Once Again, I Dreamt of Water

Our Love Has Become What Rivers When Dry Become

Love like rain, can nourish from above, drenching couples with a soaking joy. But sometimes under the angry heat of life, love dries on the surface and must nourish from below, tending to its roots keeping itself alive.

—Paulo Coelho, By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

ALONDRA: I'm struggling to open the cheese, it is just Monterey Jack, but I do like it, and man am I hungry. I can't open it with my hands. I grip it from the edging yet cannot pop it open as usual. I guess I am too weak. I shuffle through the kitchen drawer—through knives, a can opener, and other unique kitchen tools unused in a long time looking for the pair of kitchen scissors. It is the day I cannot get the flies out of the house and they are especially annoying me in the kitchen. Even in my room, I swear, they are hounding me. I can't write like this. And these plastic cups—that I usually love washing and storing–—I can't stand them. They seem dirty even if I have washed them a million times. I throw them in the garbage. And I try to write a new poem, yet I cannot concentrate. I keep focusing on the mess I have made throughout the week. What if the neighbors have noticed, or seen me through the half-curtained window in my kitchen? Even my hair is annoying me. Have I washed it? Have I shampooed it? Did I take a bath this morning, or did I forget to?

I drive past Vermont, down by Venice, when something catches my eye and makes me feel like crying. There is a carnival in the baseball field, a Ferris wheel, hammer ride, making me even dizzier than I'd usually be. And just on the other side of the street, a cemetery, the first cemetery I'd ever seen as a child, a graveyard of moments that have come and gone.

I am a carnival of worries, a cemetery of hidden, buried emotions rising, falling, breaking; calling. And life without Estéfano has become a grave, and yes, a dry potpourri.

Our love has become, sad to say, what sits and only devours a black hole in space, a one-legged race, an uncared-for, bulbous-type love.

* Our love has become what rivers when dry become

* Our river has become what all loves when they're indifferent become

* We have become what all writers when they no longer feel like writers become: stagnant, blocked, depressed

The secretive sips lead me to where I am. All that I am right now is this bottle. I shouldn't drink, yet here I am drinking this bottle away; hiding my meds from God and my conscience. You shouldn't be drinking this alcohol, remember what Yahir said – I am lowering my platelets count; that's why my wounds take long to heal. Is it the same with my heart? I'll never get over Estéfano; I miss your hips. Miss your lips, your mmms at my horchata and paella. I empty the bottle of Hennessy yet let the last drops linger on my tongue. I go on to gargle with purple mouthwash, wondering what if would've been like to gargle with this alcohol. I feel the freshness liven me up and feel the night is open like a coconut with secret water waiting for me to discover. I don't have Estéfano here to appreciate my cleanliness.

I return to the nightclub with a different vibe in me. I step on the dance floor and realize I am free to enjoy myself, free to dance alone, free to be me. Minutes pass. I've made a mistake. This guy out of nowhere tries to feel me up. I am shocked at his brazenness. It feels nice, yet when I look into his face, I am not attracted. I shake my head and walk away. Even though I am almost an emaciated wallflower in my own eyes—for some reason, this guy liked me anyway.

I do not want reggaeton, hip-hop, or salsa; all I want is my Estéfano. What I want is strong arms, not his lies, not his words, "Peque, I'm sorry," but instead I desire his tender mouth on my neck, breathing me in his embrace.