By Laura Andrea
Peak Hurricane Season
Fall eeks into the tropics during sunset. Six in the afternoon beats its way inside through the blades of the box fan on my bedroom window. It’s still too hot to rip apart childhood novels and high school textbooks in a newfound passion for collage. It will be until at least late November. The poetry will have to find itself, black out itself.
I don’t remember locking the bedroom door. A habit stuck in a cycle of breaking and reforming, a specter onto itself. It’s the only way to assure the stillness promised by autumn. Hurricane season is entering its peak and the greens are greener. From the right angle—surrendered on the ground—they can cover up most of the sky. The blue is the giveaway but only if you’ve bragged to an expired lover about it.
Reaccustoming myself to perpetuity is taking some getting used to. If the seasons don’t change the people less so. The door is always swung a smidge, not that we need more than a crack or keyhole to breach back into something better left. Death here isn’t cyclical, seasonal, or expected—but violent. Purposeful. No skeletal trees and marigold yellow leaves to remind us rebirth is normal. Rebirths are suspect.
We can play at it though. Midday sun yells at me for traversing the busy street. It’s not my fault the sidewalks are parallels, never to cross paths. Refuge takes the form of a good ol’ American store seasonally defined even at this perfect latitude. I hold a baby’s long-sleeved flannel, soft and flat and perfectly orange. The store is empty save from employees stocking the clothes that won’t sell in this heat. The shirt is cheap because it’s small. Would make a worthwhile shoplifting story. It’ll never get lost in my hands, so I hang it back on the rack. They have clean bathrooms; the crying should happen there.
If only the beer would stay chilled in my hand, nightfall could trick me. Like a fake engagement ring worn only to bed. It fits better on my thumb anyway (freakish knuckles). The humidity induced sweat activate the ink. The green ring stain around the wrong finger is embarrassingly permanent. More green. More goddamn green.
Relentless. A metaphor too confused to seduce anyone. Greed, innocence, nature, jealousy.
It’s all gotta go.
The pile is intrusive. Moved from desk chair to bed to nightstand back to desk chair, like stubborn laundry. A dry erase marker, a trio of little alien men, an alcohol wipes package, two shirts, a hat, a palm tree tapestry. On occasion the pile will decorate the floor, but it imitates a hill too well. Putting everything back makes me scream so I tape them to the empty teal wall. It’s green enough to be punished too.
The wall faces two windows. After long enough it might yellow the assortment of plastic.
Midnight welcomes light storming. It’s finally dark enough drown the green even though I still feel it there. The window doesn’t even feel cold under my hands pressing against it. I must look like an apparition, the blackout curtains draping my back. Every flash of lightning forces me to blink. To hide the phantoms roaming the green.
It’s been a year or maybe a day. Time keeps folding in on itself and looping around. Bedroom furniture shifts around again but there’s nowhere else to put these old books except under the bed. Not enough pictures of 17-year-old me were taken so she rips herself from those pages and stands at the foot of the bed. She’d roam, but there’s little space for foot traffic and doesn’t want to get yelled at.
If I win tonight, she’ll join the green, below. If I don’t, we’ll stare at each other through the mirror usually covered with the tapestry. If she’s especially willful, she’ll wear me and visit the house. It’s slightly off and exactly the same as she left it.
Lately it only rains at night. It’s almost cold. Almost fooling. It’s hard too. Reminder of what is to come, the danger zone we’re about to enter and how the past months’ heat was a warning. Summer is a ghost haunting the Caribbean. Autumn is its white bedsheet.
Laura Andrea is a writer and educator from Carolina, Puerto Rico. They hold an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Texas at El Paso. Her work can be found in Contrapuntos, Acentos Review, and Boundless Anthology, among others. They’re the author of ‘genderbi’ (Ghost City Press, 2022) a poetry microchap, and writes the column 'Monsterfucker' for Final Girl Bulletin Board. You can follow their day-to-day on Instagram & Twitter @lauranlora