Tag: Mariela Flores ’23
Roots
by Elizabeth McGinn on April 22, 2021
Poetry
by Mariela Flores ’23
I want to grow and for that I will need sunlight.
But I do not know Kinich Ahau, Mayan god of sun.
I do not know the gold hidden in the skin of my ancestors,
I do not know what it is like to feel warmth from the sky in a way that does not burn.
So instead, I stay cold, and my petals do not open.
I want to live and for this I will need rain.
But I do not know Chaac, Mayan god of rain.
I cannot feel his thunder in this land they say is “ours,”
I cannot see his lightning in this smog-clouded sky.
So instead, I wilt, and my stem goes dry.
I want to be strong and for this I will need air.
But I do not know Huracan, Mayan god of wind.
I do not know the ruined cities that hailed his storms,
I do not know the fertile earth that was willed from its home in the sea.
So instead, I wither away, and my leaves fall.
How can I grow, live, be strong,
when I have nowhere to plant myself, no soil to know as home?
All I know are seeds to a story of who I could have been.
Had blood not been shed in a battle of free will,
had forests not been burned and history not been buried,
had the roots of los Mayas not been ripped from the earth and smothered by greed.
Twin Flames
by Elizabeth McGinn on February 11, 2021
Poetry
by Mariela Flores ’23
You are not the other half of me.
You are not a better half of me.
You are not a nicer half of me.
You are not a half.
Love, you are the roots of old pine.
Love, you are a perfect cadence.
Love, you are the spine of my favorite books.
Love, you are the streaks of light that blind me while I drive.
Love, you are the color green.
How lucky are we, to coexist at the same time, in the same place, in the same life?
How lucky are we to have met each other, lost each other, and found each other again?
As we grow and move through this timeline I hope just one thing,
you will find me again, wherever we might begin.
As two wholes, two flames,
you & I.
Aggressive
by Elizabeth McGinn on February 4, 2021
Poetry
by Mariela Flores ’23
Today me and my peers were called “aggressive.”
We were given the title and told to bear the weight of it, the weight of the word, the weight of all our ancestors before us who had heard the same complaint by the same white mouth, we are aggressive.
We are aggressive when we write, when we sing, when we dance, when we laugh, when we cry, when we are angry, because an institution is spitting in our faces, it is telling us to hold back, to hold on, to wait.
We are aggressive, I am aggressive.
I am five feet tall.
A hundred and five pounds.
I struggle to open their doors.
My appearance has been demonized because my tone is not right, but I do not have the energy to police myself today, not today, not tomorrow, not again.
I am not aggressive when I am surrounded by a sea of white.
When this whiteness swallows me whole and I am left choking, spitting out a freedom I do not own, I am not aggressive when I am being told to stay shut.
I am not aggressive, I am afraid.
Afraid as I walk through the campus and they throw their words, their chants, “build that wall!”—it rings in my ears, my hands, my feet, I can feel their hate, it hurts me.
And I am afraid to let them keep hurting me, because soon I will be nothing more than a bruise on their campus, on their world, and nothing, no one will heal me.
I am not aggressive, I am tired.
Tired of holding up the image of someone I do not like anymore. The perfect image of the person “deserving” of a spot here. I keep trying to plant myself into their soil, but my roots will not grow.
I am not aggressive—I am kind, strong, brave, far too patient for my own good.
Today I will not apologize for the version of me you get when the patience has run out. I will not accept a title I did not earn, my humanity is not aggressive, my incentives, my motives, the dream I keep so close to my pillow, these things will not be tainted by a word from a mouth that does not feed me.
I am not aggressive, you are.
Who is Following Me?
by The Cowl Editor on October 29, 2020
Halloween
by Mariela Flores ’23
There is someone following me.
I can hear their footsteps and the way that they mimic my own. Their smell is familiar and strong, and it makes me sick to my stomach. They follow me as I go left and right, they follow me as I step onto the bus and step off, and they follow me as I sit down.
I can hear my heartbeat and how it threatens to leap out of my chest. I stare at my nails, chipping away the polish. I want to look distracted and unaware
that there is someone following me.
I step off the bus and I can feel them smiling. Their presence envelops me, and my palms begin to sweat. I want to turn around, I want to scream and shout, but my words get stuck in the promise of asking for help.
My feet begin to tire as I walk as fast as I can; I want to run and move away, find somewhere safe to stay, but they will not leave me, no, they will not leave me.
Someone is following me as I enter my home.
They try so hard not to make it known, but my tears are welling up in my eyes and I begin to shake. As I walk into the bathroom, I fear I made a mistake.
Someone is following me as I step into the shower and I can hear them just beyond the curtain. They begin to laugh, and I begin to cry. There is nothing left to do but to face them and look them in the eyes.
I step out now, afraid of what I’ll see.
But I look into the mirror, and all I see is me.
A City to Long For
by The Cowl Editor on October 15, 2020
Portfolio
by Mariela Flores ’23
There is a distinct smell of freshly made sweet bread that clings to the air. All of the colors in the world seem to be culminating here, in a faraway land I feel more at home in than home. My Spanish is less impressive here than it is amongst my monolingual peers, yet, my bones ache for the humidity-lacking heat that turns my paler skin a golden brown, reminding me of the Mayan blood that courses through my veins.
Mi Guate linda, I dream of her and it’s like a song.
I think of my abuelita, how she walks every morning to the market despite her failing feet. She carries her stories in each callous and as she walks, I can hear the thump, thump, thump, every step landing on brick roads that are ours.
I long for Navidad and the fireworks that lined the streets, celebrating the birth of Jesus and the promise of a new and better year. The dirt from the roads tucks itself into my fingernails, desperate for me to take part of it with me, I claw back at the earth as I, too, am desperate.
My mother glows here in an eerily familiar way. She comes back as a stranger who knows their secrets well. I can see how the tension rooted on her shoulders dissipates the moment she steps on her motherland. She relaxes here in a way she cannot back home; in a place where we are other, here we are familia.
Mi Guate linda, I dream of her and it’s like a song.
A soft marimba playing in the distance on a lively night. The stars displayed on a cloudless sky hum along to the beat. I dance, hoping to be a part of something so beautiful, planting my rhythm into the soil that sprouted my mother. I hope to leave behind seeds of myself that will bloom here one day.
I am cold on the plane ride home, unaware of the next time I will see mi familia. The next time I will allow myself to be excited about a holiday I can never afford.
The promise of a soundless Christmas dares to make me cry. I wonder and I ache about when I will get to see mi Guate linda again.
It has been seven years and the ache is dull now, but my fears are stronger as I am beginning to forget her and the words to her song.
Cómo Se Dice
by The Cowl Editor on September 17, 2020
Poetry
by Mariela Flores ’23
Today my Spanish was more broken than my English.
The words did not fit in my mouth.
Between every attempt was the phrase cómo se dice.
The two oceans inside me clashed,
two lives being forced to merge into one coexisting life form.
My palms were sweaty as the round vowels of the language I love began to slip
in between the gap in my front teeth, and I could not bite down fast enough.
The words felt heavy,
sitting in the back of my throat, begging to be let out,
I just could not remember how.
It was betrayal.
My tongue was left bruised.
Beaten time and time again with consonants that are too loud.
I had spent so many years whipping it into shape
using words to mask the slight lilt of an accent.
English was supposed to be my savior.
Instead, like any colonizer, it set up camp and did not leave.
It took things from me I did not realize I had to miss.
There are cracks in my Spanish I am desperate to fill,
so I write songs with the first words I ever heard.
I paint with the colors I see when my mother sings her favorite songs,
and I laugh with the same laugh my father has when he makes a joke.
I put a band-aid over my Spanish, and I promise them I won’t forget.
My children and their children will know my Spanish the same way I did.
They will fall asleep to the sounds of Mi niña tiene sueño, bendito sea, bendito sea
they will call me mamá in the same little voice I once knew.
Today my Spanish was more broken than my English.
But tomorrow this too will heal.