To the Woman Who Said She Could Hear My Accent

By Sara Borjas 

We were walking down 1st St—a street I’ve only been down twice this being the second time I’ve felt seen by a woman I wanted to be seen by. You said you could hear my accent and it was the first time I believed anyone when they said that. You heard my voice and heard my father’s truck tires spinning through the neighborhood and not the one he had, the one he dreams of having before he dies. And not the father I complained about but the father I told you I wished he could be, the one that listened. You heard my mother trying to please everyone and keep her name at the same time in the way I push down the syllables when they come to you, how I keep them in their place so they don’t forget where they come from. You heard the accent in me and called it chola and I said, nah, it’s Fresno. You heard the Fresno in me and my poor posture checked itself straightened up like a Steinbeck novel in a brown girl’s hands: rare & familiar. I said something about gold loop earrings, but what I meant was thank you for not judging me for this. I didn’t tell you this. I wish I would have mentioned how I heard your halfness, which is a fullness, your all-in all-out mega Boricua, your immaculate jump shot capability to name things by what they are not, how your father makes it into every description you give me of yourself: white, unequal, do you think you’re special? You said, you’ve never come into a relationship as friends first. I said, I’ve only loved people who are my friends. Dear woman who said you heard my accent even with all these Los Angeles cars stumbling by even with all the disclaimers we have both made you have listened to my body with your body and I have never been so true. Friends hear what you need from yourself when you talk. I hear longing from every direction with you. A woman said she heard my accent but I think she meant I hear you talking to remind yourself who you are and she listened and she said ok.