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Were it high school
you’d have had no choice,
tied as you were then
to the bell in the hallway
and its marionette march,
the A-flat drone inevitably
flattening 
the rhythm of your days
between each locker door slam,
each cymbal clash.

Hago, haces, hace, hacen, hacemos.
I do, you do, she does, they do, we all do.

But in college no one watches:
you can dissolve, soggily,
like the Cheerios in the bowl
that your roommate abandons with apology
on the edge of the peeling Formica,
its O’s sinking slow
into opaque depths
as she scurries towards her physics final, 
suited up in a Patagonia and greasy bun—
though aspirations of a downy white lab coat
flap in her wake like apparitions,
delicate superimpositions
from the next life.

Voy, vas, va, van, vamos.
I go, you go, she goes, they go, we all go.

No such dreams are overlaid on you:
simply the angry red lines of index cards
imprinted against your cheek
when you dissolved into the dark at 2 am;
simply the negative space of words
you still cannot name;
simply the spectral path
of the alternate you—
she who greeted the waking panic
she who trudged into the Profesora’s classroom,
picked up the pencil,
conjugated the verbs.

Puedo, puede, pueden, podemos. No podrías.
I can, she can, they can, we all can. You could not.

Later your roommate has the scent of relief,
of shampoo and soap
and freshly laundered clothes—
no longer does she vibrate at the edges
with the tension of her labcoat self
tugging at her sweatpant self,
their waveforms are now collapsed into one,
tranquil amidst the student center hum.
But in you the dissonance rises, numbly,
in you the voices amplify, 
your ears abuzz so
when your roommate asks
“How was your Spanish final?”
At a loss
you seize the better you and thrust her forward,
hissing “Smile”
and despite her scorn, she does,
telling your roommate:
“Fine. It was fine.”

Miento, mientes, miente, mienten, mentimos.
I lie, you lie, she lies, they lie, we all lie.

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This poem was written for the CCSF Introductory Poetry class in Spring 2020. The prompt was “write a poem about a secret”. The secret I was given was “I didn’t take my Spanish final, and when my friends asked me how it went I said fine.”