Every spring the email came.
Or it almost came.
Or it came late, after the weeks of silence
that were their own kind of answer.
We are planning to have you back.
Planning to.
Two words.
I spent a long time not hearing what they said.
I spent a long time making planning mean decided,
making to have you back mean you are wanted here,
making the sentence do work
it was never designed to do.
It takes years to learn the grammar of precarity.
The conditional tense.
The passive voice that has no subject.
The future that is always pending,
always almost,
always dependent on factors
they do not name
and you do not ask about
because asking changes the weather
in the room
and you cannot afford different weather.
I learned to carry April carefully.
I learned what the shoulders do
in the weeks before the email.
I learned to tell my body it was fine
in the specific way you tell your body things
when you need it to keep going.
It kept going.
Twenty-five times it kept going.
I am not asking for credit.
I am asking you to understand
what it costs to keep going
when going is always provisional,
when the ground under the going
is reviewed annually
and renewed
conditionally
and you are grateful for the renewal
because the alternative has no map.
Planning to.
I understand now what they were planning.
I understand now what I was.
I am no longer available for that plan.
Ya no estoy esperando. Soy el plan ahora.
I am no longer waiting. I am the plan now.
