Literature is hardcore

on Finding Wonderland event

hailo and vic podcast ep

#1 - read by victoria while hailo got "read" tattooed on her lip.

20 feels like sixth grade
when I heard my high school graduation year for the first
      time. Feels like 
getting my period and 
     already
     knowing
how to put a tampon in. It feels 
like diving head first into dangerously cold water. 
it feels like getting dressed in an outfit that took me

     five minutes

to pick out. It feels like
the first time I took tender care of my curly
hair. Feels like wearing my mother’s bracelet as a necklace
It feels like congas and bongos and 
harps and pianos
It feels like a congregation
     of wildflowers that itch a little when you 
walk through 
them. It feels like a chorus of weed smoke or is it cigarettes or is it 
A family barbecue?
Twenty feels like the biggest number my chapped lips can hold and the smallest number my moisturized lips can speak 
Twenty feels like two multiplied by 
     ten 
     years 
20 feels like seeing the periodic table for the first     time    and
Being assured you don’t need to 
memorize it           yet.
Twenty feels like the alphabet but only k through o
It feels like a fresh bottle of sunscreen that leaves a white cast on my face 
20      feels like the holes in my pajama pants, and the itchy tag on my new dress
Twenty feels like sand beneath my toes that does not gather in my socks but makes it between
my bed sheets
It feels like the window in my bedroom 
It feels like Vermont
It feels like New York 
It feels like the south
It feels like the       twenty hour     drive from New York to Florida and my anxiety as I begin to notice confederate flags on porches 
It feels like arriving safely at my brother’s house in Port St. Lucie 
It feels like being tucked in tight, but not tight enough to keep nightmares out 
It feels like hot 
hot 
h o t 
Coffee

Twenty feels like I swallowed a globe and it fills my belly like a fetus. It feels like it won’t fit through my cervix it feels like it hurts it feels like I’ll die it feels like a c-section it feels like refusing an epidural it feels like 

a newborn baby

It is a reminder that I am no longer eighteen but not yet twenty two and surely not twenty one. 
It is refusing my parents their authority but 
only when they disagree with me. 
It is feeling on par with my 
twenty three year - 
old 
brother 

I plan my adventures across the world and dream distantly of the near future. I dream of 
children and weddings and alcohol and clubs and friends and board games and shopping and writing a thesis and eating food and living alone and 

I dream of driving but do not get behind the wheel. 
I live in the picture of my expired learner's permit as I prepare to retake the test. On one practice exam I failed yet I aced another.
I expect to land safely somewhere in between 
where my eyes meet the DMV camera and 
my hair is pressed against the white backdrop and 
my dad watches proudly and
I receive my learner’s permit in the mail and practice driving each week for five months and then 
I will never drive again. 

Three years later twenty feels like the expiration date on my permit feels like the failed practice exam feels like the DMV camera feels like my proud father feels like
Learning to drive again 

Twenty feels like the length of my words
like the possibility that I may never feel satisfied describing to you how vividly
Twenty feels. 

#2 - read by victoria while getting an ode to childhood tattooed on her left thigh.

You did not die. The monster never made it to your bedroom. You didn’t get cancer. Your family wasn’t killed while you slept unassumingly. 

I always wondered why you stopped writing when you did. Was it the pressure of your adult relatives calling you the Author of the family? łWhen you took those writing classes and wrote of magical dragons, did you know you were writing about a world that wasn’t real?

You were quiet. Nearly silent in the right company. The first time you pushed past the shield was to perform the karaoke version of Don’t Stop the Music. You stretched your arms out and shook your pre-pre-pubescent breasts to “mama-say, mama-sa, ma-ma-ko-ssa.” The crowd went nuts. A star was born. 

Our mother says you’ve always known yourself quite well. Now that I'm older, I think all that really means is that we’ve always recognized our greatest fears and greatest joys. Your gut has always been wiser your years. It is riddled with stories of lives passed; the cautions of a slave ship in an open sea, the secrets of lesbian blues singers, the devastation of hurricanes. You have always known that something beyond our comprehension was at stake. You have always taken this seriously.

Like that day in fourth grade when you read your Earth Day essay for the local news, and the mayor stood uncomfortably behind you anticipating that you would fall off the step stool. You already knew to hate the feeling of a man’s unwanted presence.

Or the day of your preschool graduation when you refused to shake his hand. And kindergarten’s  school picture day, when no matter how many times the man behind the camera begged you to smile, you frowned.

The many days you took thirty minutes to say goodbye to your brother’s godfather because your parents demanded you give him a hug.

You took these moments seriously like the sincerity of your nightmares. Like how you needed your father to carry you around the house before you could begin to feel safe enough to fall asleep. 

Sometimes it seems that you have been realizing your color, womanhood, youth, growth, timidness, and the targets they put on your back, since birth. You remember the euphoria of the 2008 election and the terror of 2016.

And then one day you got contacts and your braces came off and you were so pretty yet so Black and everyone knew it. Everyone told you about yourself. The world began to realize you. 

Like the day your best friend began crushing on you

Or the day your other best friend revealed his crush on you

The prettier you were, the stronger death’s seduction. The more you wanted to fuck, marry, live death. And yet, you did not die. 

You have always known yourself well; your fears were a guideline; the thing you take seriously is living itself.

Like the day in third grade when you tried to stay home from school because your white friend was bullying you

The day you outed yourself to your father because you threw a tantrum over your older brother’s facebook post.

And the day your other brother called you a dyke

Or the day in middle school when your friend group started having weekly meetings with the guidance counselor 

You have always known yourself well; your joy was a guideline; the thing you take seriously is living itself.

Like how aside from the traumatic parts of eighth grade you were terribly amused by the drama because it reminded you of the Real Housewives shows you grew up watching with our mother. 

There was the day you tried to beat up that black kid in your own house, and the day years later when you found out that she’s trans and she vogues and she’s beautiful

There was the day you confessed the cuts on your arm to your mom and the days you didn't confess the ones on your legs.

The night you felt the cloud move from above your head and all you could think to say to anyone was I'm sorry and thank you

The day you started to dance again

The many days and many nights you wrote this very letter to yourself

The day you returned to pen and paper

Through all dreams and nightmares, all the pleas to God, you never asked to lose the weight of life; that which holds you to the ground

For us the prize has always been Change and the stakes have always been life or death. We have always understood that permanence is only permanent for as long as we’re alive, and so we live in between life and death; dreams and nightmares; permanence and temporality; reality and wonderland. You did not die.