It’s Easy To Keep Promises That Don’t Apply To You by Yoselin E. Aguirre
Read by Conner Arnold
When I was sixteen I was doing homework in bed and Mama came into my bedroom quietly.
She closed the door behind her like there were secrets begging for an exit;
secrets too plump for the gap between my door and floor
and if she didn’t shut the door quick enough they’d run loose,
cause a ruckus in the house.
I looked up and her face was kinda funny, looked like a chipmunk,
like she’d been storing words and she needed somewhere to put them
and I said
What’s wrong?
and she said
Don’t let boys distract you, mija.
Become your own woman, earn your own money,
so you don’t need to wait for permission to buy what you want.
There’s so much you haven’t seen-
a whole world out there-
and if you just keep your eyes forward
you’ll see it over the LA smog, the jungle of banks and towers.
She kept talking, words coming out her like an oil spill,
and I let her keep talking because I may have been sixteen but
I knew what was happening.
Daddy has a picture of Mama in the living room where she’s squat in front of a grill.
She’s wearing a baggy striped brown shirt and white sneakers and she’s cooking meat.
There’s eavesdropping trees in the background- pines by her feet-
and he says it’s his favorite picture of her from when they started dating,
Back when they were carefree,
two poor country kids looking for a foot up in the world.
He says she sorta looks like me,
same downturned eyes
same red ring lips
same candle molded nose
Just gotta lose some pounds off me
and we could be twins
Mama wasn’t speaking to me, not really.
Don’t think she even looked me in my eyes,
lost in her own speech bubble,
floating up
up
up
busy hoping the second time around she wouldn’t settle too quickly.
Only came back down when she was just about all done.
That’s when she said
Promise me you’ll enjoy being young,
boys can wait
and I reached for her wrist, felt her soft skin under my thumb, and said
I promise
and she smiled.
And that was it.
Just like she came, she left
But she left the door open and I had to get up to seal it
lest I wanted my secrets rolling out
and have her find out she didn’t have to worry about boys with me.
I mean,
It’s a lot easier making promises when they don’t apply to you.
