A Taste of The Night Sky

The Poets Always Say

One day, I woke up able to taste colors. I remember it clearly, my lips were stained a vibrant red from the agua de jamaica that I had guzzled down before promptly dozing off on the colorful hammock that hung from a tree in the front yard. A bee had been buzzing around my lips but flew off once I opened my eyes; any courage it had been working up to land on me had left the poor being once I opened my eyes.

As the buzzing grew distant, I sat up, the rocking, sinking feeling of the hammock only adding to the initial disorientation as my small body got lost amongst the quicksand-esque of the remaining textiles of the hammock I didn’t fill. My cheek stung with the outline left behind by the turquoise and crimson cords interwoven into a unique pattern. The faintest scents of anise, quesillo, and chapulines still clung to the cords after the jammed journey they had all shared on their way from Mexico.

I rubbed my eye with a textured hand, feeling the indents left from the hammock against my eyelid. The splotches of sunlight that the big tree allowed past only added to the soft throbbing starting to

A yawn rippled past my lips, and the lulling sensation the hammock provided only encouraged me to sleep a bit more. I almost did before my mom called out to me once again from the shaded porch where she stood on the rickety wooden step right below the entrance of our trailer. She wore a pair of faded jeans and a nice salmon-colored blouse. Her hair was slicked back with gel to make her ponytail look proper. She held up two shirts, and I squinted, barely able to tell that they were shirts as the sudden flash from the sun made the golf ball textured trailer door and off-white, thin aluminum coating of the trailer nearly blinding to look at. Thankfully, a cloud floated past the blinding sun, making it bearable to see again.

Before I could call out to her, asking her what she had called my name for, she held up two shirts — a forest green shirt and a gold shirt, the designs long faded — before asking which I wanted to wear to my kindergarten orientation.

“Green.”

The moment the word left my sweet-stained lips, a fresh taste washed over my tongue. The crisp cool, mild savor of cucumber singed my tastebuds; the sweetness of the hibiscus iced tea long gone.

I swung a leg over the hammock, nearly falling as I scrambled to my feet. My head drummed as I made my way to my mom, and my tongue tingled.

“Mami-”

I paused in confusion as another batch of tastes washed over my tongue. This time it was the freshly baked warmth of thin sesame bread that rolled over my tongue. What I had thought was just an odd occurrence from a color turned out to be much more.

I ran to my mom, hitting my shin against one of the steps as I grabbed her leg, confused as to why all these tastes danced across my tongue every time I spoke.

“Mami! Mami! I taste- I taste words!”

Sesame bread. Sesame bread. Basil. Green water-based jello.

She told me to stop being ridiculous, but after I kept insisting, she promised that she’d schedule an appointment with the pediatrician. I agreed and kept silent about the whole ordeal, impatiently waiting for my father to arrive to take us to school.

Of course, I had a few test words, curious as to what they would entail.

My favorite number — eleven— tasted like lemon-lime soda.

My mother’s name tasted like pink flower petals. My father’s name tasted like peanuts.

And my sister’s name, unfortunately, tasted like mamey sapote when it should have tasted like a bitter banana if anything.

I said my name — what I was called at home anyways — and was greeted by the sweet, bitter taste of tamarind. It was good enough. Totally better than the creamy, sweet goodness of mamey sapote.

I don’t remember much after that, only recalling hiding behind my father’s leg as he did all the talking to my teacher. My hands clutched his pants in my fists, shyly peeking out at the older woman as she asked what my name was, and my father answered.

It was different than the one that I was called at home.

She repeated a butchered version of it and once again my father repeated himself. Saying the name so many times that I could never forget. He didn’t stop until he deemed my teacher’s attempt good enough.

This was the first and only time anyone ever fought for my name.

On the way home, in the back of the white truck, as norteño’s rumbled throughout the car, I said my name.

I was greeted by an indescribable taste, no words could possibly encapture all the flavors that my name held under wraps. I wasn’t even sure if I had ever eaten anything that was a fragment as delicious as the tastes that my name induced.

For that day, I loved my name.

That love got squashed quicker than a spider (which tastes like sawdust.)

The first day of school already made me nervous enough -- I was even longing for my sister to stay by my side, which she didn’t. She just dropped me off at my class before walking off and leaving me to fend for myself.

I kept silent, still cautious about my words and their tastes. The anxiety of the new environment and unfamiliar faces only added to my silence. However, it didn’t take long before I had to speak. The teacher was calling everyone’s names, and name after name passed as I waited for mine. Soon, there were just three kids whose names hadn’t been called.

There was a pause, a silence that hung in the air like humidity on a summer’s day after a thunderstorm.

Then, she called out my last name. She apologized as she asked me to say my name, and I did, saying it as loudly as the tight sensation in my throat allowed. The indescribable taste of my name helped ease me as I tried not to think about how my name was the only one she had to do this to. I had just been expecting to say I was there and then move on.

I had been dreading those few seconds when everyone would turn and look at me, but now those few seconds were dragging into eternity as she repeated what was supposed to be my name.

She asked if she had said it right, and I said no, and she asked me to repeat myself.

I did, but the same thing happened, time and time again.

My sweet name rolled off my tongue but got messed up on hers.

As eternity stretched on, my face grew hotter, my hands got sweatier, and tears beaded in the corners of my eyes, as I wished for my dad to come back; for him to teach her until she got it right because I couldn’t do as good of a job. I felt more and more like dying as I could feel everyone staring at me as my teacher seemed to purposefully say my name wrong and then had the gall to ask if she had gotten it right.

It was too much for me, and I resigned, agreeing that her last attempt had been correct, and repeated it back. It sounded wrong on my tongue, instead of the taste I loved, a bitter, hot, moist sensation engulfed my tongue.

I recoiled but was glad that it was over and that this isolated incident wouldn’t make me say that name again, so I would never have to taste it ever again.

However, my endeavors were only beginning. Introduction after introduction, person after person, and year after year, the same thing happened. At first, I tried. I would say my name, but a shy child can only take so many public embarrassments before they just agree, just to move on.

I’ve gone by many names, but never by my real one.

Even my family calls me by the nickname I was seemingly assigned since birth.

As time went on, and crying in the bathroom after attendance became more and more shameful, I grew to hate the name I had lovingly repeated over and over the day I learned it. I hated saying it. I hated saying the variants. I hated spelling it. I hated even seeing it among the other names since it looked like someone had smashed a keyboard against a

I remember the first time that I screamed at my parents, asking them why they would damn me with a horrible name. Asking them why they gave me such a complicated name when they gave my sister a simple name and a middle name. Asking why I got a spelling error for a name and no middle name. They tried to reason with me,

A shy child who broke into tears and whose voice became mute when brought the front of the class for any reason, and that same sensation happened when it came time for attendance because of my name.

I cried, asking them why they couldn’t have named me something simple like Maria. The name tasted like chocolate. I would love to say that name over and over again, although the simplicity of it wouldn’t require it.

If they had wanted a name not as widely used then there was Cecilia - which tasted like watermelon. I love watermelon. Who didn’t?

And if they were so hellbent on making my name start with one of the least used letters of the alphabet, there was Ysabella which tasted like lavender lemonade. A touch of commonality with a flare of uniqueness.

And I grew to hate my father, the man who had damned me with the name.

Funny how the man who was once my savior all those years ago became the villain.

It was like that for my entire adolescence, a screaming, crying match every time my name was brought up. It wasn’t until I was older, becoming an adult in the eyes of the law, that I finally asked a question I had always been asked by others.

“Why did you name me my name?”

I remember that my father was sitting in his recliner, eating chocolate - which funnily enough, tastes like apples - and my mother was at the kitchen island, kneading bread.

I saw my mother glance at my father who took a few seconds to chew the chocolate before he spoke.

“Whenever I was a child, I heard the story of a goddess who created the stars in the night sky that I looked up to every night. I fell in love with the name and I wanted to name you after her. I wanted the spelling to be unique, just like a star in the night sky. After the goddess of the stars and moon, Citlālicue.”

Citlālicue tastes like agua de jamaica.

That day I broke down into tears, unable to stop crying as all my years of hating my name suddenly slapped me in the face. All the variations I had greenlit when deep down in my heart I knew it was wrong made me feel as though I was drowning, suffocating on all those inaccuracies I encouraged because I couldn’t see the beauty in my name although I could taste it. der, buttons, fruit nets, fabric, and yarn). soft pastel, collage, artsticks, graphite pow -

My name may not be a simple one like the ones I had longed for all my life, but it’s mine alone. Ever since that day, I’ve tried my best to go by my real name, not some cheap alternative that never tasted right. Some days I relent and give an alternative name, habits are hard to grow out of, especially ones that I’ve kept up for about fifteen years, but the bitter taste that dances along my tongue serve as a reminder.