The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Michigan in Color
Wednesday, September 8, 2021 — 7
YOUR WEEKLY
ARIES
There’s a fresh start for your
mental health this week, and
events in your love life look bright
and cheerful too – lots to enjoy.
AQUARIUS
GEMINI
The New Moon in your family
zone is very encouraging – this is
a great week to move on from
family dramas and into much
more positive territory.
SAGITTARIUS
CAPRICORN
SCORPIO
CANCER
Karmic links strengthen between
you and your partner if you’re in
love; with Venus heading into
your dating zone, this is a good
week to be single too.
TAURUS
Stepping out of your comfort zone
brings you abundance and new
opportunities, and as Venus heads
into your love zone, romance is
sure to beckon.
VIRGO
PISCES
LIBRA
LEO
This week’s New Moon brings
abundance and prosperity while
loving family links make all your
hard work worthwhile.
Read your weekly horoscopes from astrology.tv
The Virgo New Moon boosts your
confidence, while Venus and
Jupiter conspire to boost your
income – what a lovely week!
This looks set to be a relaxing,
enjoyable, laid-back week, but do
be careful not to go crazy with
lavish spending plans.
Friendships are highly significant
this week, and you may be called
upon to lead in your tribe.
Lots of work to do this week, as
the New Moon shines from your
career zone; you’ll also be joyfully
busy with a community project.
Keep an open mind this week as
your viewpoints and opinions are
challenged. In love, there could be
a surprise encounter.
Self-development vibes are
excellent this week, and Mars gives
you the impetus you needed to get
past a trauma, fear or phobia.
There’s excitement around the
New Moon in your love zone, but
you’re also on the lookout for
synchronistic signs from the
cosmos this week.
WHISPER
“Al dusty!”
“Jingle-jingle-jongle.”
“I collect Legos.”
I. “Why I Write”
II. “Selfish”
III. “Ghost”
IV. “But You Made Me This Way”
V. “An Empty House”
VI. “Of Family”
I. Why I Write
Writing has always been my way
of coping with the world around me.
When I feel something, I pull up my
Notes application and write as much
as I can manage coherently. But, I have
kept these writings to myself. In my
published writing, I have always limited
myself to comfortable topics, which
often means other people’s experiences
and feelings. I want to challenge that.
In fear of people actually knowing my
opinions, I have always kept them to
myself. This is ironic because I usually
admire authors whose work is rooted
in authenticity and honesty, so I have
decided to try to honor that in my work
moving forward.
The first step was to approach
my
writing
from
a
vulnerable
standpoint. I wanted to write about
the experiences this past year that had
made me the most uncomfortable and
still felt raw. It was important for me
to write about these situations because
it allowed me to confront them and
explore new topics. The second step
was to incorporate my Notes. In the
following poems and stories, there
are fragments of Notes from where I
drew inspiration. I was influenced to
start incorporating some of these raw
thoughts into my work when I read
Catherine Lacey for a class. Though
she is not my favorite author, I am
really impressed by the raw emotion
she captures in her work. During
quarantine, I was also inspired by a
book I read, “Normal People” by Sally
Rooney. In the book, her descriptions
of intimacy between the two main
characters made me consider how I
can portray intimacy inspired by my
previous relationships. These two
authors really grounded me on the
journey I went on in my writing and
provided me inspiration when I was
severely lacking some.
This work aims at capturing my
emotional state during a weird period of
my life. In the past year, I found myself
dealing with feelings of inadequacy in
both my romantic life and my family
life. Not only did I not feel like I am
enough for other people, but I didn’t
feel enough for myself.
I imagine many people feel this way
during transitional periods of their
life. I was really driven by these
emotions when writing this collection
because I wanted to finally confront
it. I wanted to understand the times
where I felt like I could not compare
to someone else or that I wasn’t worth
fighting for.
***
II. Selfish
i kissed my world
and i told him
“love me”
forgetting our lovers or children
what i want is to be held by my world
i know if I can’t have what I want
i want it more
i climb, struggle, fight
i reach my understanding world
and squeeze him
***
III. Ghost
A hand presses against my thigh
Begging- to go higher
Calloused hands
tell me a story
last year
December,
when she broke your heart
Even though you gave everything
you were still
Fighting till your knuckles bled
but soon you were forgotten
Gone for a while
but I was still painfully aware
of you
Hearts pounding, your breathing
a rough staccato
“I want you,” you say
Just barely a stutter
Kiss me, Kiss me
Love me, Love me
Me,
Not her, never her
Open your eyes
Please see me
Quiet except for
the rustle of clothes
Regret, so heavy, screaming at you
She’s here
There,
filling the space between
Us,
Veiled
in each murmur, each
touch,
each kiss
Where you picture your
X, leaving me thinking
Yearning to be enough
Zelotypia- excessive jealous
***
IV. But
You Made Me This Way
The match is burning and I can’t stop it
Orange embers paint shadowy figures
of the dark
Gray tendrils fight to rise against the sky
You caress my palm against the heat
Dark figures shadows orange embers
There’s intimacy in that
You force my palm against the heat
One finger at a time, you mold me in
your image
Where is the intimacy in that?
In creating a monster out of a woman
You molded me in your violent image
And cursed the burns inflicted
In creating a phoenix out of a woman
Gray tendrils overcome the sky
And embrace the burns inflicted
The match is burnt and I-
***
V. An Empty House
This house is not a home. Walls
peeling, a bucket of paint primer left
to its own devices, half-written plans
scattered across the floor drift with
the wind from the half-open window
and it’s all empty
This house is not their home. Rats eat
at the peeling walls, paint primer opens
on its side, the wind pushes the solution
to slowly cover the half-written plans
as the bucket is almost empty
This house is no longer a home. Vines
grow with its age, covering rat eaten
wallpaper, the floor decorated with rat
prints and paint and yellowing half-
written plans that don’t make it look
empty
This house is our home. Wallpaper
lovingly placed against paint primer,
a bucket of paint, which acts as a stool
as our son writes the plans for his
room that was once empty
***
VI. Of Family
Vivid color encompasses the darkened
landscape. Green sways, fighting
to stand strong against the wind. A
gentle rustle whispers among the
plants that create the softest sound.
In the mountains, there is no light
pollution, no smog, no noise. There is
nothing except for this and the soft
breaths of a family gazing up.The dark
blue sea in the sky is endless, where
little islands shine in a kaleidoscope of
light. Once the eye has adjusted to the
dark, four figures become distinct.
“This was the same place your
grandfather decided to leave the island.
He saw the stars and knew there was a
life for his future beyond this pueblo.
La familia regalaron todo a él. Y él regaló
su vida por nosotros.”
Father is tall, a formidable figure that
lacks fear and affection, but whenever
he talks about his own father, there
is a certain kindness to his voice that
he lacks when speaking to his three
children. The eldest, Hermana, listens
attentively. Her gangly limbs hang
disproportionately to one another,
having hit that awkward period of
growth where she is in constant flux.
She repeatsw her father’s Spanish in
her head, rolling the words around,
willing them to make sense.
“Dad, what does regalo mean?”
Her face burns, flooding with shame.
She should know this.
“His family gave him their entire
savings. Every single one of them
sacrificed what they had earned for
him to build a future for everyone.
Abuelito had to take their gift and leave
them for the future. He didn’t stop
when he missed his home. He didn’t
stop when home missed him. He didn’t
stop when his father died. He stopped
once he succeeded. He ran back home
to what was left of his family and gave
them the future he had fought for.”
Thump
“Papi, he hit me!”
The littlest one, Chiquita, clutches her
arm in pain, a big tear trickling down
her cheek. She shoves the slightly
taller boy beside her. Hermano yelps,
echoing across the green. Their father
continues to look at the stars.
–
She is no longer an imbalance of limbs.
As years pass, the awkwardness of
Hermana’s youth shaped itself into a
reflection of her grandmother. She sees
her grandmother’s hair in the mirror
as she brushes out her own thick, curly
hair into flat, black terrain. This was
her first day of graduate school, another
step on her path to her own individual
success. On her own. Not on the back of
her grandfather’s legacy but of her own
work. Of her own effort. She reminds
herself of this as she walks into her first
classroom. Especially when she tells her
students a fake last name, denying her
family in the process. The same feeling
she had on that starry night blossoms
fiercely within her, flushing her face
with shame.
Tears swell in her eyes as she inhales.
Chiquita is spellbound by the colors
around her. Stark red and gold lay
flush against the grey concrete. Bodies
thrash against the music, which is
primarily bass and conversations that
turn into a roar.
“It’s beautiful,” she whispers to herself.
She’s seeing double as the colors begin
to blur into one another. She lays
down on the floor. Cool metal presses
against her back. There are stars in the
industrial ceiling, ones only she can
see. She makes out the constellations,
reaching out to touch one.
From Hermano
1:39 AM: What r u doing? We talked
about this NO more
If she just took another hit, then she
could get there, to abuelito’s stars.
1:50 AM: U are wasting ur life away
Burning in her throat, she attempts to
get off the club floor. “Great party,” a
man in a grey mask says as he passes.
She thinks she says thanks before
everything grew too hazy and
2:00 AM: This is what ur going to do
with what abuelito left u
–
The light from his Klipsk personal
office unit, purchased from IKEA,
one in rows and rows of offices. Pain
radiates between each knuckle, a
familiar feeling of fatigue roots itself
within him. Hermano stares at the
door, wondering if it is time to go home.
His grandfather, in the photo, stares
back at him from his desk.
“Why don’t you work harder,” his
grandfather’s brown eyes, so similar
to his own, mock him. “When I was
your age, I had immigrated here with a
family of four and worked till the skin
on my hands se rompieron y tu quieres
ir ahora?” His grandfather’s voice
manifested from his own imagination.
“I’m trying,” he responds into the
empty air. It would never be enough.
The sacrifices that he makes will never
be equivalent to his grandfather’s.
Despite his hands’ protest, the brother
continues to work into the long night.
–
They never have nights like this
anymore. Green encompassed the
landscape; the “Variegata” had taken
over all the available garden space
in Abuelito’s house. On the hill, his
home stands far away from the light of
the town. The air is different up here.
Clean. The siblings exhale. Identical
brown eyes search one another for
relief. Reuniting is never a simple
reflex; sentences start and are left
unfinished. Pauses are a near constant.
But, despite the difficulty, side by
side, they could exist. No thoughts of
accomplishment, of work, of legacy,
only the warmth of being embraced by
family, of acceptance.
when will I be enough and cuándo no me da miedo cuando sales
Senior MiC Editor Katherina Andrade–Ozaetta can be reached at kjao@umich.edu.
KATHERINA ANDRADE-OZAETTA
Assistant MiC Editor
Design by Jessica Chiu