La Loca Luz Caraballo
UGLY.
Things I Have and Have Not Learned
There are things I haven’t learned.
Like how to let go, how to stop trying to tell the future, how to be an excellent daughter, or an excellent friend. How to trust that I’ve turned the stove off, how to eat three meals per day even if I’m anxious, how to wake up early or leave the cigarettes in the trash once I’ve thrown them away for good.
There are things that I know.
Like the places I come from, the strength I inherited, the people before me, the traditions they left me, the gift that it is to turn it all into images and words.
A Chair Story
What are chairs for?
Empire
To give until you are depleted. Until all they know is how to put a hand out. Left them helpless. An empire that falls lacked a solid foundation. I did not favor those walls yet I mourn how they fell down around me. I started to pick up the bricks. Best to make new ones. Just water and clay. My hands know how because we have done it before.
A railway - forced labor in Russia. A loaf of bread in occupied Poland. A ticket away from encroaching borders in Morocco, or Spain. Textiles to muffle the tick of a gilded clock in Cuba. Again in Venezuela. A shame, because the mountains were so pretty and we really wanted to stay.
An ocean view, once upon a time in America.
I build every day and I don’t get tired. An ancestry worth more than inheritance. The landscape changes around me. Some watch. Some leave. I build so I cannot care.
This way, I learn to love unconditionally. I accept and give nothing while I build it all again. This time it will not fall.
I Am Very Mad At You Because You Ruined My Couch
I am very mad at you because you ruined my couch. Though there is a lot I never liked about this couch: like the color, and the shape, and how much space it takes up, and the way it feels on my skin. But it’s a couch I could afford at the time and it came up quickly on my google search for “couch” and I really wanted something to sit on. Now, I would never buy a couch with such little forethought. I a matured person. I will set this couch on fire. I will not sit again until I find the perfect couch. Thank you for ruining my couch. I am not very mad at you for ruining my couch anymore.