Mari Sánchez Cayuso

Tag: Memory

  • Freedom’s Address

    My childhood home stood two blocks from the sea

    Not metaphorically

    Truly

    Two blocks of crumbling pavement
    past the embassies with their iron gates
    and foreign flags lifting beautifully
    in the Caribbean wind
    like freedom had an address
    and we did not

    I remember the terrible contrast of it

    chauffeurs polishing black cars
    while old women downstairs
    watered thin soup to feed five mouths

    Diplomats drinking imported whiskey
    behind guarded glass
    while boys in torn sandals
    kicked flat soccer balls through alleyways
    smelling of salt
    kerosene
    and exhaustion

    And yet the ocean belonged to everyone

    That was the unbearable beauty of Cuba

    The poor could stand at the Malecón at dusk
    beside men who had never missed a meal
    and both would fall silent
    before the same enormous water

    Because the sea did not care
    who was oppressed
    and who carried a passport out

    It touched every stone equally

    At night
    the waves struck the seawall so hard
    the spray reached the streets
    cool against our faces
    like the island itself
    refusing to die quietly

    I grew up understanding freedom
    not as politics

    but as distance

    As horizon

    As the ache of watching ships
    become smaller and smaller
    until they dissolved completely
    into another life

    Some nights
    the grownups lowered their voices
    when certain subjects entered the room

    But the ocean
    the ocean never whispered

    It roared openly beside us

    Restless
    Uncontained

    I think that is why Cubans carry sadness
    so elegantly

    We were raised beside something infinite
    while living inside limitation

    Raised hearing waves
    crash against stone
    over
    and over
    and over again

    as if the earth itself
    believed no wall
    should remain standing forever

    Even now
    far from that coastline
    I still need water near me

    Not for leisure
    Not for beauty

    For memory

    Because somewhere inside me
    there is still a little girl
    walking toward the sea at twilight
    past embassies glowing gold
    past tired buildings collapsing inward
    past the unbearable divide
    between the free and the trapped

    believing
    with her entire heart
    that the horizon meant
    there had to be more than this

  • Return Address

    I sit here digitally composing words across a screen
    while somewhere far away
    my son’s handwriting still exists on paper

    creased softly at the folds
    forty-five days old already
    by the time it reached my hands

    And nothing about modern life can compete with that

    Not the blue glow of notifications
    Not the speed of a text arriving mid-thought
    Not the endless stream of people speaking
    without ever truly touching one another

    Because ink carries the body with it

    The pressure of his hand
    The pause between sentences
    The places where he pressed harder
    without realizing emotion had entered the page

    I opened the envelope slowly
    like people used to open news from war
    carefully—reverently
    already afraid of loving it too much

    And somehow this letter lifted my spirit
    in ways nothing else has been able to lately

    For one suspended second
    I forgot distance
    Forgot oceans
    Forgot time zones and deployments
    and the unbearable mathematics of missing someone

    I forgot the years moving forward

    I was no longer standing in my kitchen
    holding paper beneath morning light

    I was simply his mother again
    close enough to hear his voice in the next room
    close enough to believe
    love still travels faster than grief

    And I wanted to archive this feeling somehow

    Fold it carefully into a drawer
    Place it beside kindergarten photographs
    old report cards
    little league schedules
    the backpacks I could never throw away

    As if tenderness could be preserved
    like pressed flowers between heavy pages

    As if a mother could save a moment
    before life carried it off again

    Because the terrible thing about joy
    is how quickly it understands
    it cannot stay

    So I stood there quietly
    holding the letter against my chest
    like something alive

    trying to memorize
    the exact shape of being needed
    the exact sound of my spirit returning to me
    through his handwriting

    And for a moment
    this loud technological world disappeared

    No algorithms
    No scrolling
    No noise

    Only a mother standing silently
    holding proof
    that space and time are not always strong enough
    to keep the heart from returning home

  • Preface of a Harbor

    A woman facing water

    Preface of a Harbor | Charcoal

    Has existed in art longer than memory itself
    waiting
    grieving
    remembering
    becoming

    The harbor is not merely a place in these sketches
    It is the human condition
    the shoreline between staying and leaving

    Smudging of a Harbor | Graphite

    I drew the figure again and again in charcoal
    because charcoal behaves like memory
    it smudges
    disappears
    darkens where touched too often

    And the lighthouse became abstract on purpose

    Some people are not meant to be rendered clearly
    Some loves survive only in silhouette

    “Harbor | Charcoal

    So I kept stripping the image down
    less harbor
    less certainty
    more white space
    more silence
    until all that remained
    was a woman
    an ocean
    and the unbearable softness
    of standing still
    while something inside her
    kept drifting toward shore

  • Ambergris

    Too late to ruin a life completely.

    Ambergris

    And maybe that is why the body refuses to forget it.

    Not the person exactly.

    The atmosphere of them. The warmth left behind in certain rooms. The way silence changed when they entered it. The unbearable intimacy of standing too close while pretending not to notice.

    And even now, years or hours or lifetimes later something remains.

    Like the ghost of ambergris
    still clinging faintly to a collar or the wrist of someone passing too near—warm and mineral and devastatingly human.

    The kind of scent that makes the body remember before the mind has time to defend itself.

    Ambergris

    Too late to ruin a life completely.

    Yet somehow still capable of altering the pulse.

    Because some connections never become ordinary enough to lose their sensuality.

    They remain suspended
    living softly beneath the skin—where longing becomes indistinguishable from memory.

    And perhaps that is why these loves endure.

    Not because they lasted.

    Because they never fully touched the ground.

    Like desire itself
    trying very hard
    to remain civilized.

    Ambergris

  • lives inside rain

    There is something about rain in the late afternoon that makes the heart unable to hide from itself.

    Maybe it is the softened light.
    The sound of water moving through trees and gutters.

    But the moment the rain begins, everything returns.

    The people we loved.
    The people we lost.
    The lives we almost had.
    The tenderness we still carry despite ourselves.

    And suddenly I feel everything.

    Every person I have ever loved.
    Every version of myself that survived loneliness quietly.
    Every moment tenderness entered my life and left before I was ready.

    For one impossible moment they all come back.

    My sons as babies asleep against my chest, warm and safe.
    The sound of laughter moving through a house that once belonged to all of us.

    And then the breaking of it.

    The slow unbearable fracture of a little family I tried so hard to hold together with my bare hands.

    A marriage that looked like a home from the outside but inside felt like disappearing quietly day after day.
    The exhaustion of surviving inside something that no longer allowed me to fully exist as myself.
    The terrible guilt of walking away.
    The terrible necessity of it too.

    And sometimes, when it rains like this, I still wonder.

    Should I have stayed?
    Should I have endured a little longer for the sake of my sons, the photographs, the illusion of wholeness?

    But deep down I know remaining would have been its own kind of violence.

    A slow crime against the self.

    And so I left carrying both grief and freedom in the same trembling hands.

    Rain brings all of it back.

    Quietly.

    The way grief actually lives inside the body.

    You stand there listening to water move through the darkening afternoon while your phone stays silent beside you and suddenly the weight of being human feels almost unbearable.

    Because love after fifty is no longer about fireworks.

    It is about tenderness.

    Someone remembering you.
    Someone noticing your exhaustion.
    Someone asking if you made it home safe in the rain.

    And the heartbreaking thing is how little of that most people receive.

    Most people are starving for softness while pretending they no longer need it.
    Most people are carrying invisible loneliness through conversations about ordinary things.

    And still

    The heart continues reaching.

    Even after loss.
    Even after disappointment.
    Even after entire lives collapse and rebuild themselves around absence.

    The heart remembers warmth and spends the rest of its life searching for it again.

    Outside the rain keeps falling steadily and inside every lit room
    someone is remembering somebody they loved.

    Someone gone.
    Someone distant.
    Someone they still carry quietly inside them.

    And maybe that is why rain hurts so much because for a little while
    everyone we have ever loved feels close enough to touch again.

  • 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

  • Afterlight

    I watched the sun hide
    and the birds went after it

    Habit of following

    not all at once, not in some perfect formation
    you could name or study

    just one lifting then another then more until the sky itself looked like it had decided not to stay still

    like something moved through them and they answered

    no thinking
    no pausing
    no weighing what it meant

    just wing
    and direction

    and me —I stayed

    because that’s what we do

    we stand there
    and understand it

    we know the sun is leaving
    we know it comes back
    we know this is the oldest pattern
    there is

    light goes
    light returns

    we’ve made peace with it or at least we pretend to

    we tell ourselves
    this is how things continue

    and still—they go

    small bodies
    holding the last heat of it
    as if they can feel
    the exact moment
    it slips out of reach

    and they refuse
    to let it go quietly

    they follow past where it makes sense past where there is anything left to follow

    and I watch them
    thinking how strange it is

    they don’t know
    what we know

    they don’t know about tomorrow
    or return
    or the comfort
    of things coming back

    to them
    light is not a promise

    it’s an occurrence

    it was there

    it touched them

    it warmed them

    and now it isn’t

    and that is enough
    to move

    so they move

    and we don’t

    we stay
    we explain
    we name it
    so it hurts less

    we say
    it’s fine
    it’s supposed to happen

    we say
    it will come back

    we say
    wait

    and we do

    we learn how to stand still
    inside loss
    and call it understanding

    and then

    when everything is gone
    when the sky empties itself of even the idea of light

    there’s always one

    Habit of following

    a songbird somewhere
    you can’t see

    still singing

    not louder than the dark
    not enough to change anything

    just steady

    like it missed the ending
    or chose not to believe in it

    and that’s when it turns

    because we say we’re different
    we say we understand

    but we do it too

    just not with wings

    we call things back
    in quieter ways

    in memory
    in longing
    in the way we return
    to what is already gone
    and sit there with it
    as if it might shift

    we replay voices
    we hold onto warmth
    long after it has left the room

    we don’t rise into the sky

    but we follow

    in thought
    in feeling
    in the quiet insistence
    that something that mattered should not end so cleanly

    and I stand there
    between them

    their instinct
    and my knowing

    knowing the sun will return without being called

    knowing there is no need

    and still

    feeling it

    that pull
    deep and unreasonable

    to call it back

    as if, just once

    it might listen

    Habit of Following

  • Petal Riser

    You take me the way the sun finds a flower that never learned its morning

    Not with warmth, but with a patience that does not leave

    I had grown used to the dark

    The kind that settles into the root

    Until even the idea of opening feels like a mistake

    The garden did not question me

    It let me remain folded into myself

    Petal against petal, a small life no one could enter

    And no one could ruin

    It worked

    Nothing reached me

    Nothing stayed

    I waited for the taking

    I knew how it went—how anything that sees you open does not stop

    So I held myself tighter

    Closed even against the light

    As if survival meant never being seen soft again

    And still

    Something in me began to give

    Not bloom, never bloom

    Just a slight failure in my keeping

    A single petal loosening as if it had grown tired of protecting what no one had come for

    I felt it like grief

    Sharp, quiet, uninvited

    The body remembering something it had buried to keep living

    You saw it

    And you did nothing

    You did not reach

    You did not take

    You did not ask for more

    You stayed as if that one small opening was already too much to ask of me

    And that

    That is what broke me

    Because I had been taught that anything that stays will hurt you eventually

    That love is only a slower kind of loss

    But you

    You stayed exactly where I left you

    As if I did not have to give you anything else

    And so

    I opened a little more

    Not for you

    Not even for the light

    But because, for the first time

    I felt something I did not recognize

    The absence of harm

    And it was unbearable

    Because it meant

    I had been closed all this time for something that was not here

    And now

    I do not know how far I can open

    I do not know if the dark will return

    But something in me

    Something small, tired, still alive

    Keeps loosening despite it

    Because you did not take me when you could have

    Because you did not break me when I was already open enough to be broken

    Because you stayed long enough for me to feel what it is to be held in the light

    And not disappear

  • 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.

  • Line _ drawn in me

  • 109

    Orbits of grace

    At the in’s of me

    Right here

    I fall

    110

    Times a day

    Like something

    That still glows

    Tucked, under

    A single address

    My land of traumas

    Heightened with fear

    A place that holds

    My childhood

    So terrifyingly

    Deciphering torment

    And the inability

    To seek help

    From people

    Who watch you

    Fall, in less dirt

    Painful terrains

    This is Cuba – 1979

    Martyrs of disguise

    Making parenthood

    Less fiable

    As everyone

    Is too busy

    Surviving

    Their

    Own

    Imprisonment

    I’ve been

    A lonely walker

    For decades

    This life

    Has taught me

    To believe

    That above my name

    There is a vacancy

    A beautiful sky

    With blue lips

    That speak for me

    Making peace

    For the rest

    Of my existence

    Like a road

    That is long

    Yet spangled

  • Time . .

    There’s one

    There’s two

    There’s three

    Of me

    In this triplicity

    I count aphorisms

    When it’s difficult

    To speak . .

  • Here Comes the Sun

    You can’t

    Start a fight

    In a lonely

    Home . .

  • Shades of Purgatory

    I once knew

    How light was spent

    Its trickling effects

    As faith pointed

    With a golden rod

    My own despair

    Sat in a womb of fear

    Aware it was not science

    My conscious inadvertently

    Reversed millions of words

    Narrowing it down to one

    -God

  • Quiet Resentment

    Heavy lines

    Mounted over me

    These purple nights

    Drowning super stars

    Forgetting what it is to write

    Phosphorus dynamite

    Encircles and intertwines

    Muting one decade at a time

  • Just hold . .

    Stone COLD

    Hold ON

    You’re still STRONG

    NERVE pain loneliness

    I haven’t LEARNED anything

    EXCEPT for the LINES across your FACE

    MORE human, than YESTERDAY

  • To write, is . .

    Like random twilights of dust

    So distant, only God could see

    Yesteryears, my love

    And yesterwants

  • Next Train . .

    I am adapting

    Cowardly, but adapting

    This is distinction

    Between surviving

    And existence

  • ‘Brightness Of My Dark’

    One must be blind

    Stripping God of its own light

    Things none of us could be

    The profound luster in lines

    It’s happening to me

    A wound, too echo’d to reveal

    That love is not found in days

  • Love Overmuch

    Tigers brilliantly move

    Bright limbs of mortals

    Overpowered and mute

    Utmost – love

    No more still

    Than your tongue’d speech

  • To be broken . .

    Fight for insight

    God’s copyright

    In this interior of light

    My signature becomes

    A wrath that requires no reason

  • Almost . .

    Forgot

    How still

    Your mind is

    This is not

    A compliment

    It’s rhetoric,

    It chokes

    The good parts of me

  • ‘in no particular order’

    Hang over my feet

    Like lousy flowers

    That love just like me

  • Edge of Time

    Thought

    Much less

    of me

    Flask-less-ly

    You waited

    Like spirits

    Hanging over

  • For The Love of Blue

    Veils of what I’ve done wrong ..

  • Night’Comes

    Covers us in blue

    In the instant

    Of this instant

    Memory invents

    Another present

    A circular courtyard

    With superstitious

    Flashes of light

    Intended to cover

    Every crack in our horizon

  • Mimic

    The eternities of a second

    My whole life to solve

    Pitiless searches for a body

    To grow old with

    Nameless sensations

    Such a cruel thing

    To miss the dead

    With this immeasurable clarity

    Like gravid drops of hope

    Spinning over itself

    Tirelessly, till we learn

    How to love, again . .

  • Must’ve been me •

  • Untimely

    The furthest of reaches

    Sex seal serpentines

    These syllogisms

    Transform me

    Inside is outside

    It is everywhere

    And nowhere

    Invented

    Devoured

    – Man

  • Nobody Knows

    We live in identical rooms

    We blankly wake, we greet

    From one balcony to another

    Successively for a hundred years

    Between now and tomorrow

    We will spend the rest of our days

    Growing gardens out of angry stars

  • To me . .

    the world spins 

    ready to loose, and peel

    comparable to a star

    proudly moving through water

    there is no equal

    more beautiful 

    than her roseness at my feet

    i admit here, i seek shelter 

    a shelter of brightness 

    when most of my most, is dark

    cross high and unstrange