CROCODILE TEARS

Something in me is quite old and it evokes itself in Latin—it twists and it burns in my stomach. Something in me tells me I am a liar for writing in a language that wasn’t given to me—my English heritage is not an excuse for my words. I was raised in Portuguese. Something in me screams in French and a few molecules whisper like Alejandra Pizarnik. There’s this thing. This quiet thing in me that won’t let me fall asleep knowing I am giving up on something—if I stay true to myself I’ll become a foreigner in my own land—if I stay true to the South American waves I’ll lose chunks of me ; they’ll invade other girls’ dreams. They’ll be all that I am here to be. But I can’t stay true to myself if I stay faithful to you. Capital F. Staring at us from each inch of the tablecloth—Looking down to our feet. Scanning our clothes. Observing our plates. How full are they ? How full are we ? Did you pray ? Are you displaying your napkin gracefully ? Why is your cup so full of grape juice ? Why is it on the left side ? Cross your legs. Uncross your arms. Chin up, but not too high. Smile. Smile less, it’s ugly. Eat more. Eat less. Pray. Obey. Stay shut. Why aren’t you talking ? Why are you talking so much ? Why are you never here ? Why are you always here ? Are you being a good girl ? Why are you such a prude ? Be less. Be nothing. That’s the capital F. The soil under my feet—the one that boils. Capital F. All over my DNA—I cannot escape it. It bleeds from both sides. Should I be faithful to you ? Will you write me back once I am ? If I behave like a good little nothing. Will you hug me ? Or say that I look pretty, capital F ?

 

There’s something quite embarrassing in admitting such a thing. That it bleeds/that it is flawed/that the " traditional family" did not work on me like it was supposed to. But I love everything that made me. I love every single soul. Every eye. Every drop of blood. That might be the hardest part—I love them all. Maybe it’s because I grew up learning to forgive—under the colorful holy lights that bled through the walls. The double bell rings. The bread. The promise of a better tomorrow—I will stay faithful to you/for you. But I can’t let go of the bits of me that became a poet in a language I stole from ancestors who never dreamt of my existence. I learned English at the ripe age of six because my tongue was tied and I was too shy to speak. I had flawed R’s—I could not speak the language given to me. I could not speak. I couldn’t even look you in the eyes. But I did read a book or two in Portuguese. But still, I would rather read in English because I knew that my R’s wouldn’t sound like L’s. I learned to speak properly. I understood how our mouth works and how sounds become words and how words have a lot of meaning. I learned how to hide the performative manners, how to eat like they did—that made me be a good little something. I was a good little something until I started to feel IT boiling in my stomach. I was everywhere—I cannot stop it—no one could ever stop fate and I hated it/I was horrified of being human. Flesh/bones/words they couldn’t pronounce/saliva/love/sweat/vomit/bile/chipped nails/sin/rut/smells/fat/organs—mortal. Finite. English, French, Spanish, German, Russian, Latin. Hell, I was everything except what runs through my veins. And it feels like crocodile tears are running down my cheeks because I need to write until these doomed limbs are accepted into heaven. Maybe, if I do, you know ? End up there ? Maybe I won’t have to explain myself anymore or, Maybe I will ; not even I understand myself/I fear I shall burn/twist and turn/spit words in Latin in your tongue and call it love.

 

And, I fear I lost something inside a pseudo-foreigner face because I cannot find any marks on my body that prove how Im made of the South American sun/how there’s sea salt under my nails/how my cheeks burn under the everlasting summer heat. I keep trying to speak like a native but… Hell. I am making no sense. And I named the sun ‘the dying star’ like it could mean something—hollow bodies. Cups of tea. Ocean waves that sang to me. It does not make sense. All that glitter is not gold and I will never have the same weight in any other language/in any other sentence. The dying star will keep on burning and little girls will have bruised knees from praying on the cold yellow bathroom tiles, Forever. We cannot deny what grows and growls inside of us—we could never stop it from being evoked in bits of us no one could ever translate/feel/bleed/know. You could never speak the dead language I made up in my head as a little girl. And I could never be the good little nothing who would never see the words as more than just symbols, and God as something bigger than an eerie painting hanging above our eyes in math class. It burns and it turns/I think I am about to throw up. Puto me lacrimaturam esse/Puto me vomituram esse.