from ATTRITION
About Amanda [Ngoho] Reavey
Amanda [Ngoho] Reavey was born in the Philippines and raised in Wisconsin. Her work appears or is forthcoming in TAYO, Construction Literary Magazine, and The Volta’s Evening Will Come. She recently graduated with an MFA in Writing & Poetics from Naropa University and currently works for Woodland Pattern. She blogs at spaceinsideborderline.com.
- What are you thinking?
- About home. I don’t know why I’m here; it’s time to pick the mangoes.
- I paid. You’re here now. Get used to it.
The closer you look, the more you’ll see how less she is, how many gaps there are in a history. We look at textbooks to read about the social implications of a dictatorship and find erasure.
- Hi, my name is Maganda.
- No, you are Rosita.
There are no stories, only statistics.
- What are you thinking?
- Where are we going?
- No more questions.
The process of becoming an adult happens very quickly. In a night. Or a minute. In the moment he tells you to show him how a jaguar moves and immediately you drop to the ground on all fours.
- What are thinking?
- What do you want me to think?
- That’s right.
Gaps and folds of one’s history is intimate. She’s not sure she wants you to know her that well. If she has to sacrifice knowing you, so be it but she loves you she wants you to love me save her and here are all my secrets.