And on the third day

she rises, takes the longest shower of her life, and puts on the most dressy she can find in her suitcase -- which is to say something that does not resemble pajamas. She then plays Patti Lu Pone and takes out her makeup kit. Once she starts arching the brows with a dark brown pencil, she cannot stop. She makes it a little heavier than the usual. She curls and thickens the lashes with grayish brown mascara until they look plastic and false, like the ones used during performance. Then she lines the eyelids a lighter shade of brown, and layers them on with bronze shadows, and a touch of glimmer just under the eyebrows. She outlines the lips a fine deep burgundy and fills it with the brightest cherry red. A pinch to the cheeks, a sweep of rouge, and she is almost done, when the door opens. The doctor, followed by the day nurse, enter the room, and they both do a double-take. Their audible surprise calls attention to the caregiver who has been glued to the TV the entire time she has been painting her face. And he asks in surprise if she is going out, and where. She checks herself in the mirror and is almost shocked at how heavy her makeup is, how she looks almost unrecognizable, more so to these people who have gotten used to seeing her barefaced, in jerseys and leggings and cotton shirts, and now so heavily made up, so early in the day. Malakat ka? Makain ka? Yes, to someplace, to meet with some friend. She tries not to sound too defensive. She cannot think of a place to go or anyone to meet. She stays in the hospital the entire day, giving anyone who enters the door a mild shock, to see her on the couch reading, or next to the hospital bed tending the loved one, or in front of the computer surfing the net, surveying the facebook landscape, joining in on conversations without actually typing in anything by way of response. In heavy makeup.

Chivas and chika

with Bookworms. Best way to spend Saturday nights.

">

My first

book is coming out soon.
I am grateful.



After the body displaces water
stories


By Daryll Delgado

automatic writing 3

unbearable, awkward constrictions; the increasingly loud syncopation; the too-fast rhythm that you can barely move or breathe to; neither walk, run, nor lay to; much less dance to. tonight, when you lie, and tomorrow, when or if you awaken, what must you do with the rampage, the iron hooves and angry feet, the wild race that continues -- the entire history, really, in and of your child heart? hear this, can you hear my plea, you seem to be saying with your flailing little hands, with your eyes which stare back at me from inside the little glassed-in room, eyes that see through me, beyond me. measuring eyes i cannot not read. ready, alert eyes, even when they can barely keep themselves open, pulled in shut by pain, sucked in by valves and vessels that are about to explode, from exhaustion, from keeping the little organ intact all these long years. years spent growing up too fast in a household that has slowly, ambivalently taken you in, out of pity, out of fear, out of nothing but those eyes, that tiny body. dying now, i can see that, i recognize that release for which that body is begging. in generosity, in service, it made no difference, that little body always seemed to be begging for something, always. all ways of forgetting i have mastered are now rendered useless against the memory of those eyes, the only indication of the furious little beast about to burst out, finally, from its cage. age: fifteen; time of death: 6 in the morning; life on earth: painful and brief; struggle: never-ending, never known; smile: wan, always, and unforgettable; grace: utterly unbearable.

(in memory of maimai).