i said goodbye to the desert spit out a few grains of rust and sand as i sat in the back of my mother's grand marquis i was bidding farewell to the long plaid skirt i wore to school every day the school that was mercifully unmarred by bullets the glitter on the popcorn ceiling of my grandparents' home the smell of an overwhelming saturday evening which stank of discarded waste and cigarettes we were going somewhere special goodbye nuevo laredo
eight years later i said goodbye again to a neat little home nested tightly amongst the bricks of others a hilly backyard bluebonnets sashaying on the side of the highway mexican restaurants every three blocks that could never replicate what i once had stars and stripes holding steady in the shade of a sycamore tree a glittering city in the distance i was in love and i was going somewhere special
i was elated to escape both of my previous lives always finding myself awash with uncertainty adrift as i committed and uncommitted to a series of distractions from the beastly recesses of my pruned little brain that snarled about hopelessness abandonment a lack of worth and motivation maybe i knew i was meant to run since the moment of implantation
my new neighborhood is impeccably silent at night no hollers to strain my ears for no ominous pop-pop-pops (was that a firework or could it be...) no jovial music with thundering basses and large round drums i eat pork drenched in teriyaki sauce and drink green tea in the evenings on the train, i gaze at the empty stares of other passengers my gaze is also unreadable i practice the strokes of a kanji one, two, three... my husband and i meander through temples heavy and groaning with the weight of a thousand years of life benevolent buddhas and Cheshire-grinned demons i can't help but think of the message of a western God that my mother recited to me every night in the black of our room sometimes i shuffle my feet in the square space of my living room to the tune of cumbia
i used to think that i didn't have an identity no confinement to a culture conceived by the likes of men but i am what i am and i never actually escaped