Recuerdos

In college I spent a semester in Oaxaca, learning the language and escaping from a life that seemed too small for me to live.

On my second day there I met a man; on my third day I decided to love him. Freed from the girl I had become back home, I molded myself into what I had always wanted to be. I laughed and I cried and I was never afraid of what people might think. I wrote poems and kept a journal to remind myself of what it felt like to finally �- finally -- be free. I spent whole days in bed, just staring at this stranger of a lover next to me, and wondering if it was possible that Mexico had a completely different sky than the United States.

At the airport I made promises I knew I wouldn't keep as I gave him the journal I had kept in Oaxaca. I walked onto the plane without looking back. Later, he wrote long letters on the backs of poems, torn from that journal with anger or sadness or both.

"Quiero que vuelvas," they said. "Quiero que regreses." But I was already myself again, and quickly forgot what those words could mean.