anchors
i love
the sound of stars in the sky.
grass pushing against wind.
feet flat on the ground, belly not tucked in.
yellow everywhere. there is something
about the whoosh of cars moving past
that dwarfs
and swallows me whole
and i pause to remember what feeling small
has never been like:
a power. a condensation of wishes that come true.
a song whispered in the corners of a deserted church.
freeways synonymous with familiarity synonymous with family.
tagalog through tinny radio. too-old the too-sung complaint ringing
in dad's ears. ear to glass window, watching the rain worm across,
running a race & finding invisible footholds. forging paths to somewhere new.
dreaming of possibility curled up in the gaping mouth of yellow plastic,
jumping out & racing to the swings, yelling names of pokemon,
oscillating shrill voices, six years old & steady in mid-air.
the physical pause that forgets to exist between me and l &
me and k & me and my sister & me and myself when our arms
understand the others'. the annotation of my mental dictionary, so
home becomes pictographs, twisting into l's teal bathroom walls. the smell of
bath & body works' flannel, navy cutting through
black leather seats, one hand on my thigh, one hand
on the wheel. k's voice crackling through the phone.
hands on hips, indignant sigh, precocious sass. u-shaped couch,
sacrificed to instruments, singled out as a rotating resting place. so
home is an amalgam of the spaces suffused with the souls of people
i love.
Janelle Salanga is a self-professed Gryffindor and an ardent advocate of used bookstores. She is a current sophomore at the University of California, Davis, majoring in science & technology studies while minoring in political science and communication. When she's not coding or binge-watching Michael Schur shows, she writes for UC Davis Magazine as an editorial intern and is currently directing a vignette for Pilipinx Cultural Night. Her work has been published in The Margins, Occulum, and The Brown Orient, among other places. You can find her (re)tweeting assorted oddities @janelle_cpp. She is a regular contributor for Marías at Sampaguitas.
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