Ana Patricia Romay
venezuela,
esbozos de poemas en constante escritura / poem sketches in constant writing
i have spent my whole life trying to hate you
trying to understand you
the north of the south
my north and my doubt
we have a lot in common, see
your borders try to carry all the burdens and the beauty of the world
beautiful women, 7 heavy crowns
venezuelan women hold the only guinness record that mother nature didn’t give us
and we got it all by ourselves
blood, sweat, and tears
nose jobs, catwalks, charisma, a higher-than-average tolerance to pain, heat, hate
blush and powder, bleach powder, gunpowder
straightening and bleaching our roots
keratin and makeup dupes
arepa tostón and patacón
calories don’t count in the tropic
when you’re blessed with 90-60-90
or the money to afford a lipo
when you’re the one behind the hot greasy stove food is easy to reject
when food is scarce you don’t even have to try
but just wait, you haven’t heard all of it yet
“venezuela tiene nombre de mujer”
that’s the catchphrase
venezuela has a woman’s name
in corny cursive with a salto ángel background and a montage of our latest miss universe
a natural beauty that only happened to be within the borders a stranger drew for us
equated to the beauty women had to fight for
and that men felt entitled to
when i was 8 months old someone told my mom to sign me up for the gerber baby contest
a pair of wrinkled hands held my face and said i’d be miss venezuela one day
the dream and burden of beauty placed upon me
an impermanent and ever-decaying dream
in an ever-decaying land
tin roofs and unstable foundations
held by women that have no other choice
heeled strut over rubbish
hips that cut the wind and dodge bullets
a pair of tight jeans and long hair walking past the little boy digging for edible waste and you’ll forget all about the hunger
maybe if i put enough perfume you won’t smell the blood and the smoke
if my teeth are white enough maybe they’ll light the way out of bolívar’s labyrinth
venezuela is a woman and i believe her
i believe her when she tells me she’s abused
i know she believes me when i tell her i miss her
i know she believes me when i tell her i’ll help
i know she understands when i tell her i won’t come back
venezuela’s womanhood is in her desire to be all at once
andean caribbean amazonic paradise
desert, jungle, beach, ice
the bluest sea for the lowest price
clap your hands for the mosquitoes and the beauty queen
the humid sticky air of the sea
see, the heated smell of real coffee, and i mean real coffee, hair straightening treatments, and tear gas bombs all remind me of home
i can still smell the detergent on my school uniform and the wet dirt at 6 a.m. when the sun was not up yet but the guacharacas were up and screaming
the birds are much quieter here
life is much quieter here
on the other side of the ocean
why does the caged bird scream?
i still hear it from this side of the stream
i promise, i promise
i’m searching for the key
sound and noise
my mom’s kettle, her coffee pot
the lovely sound of her singing voice
the boiling grease at my school’s canteen
peddlers selling products that rhyme
construction workers yelling on the street
thuds and glass and murder and crime
a fleeting rusty car blasting merengue
mothers concerned about dengue
the aggressiveness of the tropical rain
the murmurs of all those who pray
hear, hear, my people screaming in pain
there’s my land, how much of her i still hear
strident silence, life is much quieter here
it seems like i can only love you from a distance
because here i find you everywhere
i can spot a venezuelan accent within a 2 kilometer radius
hell, i can tell by the way they walk
you would know it if someone was haunted by the same ghost
by the same past
tied by the same thread to the broken land
thread of wire, it leaves marks, makes me bleed
thread of silk, i caress it before falling asleep
i look for the peculiar v and the z
for the shape of her name
everywhere.
i wear my nationalism like i wear my pride
it’s broken and it hides
ambivalence and shame towards the motherland
patria is a beautiful broken porcelain figurine
with voluptuous curves and big breasts and a traditional colorful dress carrying fruit, or meat, or limbs on a platter
it doesn’t really matter,
smiling
and i keep trying to glue the pieces together
asking you to ignore the cracks
this is her, look
this is where i come from, this is me
this is not me
i have no idea who she is
but isn’t she beautiful? wouldn’t you like to hold her?
yes, i know some of the pieces are gone
i probably left them in suitcases and plane seats
they must be deep in the atlantic sea
but isn’t she pretty? doesn’t she look like me?
whenever you hear a country is ignorant
know it probably does not know how to read
but knows what it’s like to bleed
when someone else tries to explain my own land to me my blood boils
i try to explain you to strangers, because describing you is describing me, you are the piece of me i miss the most
i fear you kept a version of myself imprisoned there, inside your humid bright walls, along the silhouettes of el avila
i fear i left her there and she’ll never be mine again
wanting to come back to you is wanting to come back to you five, ten years ago
how i long for you but coming back now would crush my soul
the neighbor’s grass is greener, see
it was true all along
but i’ll always try to water yours
from a distance
always
Ana Patricia Romay
A Note From The Creator: I wrote this with the intention of reciting it aloud. I was born and raised in Caracas, Venezuela. Leaving made me realize how tightly I hold onto my roots when I am far away from all the things that shaped me and made me grow, the good, the bad, the beautiful, and the ugly. The things I spent years rejecting are now the parts of myself I revisit the most. I wrote these poems one December night at around 2 a.m., on the first winter break I spent far away from my family and my country, its warmth, its food, its music, its noise, and my childhood bed. // I took the picture one summer in Venezuela in Margarita, an island historically significant for the Spanish for its coveted pearls. A place with beautiful beaches and salty and sandy childhood memories, tight braids, empanadas, and sunburns that I still carry beneath my skin.