Haltingly I undo the knots
around your parcel that came this morning.
A small boox should require little labor,
but you’ve always been thorough,
tying things tight and well.
You entered the classroom and found your way to the seat a few chairs from mine. I looked at you as your put down that old, rugged bag. Dressed in a red shirt, faded jeans and a worn out pair of sneakers, I wondered to myself what had made you come to school this time.
As if reading my thoughts, you approached me and handed me a flyer. I looked ar the piece of paper and read. It was an invitation for a class walk out tomorrow. “So that’s why,” I said to myself.
I remember the day the magic died. But i’d rather remember when it was still there.
Giselle was my cousin. I mean, she still is, but we’re grownups now, or atleast that’s how society classsified us to be.
Two small girls we played in that cramped space in the bodega — a place where nothing is impossible and where dreamlike things can happen. It is the world which only allowed our puppy Sparky, our doll Cleska and a few other selected things that knew how to enjoy a hot summer day.
Every morning I sally forth
into the world, my pockets
are full of stones.
You cannot see them
where my hands are hid
sometimes bruised by their edge.
I could love you.
Wrap a metaphor around your finger.
Punctuate each embrace,
take your gaze in the lines
of my hand and lead it to
my mouthing sweet nothing lips.
Two dolls in rags and tatters,
one missing an arm and a leg,
the other blind in one eye –
I grabbed them from her arms,
“Defamiliarize the familiar”
Writing gives us ways on how to see things.
The same object is seen from different angles
which then gives the reader the choice
on how they want to see an experience.
“Literature gives us names and symbols in a grammar of experience,
syncronizing feeling with events into an understandable order.”
Kathryn Morton
Literature is not a reflection of reality
but it gives us a glimpse into realities
so we may be able to deepen our understanding of our own realities.
Readers understand what they read in the text
by referring to the universe shared by the writer and themselves.
It is in that universe where the writer and the reader
becomes a continuity of thought
The universe equips readers about the world within the text.
it enables them to understand, react and re-live the experience as if it were their own
Literature helps us savor over and over again
the “distilled spirit” of life.
Is it possible to live LifE twice?
Identities are formed when one goes through life
gets his share of lived experiences
and writes them down to keep the memory alive.
Writers try to connect the abstract ideas with concrete objects and events
to embody the ideas and make them
come to life.
when we decide to keep those memories,
we write them on paper and we let them go
to be part of other people’s memories
“Reading the lived experiences is living life twice
like a piggyback ride you want to go through
over and over again.”
