passionfruit
poetry by Amalee
doesn’t have pith. you puncture the skin and it’s basically all sweet & juice. seeds of black glory in gold, trembling tangle on tongue of soft flesh, bit in the summertime when the heat from my lips your hips licked my thighs and drew lines themselves around time like subliminal rhyme, liminal sigh, a sweetness in the eyes, an unfamiliar kind, a fruit caught somewhere between dying and getting High.
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We have been celebrating every year
poetry by Zehra Jabeen Shah
14th August, 2021; Minaar-e-Pakistan, Pakistan. We have been celebrating every year
14th August, 1947; Sindhu, Bharat, Hindustan, India, British India, Subcontinent, India, West Pakistan, Islamic Republic of Pakistan, Pakistan.
We have been celebrating every year The man gawks at a woman as she is standing; hand on hip, We have been celebrating every year wiping the sweat off her face We have been celebrating every year as she almost concludes the four and teen chore of the day We have been celebrating every year and sits down to catch a breath. We have been celebrating every year Standing again to move towards the direction of the nearest convenience store, We have been celebrating every year and walks herself towards the produce aisle, We have been celebrating every year to wander, and wonder many thoughts: We have been celebrating every year would ketchup be in the fruit section?
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We have been celebrating every year or could it be in the vegetable section?
We have been celebrating every year
Is tomato a fruit? We have been celebrating every year Or is tomato a vegetable? We have been celebrating every year Is it tomAYto? We have been celebrating every year Or is it tomAHto?
We have been celebrating every year And as thoughts go on, We have been celebrating every year she finds the right section!
We have been celebrating every year Lifts her left hand We have been celebrating every year to grab the bottle of ketchup, We have been celebrating every year causing her sleeve to slip We have been celebrating every year and slide, We have been celebrating every year
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leaving her with elbows entirely undraped, and wholly unaware.
We have been celebrating every year
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night terror after dinnertime
poetry by lina begonia you came to me, in the dark milk ladle in hand to remind me of the plate i had left
abandoned in the corner of the table, tomato sauce carefully lapped away by sourdough this isn’t our first argument over meals & i realize, once you’re gone, it was always about neglected dirty dishes
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Let Go, Stefanie O.
fiction by Edward Gunawan
“Here,” the naked woman across from Ismael cooed, as she guided his hand from the small of her waist, past the silvery smooth of her belly, up to the mounds on her chest. She left him cupping her, squeezing gently as though telepathing a reassuring there you are, my boy. He stood rooted on the black-and-white tiled bathroom floor, transfixed. His hand unmoving, stuck on her body like glue.
He watched her soaping him—his neck, the width of his shoulders, then the nooks and crannies between his arms and chest, before arriving at the unsightly lumps of his stomach. Water cascaded over him, washing away the warm suds off his body, steam rising, as though he was now in a dreamscape—where some other guys would act out their schoolboys' fantasies, mushing those breasts, pulling her hair, and pushing her to squat down in front of him, force-feeding his manhood. But Ismael's stayed coiled in the moist marsh of his pubic hair, a shy and scared dog’s tail tucked in between its hind legs.
After toweling him off, she led him to the adjoining room where he lay on the twin bed located in the middle of the room, faced down on his stomach, relieved to find cover for his naked body. The cool air in the room ravished his back as the warm oil from her fingers slid across his shoulders. He closed his eyes shut. . . . . . .
Earlier that evening, before Ismael and the masseuse made their way into the room, they soaked in the hot tub where he had stripped to his boxer shorts as she scrubbed his arms with a hand towel. His making-small-talk questions, “How long have you been in the city?” or, “Have you ventured out to check out the sights?” were expertly turned into another series of questions from her: “So, what turns you on?” and “Am I your usual type?” Sensing an awkward lull in their stilted conversation, she pointed to a nearby clock to remind him that his time was running out. Moments before that, a parade of Thai women standing in front of them clasped their palms together, smiling, after they greeted the men with a cheery “sawatdee-kha.”
Fix
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Before then, a middle-aged madame had clapped her hands twice and a throng of women from Uzbekistan filed in to meet them. This was repeated with a line-up of Indonesian women who greeted them “selamat malam” and a separate Chinese contingent with a "ni hao."
Ismael would typically let his clients have their pick first, before watching them disappear into their individual rooms as he waited for them with a foot massage on the second floor. He would then drive them back to their hotels, where he imagined them calling their wives to say goodnight. “Rough day at the office. Tough customer. We had to wine and dine them before they sign the contract.” Tonight, however, his clients had insisted that he picked one out before them, “We’re onto you. You make us go first all the time!” For once, Ismael resented their rare display of consideration towards him.
“Go on, pick one. Anyone,” his boss instructed.
Ismael scanned the line of Thai women in front of him, before pointing at one of them. “Good choice,” the madame proudly announced, “She is a model in Bangkok.”
The night was paid for by the company. Expenses for client acquisition were the official line items on the balance sheet. Later, the receipts would list out the names of fine wine or champagnes, in lieu of more intimate services rendered. This lavishly baroque interior decor was nothing like the gay bathhouse he had once visited when he was in Vancouver for a business conference. His boss was hospitalized with food poisoning, and Ismael managed to sneak out and slid into the dark passageways that reeked of chlorine and dried cum. It was his first time in a place like that, and even though he was already thirty-five years old, he had never been physical with anyone before—man or woman. Yet he waited in the steam room on his own as he listened in on the grunts and moans that echoed in the soggy darkness all around him.
No, this building was not like that dark, dingy unnamed place at all.
In fact, this establishment was a sprawling complex. The building rooftop displayed the name of the establishment GALAXY prominently. Easily mistaken as one of the hip boutique hotels, it sat directly across from one of Jakarta's largest churches. The first two floors of the building housed the nightclub, infamous for its weekend
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parties that ran from Thursday afternoons to Monday mornings. The third and fourth floors were private karaoke rooms. Some of his friends had disappeared for entire weekends here, pooling their money and getting a private room to rest and sleep, before heading out for another molly-binge on the dancefloor. There was even a restaurant on the fifth floor, conveniently open 24 hours so no one would ever need to step out of the building. On the sixth floor was the bar where the women from all around the world would greet their clients, while the seventh floor held the public bath facilities—the jacuzzi and sauna. The final two top floors were long corridors that led to private massage rooms, where Ismael was now in. All you needed was right here: Women, food, booze, and most definitely, drugs. . . . . . .
The Thai woman instructed him to turn around. As he did so, he covered his crotch with the wet towel from his shower earlier. She chuckled, before peeling it off and straddling on top of him, pouring warm oil on her own body. She whimpered soft—like a cat purring, before sliding and gliding herself onto him.
He wondered how many times she had done this, and whether she had enjoyed it. He wondered what circumstances led her to this trade. But who was he to judge? Wasn’t he the same as her? Weren’t we all the same? Selling ourselves in one way or another. He resented his colleagues who would use their family to justify all the things they did— burning forests, polluting oceans, bribing government officers, and "entertaining" them with prostitutes to sweeten the deal. All in the name of putting food on the table, getting their kids to school.
He had no family himself. Both of his parents had just passed away the year before, three months apart from each other. And he had never married. He couldn't bring himself to, despite his mother's persistent request to fulfil his obligations as the only child.
The woman on top of him moaned again, more audibly this time. Ismael held his breath. The woman shimmied down his tail, still neatly tucked in between his hind legs.
“I—I just want to have a massage tonight, OK,” Ismael said, as he pushed her away.
“You sure?”
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Ismael nodded and closed his eyes once again.
The woman complied as she rubbed her palms on his stomach and chest. A few minutes later, her soft moans returned, and he could feel her teasing his nipples, in another effort to arouse him. He wondered why she had been so insistent. Wouldn’t it be better if she didn’t have to have sex with him? So, he assured her.
“You know, I would still tip you the same.”
“OK,” she replied, “But why?”
“Why?” Ismael asked in response.
“You don’t like me?”
“I’m—I’m just tired tonight. Really.”
She unsaddled from him, drawing herself into a ball, whispering, “Am I... ugly?”
“No, not at all,” Ismael said.
“Then,” she shot back, “Why?”
“ Look, I’m tired OK. Told you earlier.”
A sudden recognition flashed across the woman’s face, “Is there a girlfriend?”
“No,” Ismael laughed.
“Wife?”
“Definitely not.”
She looked straight at him, before lobbing a “Do you like men?” which rendered Ismael speechless. He wished he knew the answer to that himself. But he knew better not to disclose his confusion to anyone, much less a sex worker who would talk amongst themselves. His colleagues and clients might find out. He shook his head instead.
The woman, satisfied for a brief moment with Ismael’s answer, pushed him back down to lie on his back as she continued her massage. Ismael lay there, contemplating a graceful exit out of the room. But this was why he was in this room, wasn’t it? While it was true that his clients had made him choose somebody, he also could have stayed out in the hot tub. He entered this room because he wanted to be with a woman. To prove he was not gay if he had just tried it. He wished more than ever that he could be the man his father wished for.
“Is this broken?” the woman mocked as she poked his sleeping bird.
A little stab of panic struck at the tenderest spot of Ismael’s stomach.
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What if it was indeed broken? It would so easy, wouldn’t it? If only it was broken, he need not have to try to get it up and screw the woman in front of him. If only it was broken, he would have the perfect excuse to never be married to a woman and have children. His parents would not be disappointed. His colleagues would sympathize, and he would not have to beat himself for being so unlike those slim and muscular blond surfers he watched on his laptop. If only it was broken... He surprised himself and the woman when he collapsed into long sobs, just like he did in that dark steamy gay sauna room—alone.
But this time, the woman reached out to hold him. “Hey... it's all right,” the woman said, as she gently cradled him, “I’m just kidding.” Without a word, he clung onto her, letting himself weep into her bosom until the phone in the corner of the room rang.
“Want me to stay longer?” she asked.
Ismael rubbed his eyes and shook his head.
She leaned across the bed to pick up the phone, reporting to the person on the other line that they were indeed finished. She donned a robe and caressed Ismael’s face. “Take your time,” she said before slipping out of the room.
After lying on the bed for a few more minutes, Ismael showered and got dressed before getting pats from the boisterous group of men waiting for him at the car park. “That’s my man!” they cheered. . . . . . .
Back in his own room a couple hours later, Ismael extracted the grainy video from the last-played menu bar of his laptop, as he did almost every night before he slept. To his relief, he found himself swelling and he pumped himself to a furious finish.
Ismael then wiped the trail of white stream across his navel away, before rolling over to turn the bedside table lamp off—heavy with the knowledge that there was nothing to fix because nothing was broken.
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Slimline Halftone of an Exaltation, Bradley Bowman
Un-make a Zombie in These Easy Steps
fiction by Remy Chartier
Doctor Ebner didn’t prevaricate—meat was meat, and she told me as much when I left her clinic in the endless September rain, clutching her instruction sheaf in my hand. Gloom spattered the pavement, dotting the crinkled paper, but Doctor Ebner used the fancy kind of pen, the kind of rounded, gliding ballpoint that didn’t bleed everywhere at the hint of moisture. “Reanimation is a complex process,” she’d said. “I can’t guarantee these rituals will work. You have to want it.”
Did I want it? I certainly didn’t not want it. That’s why I’d dragged myself in to see Doctor Ebner. But that wasn’t the same thing. Not sprinting into traffic isn’t the same as checking both ways before you cross the street.
My shoebox studio had a slick of water by the windowsill, and I slid the glass closed before I even took off my shoes, squelching footprints across the hardwood. I kicked them off, shrugging out of my damp hoodie, and leaving both to join the heap on the floor. I picked my way around socks and empty Cup Noodles, brushing the comforter off my desk chair so I could sit down. I flattened Doctor Ebner’s paper on the tabletop. I took a breath.
Breathing is a little like moving. One at a time, one foot in front of the other, heel to toe. In and out. An instinctive movement that becomes shambling in a corpse as the body shuts the instincts down, conserving power.
I turned on my desk lamp, one of those fancy Vitamin D heat lamps that social media influencers think are all the rage. My parents sent it to me as a belated apartment-warming present. I mostly just left the curtains open. Doctor Ebner didn’t have the stereotypical chicken scratch of her position: the instructions were tidy, printed so legibly she might have typed them out. “It will take time,” she’d said. “There’s no lightning strike, no one moment where everything starts working again. You just pick something and do it a little bit every day. The body remembers. Eventually, it will start
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waking up again.” She smiled at me, as rounded as everything else in her office. “If it doesn’t, we can try something else. There’s no one right way to do this.”
The list seemed so reasonable. Reanimation wasn’t much different than preparing your apartment for a kitten. Pick up the tripping hazards. Don’t let the dishes – or the Cup Noodle Styrofoam - grow mold. Stock up on canned things, preprepared to tip into the microwave or ready to eat raw and slimy. Make the environment a good place to have a body. Then make the body a good place to have. I stared at the list. My last houseplant had died months ago, and reviving chloroplast was easier than reviving meat. I hadn’t even accomplished that much. The evidence was on my nightstand, in ceramic containers of shriveled brown leaves and potting soil.
“I know you don’t like the idea of medication,” Doctor Ebner had said, “but I’d like us to keep that option open. It’s just like wearing glasses: there’s nothing wrong with needing that kind of help.”
Doctor Ebner made everything sound apologetic. I wasn’t sure what she was apologizing for, or who she was apologizing to. I traced my finger over the imprints in the paper, the path of the ballpoint pen. I didn’t keep pencils in the apartment anymore. That was something I could control.
I looked at the duvet at my feet, then at the bed. The sheets hung half-off the frame. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d washed them. The mattress held a deep indent in the center, the tell-tale sign of a body, and the long hours it had spent there. There were more Cup Noodles on my desk, one only half-eaten, the fork still stabbed into it. I wasn’t sure how old it was. I dipped my finger into broth, then lifted the digit to my lips. I sucked on it. Ice cold, but in this weather that didn’t mean much. The salt prickled on the back of my tongue. The heat lamp washed over my skin. It was nice, I guessed. I hadn’t sent my parents so much as a thank you text.
The other thing Doctor Ebner said was about socialization, like a body really was a kitten. “It can be overwhelming,” she’d acknowledged. “But friends, family…they can make it easier to cope.”
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Everything on my phone was weeks old, or older.
I folded my arms on the desk, resting my forehead against them. I closed my eyes. In for four. Hold for four. Out. Hold. Repeat. I’d gone to Doctor Ebner because I’d been through this before. The September rain still tapped against my window, as if disgruntled I’d denied it access to my floor. I sighed, then did another square. In. Hold. Out. Hold. Repeat. A body in motion stays in motion. It’s the momentum that’s hard.
Slowly, I stood up. I picked up the Cup Noodles off the desk. I put the fork in the sink. I put the Styrofoam in the trash. I picked up a few more cups. I threw them away. I left the heat lamp on, the only light source other than the pale grey sky beyond my window. I gathered up the comforter in my arms and sat down on the bed, hugging it to my chest as I looked around the shoebox space. There wasn’t much difference. A little more oxygen, maybe.
I closed my eyes. In. Hold. Out. Hold. Repeat. Deliberately, I set the comforter down. I pushed myself back to my feet. One foot in front of the other. One at a time. Heel to toe. This wasn’t a lightning storm, but the flesh remembers electricity. The corpse remembers alive.
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Inverted Grid of the Readers, Bradley Bowman
untitled poetry by Amalee
when will words again be incense smoke, poured out over waiting and supplicant hands Words undoing the undone re-raveling the frayed edges, a self, submerged,
water swirling up around the ankles of the forlorn teacher, left where the students can’t tread. When will language be returned to me? Float here on the edges of the world, umbilical cut undone years ago, slithering toward a benevolent fang listening a quiet pain waiting where the edges done bled: supplicant language, a silence. supplicant self, this water rising.
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Wave Scan (A Figure Study), Bradley Bowman
europeans said some something about binaries
poetry by soledad con carne
I’ll never be a mother
I whisper in a room filled with anarchist chatter
I hold my ideas like the children I'll never have Cuz, ideally, i’d have some little house on the prairie shit me my lover our tribe our babies Our children growing in love and stability roaming through strawberry patches and cat farms but I sold my womb out for freedom A skewed version of freedom Where I try to hide the beautiful parts of myself In exchange for a colonized sense of masculinity
Deprivation of heart
The silencing of the soul Selling feelings as fallacies that says we’re nothing going nowhere and life can’t be celebrated with kisses and lavender what is my masculinity apart from a brutish sensibility on pride and how I can out drink every fool on the block where is my femininity when I’m drowning in loneliness and an inability to connect to some sense of “we,” like, community, like, I know what it is to love every definition of you as you love every definition of me and what can be created out of a love that exudes what is sacred in magnolias and honeybees and sharing a smoke on the bleachers at the park at 3 a.m.
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I am the mother, the giver, the lover I am my father, the drinker, the runner
I am skewed in my own vision of Compassion
I only birth what it is to question your own action
Anglos said get rid of the magic in creation I was given Overpopulation and the quote/unquote human condition, they say my kids will just add to statistics
But, I am the god(dess) Coatlicue I am the creator With my serpent head I am the destroyer With my taloned feet
I am all masc and femme energies I am what it is to be of the earth.
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traffic isn’t real, cylo
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hmu if u kno what i mean
poetry by soledad con carne
japanese peanuts are bought from bare feet running over sidewalks and a pepsi feels fancy after all these coca-cola days daydreaming in apartments while praying my kids have a picket fence future.
That’s what I should want right? picket fences to cage my kids in, with a useless grass lawn for dogs to shit on. with a useless grass lawn for dogs to shit on.
Ramones cuffing and holes in thrifted jackets mix with Sabritones that taste just right after poets and politics, party tricks in downtown while my heart rests in the valley,
filled by Phyllis Dillon, the air around us is a a flock of birds flowing through a puff of clouds on a Sunday morning
puffs of clouds guide a morning walk, clearing nightmares from restless thoughts:
Him on his back and I’m gliding through starlight He takes my hands presses them to my face, smothers my eyes and heart and brain I gently stand, walk, jog, run away with a half-baked love I shrink away from a touch that burns so hot it evaporates my skin burning, charring, this body I love and care for and all that’s left is bare bones smoldering to dust
I firmly stand walk, jog, run and run and run away
And he’s screaming, he’s crying, “what changed, what changed, what changed,”
I did.
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self-portrait of an exhausted faggot (only fags allowed)
poetry by soledad con carne
Hey, sometimes, I miss the closet closed off in that singular space where lavish coats and serapes kept me in a warm embrace. maybe safety was ensured, but, I was wasting away.
Hey, mentally, I was losing myself trying to fit into this tiny place that kept shrinking as I grew out of Winnie the Pooh overalls, shaved the pontytails off the top of my head, slipped into a vest with silver studs and punk patches, peeking through the crack in the door where freedom tempted me every day
Hey, the day I broke out of this tomb a rush of tears baptized me, and I was ready for my second coming, but I don’t know if anyone told them, Hey, I don’t know if anyone told them that I broke out, finally free, Hey, I don’t know if anyone told them, but “no fags allowed” is sprayed all over my city
Hey, sometimes, I shrink and hold myself and miss the embrace the closet granted me Hey, how much is freedom really gonna cost me? What’s the price of safety and stability?
strength is mandatory I never got to choose, in or out, yet, Hey, strength is the only consistency.
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the strength to fit every day holding onto the mold, slowly chipping and cracking
or the strength to let go, let it break into the pieces that built a better foundation for me, a foundation that let me stand up, yell, scream,
Hey, I'm free I'm here I'm me I'm allowed to be here because I'm free.
Hey, being Xicanx and queer is a series of explanations all in repetition. being true to yourself is hard when both sides of the border say to despise everything you are.
Hey, I’m brown like you, but you’re not down like me. I’m the warrior shedding blood for you. you’re another Malinche offering me as your sacrifice.
Hey, is that the world rumbling around me, or do I just got the shakes?
I, who, am exhausted from being seen I, who, am exhausted from explaining myself How often do I have to explain myself? Hey, how can anyone see me when I don’t want to be seen, yet I have an audience sometimes when I’m screaming being queer in secrecy is a padlock. being out and proud is a spotlight.
I’m stuck in a timeline where I constantly have to prove I should exist. How many times do I have to fucking explain myself: I am allowed to be here, I allow myself to be here.
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Hey, She/They fuck(s) my stigmata wounds with Their dick They/He lick(s) the stigmata wounds at my feet
I am all of them and they are me.
I allow myself to love here.
Hey, I’m just me.
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Zazie, Mackenzie Goffe
A Fork in the Memory fiction
by Jude Anderson & Iris Flores-Iglesias
I find a fork, which is insignificant except that it reminds me of being somewhere else. I'm back in El Valle. I'm back, back, back with Estrella and Violeta and everyone I think I've ever loved before I knew what love was. Here is how that looks: When I am five, I sit in the back corner of Tia Consuela's restaurant with her, sharing a plate of cheesecake. This just means she eats it and gives the rest to me and Violeta when she's full. We sit where everyone can see us and no one can touch us. I spend my afternoons here with Violeta, and we take turns climbing the plastic chairs and coloring in the loose pages torn from a notebook we found in the kitchen.
Today Violeta is sick, so she sleeps in the back room between fifty-pound sacks of flour and carton boxes of vegetables. I wanted her with me but Mami said she would be more comfortable in the back. I still think she would be more comfortable with me but I can’t argue. I am only five and grown-ups don’t really listen to me yet. I am waiting to be six like Violeta. Because sometimes Mami listens to what she wants and says yes. So maybe I just have to be six to ask for the things I want and then I will get them. (I do not learn how to ask for the things I want at six, sixteen, or even now. I am afraid I will not get them, even if I ask with a handful of please's.)
Tio Gustavo is the cook; he has been for my whole life. He whistles along to the radio and his voice floats out to the dining hall. Sometimes he teaches me the words, so I know some of them. The metal doors are propped open with large stones and every once in a while someone walking past pops their head in. They always say hi, and Mami lets me wave to them, and then they smile a little brighter. I like that I can do that. I hope I can always do that.
(I can't. I know this now. Still.)
Tia Consuela pushes her fork into the cheesecake. It makes little indents, four prongs across the top of it. I stare at it so long my eyes get blurry. I blink and watch her push the fork into her mouth.
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(I am thinking of watching something go blurry—of the way trying too hard makes it impossible to see anything.)
“Here, finish it.”
Tia Consuela pushes the plate towards me. I hold the fork steady and split it in half. The pieces are uneven. I save the big piece for Violeta and eat the smaller one.
The men at the counter laugh. Mami walks out holding a tray of beers and doesn’t spill a single drop. Each glass drops to the table with a soft clink. I watch as the liquid sloshes but doesn’t go overboard.
Everyone likes Mami because she’s young and wears red lipstick. Her brown skin is soft and you know that without even touching her. Tia Consuela says you can see it from a mile away but I don’t understand how anyone can see things so far away, especially skin.
(I understand, now, what she meant. I did not know then that people spoke like that: with exaggerations and metaphors.)
She is twenty-five, and people hold her shoulders and gasp when they see sixyear old Violeta with me standing behind her. They always ask if we belong to Matéo, and Mami’s face turns the same color as her lips. She never answers. I never ask who Matéo is, but I want to. I want to know who else I could belong to.
But some things, like Papanito tells me, are better left unsaid. Like when he hides extra candies in his sleeve for us, or when he lets me hold his cigar and pretend to puff from it, or where Papi could be.
(The fork reminds me of this moment. Sitting with Tia Consuela, watching men watch Mami. Listening to Tio Gustavo through the kitchen. Not asking questions. Not really belonging to anyone besides Mami and Violeta.)
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Remanoir
when we were kids, we used to dance in the water. love was something tangible memora, cranium, clavicle, sternum it was not enough to be amphibian, bone, or fire. we were wild child. eyes orbiting each other. phylum to my thorax. i left her in the dark a poisoned skeleton. tears of lotus water. anchors of flowers these memories hold me like oil and water. there’s nothing sweeter than a bullet through my neck. i find void instead of organs
i wake up to blood and sugar in my mouth. the rain teaches me nothing is forever
poetry by Hermelinda Hernandez
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Cast
Out
poetry by Griffin Jing Martin cast out the future on a line & wait for the outcome playing between the pressure of biology & the water column. wave with the arms of a monster; part woman, part extension of your hair seaweeding down your spine. comb through wet grass with soft nails, feel growth tomorrow, belong to it later, breathe underwater & float through the dark space of not yet: there is always time.
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ocean mirror, cylo
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La Bruja de las Flores
fiction by Sarah Garcia
Outside the village of her childhood, Aurelia is greeted by two strange sights: one—an impossibly large thicket of thorns, so vast and innumerable that they blanket every visible inch of the town; and two—Santa Muerte herself, standing there in all her divine skeletal glory. Immediately, Aurelia drops to her knees, bowing her head in reverence to the diosa. “Señora, forgive my impudence. I only just noticed you.”
Beneath her chin, two boney fingers lift her head back up until she is looking directly into the black, gaping, bottomless holes of that ancient skull. Santa Muerte speaks to her with no tongue, her voice raspy despite her lack of throat. “All is forgiven, mi niña. Please, speak freely. Why are you here?”
Aurelia willingly sweeps her gaze over the diosa and shoves a bitter laugh down her throat. Despite being literally death itself and holding both a scythe and globe in her hands, the skeletal woman is dressed in the brightest hues, her sacred robes as multicolored as a rainbow, roses and Aztec marigolds and a various assortment of flowers protruding from her clothes and entwining with her bones. In contrast, despite being very much physically alive, Aurelia has clothed herself in a dress of black, with a sheer veil to match and hide her sleepless eyes, weighed down by prominent purple bags. She rises to her feet before the diosa and answers, “I was born here in this very village, and I have returned from overseas to visit the grave of my dearest friend Zoraida. She.. she passed while I was away... Señora, what has happened here? Where have all these thorns come from? Where are all the people?”
Somehow, despite being a skeleton, Santa Muerte smiles. “Ah, you see, mi niña, they are inside those thorns. Trapped, unconscious, in a deep sleep. They find themselves under a curse.”
“And…are you here to lift them out of said curse?”
“Of course not. I’m the one who put it on them in the first place.”
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This surprises Aurelia. One does not often hear of Santa Muerte meddling in human affairs. “Did they commit some great evil to provoke you so, if you don’t mind me asking?”
Now the diosa looks sad, an impressive feat given her lack of eyes, her skeletal mouth morphing into a frown. “Sí, a great evil indeed… But now that you’re here, perhaps you will rectify it.”
“How so?”
“Go to Zoraida’s grave, and you shall find the secret behind these thorns in that graveyard. Only through your actions may they disappear and the villagers awaken.”
Aurelia turns a weary glance to the entrance, so densely packed and sharp in each of its points, and asks, “So I must walk through the thorns then?”
“Sí, mi niña. You will be scratched and torn and bloody by the end, but if you endure the pain and suffering, you will make it through alive. And if you decide to give up and turn back, the thorns will part for you so your escape is easy.”
Aurelia considers the offer. She has already lost so much, grieved, suffered. A little more pain means nothing, especially if she can reunite with Zoraida. She approaches the brambles, picking up her inconvenient skirts. “Okay, I shall try.”
“Excellent!” The diosa’s empty sockets stare after her from behind. “Good luck, mi niña.”
Scanning the thorns ahead, Aurelia breathes out deeply before stepping into the thicket, desperately navigating her body around those sharp needles. All around her, she sees villagers lying unconscious on the earthen floor, bodies wrapped in the giant briars and skin pierced with thorns. Flowers once held decay and die in the streets. Meats and stews and other such foods brought out by wives to working husbands are toppled and scattered in the dirt, flies buzzing and ants crawling over the rotten meals.
Aurelia worries as new doubts flood her mind. What if Santa Muerte has tricked her, lied to get her pricked by these thorns and fallen under the same curse as everyone else?
Shaking away these suspicions, Aurelia spots a small clearing after a few minutes of careful maneuvering, a short reprieve from all the brambles. She tiptoes her way over, dodging and weaving, and manages to get only her dress caught and torn in
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the process. She nears this space, tension flowing out of her, when a thorn unexpectedly cuts across her upper left arm.
. . . . . .
One morning, Nayeli awakens from her sleep on her home’s earthen floor to find herself once again lying in a small meadow of flowers. She sits up and rubs the sleep from her golden eyes, petals falling out of her dark hair. She rises and walks about her small quarters, barren of almost anything but nature’s wonders, more flowers springing forth from the dirt with her every step. She circles around the room and picks every flower that her eyes fall upon, more soon taking their place below her feet — roses, violets, jasmines, tulips, daisies, lilies, daffodils, and chrysanthemums. She performs this daily task and hums a sweet tune as the oak tree in the corner of her shack prepares her humble breakfast. She places her bouquet by the door and sits in an enclave of the tree’s roots, feasting on sunflower seeds, apple slices dipped in honey, and half an avocado. Newborn grass curls around her toes, and budding flowers burst into being. “Thank you for breakfast, oak. It’s delicious!” The tree bows its limbs to the child, grateful for the praise.
Once she finishes her meal, she goes to where her sole pair of old, worn shoes sits and slips them on. Most other children in the village run freely while completely barefoot, playing and laughing with each other, but Nayeli can’t afford such a luxury. Not when her every step causes new patches of greenery to spring forth, dotting the streets and mercado and other pathways where they are unwanted by her fellow villagers. It is simply easier to avoid the conflict entirely.
With shoes firmly planted on, Nayeli gathers the flowers that she picked into her arms and pushes her door open to the world beyond, loading her wheelbarrow outside and heading towards the mercado. . . . . . .
Aurelia returns to her world with a start, pain flaring through her now bleeding arm as she crashes into the small clearing. Her head swirls with dizziness as the vision flashes still in her brain. Face lying in the earth, she glances up and sees Santa Muerte standing over her, not even casting a shadow in all her divinity. “Mi niña, I expect you have questions now.”
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Aurelia collects herself, veil covered in dirt and bits of rock as she stands. “What… what was that? I saw a child, a little girl… I don’t understand, why didn’t you mention visions like that would happen?”
“But I did, mi niña. I told you that you would endure pain and suffering on this path, and that is exactly what you’ve seen.” The diosa cocks her head to the side in puzzlement.
“But what about that was suffering? All I saw was a young girl grow flowers from her feet and eat breakfast made by a tree. Pain? That was practically pleasant to watch.”
Santa Muerte sighs and shakes her head. “Ah, what mortal eyes cannot see — qué lástima.” She points a boney finger further down the street. “Keep going then, and your questions shall be answered.” She then swings that same finger behind. “Or go back the way you came and free yourself from this painful road.”
Glancing backwards, Aurelia is surprised to find the diosa’s words true. All the briars have pulled themselves back, offering an easy exit. But all Aurelia can think of is seeing Zoraida, and so she moves to the next thicket ahead. As she bends her way through, she loses herself to sweet memories as she spots familiar locations. Her and Zoraida as they exit the schoolhouse on the corner, laughing merrily when freed from their studies. Her and Zoraida jumping rope and running carelessly in the streets. Her and Zoraida always sitting together in the chapel on the left while at Sunday service, passing notes and hardly paying attention to anyone or anything but each other. Aurelia once believed they would never be apart, that it would always be the two of them forever.
Lost to nostalgia, the next cut slices through her veil and into her right cheek. . . . . . .
The sounds of morning echo around Nayeli as she pushes her wheelbarrow forward. The usual viejas sweep their doorsteps, children squabble over the breakfasts their mamás have cooked, sellers at the mercado cry out their deals for the day in the distance. Everyone is so loud in contrast to her quiet self. Pollen stains her arms and palms, so she keeps away from the other children, cursed previously by angry mamás for provoking allergies in their sons and daughters. She’s almost never without the golden
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substance on her body, dotting all her brown limbs like individual rays of sunlight dappled through a thick canopy of leaves. The yellow-spotted girl pushes her way through the waking crowds, no one offering her greetings like they do for other neighbors. Some, out of fear, grab their children and pull them away or perform the sign of the cross at the sight of her, while others, out of selfishness, worry the orphan will take any attention as a sign that she can stay in their homes, take up their space, and drain their food, coin, and time. Even now, when a papá notices how skinny she is and asks his wife if they should bring her a small meal, the child hears the harsh reply through a window: “Listen here, we have enough little ones to feed without worrying about the brujita. Why don’t you just worry about your own kids, hmm?!”
With tears threatening to spill from her eyes, Nayeli presses onward past every cold shoulder and arrives at the mercado. . . . . . .
Aurelia finds herself tangled in the thorns when she next awakes. She is afraid of moving her limbs too hastily and provoking another piercing wound. She wonders about the girl and the suffering Santa Muerte mentioned. The picture is murky, if not the slightest bit clearer. The girl was obviously quite lonely, without any parents, family, or even friends. Hot shame courses through Aurelia when she thinks of her former fellow villagers and how they treated the small, innocent child. Had they no compassion or kindness in their hearts? Was this the great evil Santa Muerte spoke of? But even so, why did they also fear the girl What danger was a little girl who grew flowers from her feet?
Deciding to waste no more time, Aurelia carefully disentangles herself from the branches and presses on. Cut after cut not breaching skin, her clothes are slowly ruined more and more as they’re sliced to ribbons. Ahead, she sees the town’s fountain sitting in the middle of the square and remembers all the parties once held there, the memories bittersweet. She and Zoraida had danced there together as children at quinceañeras and weddings and other such celebrations. As a teenager, she had sat there and watched as Zoraida danced in the moonlight and stole her heart in the process. She remembers her curled black hair that bounced off her shoulders, her eyes so dark that she lost herself
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in their depths, her sweet lips that she wanted so desperately to kiss.
She remembers Óscar kissing Zoraida first.
Drawn to the fountain as if in a trance, the thorn scratches across her back. . . . . . .
At the mercado, Nayeli weaves her flower-filled wheelbarrow through the stalls and various vendors until she reaches Azahar, the local florist. The vieja carefully inspects the flowers, not finding a single dying petal or broken stem among their perfection, and proceeds to remove the chancla from her left foot and swat Nayeli over the head.
“I told you to bring me Aztec marigolds, you idiota! My customers need flowers for Día de Muertos, not this basura!”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Nayeli clutches her head, rubbing at the sore spot where the blow landed. “You know I can’t control what grows, Señora…” She doesn’t dare call Azahar by her first name; she had learned that lesson months ago, during a previous encounter with the chancla.
“Whatever,” the vieja grumbles, putting her shoe back on. “Make yourself useful and actually start selling this useless stock.”
“Sí, Señora…” Luckily, despite all the fear, anger, and suspicion directed towards her, the villagers never restrained themselves from buying Nayeli’s flowers, for none could disagree that they were in fact the best, most gorgeous blooms they had ever seen. Even today, in contrast to Azahar’s reprimands, the flowers sell at a steady pace. Nayeli waves bye to each blossom as they find their new homes.
As the morning transforms into noon, a commotion sounds from the village entrance. Glancing in that direction, the merchants notice a nobleman, followed shortly by his entourage, approaching on horseback, and the mercado’s inhabitants quickly busy themselves with displaying their best and most expensive items. He trots in and, within mere seconds of arriving, starts an argument with a cloth merchant.
Nayeli watches the exchange with fear and nerves swirling in her gut, and seeing Azahar approach her, she can already guess her next awful demand.
“Go and offer your flowers to that rich man.” The vieja points wildly to him. “Raise the price too; he’ll never know the difference!”
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“But I don’t think-”
“Stop whining and get over there! Or do you want to be out of a job?!”
With a sigh, Nayeli swallows her trepidation, gathers her most beautiful flowers into her arms, and heads to the nobleman. . . . . . .
Aurelia is lying in the lap of Santa Muerte, seated on the lip of the fountain, when she returns to the present. Her skeletal hand combs through Aurelia’s hair in a soothing motion. She realizes that she cried unknowingly in her sleep and is suddenly grateful for the motherly contact.
“Tell me, mi niña,” says the diosa softly. “Why did you leave this village?”
Aurelia is quiet for a moment before responding, seeing no point in hiding her woes from the literal embodiment of death. “Because I couldn’t stand to see them together—Zoraida and Óscar. When she told me they were engaged, I… my heart broke and seeing them—her—so happy without me felt like they were stepping on and fracturing those shards. So, I… I left.”
“I see, I see. You said earlier that you’ve been overseas.”
“Sí, whatever took me as far from here as possible. Zoraida was so happy for me too, oblivious to my pain. She thought I was seeking adventure, but all I truly wanted was her…”
Santa Muerte nods, wiping away Aurelia’s fresh tears, the bone cool on her fleshy cheek. “And what was your life like overseas?”
“Awful, miserable, lonely. I tried to put everything behind, live a normal life.. find a husband like I was supposed to…”
“And did you?”
“S-Sí.”
“And what happened?”
A new batch of sobs rise to claim Aurelia. All her pain feels as present now as it did back then. “He, he was a good man, nothing wrong with him. But I—I couldn’t make it work, reciprocate what I was meant to, no matter how hard I tried…I thought, at least, if we had a child together, everything would be bearable, but three days, my baby girl didn’t even make it three days on this earth. And now Zoraida, my sweet Zoraida,
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even she has been taken from me-”
Aurelia’s anguished, rapid-fire words are interrupted as Santa Muerte pulls her up and embraces her in a surprisingly warm hug. “Shhh, mi niña, shhhh, it’s alright. I’m here. Give me all your sorrow, all your pain. It’s alright, I can bear it for you.”
Gladly accepting the offer, Aurelia clutches tightly at the diosa’s robes, sobbing and wailing for what feels like hours. Gradually, eventually, she tires of releasing her burden and goes limp, speaking in a quiet voice. “It took so many years for the news to reach me overseas.. So many damn years… My Zoraida has gone unmourned long enough. I must- I must see her.”
“You will, mi niña, you will.” Santa Muerte releases her hold and gestures to the path forward where, now that she’s cleared so many of the thorns, she can see the hillside graveyard nearby. “Your destination is atop that hill. You’ll find the grave there if you keep moving.”
Thinking back on her previous vision, a chill runs up Aurelia’s spine. “I have a bad feeling about what’s next.”
The diosa nods and pats her hand. “It is wise of you to think so.”
Exhausted, Aurelia forces herself up and leaves Santa Muerte behind, traversing onward. She is barely halfway through the next set of brambles before they slice into her left thigh. . . . . . .
“Excuse me, Señor, would you like to buy some flowers?” Nayeli can’t hide the trembling in her voice as she approaches and speaks to the nobleman, sat highly on his horse that towers above her small body. Her shaking only worsens when he turns to her with a cold glare.
“Who said you could speak to me? Get out of my way, peasant. Don’t you see I’m busy?”
His statement is clearly not true; Nayeli specifically chose to only talk to him when he was in-between vendors, when he wasn’t busy at all. “Oh, um, no one, Señor, my apologies, I’m just selling-”
“Why do you keep talking? How dare you even try to sell something to me. You’re filthy! Why would ever I buy from the likes of you?”
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“I-I’m sorry, Señor. I’ll leave-” Nayeli tries to swiftly exit, but the nobleman now feels a fury that he believes righteous. Clearly, the peasants need to be put in their place. From atop his horse, he leans down, snatches her hand, and yanks her back, ignoring her pained yelp from the force of his grip.
“Whose child is this?” He calls to the mercado crowd, ignoring the squirming of the girl below. “Who will answer for her lack of respect?” Not a single adult jumps to her defense, not even Azahar, who stays far back. Some have the decency to look ashamed, pitying Nayeli but holding their tongues. Others simply want the spectacle to end, caring nothing for the girl they have already written off as not human, a monster. Nayeli feels it, vicious and painful as it wraps around her heart: hatred. She hates them all for every unwarranted slight, curse, mockery, and abuse that cast her away. What had she ever done to them? She tried so hard to prove herself, to be good, but it was never enough. Was her despicable, unforgivable ‘crime’ simply being born?
With sorrow and rage swirling inside, Nayeli bites into the nobleman’s hand to force him to release her. “Ah!” he yelps with a dark scowl. “You little puta! You’ll pay for this!”
And with that, he tosses her violently to the ground. The mercado watches as Nayeli is thrown, all the flowers held in her grasp getting released into the air and onto the earth like raindrops from heaven. The closest to her hear a sickening crunch as the back of this most unlucky girl’s head lands on a sharp, protruding rock sticking out from the ground, piercing her skull. In shock, they witness her choked gasp, the twitching of her body as she lies flat on her back. In brief moments, she dies. All see the blood that pools out from the back of her head in a ghastly halo. . . . . . .
Breaking out of her vision, Aurelia vomits into the brambles beneath her. The image of that sweet child dead—murdered—plays back on a loop in her mind as she empties out the contents of her stomach. Her eyes burn with more tears, even though she thought herself emptied from crying into Santa Muerte’s shoulder. She trudges forward, and resolved to see what happened next, Aurelia grabs at a branch and pushes a thorn into her palm like a stigmata. . . . . . .
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The earth quakes. People scream in horror and terror. They watch the land open with a crack as Santa Muerte emerges from the ground, scooping up the dead Nayeli in her arms. With her boney fingers, she gently pulls the child’s wide eyes closed. Her cold, angry gaze sweeps around the crowd, and all fall to their knees in supplication. Even the nobleman hops off his horse clumsily to do so in panicked fear.
“You have dared to kill this child, my most precious one, for whom blood was sacrificed to put her on this earth.” The diosa’s voice booms like a roll of thunder as she speaks. “You have done great evil—all of you—for what you have done here, whether you killed, hurt, mistreated, or ignored her. You must face punishment for your wicked deeds.”
“Please, most holy one,” begs the nobleman. “Have mercy-”
Brambles erupt out from the back of Nayeli’s corpse and head straight for the nobleman. The sharp branches wrap around his limbs, his torso, his face, and twist. They tighten themselves around and pierce his form, earning pained scream after pained scream from his lips. With one final twist, the thorns pull outward and tear him apart, limb from limb, the plant eagerly drinking in his blood as nourishment as it flows out and showers down.
Santa Muerte looks around to the faces of the villagers, their shock and terror completely on display. The smile she gives them in return is hollow and thus all the more sinister. “No need to worry. Your punishments will not be nearly as severe. Rest now, mis niños.”
And with that, the thorns expand out and multiply, covering the entire village in one giant web. They sink their fine points into each and every resident’s skin, forcing them into the deepest of slumbers. Santa Muerte walks through the devastation, cradling Nayeli’s corpse in her arms, and journeys to the graveyard’s hilltop. . . . . . .
Aurelia pulls her hand back as the vision fades. Close by, she notices the rotting limbs of an old corpse. She spits at what was once the nobleman in disgust and keeps marching her way up the path to the graveyard. The closer she gets, the thorns lessen, thinning out as if clearing the way. Still, she can’t help but feel that some big piece of this puzzle remains missing from her visions, though she can’t put her finger on what.
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Passing through the graveyard’s gate, she spots a mound of vegetation resting at the top of the hill. Hoping it provides her the answer she seeks, Aurelia climbs upward, wounded but willing. She crests over the incline and finds a bed of flowers resting on a gravestone. The delightful colors all crowd around the still figure of Nayeli, trapped in a sleep-like death. Brambles wrap loosely around her bed like a protective cage. Glancing at the gravestone, Aurelia spots the two names it’s dedicated to: Zoraida and Óscar. Finally, at last, her journey has ended. She has reached her Zoraida once more. But still, the unmoving body of Nayeli draws all her sorrow and interest. Why is she here? Why has her corpse been laid across Zoraida and Óscar’s shared grave? Desperate for answers, Aurelia grabs the thorns encompassing Nayeli and pulls them apart. . . . . . .
Many years ago, in a small remote village, there lived a woman and a man who longed to have a child of their own. Their names were Zoraida and Óscar. It was all they wanted in the entire world, but after many attempts over the years, they always lost the child to either miscarriage or illness. Forever grief-stricken and almost depleted of all hope, they traveled to the hill above their village’s graveyard, got down on their knees, and prayed. For a whole week, they prayed without pause or reprieve on that highest point where they best felt someone, anyone, would hear their pleas. On the seventh day, amidst their supplication, Santa Muerte appeared—regal as ever.
“Hello, mis niños. I have heard your cries from on high and have been deeply moved,” announced the diosa. “I will grant your request, but it will come at a price. If you lay down your lives here and now, I will birth you a daughter formed from the very essence of the flowers themselves. The spring will follow in her every step as her constant companion. Her plants will always care for her every single need. And if any should dare to strike her down and bring death on another of your children, a terrible vengeance shall be reaped upon the land and those wicked individuals. She shall remain my ward always and forever. Do you accept this proposal?”
Zoraida and Óscar looked to each other with grim determination. They had resided in this village their entire lives, loved and been loved by all their neighbors. If they could trust any to care for their most wanted child, it would be this community.
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They had faith in their care and goodness. With tears in their eyes, the couple embraced and shared a parting kiss together. When Santa Muerte extended her boney hand to them, Zoraida and Óscar latched on and kissed the diosa’s white knuckles.
“Sí, sí, we accept,” Óscar said.
“Please, take our lives so our child may finally have the chance to live,” said Zoraida.
Santa Muerte grinned down at them and cradled the heads of her two subjects. “And what shall be her name?”
Glancing to Óscar for his nod of approval, Zoraida spoke with the softest of smiles etched across her face. “Nayeli, for it means ‘I love you’ and we want our child to always know that she is so deeply, deeply loved, no matter where life may take her.”
The diosa combed through their hair in a reassuring gesture. “An excellent choice. Nayeli she shall be.” And with that, she took the lives they had freely given her and transported their spirits to her eternal kingdom of death. Out from the earth, brambles emerged and wrapped around their bodies, draining the blood from their cold veins. These thorns absorbed all they could from their corpses until only bones remained, frozen in tangled worship. The power of their love flowed into the roots of a beautiful Aztec marigold growing between them, which blossomed into the largest of its kind ever seen. The bud remained unopened until a villager came upon the hill and screamed at the horrific, skeletal sight. Only then did the flower bloom and reveal a newborn baby resting inside, stained with an afterbirth of pollen, wrapped in a mossy blanket with the name “Nayeli” etched across its front.
And with that, in the villagers’ hearts, the terrifying Nayeli, la bruja de las flores, was born. . . . . . .
Aurelia receives her final vision and weeps. She weeps for Zoraida, for Óscar, for their beautiful daughter and her horrid fate. She reaches into the flower bed and gently lifts Nayeli’s perfectly preserved body out. She embraces the small girl and whispers to her over and over, “I’m so sorry, I should have been here to care for you, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”
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“Do you mean that?” Aurelia startles out of her grief at the sudden intrusion of the voice and sees Santa Muerte crouched down across from her, staring at her intently. “Do you really mean it, that you wish you could have cared for Nayeli?”
“Sí, of course!” She returns the diosa’s gaze directly, so she knows Aurelia speaks the truth—no lies or deception hidden in her words.
“Even if it meant laying down your life, here and now?”
Her next words form purely on instinct. “Even if it meant my life, I would gladly give it.”
The diosa watches her for a long, hard moment before breaking out into an unexpected grin. “No need for that. You have more than paid your weight in suffering, mi niña, so I shall give this opportunity to you freely. If you accept these terms, if you truly wish to care for this child—please, kiss her forehead.”
Confused but filled with the smallest of hopes, Aurelia leans down and kisses the top of Nayeli’s head as instructed, sending all her love, grief, and promises to protect this girl like her own daughter into the action. In the distance, thorns begin to recede. Bodies start to groggily become mobile once more. Noise permeates the air as children cry out for their mamás and papás, cranky from their naps. And as Aurelia pulls away, she discovers Nayeli, eyes open and blinking, awake after a long, death-like sleep.
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No Children, Mackenzie Goffe
Disturbing Silence
poetry by R. Shawntez Jackson
Listen to the munching of the geese, louder than the lake. Louder than traffic the scenebreaking through headphonesan open devourment of nature, the good the green, the innocence the pure hearted, the youngest and most coloredprecisely done in a group. Overtly menacing. Precisely done in a group. Not so quietly disturbing.
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The Reaching fiction
by Jude Anderson
Estrella asks if she can stay with me if Matéo doesn’t manage to find his way back to El Valle for their baby. She tells me she’s sure he wants to be a father but she’s not sure that he can move things around enough to be here. And this is where she wants to have this baby. She’s sure of him, always, and it makes me think he’ll find a way to be there. She’s asking just in case. I am a contingency plan.
We’re still standing in the airport terminal. Matéo isn’t joining her here—I already knew this—but she has a letter in her hand that ensures his presence eventually. Her eyes still don’t meet mine, and I wonder what I ever did that makes her believe I will not say yes to anything she asks. I study her shaking hands, even though she isn’t afraid of flying. I watch her watch planes land and take off, and then she turns to look at me for the first time since she landed in el Valle.
She tells me she doesn’t know how I did it, how I held a life inside of me and did not ask for help. I do not tell her that I didn’t know how, that I would have asked if I believed it would have changed anything. But here she is. Asking. So I say yes because I think it might change things here.
She sends the letter on the way home and four days later Matéo is on my doorstep.
(This is how I imagined Cosme coming home to me and our son. His uniform and rifle in hand but with a smile that was gentle and just for me and the baby in my arms. The way the baby would reach out for Cosme—even then, even before meeting his father, he’d know. He would know Cosme could keep him safe, and he would reach.)
Matéo can’t look away from her belly, and he has a smile that’s going to break through his face. She can’t look away from him either, even after all these years and distance. A week after that, he has bought a house in el Valle for the three of us and the baby. His face still has a similar smile, although it's softer, more settled. It won't break but only because he is sure—of Estrella, of me.
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I move in and can barely see her stomach growing. She’s tiny, so I figured I’d be able to tell earlier, but she stays small for so long that I forget she’s growing a life. Her clothes still fit her the way they’re supposed to. I force myself to remember she’s pregnant on days where I am questioning why Matéo lets me live inside of their home.
I give her clothes that used to fit my son when her son is still inside of her. She’s sure it’s a boy; I’m not sure how or why. She knows I kept the clothes, but when I hand them to her like something precious, she looks surprised. I think she expected me to have given these away the way I gave away Cosme’s clothes to Matéo. I do not tell her I will only give their things to people who matter to me. To people I love and trust. To people who have earned them—and she has done more than enough to earn them. “Aitana, this is—”
“They’ll serve a purpose again,” I say.
I don’t let her refuse the clothes even though she wants to, because having clothes for the next year of her baby’s life is a noble purpose, and I am tired of opening the drawer and seeing them when I reach for something that isn’t there anymore.
We don't talk about being a widow or a mother. She doesn’t mention Agosto or her other children. I don’t mention my son or Cosme even though we are all apart for different reasons. I almost ask about Silver and Violeta once, when her stomach is big enough that she stays inside most of the time. I know they are being taken care of by her parents, the only people she has in the states who know why she is here. I know Agosto is somewhere else, with someone else, and he doesn’t know about Silver’s existence, only Violeta’s.
I want to ask if she ever plans on telling him about Silver. I want to ask if this is the best choice, especially with her in el Valle for this long. I almost ask if she has ever given Agosto the opportunity to be a father the way she is bending over backwards to give one to Matéo. I don’t. I don’t know how or why they ended, and so I hold my tongue. I tell myself I don’t need to know about the past to be there for this child the way I can’t be for Violeta and Silver.
Agosto’s sister knows, though, about Matéo and this baby, so she comes by on Tuesdays with a small quesadilla Salvadoreña for us to share. I make the coffee and we sit and make plans for what will happen when the baby is born. She has questions
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about Silver and Violeta like I do, though she never asks them.
Consuela spent the first handful of years with them in her restaurant, feeding them the way she feeds Estrella now. A person cannot nurture children like that and not have questions for their mother when she is eight months pregnant in another country without those children.
I remember taking them to the river. I took Violeta only once, when she had just turned one and Agosto had just left them. I wanted it to bless her with the type of love she deserved. I wanted to show her that although the river is empty for most of the year, it means we can still love something even when it gives us nothing. Even with the shallow waters and dry trees we could still point to it and say we loved it and it loved us back.
I took Silver more often. His face would light up at the mango trees, small hands grabbing for the fruit. A mango was his first solid food. Lichas were his second, and I cut them in the palm of his hand so he felt like he was contributing. I know he was able to point to the water, to the leaves and fruit, and call it love.
Estrella begins to give birth on a Tuesday when Consuela is getting ready to leave. Bebe Matéo Espinoza Paredes del Valle—we all call him Bebe, or Teo—does not enter the world until early Wednesday morning with the rising sun and a battle cry no one had to hit him upside down for.
Estrella looks the most beautiful like this: as a mom. She finally has a place to put all of her love and it shows when she holds Teo close and lets herself close her eyes. Estrella looked like this after Violeta, after Silver, too. When she held their tiny bodies and filled them with love, I knew that this was what she was meant to do.
I take Teo with me everywhere, especially when Estrella is in one of her moods— when she locks herself in her room and believes herself to be a danger to Teo. I take him with me everywhere when Estrella believes it to be what is best for him. I know she is what’s best for him just like I know she will remember this soon.
Sometimes I think she’s remembering how difficult my pregnancy was. Like she’s making up for it somehow even though it’s no one’s fault. I want to tell her that, but it
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won’t help how she feels about her own child, so I hold it inside me. I place it between my second and third rib and leave it there while I run errands with the baby.
I repeat Estrella's name in my head. This child needs someone, will still need someone even when Estrella emerges from her room and understands her motherhood the way I do. I create a promise, a secret adjacent thing to hold close: this child will never know what it is to reach out and not find me already reaching back.
Three days later, Estrella comes out of her room and sits me down at the kitchen table. I’ve learned by now that kitchen tables are where she prefers to have serious talks. It gives her a sense of stability. Something solid to lean on, to support her when she needs it.
I let her make me coffee and she burns it a little bit. I wrap my hands around the mug and watch as she taps her fingers along the edge of the table. She’s working up to something, so I let her take her time. I’m halfway through the cup when she finally speaks.
Estrella asks me—begs like I've never seen her do for anything—to take care of Teo when she goes back. She says Matéo is going to go with her for a little bit, just for a week while she gets settled back into life there after so long here.
I create this scenario in my mind while Estrella talks: Matéo is at a nearby cafe when Estrella returns home for the first time. Estrella’s parents are yelling at her for leaving her children with them for so long, and they are asking when she will return to take care of her children here for longer than a few months at a time. Silver and Violeta are in the backyard and can hear bits and pieces—not everything. They won’t put together the pieces of the arguing enough to find out about Matéo or Teo. Estrella’s parents are not asking about Teo, and it takes her too long to realize they won’t. They don’t ask about Matéo either, but when he returns, of course he is the one to hold her while she cries about it. His hands, like Cosme’s, are better suited to hold a warm body than a rifle.
“How long?” I ask.
She looks at me, looks at the baby, and for the first time in maybe our whole lives, I can't read her mind. I can't see the twist of her mouth and the tears in her eyes and know.
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“A year, maybe longer. I’ll try to come back in the summer, but—”
“Your parents won’t want you to, will they?”
She shakes her head, and I reach for her hands to stop the drumming of her fingers. I remember, all at once, that Violeta and Silver don't have a father there. They don't have me, either. They need to have someone, and so she needs to go. I think we both come to this understanding at the same time.
Teo starts trying to crawl out of his highchair, feet kicking, arms swinging wildly. He cries out, so I take him and settle him in my arms. I rock him until he’s no longer crying. Only when he’s content do I look up at Estrella’s face. I don’t know what she’s thinking, again. All I can see is the desperation radiating off her like she doesn’t think I’ll say yes. Just like the airport, I wonder what I could’ve done to make her not believe I’ll say yes. I wonder what I can do now so she knows I’ll always say yes.
“Aitana, please.”
Teo squirms in my arms. I look down at him; maybe he knows what's about to happen. His hand reaches out, and I let him grab my finger. He settles back down, squeezing it. Teo lets out the world’s tiniest baby sigh, and it cracks open something inside me.
“Of course.”
The promise I made to this baby is burned into my brain. There is not a world in which I say no, where I make her take Teo to his siblings and a strange country and grow up without me to reach for.
“I will come back,” she says, like she's trying to convince herself.
“I know.”
Because I do. I know she will try and come back when she can. I know that she loves Teo more than she loves herself. I know that she will always be torn between Silver and Violeta and Teo. I know she will always feel guilty for everything, even if she says nothing.
She will say nothing, and I know this because when my baby died and I felt guilty, I said nothing. It wasn’t my fault; I am able to tell myself this after years. I am finally able to look at the memory of a baby I held inside of me and say that I did not kill him.
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Estrella won’t say anything about the guilt she feels, though she feels it. I could see it during the pregnancy before Teo was even outside of her body. I could see it on her face when Matéo was overly attentive, when he was bringing her everything she needed in bed because the last month was hard the way it was when she was pregnant with Silver. Boys seem to take a toll on her body, and I try not to think about the easy way Violeta came into the world or the nearly impossible way my son was born.
Matéo is there for all of it this time and anyone can tell he wants to be. Being a father suits him and he knows this. He fills the role confidently, deliberately. He is a caretaker by nature, and that includes unborn babies and Estrella and me.
I like to pretend I am a caretaker, also, but it is only because I am trying hard to make it seem like I am. I am trying hard to be there for Teo and Estrella. So I don’t point out her guilt because it won’t help. I tell her I’ll take care of Teo when she leaves, and I mean it.
We fall into a pattern when Matéo comes back without Estrella. We move Teo’s crib into Matéo and Estrella’s room, and I sleep on the side of the bed closest to the baby. Matéo sleeps on the side closest to the door. We do not wake up entangled in each other like I was worried we might. I was worried that with Estrella gone he would want comfort, but he doesn’t seem to need it, yet. He seems satisfied with almost daily phone calls that come right after dinner and bedtime routines that include only me and Teo. Matéo treats me gently, like something that could be blown away if the wind blew too hard or could be spooked if the door slammed too loud. He’s envisioning my son, sometimes, though he never got a chance to meet him. He almost starts to ask about him, but he stops himself.
I’m holding Teo the same way I held my son, and Matéo looks like he wants to say he’s sorry, like he wants to ask how it feels to hold a baby that does not belong to me. I don’t know how to tell him that with Estrella gone this baby will belong to us, which means this baby will belong to me.
“You can ask,” I say, and he looks now like he’s been caught—eyes wide and guilty, like he was doing something he shouldn't. “If you wanted to ask about my son, you can.”
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I don’t think about the significance of Matéo wearing a shirt I gave him years ago, Cosme’s second favorite. A powder blue button up, one he saved for special occasions. It was for moments he thought were important like our wedding and his father’s funeral. It’s Matéo’s everyday shirt, and I don’t think about that either.
He tries to tell me he wasn’t going to ask, but after months of this I know him well enough. It’s in the way his face looks half-sad, half-remembering.
“Ask.”
“Are you scared?”
Yes, the answer is yes. It is always yes.
I ask, “Of what?”
“Of history repeating itself.”
See, the answer is yes.
“It won’t.”
“Okay.”
There’s a small silence where Matéo looks at Bebe, and I know Matéo will always be scared of a history he did not live through. Until this baby is an adult, until he lives a full life, Matéo will be remembering my baby and his death. I do not tell him I am doing the same.
“It won’t,” I say. “We don’t know how it happened, but it won’t happen with Teo.”
He doesn’t say anything, so I try again.
“Cosme never met him. It was me and Estrella, for his whole tiny life. And this baby will have you and Estrella and me.”
“Do you think Cosme would’ve been a good father?”
What he really means is, “Do you think I can be a good father?”
I say yes, to both of his questions. . . . . . .
We continue our routines, and we parent Teo together, and we fall into something that feels like we could call it family if we had to call it something. He starts waking up closer to me, and I stop trying to sleep on the edge of the bed. We share the blanket instead of bringing out the one from the hall closet and sometimes I feel his breath on my shoulder when I wake up in the morning. I feed Teo when he wakes up in
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the middle of the night, and Matéo changes his diaper before he feeds him in the afternoon.
There is stability and solidness, even without Estrella here. Matéo blows a raspberry on the baby’s belly and watches the way his face lights up with bright eyes that match his own. Estrella was right, fatherhood suits him, looks better than okay on him. He looks like he was meant to do this.
Teo’s first word is “papa,” and I will not tell Estrella this.
Teo’s second word is “mama,” and he says it to me at breakfast, and I will not tell Estrella this either.
When Matéo has run out of time he can take off from work, I take care of Teo alone. I take him to the river where I’d taken Violeta and Silver and where I would’ve taken my own child had he stayed alive long enough. Teo reaches for the trees like Silver did, and I see so much Estrella in him that I want to cry.
All of her children, and her, should be together. Teo should be able to grow up with an older sister who will tease him but teach him everything she knows. He should be able to grow up with Silver who will pour an endless amount of love into him like another parent. He should be able to grow up with more people who love him, but instead he has me. He has me and Matéo and sometimes Estrella.
Teo will always have two parents, I think, staring at the shallow water running over the tiny pebbles I can only barely see. When Estrella is gone, he has me and Matéo. When Matéo is gone, Estrella will be back, and so he will have me and her. I don’t think I will ever be gone, but if I am, he will have Matéo and Estrella together.
He will be so loved here, with this river and Consuela’s restaurant and Matéo’s house and my arms holding him, but he deserves more. This is another thing I will not tell Estrella. I will not question how she parents because I believe that even if she is making the wrong choices, she is doing them for the right reasons. I believe she has thought about all of the options, and this is what she thinks is going to hurt the least for everyone.
I do not know if I believe that, but I believe in her. I always have.
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review of The Way Back
poetry collection by Edward Gunawan
What is home? A place, mirage, an amalgamation of our minds or all of these components and more. Edward Gunawan simultaneously asks, rejects, and confirms what family entails in its most raw and unabashed forms. The way back asks why exactly we believe in the things we do; encroaching readers' ideals in seminal moments of fear, shame and truth. Traditional morals enacted by default are represented and tested through Gunawan’s polarizing imagery that didactically guides us from arrival to transcendence.
Gunawan begins with a detailed and instruction-like experience of the seemingly monotonous process of renewing a passport, yet upon further rumination one cannot ignore the blatant issuance of fear and conformity that lies in perception. He adheres to social dynamics of immediately categorizing himself and in turn issues reflection on the reader as to why queerness need be justified or explained as a point of reasoning ones existence. This fearful voice, tangible and seemingly always on guard is directly juxtaposed with untethered and abstract metaphors of individuality. Gunawan poetically kindles simultaneously burning themes of identity, colonization, nationalism and reveals its controlling mechanisms manifested in family and oneself.
for you are not correct by default and I’m not wrongwrongwrong – one of the most memorable lines I am sure I will ever come across in poetic writing, is the freeing ending to a well placed poem in the middle of Gunawan’s collection that asserts and defends the boundless nature of language. Throughout he creates mysterious and melancholic dejavu, moments that seem all too familiar to many queer people of color while remaining uniquely specific to Gunawan’s Indonesian born-Chinese immigrant experience. Epigraphs and homage to poets Craig Santos Perez, Natalie Diaz and Audre Lorde encapsulates an affinity for diasporic and intersectional writing that Gunawan so
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masterfully engages in. In short, I had no real critique of his work. Well perhaps I hoped there would be more poems, but as it lays this body of work is exceptional in all regards. While tonal shifts are strikingly chaotic and each poem is intricately woven with wonderful contradiction, there is no mistaking Gunawan’s commanding voice that one is compelled to listen to again and again.
Oli Villescas Poetry Editor
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eyes of a conductor, Oscar Dominguez
