N. Miguel Santos

My pieces focus on relating my own memories in written form. I write mostly about mundane subjects and significant experiences, crystallizing the events leading up to a single moment. I like to tell stories that are both personal and relatable, sharing memories and metaphors and providing an avenue for the reader to project their own experiences.

there is always a price

love it’s like a box of chocolates you get what you get

or it’s a room full of space of your stale breath your scent your stray hairs on the floor

it’s the imprint you made on the left side of my bed

the small letters in my drawer or the faded photos in my wallet

love it is a contract one i never signed but it is mine all the same

love in italics like terms and conditions i never agreed to but followed all the same

love this agreement it’s unfair just like love one-sided a loan that i never got paid for but i pay back all the same

i find that despite these uneven terms unfair conditions i sign, still three pens empty look the pages are black and the ink is dry but here this last page i left a space

for your name

love there is always a price and I have already paid

love in italics

gravitas

it would be right about this time right after dinner, right after slaving away in the backroom kitchen you grab a quick bite and sit on the cement-block stepping stone

you’re still, and quiet towel transformed from sweat collector to swatter hands darting from side to side the flies buzz away yet you do not move

i asked you one time as my encyclopedia lay open gravity and gravitas what’s the difference?

gravitas the solemnity of manner your quiet loudness hands moving faster than vocal cords because we never knew you by your words scarce as they were i recognized you by your smile by your strong arms and gentle touch in the skill of your fingers with each slice and seasoning

gravitas the dignity of silence because you taught me to love with my hands not with my mouth to care with my eyes and not with my tongue i remember you never liked spicy food and you loved soy sauce liked you loved your wife and all that came after

gravitas the stability and sobriety and isn’t it ironic how we’d always find you with a bottle and you loosened up and your words are plenty again and it was nothing but love but laughter but good intentions but better weather and best wishes i had come to fear the day when i became a dandelion because the wind swept me away from your side

gravitas and gravity i can hardly tell the difference the way you pulled us close yet never move an inch from your sitting spot it was quiet confidence and sheer force of personality we were drawn to you sunflowers to sun when your body failed you and the funeral guest book lie full to bursting, i knew

there was never a difference

to mr. walker

There’s something about the way the ice clinks as I slosh this glass around. Arbitrary sniffs of scotch whiskey whilst making a pungent face, saying how it smells of oak and bullshit.

Call me out on my problem. Call me out by shot. Call me out by every single slurred syllable synonymous and synchronized with awkward gestures and eyes glazed and bloodshot.

Call my name while I reach for the umpteenth bottle and I’ll down every goddamn gulp with clenched teeth, weak knees and forgetting to breathe and I’ll gyrate like I’m irate at a world that cannot relate to my hate of every single time I have to fake-smile and speak words that carry no weight.

Call me again in the morning. Call me again at the bottom of this stained-glass bottle recovering from headaches as subtle as the Bible. And when the disciple of archetypal self-harm and denial come calling, then I’ll get up.

Bleary-eyed and unreligious, I’ll get the fuck up. Caged in this prison called conformity and expectations, I’m already fucking up. Chained to this foreign land, on a city built on sand with absolutely no idea if I slept with just you or the entire band, I’m already fucking up. Awake. Astir. It was all a fucking blur.

At this point, I guess it doesn’t matter.

the day after

i haven’t dreamt of you in a while

back when our bones were still growing lips still pressed wondering and wandering under this dimly lit sidewalk we promised

it was forever and a day and ever after after the dusk and the dawn and the waning hours we said yes

yes to our scars yes to the sobs after laughter yes to the sullen silence sleeping surreptitiously seen and not heard

yes to finite forevers yes to finicky and fleeting feelings and the fading footsteps of me walking out your door

i haven’t dreamt of you in a while not since our hearts crashed followed by our bodies our minds our stubbornness

we didn’t know if this would work but we tried anyway

i haven’t written to you in a while piles of letters half finished sitting in a corner of my mind messages i should have sent but never could, or never would because some things should never leave this tongue

so my jaws are clamped shut

forever and a day over and over cycling through our bullshit like an infinite loop of love of hate of regret of saying the wrong things of hurt we never meant over and over of sorry-not-sorries of misguided forgiveness and every day i fall in love, again

i haven’t thought of love in a while because remember i told you i pictured love as you, ten years later a little worn, worse for wear but happy and with me and all those plans all the children with names picked out all the dreams all those wishes on eyelashes all those 11:11 whispers all those paper thin prayers and promises

we’re past that

because it’s the day after the day after forever and we’re at a fork in the road

you give me one last wistful smile and go left, and i don’t follow

i haven’t thought of you in a while it’s been one million nine hundred and fifteen thousand two hundred minutes since i last took a step time stopped for me that day

and the day after i take the next step burying our goodbyes carving smiles into trees whisper i love you, one last time in between the leaves

i haven’t walked this path in a while the last time i did, i followed your trail and i came to the fork

and on the day after i follow the unmarked path the unknown through the undergrowth i turn right

and leave “us” along the roadside

like the fairy in the mountain leading us home just a little longer

i can make it back home

crooked teeth

the best compliment i ever got from you was you saying how you loved my smile my teeth are not in the right shape too big to fit in my mouth too crooked to look good too bent from abuse

but you loved it anyway

i never told you that you taught me how to smile with my crooked teeth with my eyes with love

it’s weird i don’t get compliments a lot and i’ve been riding that one high since 2012

and i’m afraid of the dentist

i’m afraid to lose all that makes me who i am a boy at the right place, at the right time

it’s funny my health plan doesn’t cover dental but here you are teeth aligned and perfect sparkling like stardust making me believe in smiles again

maybe

maybe i need to smile again because it’s been hard gums swollen from neglect because i forgot what it means to take care of me and i’m losing tooth after tooth and i do nothing and i let them clatter on the ground

like trash because men are trash and i’m trash swept up by the night cleaner because who wants the rubbish to feel sorry for itself

i never considered braces because i’ve convinced myself that someone loves these crooked teeth despite the fact that it gets worse every year because lockjaw is worth it when there’s sugar in the

end

and the rot is bearable, barely braces are barriers to the bigtime because who am i if not for my bunny teeth incisors rooted the wrong way molars, missing one in the back

i’m afraid of the dentist because i need to set the record straight and i have to swallow pride as the grime is scraped away

because the sweet tooth is not worth the cavity and the lockjaw is not worth the kisses and my smile is no longer yours

i visited the dentist the other day took the x-rays had my teeth cleaned still crooked i’m told it would take three years to fix

to realign who i am and fill in the gaps and smile again

exit wound

i found it by accident your pink jewelry box top drawer on the left smelling faintly of detergent and iron

it wasn’t hard to open a loose clasp, morbid curiosity and five minutes in the dark that was all it took

it was heavier than i thought that tiny 9mm, and that small box of bullets funny how i thought it’d be shinier

i asked you about it but all i got were vague responses protection, against bad men against the monsters under my bed against harm i had too many questions but i bit my tongue because your answers never answered them anyway

it hasn’t clicked until now the way the bullets were loose in the box and how the magazine was loaded with that single bullet despite the the capacity of 5 but i was a kid then how could i have known

how could i know how close i was to an alternate timeline when i saw you take it out when you thought no one was watching i had questions then too and i’m glad i asked them before it was too late

because things got better and you stopped taking out the box you were homeless, but smiled more i checked the box to make sure it was still there, bullets and all

you asked me never to open the box and i never did i kept it secret, under your clothes top drawer on the left smelling faintly of detergent and iron

you didn’t need it anymore, you whisper a smile dancing on your lips one found its way to my mouth as we locked the drawer for good

the sailor

i come from a line of seafarers like my ancestors sailed across the world to get here full of hope they plied the waters as i ply the streets

i sometimes wonder what they thought of Theseus and i wonder if he ever got tired of his ship since people always think about replacing it’s pieces like changing shirts

when my thoughts stray i identify with the ship because isn’t it sad that the broken pieces, are never good enough to keep it afloat

like this piece, in the middle the mast of our ship, bound for ever after broke off and sailed for bluer waters because a wife, son, and another baby on the way knocked the wind out of his sails i was 3

or this piece, from the hull when we were left at port and she sailed away hoping to come back someday with a better life in tow i was 6 or how this postcard, on the captain’s door just like all the others postmarked with vistas from elsewhere in the neat pen of my mother “i will be home soon” i was 10

and the deck of this ship docked in a new city speaking a tongue that never fit mine and each step forward, unsure i never found my sea-legs i was 14

piece by piece, the flotsam the wreck the loose cargo the bits of this sailboat life broken off and replaced the cracks sprouting leaks while the hold takes water

and here i am now, 27 some parts old, some new some still in tatters anchored by the docks wishes made on my starboard hopes on my port-side and different planks, old and new on the stern am i still the same ship? am i still worthy of Theseus? am i still allowed to sail?

someday soon when we’ve steered clear of rocks and ruin, past the horizon maybe there-- answers