Vera

Graduation was when? May? April? Suddenly hurled to this they call the corporate world where I sit and escape to mp3s of poetry and Nouvelle singing about how she dances in Tokyo and London, would have invited the world to dance with her, 'there's nothing to lose, and there's nothing to prove, so I'm dancing with myself,' oh so beautiful words, and I try to look for my own reflection in the mirror, mirroring her, imagining perhaps a new pair of dancing shoes, a pair that I can use while running away from here, from this perks-laden office, away from the air conditioning and out in the sun, out in the pedestrian lane where drivers care not to stop even if I cross hastily in my black top. Is this my one year ticket? May? April? I have to wait a year, little plans for me, little plans because I have to be this or that, and what else? Oh, I have to fix myself up in every corner because that's what I'm supposed to do, comb my hair, even wear my Sunday's bes...

 The death card in a pre-Halloween party, was it called that way, did long-haired Dulce, who read my cards (my cards? something new now for wasted me with nothing I can call my own), the death card that came fourth among three other rectangles with drawings in them I can't recognize, that card which reminded me of Nanay and her skin and bones, lying there somewhere in a house I once called my house, my home. Nanay there in her sickness that ate away at her body, but not her eyes that scanned the house, or did she try to look inside of me; was she afraid, too?