Under Water
By Maygen S. Tavares
Some moments never stuck, others are vividly blazed. These are memories are stained-covered with tears, laughter and my heart. Invaluable and reflected across page.
Daring She was born daring. Her bravery worn across her face, down through to her soul. She was taught partly through scars, and by the nameless, She always found without notice. Catching her off guard, She lives for moments like these. Moments without language but so heavy with heart. The ones felt beneath expression; not smiles, not grins, no not anything. Only skipped heartbeats, electric touches. The silently captivated by another’s soul, The kind who flatlines you and gives you life, all at the same time. A Space Like light-splattered stars finding darkness to fill. Your laughter reaches the spaces I fought to keep vacant. You didn’t even say a word, no questions ever asked. Your eyes delivered memories that my laugh, somehow, remembered vividly. You felt brave, so I stayed. Slipped below my sky my skin my ghosts. All looking for the sun to kiss their cheeks. And how you remind me to laugh. Like watching the night turn off the sky. Your effortless presence made me feel where my bones and my soul collide.
Girls Write Now On the Other Side of Everything: The 2023 Anthology
Do you know what it’s like to communicate with your family across a salty ocean’s divide? Do you want the sun and moon to enter your home with stories written in embers? Do you seek voices that will punctuate the darkness? Welcome to the other side of everything. It’s the other side of silence, the other side of childhood, the other side of hate, the other side of indifference, it’s the other side of sides, where the binary breaks down. It’s a new paradigm, a destination, a different perspective, a mindset, a state of openness, the space between the endless folds in your forehead, hopes for tomorrow, and reflections on the past. This anthology of diverse voices is an everything bagel of literary genres and love songs, secrets whispered in the dark of night, conversations held with ancestors under the sea.
Unknown Its fear, I know so sweet as it lingers. Tastes like home; Tastes like what it feels like to be unknown. And its dread. I worry forever that I’ll only be known by the cylinders in my head. This evasive line between sharing me and keeping some as mine. A tale so old about never seizing, trouble with just being – everyone that I’m not. I push pen to pad until my hands keep quiet allowing me to breathe. This place on paper; it always feels like my own. Where I melt the most, where fire burns, where my heart is alive.
Process
It feels as though I was writing before I could walk or speak. Writing is home, it’s where I can just be. I must have written on hundreds of pages all splattered with my thoughts, emotions, beliefs, outrage, pain, joys, and every other aspect of my life. Pen to paper is where I am most free, it’s where my spirit meets the tangible world.
Maygen S. Tavares
Maygen Tavares has worked as a Youth Engagement Counselor at Psychological Consulting Services in New Jersey. She works with children and adolescent struggling with emotional and/or behavioral issues. She manages several therapeutic groups and runs weekly one-on-one sessions. Maygen has a BA in Psychology with a concentration in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Advocacy and has completed training and workshops in her area of work. Maygen has volunteered as an English and Writing Comprehension tutor for elementary and middle school kids in low income communities. She has also volunteered at several drug and alcohol rehabilitation centers for adolescents. She has been asked to speak at some of the rehabs and has done so on several occasions. Maygen has a profound love for writing poetry and personal memoirs. One of her written pieces was featured in the online LGBTQ+ magazine in 2012. As a result, she was asked by Garden State Equality, the largest LGBTQ+ advocacy organization in New Jersey to speak at the Superior Court’s trial hearing on October 21, 2013, the day same-sex marriage became legally recognized.