Mojado Routine

From Monday through Thursday, I fight against the covers in order to get up. Mis lagañas still fresh when I look in the bathroom mirror, wondering why I’m doing this in the first place.

From Monday all the way to Thursday, always the same routine. Living with the parents and feeling too old to keep doing this.

I feel like I’m past my college student prime, but I can’t let that stop me.

Sometimes I wake up early enough to have breakfast. Sometimes I just grab an apple and off I am to the bus stop.

Cold weathers, hot weathers, I’ve endured them all under the buses’ thin-sheet metal roofs. Always staring out the window and dreaming of the possibilities.

Not sure what the possibilities may be, but possibilities nonetheless.

I get to school and lose myself in the sea of colorful faces that seem to be worse off than I am.

I look at my wallet and empty its reminders in my hand to so that I can buy a Rockstar to fuel me up.

Mondays are the worst. May sound like a cliché, but it's true.

My muscles ache from the previous Sunday night’s shift at work, where I have to clean up a kitchen and mop and brush floors. It usually involves bosses younger than me, telling me that I should really pay attention to detail. But I just don’t care enough to listen.

I hate that job. I’ve gotten better offers, but the lack of a job permit in this country stops me from doing anything better.

Selling drugs or hustling my body is just out of the question. It’s too easy, and I like challenges.

My body is tired, but I am restless.

Some friends get headaches when they see my schedule. Always busy. Always doing something.

I tend to look at my hands a lot. Not out of some obsessive compulsion to make sure they’re clean. I like to look at the little scar that I have right above my right wrist.

No, I didn’t try to commit suicide because I’m an undocumented immigrant. Again, that’d be too easy.

I got that scar during the couple of semesters I spent washing dishes at a restaurant in order to pay for my tuition.

That scar is a reminder of where I come from and where I can go.

I look at the scar above my wrist to remind myself that, yes, I’ve had some shitty jobs because of my legal status, but I am in an institution of higher learning because I intend to do more than wash dishes for the rest of my life.

When the day is done and I bus my way back home, I take a deep breath and think about the day’s endeavors.

I like to stare at the people riding the bus. Some stare back, some fall asleep.

I wonder about their lives and what it’d be like to walk in their shoes. I also wonder if they feel the same way. Do you feel the same way? Would you like to walk in my shoes?