First Gen (Excerpt)
He shook his head and stared at his drink. They fell silent again, both wrapped up in their own thoughts. She wondered if he had secretly been a homophobe this whole time. He wasn’t sure how vulnerable he felt like getting right now. A waiter asked if they needed to be topped up, but they didn’t hear. The tension was unbearable.
i do not remember my roots
Mommy, I want a relaxer, you said. You did want one, your desire was genuine. You listened to their lies and deceived yourself. Later, you would learn, you just wanted the words to stop. Beauty hurts, but assimilation sears.
(God, don’t––)
What if I panic and let my anxiety take over and I shake things up in a desperate attempt to please her but my chaotic good turns to chaotic evil and tremors too violent pass through and everything we had falls through the cracks as our shared world splits back in twoTried to stop the hurt innumerable (∞) times but it keeps getting worse
Safe Space Asado De Boda by Antonio Viramontes
The year was 1988, it was a particularly foggy morning in mid-late October; the kind of morning where you could smell the grass and taste the dirt simply by opening the front door. The fiestas honoring the patron saint of El Cargadero, a small rancho in the mountains of Zacatecas Mexico, were just a few days away; the crisp air had that wonderful feeling of eagerness and anxiety.
Besties
Her stitches look like letters on her mouth, and I wonder if it hurts to talk about the versions of ourselves we left in our mothers’ photo albums. I think I liked her more before the gold teeth and the fade, before we both came out and had to start fighting about the girls I’m dating who aren’t her.
A Nihilist
When I was younger, I hoped I would grow up to be someone worth talking about. Someone whose work reached hundreds of people. Now, I’m in my 20s and became none of these things. The world changes so much and so quickly and I stay the same. And maybe that’s the charm in all this.
