Ramos Monica - How to Cure a Ghost

Editor: Samantha Weiner Designer: Diane Shaw Production Manager: Rebecca Westall Library of Congress Control Number: 2018958841 ISBN: 978-1-4197-3756-5 eISBN: 978-1-68335-680-6 Text 2019 Fariha Risn Illustrations 2019 Monica Ramos Cover 2019 Abrams : Excerpted lyrics from Green Green Grass of Home, text and music by Curly Putman : Portions of 1971 previously appeared in Hazlitt Published in 2019 by Abrams Image, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher. Abrams Image books are available at special discounts when purchased in quantity for premiums and promotions as well as fundraising or educational use. Special editions can also be created to specification. For details, contact specialsales@abramsbooks.com or the address below.

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abramsbooks.com for ammu and abbu Her dark purdah glance
is strong and still as rock ELIZABETH HARDWICK Could it be that those who see
things more clearly are also those
who feel and suffer the most? CLARICE LISPECTOR

i built myself up, like a layer of bricks, i lifted. a marionette, sheltered by the hands of god i rose to the awakened sky, rising like the dunes, the sands yellow shadow. building a home for myself i spun gold into linen into safety where i could breathe without you for the first time. coming up opposite way it went down, shoving my misery to the dull corners of my boredom i pulled myself up and out to become the glory i am now. strengthening myself like iron, carbon steel, forcing myself to face the glistening cracks. hollow, singing along to a mothers slap, the lines on my face breaking, ugly in a frown. instead i bite the bitter gotu kola, nutty like a pistachio, sipping a Gamay as respite, facing the ugly, crying through faded eyelashes, mascara stains running indigo streaks down the balls of my cheeks, licking royalty into my blood. like bright satin lacquer on the floor smiling, unconvinced, i said, baby you gotta live! that day i did not die. leaves blistering out in the sun like fall at its most supreme, that one day i chose life, my skin surfaced with crusty sores i said to them: so what? i am bigger than this pain, a vortex of every narrative ive screamed together to have purpose, frequency. nobody chose it for me, this life. least of all my mother and before me, she chose not even herself. so why choose me? paltry mesecond? a platter of unfulfillment. it feels cold to not be chosen to blink and not be seen to be forgotten like a pebbled amulet that has lost its kin, ashy, chicken skin, no body to be worn on, all gloom. i am sometimes drifting like a lost person, with no heir or heirloom, a fog of longing. until, i decided on myself. that day, i chose me. like an orchestra choosing bach. i was a symphony, my god. i was a grand symphony how could i have not known? all these years squandered on disbelief. thinking i knew the ins and outs of living, cocky with my pain, my solace, my toxic sanctuary. i know nothing of mercy, especially not for myself. i know nothing of redemption. especially not for you. i am stateless, lilting in the morning sun. ONE i am a self, yes though sometimes its hard to believe i am a body (troubled) that i have one, too. ONE i am a self, yes though sometimes its hard to believe i am a body (troubled) that i have one, too.

TWO i count how to love myself, thoroughly, an abacus, my love handles as armrests, belly a scooped armchair, a vulnerable asylum. THREE theres no choice, otherwise the process is about letting yourself in its about loving gently, dearly warm, a known embrace rum coating the belly. FOUR all of me, awoken, and brown like a sweet creature of defiance. FIVE i hate my weaknesses: how people can hurt me with one triumphant just because. how im always small next to others self-assuredness alwayshand to heart waiting for a proffered description of me to determine my worth. i wait for their approval to curl around my body, a blanket of panicked self-acceptance.

SIX described as too nice by the people closest. sometimes i wear it like a badge, other times like an ornate insult, is everyone laughing at me? SEVEN my greed for love, for my own perfection, reeks of desperation, but it is me and i am holy in my unholiness, so wonderfully messy, that i cant help but begin to win myself over. EIGHT i pour honey into the ocean for Oshun. NINE the bodys memory more potent more powerful than human minds than gendered egos. i am alive, and by god im tired of being awakened, but unlived.

saudade mango juice dripping through my slight fingers, the heart of the fruit held tight. i am a monster, ravenous. too bold. waiting (painless) like Kali, a crown with claws, graceless in my regality. watch me burn, the pyre of emotions, palo santo mixed with sage, the ash christens me, molding me to create patterns in a universe where i merely just survive. half gelato slurping, i learn how to safeguard my joy in a world that tries so hard to grab it. pertinent, i was born to this sticky mess, this stark confusion haram jati the bad kind. not knowing what i was, a boy or a girl? survival looks like many things, we learn to make do, to use familiar words to describe us, its always easier not to fight the satiating rhythms of what you are, isnt it? dirty, and nasty, no modesty in sight, cum dripping down my chubby, chubby legs i like how it feels viscous, and light, egg whites, oozing out like a sore, my pussy so plump it feels like freshly glossed lips. i choose myself. yes now, i am open. i am vulnerable, steady like a womb. my tongue blistered from the corrosive sulfur of fear, pestered into petulance, i am afraid, still. how do i ask to be saved in a world like this? a mysterious bruise, all splotchy, wanting so badly to heal sometimes im so lonely i want to disappear, into the abyss that haunts my mother, but i dont i hope for love. for a love so delicious i am left, cradled and cradling, holding anothers heart so close, a heat lamp of affection, by the lost energy of lust, i am filled. so, i am ready to be ready. no, i am ready to be ready for you. its no coincidence that i turned out like this. skin like honey, small dimples puckering my elbows to my knees, a condition abbu refused to accept. thinking my child will have the most perfect of allllllll the smooth skin if i have to bring her to THIS country. you know, this country, here // there // where her body doesnt melt from gasoline inhalation, where the billboards dont bloom sweaty dripping formaldehyde. formalin fruits like plastic in a fruit bowl full of lies. where she has clean running water to wipe out her wounds so she isnt gutted out into the streets like fresh raw tripe, stale like old Halloween candy. a good life they told us, but a good life for whomst? a good life for all the ghosts, all the omens, all the sorrows of our sad, sad nations. when i was a child i would imagine my skull crashing into asphalt, cracking open like a watermelon, i wanted to die even then, my mild gloom haunting my sentimentality in the dutty wind. my grief, like a migraine, strangling my hope. my grief, my only scapegoat from the wretched humidity of just surviving. i dont want to just survive anymore, mom. it hurts it hurts it hurts, mom. why didnt you save me, mom? why didnt you ever try? i think about it night and day, even still, how hard it is to let go of this ultimate betrayal, Freudian. i wish i wish i wish i could be so much stronger than this. but sometimes all i want for is some cool sheets and someone to say, shh, i love you, honey. not out of obligation, or bleak-ass responsibility, but because they mean it. if you cant love me, who will?