It’s a dream of any writer to somehow end up in New York, and here I was. Saratoga Springs. No crowds or busy streets or subway terminals. The first thing that stuck out to me was the insistent rain and how the trees stretched into clouds of fog that seemed stuck in the sky. The first week was rough. I couldn’t find my place. Nothing felt like home and why would it? I was on the other side of the US surrounded by people who had only ever lived in the east coast or passed through Texas and think of tumbleweeds or ask questions like:

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“Oh, do you live in a city with that one highway that has blue flowers on the side of it?”

Blue flowers. Bluebonnets? I’ve never even seen a Bluebonnet. What could I say about the city I was born in?

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“It’s a border city that sits right next to Juarez. I lived there my whole life. I don’t know what it’s like to be from anywhere else.”

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They smiled nicely and talked about how tired they were of traveling. Most of the students I talked to had big plans for their master’s programs. Graduating from Harvard was only a steppingstone. I didn’t say much after that.

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When I started attending the workshops at Skidmore, I had already realized how different we all were from each other and was curious of what that would look like in the realm of obligatory vulnerability. The first day, we had homework for the following day. She wanted us to write about who we were at that very moment. Who does our face say that we are? Look in the mirror. Write down observations. There was something about being thrown into writing prompts that made us think of how our past still exists in our present that made it obvious to me that I’d have to wait three weeks until I could talk to my therapist again. I dug through myself anyways. This would have to be the time to do it.

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I don’t remember the prompt, but I remember the piece and the workshop. This workshop took place towards the end of the first week. At this point, everyone was trying to get anything and everything out. Inevitably in the realm of obligatory vulnerability, I thought of my grandma. She showed up in most of my pieces during my time in Saratoga, but the workshop for a particular piece brought me to answer the loaded question of who I was at that moment and in the past.

 

Desesperada

by Aliah Candia

 

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Grandma Kika says on the phone,

she recently moved.

 

Why didn’t my dad tell me? Did he finally

move her in with him? Is she home,

away from six barking dogs and

angry footsteps? Is it over

 

I ask her, Con quien te mudaste? Con mi papá?

She hums a single note. Mmmm.

I can picture her hand pressed to her mouth when she thinks.

No sé, pero esta cama es muy cómoda para nosotros.

My stomach twists inward, reaching for comfort

it will not get because-

 

She is still at my aunt’s. Crowded by noise and people

who are not patient or kind. I have heard their voices

raise and seen their chests puff in her face. A face

of someone I love. Someone who is my home.

What happened to my home? What did you do?

Who am I talking to? Not her. I cannot blame her.

I know why she left. I spent 16 years sleeping

on her right side before I stopped going.

My mom bought a house, it was an attempt

at our first home after years of sleeping on two couches.

I was 17 I had my own room and slept alone

 for the first time. I had a boyfriend. But

where was my home? Not here. She waited for me

until she could not. And then it was her that left.
Pieces of our past scattered in a room

in a house that is not home. Where is my home?

What happened? Who took it from me? Why-

 

I tell her yes. I’ll stay with her. As if I could.

As if it were a fresh start for the both of us.
Or as if we could start from where we left off.

Like the years never left us.

Like I never left her. Alone, in a bed

big enough for the two of us.

 

 

Silence and then,

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“Okay class, what do we think of the Spanish in this poem? Is it necessary? Is it working?”

I could hardly believe it was a question. I leaned forward and scanned the faces in the room, waiting for someone to say something. One girl spoke quietly,

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“I think it works.”

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Simply. But not.

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An older woman raised her hand before she said,

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“Yeah, I don’t know how to feel about the title. Is that like desperado?”

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She looked towards the professor sitting next to her and shared a laugh. The comments continued. Deconstructing the poem. Holding it up in the middle of the classroom, trying (hardly) to understand what it all means. To them, anything they can’t comprehend is a hurdle that is far too difficult to get over. But it brought me home.

 

In the coming week, I anxiously waited to hear another person speak Spanish around me. Not even to me. I just wanted to exist next to it. And I do. Living in a city where English and Spanish share the same air of expression is something I don’t take for granted.