Foundation

I.

November 18, 1993

I have seen Time Magazine’s “The New Face 

of America” before. She is my sister

or my cousin or that distant auntie.

The auntie that calls indígenas savages.

America is computer-generated familial,

morphing to create the kind of offspring

that can eat the sun whole. Her eyes

sing an egalitarian promise but I

know when she lies. The nation

desires brown flesh only as long

as it remains theoretical, like a costume

it uses to scare itself in the mirror. 

Rejected, I used to obsess over Aztec 

deities as if they could quell my hunger 

for place. Mestizaje offered fortification 

from empire with empire. But when I spoke

to my mother about Coatlicue, she  

could not see herself in the earth, 

prayed to the Virgen de Guadalupe instead. 

If only my ancestors still talked to me,

perhaps I would not be at the whim

of rebranding nations. 


II. 

DNA test tries to tell me I am not who I imagined myself to be. Percentage points are allotted to scattered kin who may or may not know I exist. Continents pangea into one another like a collapsing star. The gods I was supposed to worship dance upon my cartography. The God I learned to worship becomes ink. Catholicism drips from my map like a stain. I trace voyages along oceans, chart the trails that allegedly led to my conception. I never take a DNA test.


III. 

My past holds

Too many secrets.

I will never hear.

A story

Of silences

Imbued.

Where do I come from?

A breath.

A breaking.

A dream Realized.

I am a place 

Reaching

For its own foundation.


IV. 

Please forgive me for forgetting  

That which I never witnessed, 

Myths I was never told. I know

I’ve been a bad son but 

Remember I am but a pebble thrown

Into the river of time.

I can build a dam but not alone. I can

Remake myself but not alone.

I will not speak for you. I haven’t

The right to. You do not know

Who I am, or perhaps you know exactly

Where I’ve been. I welcome you

Into the caverns within me. Be sure

Not to get lost among the crystals.

I want to anchor my dream of a

Decolonial somewhere 

To your being. How can I know

Something different without

Tracing something different? How 

Do I build from a corroded base?


V. 

My two languages are colonized. 

Como serpientes me envuelven,

A patchwork of scales and skin.

Me asusta la fuerza de mi voz,

My sharp words cause ruptures

En nepantla pero esa palabra

Is not mine to claim, not mine.

Quisiera tanto tener comunidad,

To know the original source of 

Mi cultura pero nunca lo sabré.

I search inside my own becoming

Busco mi pasado en lo que seré.