Prodigy
Zena Almeida-Warwin
I grew up running from palm trees, cluttered thoughts, and sweltering desperation.
With sand nestled between my toes, I would invade the morning’s kitchen, engulf my mother, and pace. Never still. As I awaited steaming oatmeal, sometimes Enzo would leap the concrete wall, the threshold between paradise and Arembepe. Cow's milk and powdered. Domesticated feline and sickly stray.
Bom dia, Enzo, pegue uma tigela.
Pig-like, we'd empty our ceramic bowls, then flashes of flip-flops, buses, civilization. On a solitary morning, I would stagger to the beachside. Summoned. Always barefooted, careful to still my breath, scattering my weight across the sandscape, when passing the bush of shrilling grasshoppers.
The devil's domain. Where my brother claimed all evil festered.
They'll sting and burrow in your skin if you disturb them.
Although I knew they were already disturbed just by life itself.
Concealed, they'd shriek at innocent passersby, like me, suppressing fear as if it were illegal.
If I survived to the shore, I'd lose myself to the fervid love tide.
Poof. My mind would empty at sea.
She, in spirit too grand to conceal, would canoodle me, the forever chosen one, whom she'd buoy, brilliantly wet, and crown against the horizon.
With sand nestled between my toes, I would invade the morning’s kitchen, engulf my mother, and pace. Never still. As I awaited steaming oatmeal, sometimes Enzo would leap the concrete wall, the threshold between paradise and Arembepe. Cow's milk and powdered. Domesticated feline and sickly stray.
Bom dia, Enzo, pegue uma tigela.
Pig-like, we'd empty our ceramic bowls, then flashes of flip-flops, buses, civilization. On a solitary morning, I would stagger to the beachside. Summoned. Always barefooted, careful to still my breath, scattering my weight across the sandscape, when passing the bush of shrilling grasshoppers.
The devil's domain. Where my brother claimed all evil festered.
They'll sting and burrow in your skin if you disturb them.
Although I knew they were already disturbed just by life itself.
Concealed, they'd shriek at innocent passersby, like me, suppressing fear as if it were illegal.
If I survived to the shore, I'd lose myself to the fervid love tide.
Poof. My mind would empty at sea.
She, in spirit too grand to conceal, would canoodle me, the forever chosen one, whom she'd buoy, brilliantly wet, and crown against the horizon.
Zena (PO '28) is an English & Anthropology double major from Brooklyn, New York. She loves writing poetry as an outlet for processing her feelings.