Nicole Arocho Hernández
My Greed, My Feed
In this dream, I am
by a spring, still on a mellow morning. My grandfathers gathered by revered water. In all my life I have never seen them like this. Together. Most likely never met each other. But truly what does family mean but blood going back to the soil and the living feeding the offering, waiting for the fertile bloom of yearning. There will be no talk about grief in this poem. Yes, my male ancestors did terribles. What I want is not sorrow. What I want is revenge. So I throw everything on sight. Rocks, flowers, leaves, dirt, branches, spit, curses. Out of breath, I may have whispered I love you. I may have exhaled I forgive you. I definitely did not inhale I chose to love you or I will forget what you did. I wish they both could’ve given me something else than a predisposition to suffering. That way I wouldn’t be writing this poem but instead mending my relationship with old friends or making sure my beloved’s not thinking about dying. Blood ties irretractable, incendiary. I wish in my veins only ran water made holy by salt and dereliction. Instead of sloshing through frantic red-hot paths, why does this burning happen in solitude, when no one picks up the phone, when my wrists are thick in aggression, glistening, livid, so maybe I should just open the preternatural wound and look for the cure to this temper, their temper, God’s temper in making me Sunday- morning-hangover useless. I know it is not possible to forget how they feel. I am their memory and mouth. Grandfathers, you drowned. You left us a red drop in our tongues, barely sweetened moon drifting with time. I don’t need to ripen and rot. I was born ruined, so please show me how to carve this fury into your enemies’ flesh. To those who haunted you, you showed mercy by self-immolation. I, I will not forgive. I will never forget what you all condemned me to breathe. |
Biography
Nicole Arocho Hernández was born and raised in Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico. Her poems have been featured in Variant Literature Journal, The Acentos Review, The Academy of American Poets, and elsewhere. Her first chapbook (I Have No Ocean, Sundress Publications) was published earlier this year. Her second chapbook manuscript (How can colonized see light--) was a finalist for the Glass Poetry Chapbook Series. She is the recipient of the 2021 Katherine C. Turner Prize. She is a Tin House Summer Workshop alum, Translations Editor at the Hayden’s Ferry Review, and an MFA candidate at Arizona State University. Find her on social media: @nimaarhe and on her website: https://nicolearochohernan.wixsite.com/nimaarhe
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