Category: Unbound

Prose, Unbound

The Itch

Carrie Villarreal

“No,” I said. They were out of their fucking minds if they thought I would actually agree to their request, but I was perfectly in my right mind to tell them to go to hell.

~~~

Don’t get me wrong. I acquiesce — a lot. I don’t like to cause trouble. I don’t like to rock the boat. Confrontation causes an allergic reaction and makes me itchy all over like when I rub up against poison ivy. Sometimes, I get a little fidgety, a little itchy, from chafing against conflict’s oiliness. 

Sometimes, a rash breaks out. Sometimes, I lose a little time recovering and come to with oddities. One time there was a deep scratch running along the inside of my bicep. One time there was a split upper lip. One time there was a busted knuckle on my right hand. One time there was some blood on my shirt but no obvious wound it could have come from.

~~~

“It’s simple. The answer is no,” I said, scratching at a spot just below my elbow while a blooming redness raced across the right side of my chest.

I really do try to be a decent person, but sometimes, people just don’t fucking listen.

Featured image by eberhard grossgasteiger on Unsplash

Poetry, Unbound

Avocado Toast

Carrie Villarreal

I have these moments
where I experience the paradox of
words coming into being
at the precipice of their inception
and words dying,
supernovas of cultural extinction.

I wonder if that’s how the Aztecs felt
the moment āhuacatl lost its life —
lost its ability to testify
to the avocado’s testicular formation —
when the Spanish conquistadors
grew enough balls to sail across the seas
and dominate a people
they should’ve left well-enough alone.

Aguacate they called it
refusing viable auditory nuances
of Nahuatl testimony.

These days, we call it “avocado”
because everything sounds
(and tastes) “better” with white-bread
when you crush it against the
English tongue in this country.

Featured image by Nur Afni Setiyaningrum on Unsplash

Poetry, Unbound

Devil's Trills Sonata

Carrie Villarreal 
I dreamt a symphony 
of sleep paralysis last night, 
and in this dream, 
Tartini came to show me
how to dance the waltz of virtuosity.

Agile fingers tripped along
the string of my being,
their allegro moderato promenade
striking carnal chords of hunger.

While I rode this cresting wave —
this swelling expectancy of ecstasy —
the devil trilled the
the bitterest pleasure
in my ear, and
I reached for you
in the liminal space
between the notes.

The reverberations of sound
held in abeyance
resonated within my diamond core
and shattered,
pulling me out of myself and
into the cosmic embrace.

Featured image Photo by Josep Molina Secall on Unsplash

Musings, Unbound

A Brave New World

Carrie Villarreal

I love dystopian fiction. Can’t get enough of it. I’ve been reading it since I discovered Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World in high school. Admittedly, it was the only school-assigned book I read that year (sorry Mrs. Roos). What can I say? I had my priorities mixed up like most high school students, and I, oftentimes, continue to have my priorities mixed up as an adult. In my 36 years on this earth, I still have yet to really figure out what it means to be human. And now figuring out that crucial element seems to be a Herculean task.

Two weeks ago when my husband said, “Here’s the grocery list for the week. I put on extra because we have to be ready for coronavirus,” I laughed in. his. face. Like the good-natured man he is, he weathered my criticism, and I humored him as we picked up a much larger toilet paper package, extra bags of dried beans, some canned and frozen vegetables (an oddity since we always buy fresh), two extra packages of spaghetti and spaghetti sauce, and a huge bag of frozen chicken breasts. On top of our weekly essentials, it was a shopping trip that cost us upwards of our total monthly food budget. I scowled and derided his “hypochondriac over-anxious” reactions, but he calmly replied “If I turn out to be wrong, at least we won’t have to buy groceries for a while. We can’t really lose.”

One week ago, as my husband and I sat at the dining table after a late breakfast, the news alerts on our phones go off: “WHO declares COVID-19 (coronavirus) a pandemic”. Within a few hours, the university I attend and others in the San Antonio area extended Spring Break for a week and hinted at extended closures. My social media feed blew up with posts both expressing concerns about the impending crisis and spreading the idea of a “Democratic hoax” to which “liberal snowflakes” were overreacting. The stock market started hemorrhaging which cast uncertain economic forecasts on people who were already scared that the big bad “P” word had been used. That’s when my husband looked at me, and instead of saying “Told you so” and making me eat crow (which he totally could have), he asked, “Have you heard about Italy?”

Five days ago my sister-in-law who lives with me became ill: cough, shortness of breath, sore throat, and slight fever. She sought out medical advice and tested negative for strep and flu, but the doctor told her she likely just had a cold and that she should self-quarantine to be on the “safe side” because it wasn’t likely she had COVID-19 and she didn’t qualify to be tested anyways. As she sat down with me and cried out of fear (she’s asthmatic and frequently uses a nebulizer by-the-by), everything became real for me. It was a sobering moment for my ego.

Now, everything is uncertain — the state of education and whether my job will even look the same in six month’s time, the health of the economy and whether another recession will wipe out finances again, the supply chain of stores and whether I currently have enough toilet paper to last me until things stabilize. Schools are closed and stores are shuttered and restaurants, bars, and nightclubs have had their “last call” for now. Things are quiet, and I’ve had time to reflect. I have been foolish in my personal fallacy which I have waived about with mortal bravado. I have been wrong for a long time about many things — most recently that about COVID-19 and the need to take it seriously. 

Today, I’m eating the crow my husband was too kind to ask me to eat two weeks ago, and I acknowledge that we, as a human race, are truly entering a brave new world… and we are not ready.

Featured image by Joshua Rawson-Harris on Unsplash

Poetry, Unbound

The Call

Carrie Villarreal

Amidst the tempest-tossed
shore of forgotten eons,
cosmic evil slumbers.
One eye turned to the
unfathomable depths of depravity
which masquerade as his pleasant dreams.
The other,
turned towards humanity,
awaits the coming storm
whose gales will
strip away the light and
usher forth the
Stygian darkness.

And try as I might,
that infernal part of me
harkens to the call.

Photo by Andrei Lazarev on Unsplash

Musings, Unbound

15 Things: A List in Opposition

Carrie Villarreal

1. I make lists of things I want to accomplish that go unchecked.

2. Thoughts about what I’ve done which I can’t seem to forgive myself for keep me up at night, and thoughts about what I should do to make myself into someone better haunt my days.

3. I track everything I put in my body and everything I sweat out of my pores, but this never equates to a body size I feel comfortable in.

4. I start “self-care” regimens, but they quickly devolve into self-loathing.

5. I want to be unique, to be special, but I find I’m not even a one-in-four kind of person.

6. I’m told that no one’s journey is the same and that my struggles are valid, but more and more it seems like people say those things as a general platitude, a way to make themselves feel better when they don’t really care to listen to the struggle of others.

7. I write poetry that exposes my optimistically raw hopefulness, but I never share it with anyone because I just can’t bear how the pessimistic views of the world will tear my optimism to shreds.

8. In regard to #7, I also can’t bear for someone to call me a hypocrite when I do share a struggle. Even though having hope and struggling emotionally and mentally are not mutually exclusive, it seems the world sees them as binary opposites.

9. I want to write, but I’m afraid of what will come out on the page.

10. When I do conquer that fear and write, I want to share it, but I can’t stop comparing myself to others and wishing I had even one ounce of others’ talents. (See #5)

11. I know I shouldn’t read the comments section, but I just can’t help myself. I always hope to find some redemption for humanity, but it seems to be slipping further and further away. And still… I hope. (See #7)

12. People tell me how smart I am, but all I feel are the inadequacies of shit decisions I’ve made in my life.

13. I want to be a part of a “sisterhood” so badly that I will give everything to the detriment of my own happiness to female friendships, and when those friendships inevitably fall apart, I always blame myself.

14. My mother was one of my only anchors to being able to feel connected to the world around me, and I’ve felt so alone these past 4 years even though I am far from lonely.

15. I don’t know who you are, but I love you anyways.

Feature Image: Photo by Joanna Kosinska on Unsplash

Teaching, Unbound

EdTech Conference Thoughts

Carrie Villarreal

Teachers with tech tools are like nifflers with shiny things. We see them and we have to have them. Kept to a manageable minimum, tech tools are innocuous, but like our beastly counterpart, we keep stuffing them into our pouches until they’re spilling out and tripping up our best practices in the classroom.

I used to be a niffler, and to some extent, I still am. I love tech tools: the bells and whistles and lights shining in my eyes like Christmas lights or fireworks. I get wrapped up in the buzz of “What’s new? What’s hot? What’s now?”. But something happened to me about 4 years ago. I failed as a teacher. I failed as an instructional coach, and I failed as a human being. None of the tools I had collected saved me from that failure

Without going into the soul-bearing aspects of that failure, I came out on the other side understanding that if I were going to be recognized for anything it would need to be as a consummate educator dedicated to best practices and to the advocacy of equitable access for students. I came out on the other side understanding it’s not the tech tool that will get me there, no matter how “cutting edge” I stayed or how many tools I sprayed and prayed would stick. What would get me there is reflecting on my practice and understanding that in education we have to move beyond implementation to transformation.

The same analogy can be applied to almost any educational program, book, philosophy, and Golden Gate Bridge people try to sell you. We shove them into our pockets and down our students’ throats without first considering whether what we’re doing will help students, especially disenfranchised students and students of color. I think in education we’ve become so desperate for something, anything, to work that instead of acknowledging the issues and addressing the problems, we put little pink plastic band-aids on them. When those band-aids inevitably fail, we wonder why they didn’t cure the hurt, and we blame someone else and find another shiny thing to hold up the dam. Instead, what we really need to do is blame ourselves and take a good long look at the reflection staring back at us from the water escaping.

All of this is a roundabout way of saying… At some point, we need a Newt Scamander to watch out for us and occasionally shake us free of all that baggage and bring us back to our senses. It’s okay to enjoy tech tools. But it’s not okay to forget that it’s not about the tool. It’s about you and the young people sitting in your schools. Don’t sacrifice reflecting on and pushing for best practices for the sake of the next best thing.

Be a Newt Scamander for yourself so you can be a Dumbledore for your students.

Photo by Rami Al-zayat on Unsplash

Poetry, Unbound

Pariah

Carrie Villarreal

Low caste by birth –
right side of the tracks
but wrong side of the dollar.
It didn’t seem to bother
anyone else in my family,
but for me,
it was my scarlet letter.

Instead of an A for Adultery
(though I could have worn plenty of them
for all the desperate giving up of myself
to boys I let convince me it was
the only way I would be worth something),
I wore a shabby P:
P for precocious
P for promiscuous
P for plebian

Words were exquisite tools of torture
used to flay my insides
while leaving my outside unmarred.
And so I learned how to wield them
as finely as any assassin
with a rapier tongue.

It makes sense then,
that a childhood
full of portentous naiveté,
would lead to an adulthood spent
in self-flagellation and
pouring of salt in wounds
because as much as I still gave up of myself
to people I wanted to wholeheartedly love me,
(regardless of the various letters I wore
emblazoned and branded into my skin)
I could not stop my acid tongue from
dissolving those ties that bind:
charitable vitriol spewed and
consumed until any relationship
was sundered.

But we can’t change the past.
I can’t erase the crimson lines of
having experienced and seen too much
boil my marrow until I was hollow.
Admittedly, I invited that pain.
I believed in it.
I wallowed in it.
I relished the pristine torture,
the incineration of the gut,
that would set me aflame
with acrimonious retribution.

And now,
that I’ve been
excavated of all I thought I was,
I’ve finally realized
I can accept
your judgements and
not believe them.
I can accept your scorn
and not let it burn
another letter into my identity.

Low caste by choice –
right side of experience;
right side of acceptance.
I am the pariah
who no longer fears
the roll of the die.
And you should be afraid.

Featured Image: Unsplash – “Temps de Flors” by Biel Morro (CC0 Public Domain) 

Prose, Unbound

Life of the Hereafter Party

Carrie Villarreal

Tom slowly closed and opened his eyes to clear his mind.  He surveyed his surroundings as he smoothed his left hand down the lapel of his suit jacket before he checked his wrist for the time.  Despite the stillness that hung in the air, a chill seeped into him. The hazy shine of fluorescents glared out through the blanketed night and caught in Tom’s peripheral vision.  The bus had long since left, and he needed somewhere to warm up while he waited for the next. With no other options in sight, Tom stepped out from under the awning of the bus stop and into the street where his black oxfords made a slimy click in the puddled water on his way to Nether’s World Diner.

As he neared the diner, he saw the place was packed and heard the tinny pulses of LMFAO’s “Party Rock Anthem” bleating out of the jukebox.  Tom ran his fingers through his hair brushing out the drops of water that had condensed there from his walk across the street and opened the door.  He prepared himself for the din of voices to overtake him, but all he heard was the scraping of cutlery on ceramic bleeding into the jangled instrumentation of Aqua’s “Barbie Girl” as it switched places with the previous song.  Tom looked around with skepticism but decided no one was talking because the food was that good.

“Please Seat Yourself” hung squarely on the hostess podium, but Tom couldn’t find an open seat anywhere.  He craned his head to take a look at the place. No one looked at him as he took a gander at his fellow patrons.  Families sat at booths along the windows, parties of 2 sat at the tables running along the interior of the restaurant, and those dining alone sat at the counter  It seemed impossibly large, but there at the end of the counter, he saw a seat for a single occupant. Tom cleared his throat, squared his shoulders, and sauntered off to claim his seat.

“Hey there Tom, what’ll it be?” the waitress at the counter clicked between chews of gum.  Her sable ringlets bounced and big doe eyes sparkled between chews.

“Well, I must be in Heaven if an angel like you has the omniscience to know my name,” Tom flirted.  “How about a cup of coffee to help warm me up for starters and a slice of pie to sweeten to deal?”

“I’m no angel.  Your name is right there on your jacket, darlin’, and we’re out of coffee,” the woman said, a crocodile smile lingering on her lips.

Tom glanced down to see the stark white “Hello, My Name is Tom” slapped onto the lapel of his jacket.  He didn’t remember that being there, but he hadn’t checked a mirror since he woke up on the bus and stepped out into the dingy night.  Another traveler must’ve thought it clever to put one on him to help others help him in case he needed a friendly face. In the long run, it didn’t matter.  It’s always good to hear one’s name being called.

“Good observation,” he smiled back, “I’ll take a glass of sweet tea.”

“Sorry again, love.  As you can see we’re pretty busy,” his new friendly face said as she motioned about the diner, “The pie we can do but about all we have left is some tap water.”

“That’s fine,” Tom replied, disappointment turning down the corners of his eyes.

The waitress nodded and turned to check on other customers before walking back to fill his drink order.  Carly Rae Jepsen’s syrupy sythensizations of “Call Me Maybe” schmoozed their way through into Tom’s ears.  He hated to love this song with its repetition and its banality and it’s adolescent eagerness and idiocy wrapped up sugar sweet sickness, but he couldn’t help but sing along every time the course came on.

“Hey I just met you, and this is crazy, but here’s my number, so call me maybe. And all the other boys try to chase me, but here’s my number, so call me maybe,” Tom hummed quietly and drummed his fingers on the counter, a boyish smile playing about his lips.  He spied the waitress pushing through the double doors carrying a small tray. Their eyes and smiles briefly met before she sat his order down.

Tom was still drumming the last cords of “Call Me Maybe” when he addressed the waitress, “Thank you, ma’am.  By the way, I didn’t get your name.”

“The name’s Purgatory,” she grinned back, “but most people just call me Tory.”

Tory set the water glass down and slid the pie across to him, “You know, you’re pretty happy for a dead guy.”

The alarm bells that had been drowned out by grating sounds of pop music as the smell of rotten fruit hit him.

“Hope you like durian pie,” Purgatory purred.  “You’ll be here for a while, and it’s about the only food we’ve left in the place.”  She winked and headed for the empty table that just opened up.

Tom tried to catch the eyes of the couple that just walked through the door, a young man in a letterman jacket and a girl who couldn’t be more than 17, but Rebecca Black’s anti-charismatic auto-tuned vocals in “Friday” drowned his plea.  Instead, a scraping sound of cutlery against ceramic filled the silence. He looked down and lifted the fork to his mouth.

Featured Image: Unsplash – “Open 24 Hours Sign” by FancyCrave (CC0 Public Domain)