Notebook of A Return to Tomorrow's Mistakes (Inspired by Aime Cesaire's Notebook of A Return to the Native Land)

1. Home

Rainbows frame a trophy, three loved-through teddies, a wistful unicorn, and a single gerbera daisy.

On May 20, 1995, mommy and daddy ate some Thin Mints and a baby girl was born. They held her close and she forgot to learn how to breathe. They gave her a life they gave her a home they gave her 1.5 siblings and a goldfish named Goldy.

Chalk never washes off her hands, chocolate milk runs through her veins. Charmagne hacks at the bangs every third month and cookymonster falls to the floor amongst slow drivers, spice girls, mean girls, date stamps, concord, and crying chimpanzees, seizing with the purity of a laugh that doesn’t understand an innuendo.

Blue suede shoes tap dance to a J.K. Rowling song and Ziva sings a lullaby after papa wraps her in a basket and sends her off to God along the river.

At 3:43 the world’s heart stops beating and the sun melts the air into water that pulses to the sweet sound of silence. Happiness is PB&J on a graham cracker, the dry patch under a car in a rainstorm, put it in the books. A wish is 11:11 and a star that is most likely not an airplane.

She looks back at a sunlit haze from the cockpit of a Piper 161. She looks forward through a maze of pushpins and wonders if she can live up to her own hype.

The smoke lays low to listen for the clink of the fire alarm, the clink of the ice cubes, the clink of the bracelets.

1. Departure from home

She wore heeled boots (the latest), early fall Levis, sassy spaghetti straps that didn’t quite fit.

Mommy and daddy held her hands and looked at the gates and kissed her and put her in a basket and sent her down the river to the faintest sound of a broken organ.

1. Encounter with the Other

She likes to win, she always won. She wants them to like her, they always liked her. She’s quiet, she watches, she learns, she lies, she rehearses, she goes.

And so she’ll flee to the capital, where puppies in five-inch spikes drown between the cobblestones and trade their innocence for Dunkin’ Donuts and a scar in the shape of a foreign flag.

And so she’ll give a bleary-eyed salute to Tío Jorge and watch purple nail polish bleed into a flashing daffodil and laugh circles in the deodorized clouds.

And so she’ll hide under strange covers and wonder why she doesn’t feel safe and she’ll shake the Etch-A-Sketch and wonder why the picture doesn’t fade.

And so she’ll pinch the gaunt whites of her eyes to blur the jagged edges into

      hazy hurricanes

      flashing lights

      a good joke

      the snap of a salsa song.

1. Return home

On May 20, 2014, Minerva and Bacchus wash down some 5-HTP and a baby girl is born.

She wears heeled boots (the latest), late spring Levis, sassy spaghetti straps that fit a bit too well.

Two heads sprout from her neck: the left dripping sickly sweet poison and the right crying when it sees that there is no turning back. The gates creak shut as Dr. Frankenstein bangs Fare Thee Well on a broken organ and watches his creation learn to walk under the fluorescent bulbs of a sterile sun.

They take her home to meet the family and she is poked and prodded while she stares at her mobile whispering Norah Jones and tries to remember whether or not she likes strained peas.

1. Resolutions

Rainbows shield Mr. Hyde from the cross on the door. Three chewed-through teddies try to build a bridge out of singsong videos and pillows with tents of 6,205 beads.

Pandora’s box lies dormant in the second drawer from the top and once in a while the two-headed girl in the sassy spaghetti straps tosses the lion a slab of fresh meat to keep him quiet.

Clairvoyant construction workers will make her cry, will make him cry—her superpower: she will turn into a carrot and make the donkey cry.

At 3:43 the world’s heart stops beating and the sun melts the air into water that pulses to the sweet sound of silence. Happiness is PB&J on a graham cracker, the dry patch under a car in a rainstorm, put it in the books. A wish is a regret, 11:11 is a taunt, and a star is always an airplane.

The smoke explodes with the clink of the fire alarm, the clink of the ice cubes, the clink of the bracelets and when the flames die a baby girl sits on the floor, looks up at her mommy and daddy, and asks for 1.5 siblings and a goldfish named Goldy.