my mother is the type of woman
who smiles like sunshine when speaking
someone must be lucky enough to hear her english words trip over each other
when they cocked their head
and furrowed their brow
saying “this is america – learn english!”
in petty facial expressions
my mother lingers at the edge of her sentences, a cliff she hasn’t jumped from in years
too embarrassed to say nevermind
so to whoever told my mother to learn english
i want you to know that when she thinks i’m sleeping
my mother sits alone
and reads the dictionary out loud
i wake up to
incomprensible
no
incomprehensible
no
my mother tries 3, 4, 5 times to stretch her mouth around english
rehearsing until the words are no longer out of tune
so to whoever convinced my mother she was nothing
turned her on herself
wrung life out of her skin until the word “immigrant” could crack her
i want you to know that i watched my mother sit silent through dinner
when my father’s friends yelled
“oh my god did you hear that? she said leesen! what is leesen? do you mean listen?”
i want you to know that my mother plucked her caterpillar eyebrows raw
when her coworker said “you know, unpopular opinion: i think frida kahlo’s ugly…”
i want you to know that my mother spread bleaching creams on her face
until the burning brought tears to her eyes
because a girl in my first grade class asked “why is your mommy brown?”
i want those friends, that coworker, that little girl to know that my mother is history
of moving to a country with her mind and two cents
of hearing “be like us” and mistaking it for “welcome home”
of shoving that mind in her pocket when she was told she had too many opinions
that immigrants like her had to earn the right to speak up
my mother is history
of being handed soggy crumbs from the back of america’s mouth and seeing opportunity
my mother made a life out of the rotten scraps you threw at her
my mother bears the andes mountains on her shoulders
she is salsa hospitality in heaping spoonfuls
holding the moon’s glint in her eyes
with palms that push and pull oceans of pain
my mother is not your savage
your illegal
your alien
she may not be her own yet, but my mother was certainly never yours
her self hatred is a leash you are losing your grip on
because there are days when my mother lets her face lie bare
lets her coarse hair grow into stubble
lets her dictionary gather dust in its drawer
my mother’s tongue is learning that it doesn’t need to wrap itself around english
it already has too much amor
too much vida of its own
my mother’s tongue,
her voice,
her body
claim themselves a little bit more every day
your grip is loosening