If I were a

A warrior

My eyes would look at the sun—

The sun which did not nearly caress me as long as it should have—

And see Huitzilopochtli.

Or maybe

Tezcatlipoca?

Instead, they watch it,

just to see it dive into the horizon and remember

what it means to wake up every day and survive

in a place that does not

understand

If I were

“de Guanajuato,”

These lips would talk

—Nahtual, Totonaco, Mazateco?

—And never shut up

Instead, they stay sealed

to speak two tongues.

Ninguno que fueron una

Opción

If I were a

“cihuatl,”

my body would know the jungle—

or forest? Mountains?

— and make eyes out of the trees,

To tell Montezuma when danger was near,

And perhaps, he’d

Listen.

Instead, espera en una casa

like a sheep in the

herd

of everyone like me.

Watching from a distance,

thousands of miles away

and

thousands of years later.

Header image by Aylene Lopez