Mari Sánchez Cayuso

Category: writing

  • The Hinge

    i saw myself
    standing in the grocery line of my own life

    hands full of things
    i did not choose

    no one tells you
    how quietly it happens

    how you keep saying yes
    until your hands forget
    what no —feels like

    i watched myself swallow it—a bird

    not the kind they print on curtains

    but the ragged one
    ink-splattered
    off balance

    with a wing
    that can’t decide
    if it is breaking
    or beginning

    i say bird
    you say anxiety
    the doctor says reflux
    my mother says pray

    my body says:
    listen

    behind the sternum
    that almost-ache
    that isn’t pain

    that drop in the gut, that sudden remembering
    you are alive

    and not
    where you thought
    you would be

    i have become
    a species of almost-flight

    i negotiate with gravity
    in quiet rooms
    and call it duty

    some call it love
    some call it
    be reasonable

    i have learned
    the choreography of staying

    how to smile
    while something in me
    paces

    i saw a woman
    that woman was me

    setting a table for ghosts

    one plate for my father

    one for each son
    in their uniform of distance

    their chairs pulled out
    but empty

    and one
    for the self
    that slips out the back door
    when no one is looking

    she pours water
    for all of them

    her hands don’t shake

    she does not drink

    the bird in her chest
    has feathers made of memory
    a beak made of unfinished sentences

    its claws
    hook into the soft places
    where decisions live

    and the world keeps saying
    be calm
    be grateful

    while the sky
    indecent in its openness
    says nothing

    i ask it for instructions

    it gives me none

    only this:

    witness

    the bird does not die
    when ignored

    it grows patient
    it grows precise
    it learns your habits

    it learns
    how long you can stand yourself

    and waits

    for the moment
    you mistake silence
    for peace

    and then

    it moves

    not loud
    not dramatic

    just enough
    to ruin the lie

    i am not telling you to leave

    i am telling you to notice
    the exact second
    your breath changes

    the pause
    before you explain it away

    the shift
    you pretend not to feel

    that . .

    that is the hinge

    that is where your life
    opens

    or stays closed

    you are not broken

    you are over-kept
    over-held
    over-explained

    you are wings
    taught to apologize for air

    so stand there

    in your kitchen
    in your car
    in the long corridor
    of your thoughts

    stand there
    and feel it

    the press
    the pulse
    the almost

    the part of you
    that still wants more
    even now

    call it bird
    if your want

    call it hunger

    call it the refusal
    to live
    half a life

  • you don’t know men

    you think I stay
    because I return to the same chair

    because my hands find you and you accept them without question

    you believe that is the whole of me

    You don’t know men (graphite)

    but you don’t know men

    you don’t know
    how a man can enter a room and nothing visible changes

    and yet something does
    a slight turning

    like a field responding to wind no one else feels

    I have watched it happen without meaning to notice

    there is something beautiful in them

    I have to say that

    the way they move with a kind of quiet certainty

    as if the ground has already agreed to hold them

    you would like that about him
    you already do

    you know the man who bends down to you

    who lets you lean into his hand

    who asks nothing more than the moment he is in

    you know only the man who pets you

    but you don’t know
    how those same hands can linger after they are gone

    for years he was simply someone I knew

    a presence that did not ask to be considered
    beyond what it was

    and then

    one day

    nothing happened

    and still
    something shifted

    I cannot show you where
    there is no place to point

    no beginning you could follow

    only a feeling

    like the first sign of weather before the sky changes

    you don’t know men
    how they can remain as they are

    and still become something else
    inside you

    now

    when he reaches
    I do not step away

    it is not that I don’t see it
    it is not that I don’t understand

    it is that something in me has already answered

    and afterward
    I carry it

    that is the part
    you would not understand

    how I return here

    sit beside you

    touch you as I always have

    and still feel
    what has passed through me

    not where it happened
    but where it stayed

    you understand the world as something that arrives and remains

    you understand what can be held

    but you don’t know
    how something can move through you

    and leave no place behind for itself

    and still be there

    you don’t know men

    how they can walk away
    with nothing in their hands

    and still leave something in yours

    and yet
    there is no anger in me

    only a quiet awareness

    that I am

    not as I was

    that something in me
    has opened

    and does not close as easily

    you look at me
    as though I am whole

    as though I belong entirely to what returns

    and I let you believe it

    because you do not know my language

    you do not know men

    and still

    I stay

    You don’t know men (graphite)

  • Prelude to Rumor

    this, comes from something I’ve felt for a long time but didn’t know how to show

    the first time it happened I was twelve

    standing in front of a mirror, looking at myself too long—something shifted

    I could see my face, but I couldn’t feel that it was me, and that frightened me

    since then, I’ve learned to recognize the feeling

    it comes quietly

    I keep talking, moving doing what I’m doing but I’m not fully inside it

    this is what that feels like to me

    like something begins at one point

    here at the shoulder and then spreads outward

    not as damage

    not as pain

    but as a kind of release

    like I am still here but also moving beyond the shape that holds me

    the lines are that movement

    the color is everything that doesn’t stay contained

    the body is what remains when something in me has already stepped away

    I call it rumor in skin because it doesn’t arrive as something clear or visible

    it begins as a feeling barely there

    difficult to name

    something moving under the surface before it can be seen

    it spreads quietly

    without asking

    and by the time I recognize it

    it is already happening

    Rumor in Skin

  • Mid Flight

    I start with a line

    graphite—light
    almost unsure of itself

    because if I press too hard it becomes a commitment

    and I’ve spent years
    living inside commitments
    that didn’t fully belong to me

    I build it slowly

    short strokes
    adjustments
    erasures
    small negotiations with the page

    I try to find the shape
    something recognizable
    something that makes sense

    this is the part
    I was taught to trust

    the part that can be explained
    justified
    approved

    I hear his voice here

    clear
    decisive

    you can’t make a living with words
    you can’t make a life out of art

    so I learned

    to keep it contained

    to make it small enough
    to exist without threatening anything

    but it never stays

    somewhere in the middle

    my hand loosens

    not because I decide to

    because I can’t hold it anymore

    and that’s when I reach
    for water

    I let it fall

    not controlled
    not measured

    I let it touch the graphite
    and pull it outward

    and it spreads

    past the edges
    past the version
    that was acceptable

    past the place
    where I could still say

    this is just a drawing

    and I watch it

    because I know

    this part is not about skill

    this is release

    this is the place
    I was told
    not to trust

    words do the same thing

    they start contained
    careful
    edited
    safe

    and then

    they don’t

    they spill
    they move
    they say things
    I didn’t plan to admit

    and I come here

    again
    and again
    and again

    not because I’m searching

    because I cannot swallow it

    I tried

    for years

    to keep it inside
    to make a life
    that didn’t need this

    but something in me
    refused

    quietly

    consistently

    until it began to show up in my body

    in that pressure
    in that drop
    in those moments
    where everything looks fine

    and still

    something is missing

    this

    this is where it goes

    this page
    this space
    this place where I don’t have to explain
    or prove
    or justify

    this is where I am allowed
    to exist
    without translating myself

    the bird appears here

    or almost does

    mid-flight
    mid-fall
    mid-becoming

    I don’t try to fix it anymore

    I let it stay unclear

    because that’s the only way it feels honest

    I used to think

    if it couldn’t be something
    I could live from

    it wasn’t worth this

    this time
    this attention
    this need

    but now

    I see it differently

    this isn’t about making a living

    this is about not disappearing

    this is about giving shape to something in me that will not stay silent

    and every time
    I let it out

    in lines
    in water
    in words

    something in me
    settles

    not completely

    never completely

    but enough

    to breathe

    and maybe that’s what this is

    not a career
    not a plan

    a place

    where I don’t have to hold it all

    where I can let it move

    where I can let it be seen

    where I can stop pretending

    it isn’t there

    and that

    that is why

    I keep coming back

  • Omissions III

    you don’t say it
    but it rides shotgun anyway

    Held in Omissions (watercolor)

    window down, elbow out, that quiet between us doing all the talking like a highway that forgot where it was going

    you ever notice that?

    how a thing can live
    without ever being born—just pacing the inside of your chest like a stray that found the door
    but won’t come in —that’s us

    Held in Omissions (watercolor)

    you trim the truth
    like a man shaving in bad light

    leave just enough shadow to look like something real

    and I sit there—feeling the weight of it

    I become a sound you almost say and then don’t—and it echoes louder than if you had

    that’s where I live with you

    in the almost
    in the inch before contact
    in the breath you take
    right before you decide not to cross it

    and it’s not that you don’t feel it

    I’ve seen it
    in the way your voice slows down
    like it’s trying not to wake something up

    in the way you stay too long for a man who’s just passing through

    you linger like a question you already know the answer to
    but won’t ask

    and me

    I let it happen
    I let the silence build a house around us
    no doors
    no windows
    just walls made of everything we won’t admit

    funny thing is
    it feels warm in there

    safe, almost

    until it doesn’t

    until you leave
    and the air changes
    and I’m standing in the middle of something
    that never had a name

    Held in Omissions (watercolor)

    trying to explain to myself how something so present can still be missing

    how a man can hold you
    without ever really touching you

    how omission
    quiet, careful, deliberate omission

    can feel more intimate
    than truth

    and here’s the part that stays

    not you
    you go, you always go
    back to the life that has edges, definitions, doors that close

    but this—this unfinished thing this almost this sentence that refuses its period

    it lingers

    in the coffee cup you didn’t finish
    in the chair that still leans toward me
    in the air that remembers the shape of your voice

    and I

    I finally see it for what it is

    not love
    not absence

    but a corridor

    long, dim, echoing
    where we met halfway
    and decided
    without saying it

    to never reach the end

  • Art of Keeping

    Unveil me

    And call this moment truth

    Or what you will

    I have been so many things
    A voice that softened itself
    A silence that learned to endure
    A hand that held
    more than it was meant to carry

    I have been a bird
    Singing in red
    A wound that would not close

    I gathered myself inward
    Folded light into smaller shapes
    Asked what hurt
    to become less visible

    But it remained

    Not louder just closer

    So I stopped asking it

    To disappear

    I let it stand as it is

    Unhidden
    Unresolved
    And still reaching

    Learning

    The careful art of keeping

  • Where noise ends

    I built this house so windows could be more than just an opening to escape from

    There is a chair that remembers the shape of my spine

    A floor that does not demand I stand

    Even the silence here is not silence

    It hums low

    Like a mother

    Half awake – watching

    Her children sleep

    Here – I bring

    My hands to my mouth

    As if to keep something in

    Or to keep the world out

    I am not crying

    But something has already passed through me

    A small

    Deliberate brightness

    Something I chose

    And kept it

    Tonight I feel

    As if I might spill

    But nothing spills

    Only a slow return

    A gathering of scattered light back into the body

    How strange

    To be this tired

    And still feel something holy

    Not joy – not quite

    But the absence of noise

    That lets joy breathe

  • Arriver

    Today

    My heart

    Lost its rhythm for a moment

    Not like fear

    Not like pain

    Like a bird forgetting the pattern of its wings mid-flight

    Startled by the sudden awareness of the sky

    I told you, just that

    And you

    You did not question the sky

    You became it

    You held me

    The way gravity holds the earth

    Without force

    Without permission

    Without asking if it should

    And my body

    Which had been speaking in fragments

    Fell back into a language

    Older than thought

    But you

    You do not stay

    You are not made of staying

    You are like tide

    Like wind

    Like something

    That belongs to movement

    And I

    I do not ask

    The ocean

    To become a shore

    I have learned

    What it is to live

    Without arrival

  • Almost Mine

    I am not unsure

    Of what I feel

    Only of where to place it

    It lingers

    Like morning

    Through an open window

    Resting on me

    Softly warming

    What I thought

    Had settled

    But never staying long enough

    To belong

    You are

    Easy as breath

    Something I don’t notice

    Until you’re gone

    And then

    Everything feels

    Just a little heavier

    There is something

    Between us

    It finds me

    Without asking

    Pulls me closer

    And then returns

    To where it must

    Leaving behind

    The feeling

    Of having been near

    I don’t name it

    I wouldn’t know

    What to call something that lives

    In the spaces

    Between your words

    Between your pauses

    And what you take back

    I feel it

    In the way

    You look at me

    Like you see me

    And then

    Like you remember

    You shouldn’t

    I do not reach

    Not because

    I don’t want to

    But because I understand

    Some things

    Are not meant

    To be held

    Only Felt

    So I stay

    In the quiet

    You leave behind

    In the space

    That is never empty

    Just unclaimed

    And I watch

    How you return

    Without arriving

    How you stay

    Without staying

    And still

    Something in me

    Moves toward you

    Without moving at all

    And somehow

    That is enough

    Like reflections on water shimmering

    Just out of reach

    Something I can see

    But never gather

    Something that exist

    As long as I don’t try

    To make it mine

    And still

    I stand here

    Letting it touch me

    Learning the shape of a feeling

    That asks for nothing

    And gives everything

    Quietly

    Without promise

    Without future

    Without a name

    Just this

    And me

    Standing in it

    Until it fades

    Like the end of a day

    Soft

    Certain

    And gone

  • Arrows & Metaphors

    Nothing has been spoken

    Yet – it is loud

    These feelings

    Exist in a poem

    Ink, and its elegance

    Place arrows

    On the palm of my hands

    Metaphors that rise

    With every consonant

    A corresponding rhyme

    That illustrates and loves

  • Viability

    Gestational verbs

    Is what we have

    You measure love in weeks

    While I hover

    Like an aerialist

    Over your skin

    This equilibrium

    Has turned sentences to lust

    Leaving – me – ropeless

  • Half Dark

    Half bright

    This in between

    Keeps me awake

    As if all I ever wanted

    Suddenly – was

    No longer distant

    Safe space to rest my head

    A parenthesis made of rain

    Irreducible amounts

    In this immensity

    Impossible

    Becomes possible

    Exquisitely

    Like a rising sun

    And it’s imperialcy

  • Mathematics

    Poetry speaks to me

    In a language

    Made of bells

    It engulfs me

    In hues of pink

    Making shadows of myself

    Thousands and thousands of times

    In this totality

    I find you

    Over and over again

    Because it is you

    I want

  • Strangers

    There is familiarity

    In your words

    Much like a beating heart

    Its synchronicities

    Valves, through me

    So graciously

    These events

    Over everything

    Feels chronic

    How do . . I

    Reach out

    Without these metaphors

    Perhaps

    You already know

    And smiling

    From a distance

    Nodding to this energy

  • March 14

    I have been

    A fire

    A cornerstone

    Inside your mind

    Easier to cry

    When you’re not around

    Because, loving you

    Requieres a soft space

    On the opposite side of my bed

  • rəˈzôlv

    You asked

    If I ever sleep

    I – do

    My mind circles

    In – rəˈzôlv

    This dazzling dark

    And its allegories

    Live above these lines

    You watch me

    And my insufficiencies

    When it comes to love

    And that is okay

    Because without it

    I would not be

    Myself

  • Utmost love

    Does God have a voice

    Does it speak in flowers

    Must be magical

    In a desire no less luminance’d

    Than a birthing womb

    A miraculous fortress

    With no sounds or wounds

    Resolute and most bright

    -Motherhood

  • To my sons . .

    When I struggle

    With your absence

    You call me

    My stomach beats

    A thousand marches

    Aches to be so many miles away

    If I had no sight

    I could find you both

    In the greatest of multitudes

    This haptic perception

    Reminds me

    That light

    Is sufficient

    If you dare to see it

  • Out’loud

    You come to me

    With hands

    Made of rain

    Annunciatively

    Whispering my name

    In this adverbial space

    I become

    Ever so nervous

    Forever’ly

    I swear

  • Ode to us

    We’re not alike

    I am – paused

    You – straight’shooter

    Fracturing the curvature of my spine

    If you’re going to love me

    Love me – well

    Victoring these days

    That feel like nights

    Resurrected

    By one giant sky

  • For me

    Mirrors are like mouths

    In this anarchy of metaphors

    I thrive

    If you’re reading this

    Every ounce of truth

    Lives from left to right

    Like a vowel beehived in eternity

  • Insoluble

    Sometimes

    Brightness

    Feels

    Disfigured

    Shinning

    So innocently

    While I stand

    In what feels like salt water

    Sulfured, perhaps

    Honed by your touch

    Skeptical, by your embrace

    Because in this clarity

    I’ve figured out

    You’re just wrong

    For me

  • Fevered

    One word at a time

    Spoken in the dark

    Points with wit

    Incendiary like us

    And in this night’gold

    Love reveals in verse

    Divided where sun is most

    Exigently, my love

  • Hemostasis

    Doors between us

    You tell me

    Be careful with my head

    These ambitious thoughts

    Must hide them

    Like contraband

    In this reverent space

    I greet you

    Making myself

    An immediate cautery

    Instead of shaking your hand

  • Day 18

    Dry fasting

    Is discipline

    Day 3 to 7

    Were diabolical

    Cried a decade

    Worth of tears

    And with that

    Sleep reached REM

    Vivacious colors

    Thankful for those milliseconds

    The dead never looked so alive, rosy cheeked

    With an exuberant amount of health

    -Dad

  • Thistle of a verb

    You

    Seek me

    Like a myth

    Your hands

    Fallen stars

    Made up of punctuations

    Leaving me

    Speechless

    With no reason

    To wait

    In this

    Inflectional morpheme

    You call, love

  • Personal

    My first ink experience was 26 years ago.

    Will never forget my parent’s faces, over a tiny butterfly on ankle.

    Dad would say ‘do you want to be a walking newspaper’

    After 18 months of metastatic cancer and home hospice he parted to a dimension of familiarity, lush greenery filling his lungs with oxygen.

    I grieved, and edited every square inch of my arm, as my mental health spiraled.

    At times I regret the crowdedness of colors.

    A tabloid – I suppose.

  • Untitled

    Love

    If fire is water

    You are

    A diaphanous drop

  • Ether

    Ether

    Truth

    Has

    No

    Season

    When

    It

    Comes

    To

    Us

    Sir

    How

    Do

    You

    Sleep

    Without me

    Our chemistry

    In this velocity

    Like ether

    Over me

  • Glass

    you, in the flesh

    (i) – in glass

    too much exactitude

    for my soul to hide

    that you’ve lived

    – in my ribs

    on your own terms

    silently wanting me

    while (i) felt nothing

    But – no’s

    you, in the flesh

    i – no longer in glass

  • Tell me

    If time is love

    How many corners

    In a heart

    That is burning

    In entanglement

    Too deep

    Too loyal

    To ever be

    Afraid

    Of you

  • Above Ground

    cartels quiver

    while man

    somewhat

    and unwillingly

    surrenders

    his fist, for love

  • Truth About Love

    some say it’s a bird

    some say it’s absurd

    but when I asked you

    a nest was growing

    beneath your bed