The artist’s condition
Hospital walls lined with silly
photo paintings streaked
Art that produces homeliness.
I know you heard an opera
singer hurl on the tile floor-
and felt belted notes cased
in bile from the pits of hell
only she knows.
But I bet you haven’t seen her drink
obscene amounts of cherry wine,
or listened to the hate
she trills softly to herself
in the mirror
before her nightly falls.
Outside the houses where she lives
she keeps it quiet with acquaintances
and in between her warmup's hints
of something more in latent dry coughs.
There are no duet overtures
or trio vibratos spread out
for heavenly echoing miles.
No glorious rising orchestral accompaniment.
Just her strong steel valves
cusped by bare quivering lip
heaving red small, beautiful swirls.
I thought it was a lot
To take the Greyhound to Iowa
the five-hour ride was a lot
and the weather was cold and muted.
The smell was bearable
only with a barrier
of a thin paper face mask
between me and the oxygen all around.
Distancing for a covid pandemic.
I said this on the phone. The news of the virus.
I was all upset over how horrible Thanksgiving went.
I wanted grandma and grandpa
to have more social distance than they were.
I had lost most appetite for leftovers
and then the people on the bus
Reduced it even further.
I get a little claustrophobic in places
like that, no one could hear my feelings.
Public transportation.
I grew up in Kansas,
where it is often just my godfather or a family friend.
Maybe the little boy
who didn’t know me
could see my feelings
while we sat
in almost complete silence
the entirety of the ride
by one another.
I thought someone might stab me
a stranger on the bus
An incel
getting up
and shooting us with an AK47.
I thought about
how I would rather die
than the little boy
near the aisle
watching the World Cup reels
on his phone.
I thought
about how brown he was,
much darker than my Mexican features
I would become a martyr, yes,
that’s my escape.
My brief interaction
with something more than myself.
I am swiping on Tinder,
which seems like my sports extravaganza,
my Olympics
my “third world” competition.
I don’t know—
I don’t want to be sad
about Jay not texting me back,
but I’ve already fantasized
about our future life together
via the photos provided
and our six messages.
Later on,
after I got off the bus,
I saw the Latino boy
leave with his father
on his next ride to Chicago.
He waved at me
like some practiced performed
fake wave
and the smile he sent
was false and rehearsed.
I wish
I could fit
every piece of guilt
I felt
in this description
of what happened.
I worried
Perhaps everything
I’ve ever read
about the time
spent on my phone
to make
Stories. Enough.
Maybe I also wanted answers from them
From you perhaps some answers from you would suffice
I wanted to make enough stories with
The same “grace” that we had
When we had 16 sneaking sips
Of our first alcoholic beverage
In a hot spring resort
Within a coastal city in Latin America
And when you pickpocketed a knife
For no reason for me.
The backdrop
Was a humid tent
Staffed by non-English speakers
Who benefit from the American tourists
I wanted to make enough stories like this one
For the adrenaline, you would say
Stories that were a little fucked up
Out of the places we grew into
Out of the places we grew up in as well
And how I can’t speak Spanish anymore but
Your parents can.
I miss their kitchen and the crisp Parmesan bakes
They made me eat when I was starving myself.
I remembered the painting I bought
Off a college party wall the other day
I actually bought it for you
It was after the artist
She said recalled the puke at her function,
Something I had done
Then
Out of guilt
Purchased her Tyler the Creator painting.
Maybe bad people shouldn’t write poetry.
Maybe this experience of nostalgia and love
Should be a long-debated moral ground.
Maybe this gross fiction
We tell ourselves
And wrap around
Our silly romanticized moments
Makes our lives worth living
I thought you would like it
Because it was the rapper
We had seen together
In the late of Lawrence evening
With a second-hand high
And a foggy timeline–the painting.
The painting
Reminded me of you
We saw a lot of concerts.
A small venue
In a town outside of ours.
We existed
Between the lines on a map
In the middle of nowhere.
And we were lively and self-important
Although others
Would say we are nobody
Maybe we are nobody
But who are they
Probably not a pair like us
How public
Always looking for the audience
Was that the part that ruined me for you?
I remember arguing
With your parents
When we couldn’t go on our road trip
After high school graduation,
And that was a horrible reckoning
And then something
A couple of years ago
About your liver or pancreas
Not working as it used to
And me then almost forgetting
Or losing track of that life-threatening ailment
Then you suggested we go to Panera, Catch up
I was surprised.
You used to hate and complain to me about
How horrible their food was
But apparently don't anymore
As you explained you just loved their flatbread.
And get along with the old people who eat there
You still wait the tables
My family sits at
When they come to your place of work
Buffalo Wild Wings or Cracker Barrel
Wherever you happen to be in town
And complain
About the number of racists
You attend to,
As you remark on how you preferred my parents
Riding the metro in Washington. DC. I got frustrated in spaces with lots of people
Like the metro,
When no one was looking,
I would swipe up and down articles
to be as politically aware as possible.
I wanted so bad to know.
To be looped in and understand
Wherever they took the conversation.
I wanted to speak confidently
When trying to unpack the speaker’s race.
I learned to navigate the train
Near the end,
But only alone.
My lost items were a problem.
Macroeconomics and microeconomics were a problem.
Somewhere on the metro,
I lost my scarf and coat
I don’t have the money to do that
I thought at the time.
It’s so funny
How confidence and confidential
Are near similar words
A correlation I can’t expand on
In the language used near the Potomac River.
Something my roommate and I would say in DC
I think it’s funny
That the onion never had a core.
This is something my roommate and I would agree on.
We are always peeling back its layers
And crying and crying and crying.
She was obese and crying.
I was crying cause I didn’t understand the executive branch.
I do this
With government
And administration
And cabinet positions,
And judicial courts
Crying and crying and crying.
Amber Ruiz - A young adult biracial writer who started her educational journey at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. There she won a Beth W. Peterson award for a paper on "Dolly Parton and Politics." Futhermore, Amber has aspirations to become a secondary english teacher in Topeka. So, she is completing her second bachelor's degree at Washburn University. She enjoys art and poetry and hopes to be more published.
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