly getting more and more buzzed and laughing about some Youtube video we’d seen. I noticed that she saw my hand on his leg and glanced over at her expression. She had that satisfied grin of someone who feels confident they are controlling the situation. He was very clearly enjoying himself and she seemed pleased with that. So i continued to rub his legs and we smoked about half of our w***.
Once we were finally back safe in the hotel room we cleaned up all the Corona bottles and got ready to go to bed. While I took a shower she taught him 5 phrases in Russian.
“You’re going to need it.”
I heard her say as I was drying my hair. I wondered how she meant that, if she knew something I didn’t.
That night I slept on the left side of my girlfriend so that I could see him without looking past her. He put on light grey sports joggers and a military green colored T-shirt. “Got Knurling” was written on the front in black letters. Was that some kind of specialized slang for cuddling?
Suddenly I couldn’t stop imagining what it would feel like to be in his arms. His shoulders were so wide and his hands so thick. I tried to fall asleep but couldn’t seem to close my eyes. Instead I began trying to read the expression on his almost sleeping face.
A couple times in the middle of the night I swear that he opened his eyes. Each time he did I showed him my left hand and tried to tell him “unmarried” with my eyes. I did love my girlfriend, very much, but there was something big missing between us. She had been engaged to a girl in Orlando and never given back the ring. Even though we felt like a great team together, i longed for someone to be all mine. Someone who would give me the sparkly ‘i love you’ ring and mean it, someone I could rely on who would be there for a lifetime.
That night staring at his face in the dark I promised I would say yes if he asked. I had just come out as gay to so many people and I knew they would be confused, but here was someone solid, someone I knew had a good heart, someone who even my jealous girlfriend trusted. I spelled out the words “I love you” to him in sign language with my right hand. Even though I was sure he had his eyes closed I just hoped that somehow he could feel it.
-AGP
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Carmen
She entered my life in that strange kind of way that you have to think twice about before describing.
I actually entered her life, rather than the other way around, but the meeting was quite pronouncedly mutual.
*
<<We’re going to get these jobs.>>
I remember my partner saying.
<<and then we’re going to be making like, two thousand euros a month. Can you imagine that habibi? Are you listening?>>
<<Yes. I hope so too. It will be fabulous.>>
I said
<<More money, more loot, more problems.>>
*
As soon as our time slot arrived we went inside of the building.
We watched a presentation given by a guy named Felix, and then he asked her to come up.
<Holaaaa>>
She smiled. Everyone snapped their necks in attention. She had an insane manchego accent. She was from Bolaños. Proper. A very very very small town.
<<Os vamos a presentar hoy el formato en que trabajamos aqui>>
Her posture was immaculate and every word that she spoke was carefully weighed out and measured.
*
<<Vamos a tomar unas cañitas o algo? No? Verdad, chicos?>>
As in typical Spanish fashion, no one would remember who made the suggestion but everyone would somehow hear it.
*
A few weeks later we got a text from her. She wanted to learn German. Or maybe it was English. I can’t remember which came first but she did end up being serious and we did end up accepting and teaching her both.
Every single Friday she would show up at our door.
We would make espresso and have cakes for breakfast. Sometimes even fruit and pastries.
She would sit like a little mouse and nibble on our purchases and sip our perfected café cubanos.
Afterwards she would leave and give us 30 dollars cash and promise to come back the following week.
*
On Valentine’s Day she brought us a bag of I can’t remember their names anymore.
Something like, flores, or pastel flores. A specialty of Bolaños.
Essentially they were just churros flattened and molded into heart shapes before being fried and sugared.
Unlike usual we were completely alone because my partner had had an errand to run. I looked around realizing this and then started to cry.
<<It’s ok. You can be upset.>>
I will never forget the body language she gave me.
Every muscle in her body snapped into concentrated poise and her eyes focused on mine intensely.
<<You are very special>>
She said to me, using the word unique to her dialect.
<<Maga. Just remember that you are driving. Everything will be alright. I have never met a bisexual person before but I think you will find your person. You just have to settle in somewhere and your gente will come find you.>>
She gave me a spirtitual embrace using only her eyes that overwhelmed me to silence. I knew that this woman would be my friend and defend me from the threat of almost anything.
A few weeks later she was my only companion as I moved from our small town to Madrid.
My partner’s grandfather was on his deathbed in Miami and there was no way he could be anywhere but there.
We spent a night together in a hostel where they were raising grey and brown puppies. Only one of them was black and he was by far the cutest.
<<Sí. Estos dos van a dormir juntos.>>
I remember her saying as we stared at them.
A little brown puppy and the little black puppy were resting. One of them ever so gently nudging his head into the other’s shoulder.
*
That night I nudged my chin on her shoulder, cuz I didn’t know how else to say it.
I remember that she laughed and gently swayed and we slept through the night like angels.
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“Oh wow! Your art is so great, you should totally leave it in an unmarked box in the woods.”
-Tumblr animate-mush
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Fábrica
I dreamed that unattended people were being captured for the plastic trade
If you were alone and aloof on a street corner they would knap you in a bag
You’d wake up in the production line
“On” is a better word
A roller coaster of processing, of getting scratched and rubbed. At the end they take your fingerprints.
“We use your natural oils to produce the plastic bags. A human body’s worth is about 10 USD”.
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These are the fluorescent lights on the ceiling at the gym that stare at me while I work out.
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Paintings for sale on my new Etsy Store Creativity my Kevlar
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Green Card
“What do you think about the crisis in Syria?”
“what?” I rubbed my eyes
“Astrid! You fell asleep again”
“What? No I didn’t I swear.”
I had fallen asleep for real for real for real. I was struggling to remember where I was and why I was across from this person.
After a few moments I recalled my surroundings, Madrid, the metro, faces of every color.
Slowly I began to knit together the recent passage of time.
“They just have to sign that thing right?” I pointed to the folder laying on the empty seat next to me.
“Yes” —said Lozano. He continued staring straight ahead—- I remembered now that we had discussed this many times before.
Suddenly my ears filled with a spongy feeling and my hearing got uncomfortably weak. This had been happening to me fairly often recently for reasons I couldn’t sort out.
—Proxima parada, cuatro caminos — came a woman’s voice across the metro sound system.
I understood her well enough to forget about my spongy ears for the moment.
“You know that lady that helped us at the metro entrance?” I asked, trying to be cheery
“Ya” Lozano answered, he seemed intrigued. I was happy my bright tone had worked.
“She looked just like my aunt.” I smiled
“One of the ones I’ve never met before?”
“right” I smiled again. Lozano had gone back to staring.
I blinked. The woman in the next row was holding a rosary. I wished I had one. Just for having.
“Are they gonna ask us for that lawyer thing”
“what lawyer thing” Lozano sniffled.
“the thing you wrote where you sound like a lawyer about why they should approve our case”
“oh.” He hiccuped. “ya they will. That’s the justificante.”
I blinked again and turned my head to stare out the window.
There was only a wall with some cables stapled to it.
They ran parallel to each other.
Whoever had mounted them had done a good job.
One was red. One was green. One was blue.
***
“Astrid!”
“what?”
“You fainted!”
I stared up at Lozano’s worried face
“But we’ve been on the metro the whole time-“
“Yes, and we were talking about the paperwork. Then mid sentence you got silent and you just collapsed.”
“Jesus” I said “Well this is our stop”
Lozano held my hand as we got up.
“You were out for full 10 seconds at least, did you really not realize it?”
“I’m sorry” I offered, not knowing what else to say. I was glad he was squeezing my hand.
The doors of the metro opened and we stepped out into the heat.
“I’m excited to get this over with” I said in hopes of more hand squeezing.
We walked in silence together for a ways before Lozano murmured,
“Me too.”
———————————————-
“We go in through here, right?” I grabbed the shiny bronze door handle.
We’d finally arrived at the stone, Franco era building. This is where workers while away the hours between breakfast and lunch. This is an extranjeria but in layman’s terms it is something like purgatory.
A visit with a worker of an extranjeria is not necessarily pleasant. It is however always human and sometimes even surprising. The worst thing you can hear is some kind of “no” and the instructions for how to correct. The best thing, of course, is that internationally recognized, “vamos a hacer una cosa”.
That last phrase is Gabriel’s trumpet signaling the end of your suffering. It is basically the bureaucratic equivalent of: OK. I will help you get this done. ’
We were both silent for a good while after sitting down.
I finally pulled out a book and eventually Lozano did the same.
I noticed that he did this in a weird way though and wondered if it had been intentional. He had hardly opened his backpack and grabbed his book with a very limp hand.
The characters “N97” flashed across the screen above us, they were highlighted in bright yellow and accompanied by a loud but pleasant tone.
Lozano and I squeezed each others’ hands before getting up from our seats.
Through 2 doorways, around one corner and then, boom, there she was.
We sat down in front of a red-haired woman with a “you’re-my-50th-appointment-today” smile. Lozano didn’t seem to notice but she was wearing a very short skirt.
“So what are we doing?” this stranger asked us soberly.
Lozano recited the name of our petition, our solicitud
“Tarjeta de residencia del familiar de ciudadano del union europeo”
“Bien.” said the bureaucrat cooly and starting tapping away on her keyboard
We sat for what felt like ages before she started asking us questions
“Tú entonces estás casada con un español?” the woman looked at me with interest but Lozano didn’t let me answer.
“Sí, conmigo” he said in the most forceful tone. I hadn’t heard him speak like that since months ago in Miami…
I began to feel uncomfortable. Something was happening. Something was going sideways with the hormone levels in the room.
Lozano had answered this woman’s question with an impressive degree of masculinity.
His two words had been enough to spark something primal in her.
“So you’re married to a Spaniard” “Yes. to ME.”
The whole exchange had been very brief but somehow very heavy.
My face got red and I sank into my chair feeling horrified. I wished I could cuddle a blanket or maybe just run away.
I picked an item from the desk that I could use to fidget. A paperclip. Great. This would be my friend.
Lozano and the short skirted woman batted around at each other with words. The engagement was so intense that I didn’t even dare to sneeze.
Finally they ended their interaction with a gesture I could understand, the woman gave me a soldier’s nod and handed back our wad of papers.
“That’s all I need in principle” she said resolutely.
Then she took her time giving each of us a suspicious glance.
I knew she didn’t believe we were a couple. She and every other bureaucrat in the world…
I turned to Lozano. His eyes were still fixed on this woman.
“Should we tell her about the thing?” I said this out loud in English.
“Do you think it could speed up the process if I included a contract for a job?”
I fetched a paper from my file folder with what I hoped looked like effortless grace.
“This company would like to hire me” I said and laid the paper down in front of her.
Lozano kept his mouth shut while I waited for the woman’s response.
I’d been working under the table at a Chinese jewelry store downtown. Finally they had promised me a contract and I intended to take it.
“What kind of job?” the woman finally asked me
“Exports” I said
“I see” she said, “muy bien”
She examined my paper with her glasses attractively balanced at the tip of her nose.
“I don’t think this would make a difference” she said handing it back.
“Ok” I tucked the paper away and nodded politely.
We both said “hasta luego” and exited the building.
“Do we have time to go home?” Lozano looked exhausted.
“Not quite” I answered, expressing more frustration than I’d wanted.
“we can get a coffee though” I added quickly
Lozano nodded and we both resumed our silence.
——-
Aquí las tenéis chicos
My favorite waiter dropped our coffees in front of our noses. The smell of the fresh not-made-by-me espresso was just as exhilarating as always.
After a few minutes of caffeinated small talk I was once again at that point in conversation where you’re really grasping at straws.
“Do you think we could open a pizza joint?" I asked
Lozano sipped his coffee. For a moment he seemed to consider it but ultimately responded quite rudely by taking one of those “deep breaths” that sounds exactly like sigh.
“I just don’t think we could accommodate all the kinds of people we would attract”
I blinked and reflected on the immense generality of this response.
“what if a really Castilian old guy came in, do you really think we could entertain him?”
“i think so” I said earnestly. I was imagining a human male like every other on the planet, someone with a wallet in their back pocket who walks into a pizza shop for pizza.
Lozano gave me a frown. I could tell he wasn’t convinced.
I tried to remember what other thing made me excited about a future together.
“Do you remember that school in Holland I visited?”
“Ya, the one for plants studies?”
“agricultural studies” I corrected
“ya, of course, what about it”
“I think I’d still like to go there”
I slurped my drink loudly. Lozano’s eyes got big.
Something about that gesture said a lot with no words.
“We have to stay in Spain if you want a green card”
“is it really green?” I asked in an attempt at humor
I threw him a weak smile but his face didn’t change.
“No, I’m just translating” he responded finally .
I stared down at the table and scratched at a stain with my fingernail.
There wasn’t much levity in our relationship these days, I suppose it was both of our faults.
“that takes 5 years doesn’t it” I said while looking at his deflated chest.
He nodded silently and took a swig of his coffee. We sat there until our glasses were empty.
****
Right after I’d finished talking you slammed your fist into the wall. I saw the skin on your knuckle bust in a surreally vibrant slow motion.
A rhizomatic pattern of blood dripped down from your hand to the floor.
I fetched paper towels from the kitchen like a silent, well oiled machine.
I remember you staring at your hand and then at the wall and then me.
It had been exactly one year since our talk about pizza and green cards.
I remember thinking about four more of those as I dabbed at your bloodstains on the floor.
*
I remember that we managed to eat one really nice meal before I left.
We had Calentado Colombiano while overlooking the royal palace.
The waiter could tell that we were having a talk but I don’t know if he could tell what it was.
I knew though.
For sure I did.
And I think you knew as well.
*
Lozano and Astrid are based on two real people who live on opposite sides of the world.
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To my phone /Decirselo or Siri Siri
Right before I left her the voicemail
I decided to practice
I clicked on the voice dictation function
On an open notepad page
the computer took my audible sounds and turned them into text
“If it’s nfweof decirselo, because if not Siri. Siri”
That’s what the computer had captured
from the sounds that I had made
I had said much more than that
And I’d said it all in English
But my multilingual phone
Was fucked up as always
one word, though, decírselo, that one was perfect. Spanish.
Decirselo: telling her
Like the object of a challenge
a must-do.
You know those moments
When the algorithm’s take
On your complex human input
Ends up spelling something
actually meaningful?
And you question yourself like
How tf?
am I collaborating with his thing?
Because for me? That one:
“decírselo because if not Siri Siri”
I read it as “fucking tell her, because if not you’re a robot machine”
And that one sentence was very very helpful to me that day
I couldn’t have done it without you, phone
And I did tell her, I did
Thanks for the needed push.
I guess I’m glad we’re friends.
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