Translations to best understand the poem:
Diarios = newspapers
Revistas = magazines
Boliches = little kiosks that sell food
the airport kiosk has lied to you;
despite the sign above it
“diarios y revistas”
it’s piled high with as many revistas as will fit
and you are filled too
with your memories of boliches and taxis
lining and reviving the streets in your mind
you look behind and see it all alive
and here it is today
alive in a different way
keep walking at a leisurely pace
to your place on parkdale avenue
you will always maintain a trace, fainter and fainter but still solid and in some ways new,
of this pizza place and
of that young face
Li Conde (they/them), a nonbinary amateur artist and writer, submitted three short poems: Coming of age in manic depression, Trying to moult when young, and It’s maybe 30% trauma. These works offer a glimpse of their life after having been diagnosed with type one manic depression (bipolar disorder) in September of 2021, at eighteen, after suffering a psychotic episode and being hospitalized for it. What followed was the pressures resulting from being sub-textually told they were insane by the medical establishment. Their attitude to writing and art is a therapeutic one. They ask: how can we increase our aliveness in a system that tells us we can never heal? How can young, queer, mentally ill people be finally allowed to be treated more like adults when no one trusts them? How do we “fix” lifelong diagnoses and gender dysphoria that are not supposed to be fixable?
Conde’s poetry is meant to be meticulously paced and easy to absorb. They strive to create art moments that are meaningful to everyone, and are fostering an impulse of imbibing their life with as much art and literature as possible.
