First my dad will pin up a map of Latin America across from his bed
and throw darts, aiming for the right country. My dad will only ever strike El Salvador, each dart aiming for the same city each time. The dart splitting the other dart before it, but maybe if you call my dad Mexican his roots will change, branches rerouting across the the family tree, his mother reappearing, his grandfather’s history flowing in different bloodstreams. Maybe if you call my dad Mexican my mother will not joke about the dirty half of me, my grandmother will not denounce El Salvador, my brother will not hesitate when someone asks him his heritage. Maybe if you call my dad Mexican he won’t get angry this time, he won’t know how fast blood can emerge, how quickly a boy can die just by saying no, how his mother wasn’t his mother, how he’s had his eyes open since he was a child. Maybe if you call my dad Mexican he’ll forget about El Salvador, being chained up to a tree, the civil war, hikes up the volcanoes and the ocean glistening and the earth trembling beneath bare feet. Will he forget how to make pupusas? His knuckles and hands losing muscle memory of working the dough, beating it flat, beating it the way a child is beaten by his father for not taking out the trash. Maybe this is where my father learned how to be tough, how you can only be a man if your fists are on someone else. If you call my dad Mexican will he understand the difference between cemitas and semitas, pasteles and pasteles, hunger and appetite? Maybe if you call my dad Mexican I will feel less alone, like there is no longer a string wrapped around my finger that has been cut somewhere across Latin America. Somewhere is the other end of the string sitting in the palm of my father’s mother, waiting for a tug. Maybe if I called myself Mexican I wouldn’t twitch every time someone said Salvadorian instead of Salvadoran. Maybe this time I would be seen for what I am. Maybe if I call my dad Daddy like I used to I will be seven again sitting in Sweet Tomato’s crying over food I didn’t want to eat, my dad hitting me until I was quiet. Maybe if I call my dad he will pick up. Maybe if I call my dad Jose instead of Joseph he will not hate a country that gave him his pride. Maybe if we were all Mexican, things would be less confusing. If I wrap the flag around my body will I start to see myself in my father? Maybe if I call myself both my father will still love me, maybe if I said Latina everything would be easier, that way we can all look the same to anyone who hates us.
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From a rooftop in Zacatecoluca
one can see the cathedrals and the markets of the city where there are more fruit stands and clothing booths than there are gang members in prison. There is a child dead- tired with lines under his eyes and his hands black with ink and MS13 is saying to him You need us again and again. On a Zacatecoluca rooftop in El Salvador anything can happen. Someone says “Salvador” is such an ugly word for “savior”. Someone says gangs are just people with guns. I am so white I cannot believe anyone sees the brown in me. In El Salvador not everyone has seen violence. Dear El Salvador, dear girl who dyes her hair with coffee beans, dear everyone who writes obituaries under the bed and in the closet, dear people buried in El Salvador, in the cathedral and markets, on the rooftops of Zacatecoluca where gang members are patrolling, and someone is telling me about contranyms, how “skinned” and “skinned” are different words on the same side of the city. I now know “transparent” is to be invisible and “transparent” is to be obvious. That’s how I think of El Salvador. Someone saving semitas for Salvador Sanchez Ceren at the festival, and someone saving themselves for salvation. There is still half a mug of coffee, but my head hurts.
You told me to never drink it without eating first but I only think of you after something goes wrong. An early christmas gift sent to your dorm because I was worried about sending it to your house. I should’ve sent two, since your birthday was a while ago but there are only so many true crime books I know you haven’t read. I feel the need to reward your loyalty as if it isn’t guaranteed. A game played at midnight, asking each other questions we already know the answers to to see if we would fall in love. I thought I revealed myself in front of a two way mirror, but you were just as naked and raw as I was. You told me your dogs were like you and would take a while to warm up to someone new but as soon as I walked in I was kissed and brought toys. Even the dog with anxiety isn’t shy, maybe because she smells you on me. We took them in your truck, the windows down, mugs of hot chocolate sloshing in the cupholder, our hands hooked in my lap, the night flying behind us. Our noses made red by the wind, your windbreaker not enough, your dog with the name of a hurricane whimpering in the backseat. He licks the space between our hands and rests his head on my shoulder. Hands trying to ease through my hair, an accidental meeting of your little sister, an older brother telling me to be gentle. Nightside talks by the lake, heads touching, our voices trying to find each other under the moonlight. What do you miss the most? The water. Do you genuinely like the music I share with you? No, but you don’t like mine either, so it’s ok. Some nights, we’re up until dawn. Some nights, nothing on your end. Some nights, intensity from us both. I worry that your hands will forget this, the warmth of me in your passenger seat. Wrong turn, go back, we have to drop off the dogs. When we pull up in the driveway, hurricane dog jumps into my lap, anxiety dog in yours, breaking our hands apart. there is an unbalanced moment somewhere in this room.
distance feeds me pieces of her across the atlantic. our apartment is stale in the winter, heat forever trapped between our lazy bodies. mornings in bed with a shapeless form beside me. my body is sorry when it is not with hers, lingering-sensing-feeling-tensing, the words swallowed her breathing still whole. what we imagine is solid- but we are imaginary, at least, in theory. how much would this retreat hurt? going from everyday to every other to once in awhile to- uncertainty drifting in rivers, bridged speaking, pictures emptying. loss travelling through a freckled chest, a throat, green eyes. there is still an escape here. before things get too serious. i try not to but i like the separation the ocean brings us. complete but still hollow. like a bird bone tucked away into the dirt. |
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