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.

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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.