The Dark Eyes

The Dark Eyes

The eyes were what I noticed about her the day I met her. They were dark brown. They were sad, as if she had lived things she didn’t want to think about. Even when she smiled, her eyes didn’t or couldn’t.  The shadows under her eyes were almost—not quite—black. They gave her face a poignant look. If she hadn’t been a proud woman, she would have shouted: Take care of me! Better yet, care about me. Love me. Hug me. Love me now, the way I am. I can’t go back and be the successful woman of years ago. There is nothing I can do for anyone. I am not influential anymore. Love me now in my come down in the world state. I will thank you for it. My dogs will thank you.

UnaMaid En Manhattan

In Una Maid en Manhattan, Sara Montero, the bad girl has paid a couple of goons to scare her rival Marisa Lujan. One of the goons drove Hugo, who hates Marisa because he blames her for the breakup of his marriage, to a political event held outside the hotel where Marisa works as a maid. Her billionaire boyfriend, Cristobal Parker, is running for U.S. senator for the state of New York. Hugo was supposed to shoot Marisa with fake bullets, but when the driver goon was not looking, he substituted the fakes with real bullets. Sara got hit in the shoulder. It was not serious but she’s pretending that it’s a big deal and that she’s lost a lot of blood. Cristobal and Marisa are grateful to her for supposedly saving their lives. Sara will use this to separate Marisa and Cristobal. Now, next to Sara, Marisa is not very interesting. She’s the good girl/star in the novela, the poor single immigrant mother from Michoacan, Mexico who almost got her son taken away from her through Sara’s schemes. Marisa deserves the billionaire, not Sara. As I watch Una Maid en Manhattan, I want to know what Sara going to do next. I am interested in her. She, Sara, is the fascinating character, though she is evil and will get found out/punished  in the end. It looks like Sara’s parents, instead of loving her left her to the care of nannies and other paid people and that’s why she’s mean and cruel to Marisa, who socially is on a very low level because she is a maid and has to work for a living. Sara is obsessed with Cristobal Parker and will/has lied/manipulated/hurt people in order to get him. Now she’s committed a crime, a Federal crime against a U.S. Senatorial candidate/candidate’s girlfriend. Novelas are never high class (except for the British imports lile Upstairs, Downstairs and now Downton Abbey), but Una Maid en Manhattan is better than most. It entertains and it keeps you watching.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Talk to Me!

Talk to Me! Just talk to me! I promise to be good—just like a shelter doggie desperate for a new home—and not mention any of my problems. I promise to please you and only you by saying that everything—yes, everything, including the most painful stuff—doesn’t exist. I will lie and tell you that it’s not true, and that I made it all up. Everything is great, peachy keen, as they used to say decades ago. Problems? What problems? You must be kidding. I am doing fantastic! Can’t you see (oh, I forget you can’t see me) by the look on my face how well things are going? Just talk to me! I am tired of talking to a wall—your wall—when you don’t respond.

The Tipsy Roof

Tipsy Roof

It shakes. It goes to and fro and fro and to.Just looking at it makes one dizzy. The roof could have been safety and warmth once, but it is now unsteady. There is the possibility that it will fall on our heads and hurt all of us. How to hold it up? How to make it strong and secure again? How to start somewhere else, far, far away from the madness of not having money?

 

 

Don’t, Please Don’t!

Don’t, Please Don’t!

Don’t tell me. I don’t want to hear it because I am going to get sad, very sad. Don’t say that you don’t like the way I look, that I am a shell of the person I was once. Don’’t even mention the shadows under my eyes or the hungry look my face wears. I don’’t want you to lie, but words without a possible solution behind them mean nothing to me. Words that lead somewhere, those are the ones I appreciate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Shadow

The Shadow

I saw them. They went past me, a man with his black cart full of stuff, newspapers and clothing. He was looking through garbage at the subway station. He looked like he hadn’t shaved in days, maybe weeks.The woman, also with her large cart, walked by me. She was nervous and arguing with someone. The smell of something not very clean came from her body. I recognized it from long ago, when an old lady I loved smelled like that. My old lady couldn’t take showers the way she wanted to because of the apt. she was living in. Seeing these 2 people made me afraid again. I can’t go back there. I can’t.

 

 

 

Sugar Stick

Sugar Stick

Oh, how you used to stand by the closed door of the vet’s store. You pulled me all the way there as if your life and mine depended on it. There you were, a large German shepherd waiting for the vet to open the door and give you your reward. That stick was to you the same as candy is to a baby or small child. Finally, after 20 minutes or so, the vet’s hand gave you the colored stick. You opened your smiling mouth wide and grabbed it with your teeth. The vet petted you and we went home. People on the street smiled at you. Such a big baby, they must have thought. All for a stick. Sometimes the vet gave me a couple of extra sticks, enough to last you  a day or two.

Storage–No Place to go

She stood there, in the middle of the sidewalk. Cars were going by. Even in a busy city like New York, people stared at her as they waited for the light to change. There were boxes all around the woman, large and medium and small boxes. it was hard to see her face. She was grateful for that. Tears. if I  was not out here, I’d cry, she thought. I’d cry and never stop. I can’t go back there. There is no way I can do that. The lights in the house in front of her were on. It didn’t matter. She didn’t live there anymore.