by Jasmine Dillavou
Where we come from is closely related to how we die out. Some sprinkle into ash trays in Cuban bars with topless girls and dry aged tobacco. Some just die out. Much like infertile wombs. Much like stolen lunch boxes. Much like the first time you cut all your hair off, and your mom doesn’t talk to you for a while.
Our parents all look and speak a little different and our skins are pierced up in shapes a little different.
Rosary blood or pressed linen blood.
But we all save our prom corsages.
We all saved our baby teeth, Some of us just swallowed them up whole.
But I know that my feet came out first then my heart then a bunch of dried grass from my family’s graveyard then my blood, all at once. It smelt dry and forgotten in the room.
My sister was born hands first, prayer style. Asking to be saved by white doctors with blue gloves. Her lungs were filled up with June Bugs crunchy and dead. We saved them in a jar for two years, until she needed to make a trade.
When I disappear, they’re going to slip me back into the sea water where my Taino family will coat me in sand.
My flowers will all come back.
My sister is going to quietly walk into the snow before the night stars explode without warning.
Shes going to rewrite her brown anarchy.