Pour Vida Zine Issue 5.1 (Fall 2017)

Table of Contents “Revelations: My Magick” by Eli T. Mond………………………………………………………...…………….3 “To the Frogs or Whomever” by Garrett Mostowski……………………………………………………….4 “(Even in My Darkest Hour) Saboo Leh, India” by Michael Raj………….…………………………..4 “Julia’s Flesh” by Labecca Jones……………………………………………………………………………..…….5 “Rhetorical Questions” by Paul Kindlon………………………………………………………………………5-6 “Analyzing” by Katie Traeger……………………………………………………………………………….…….7-9 “Sana Sana Sana” by Abra J. Espitia……………………………………………………….………...……10-21 “When the Dust Finally Settles” by Holly Day………………………………………………………………21 Cover artwork by Timothy James William Hill III To be considered for upcoming issues of Pour Vida lit zine, please send submissions of writing and artwork to pourvidazine@gmail.com

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“Revelations: My Magick”

by Eli T. Mond I. When I wake in the middle of the night, And find myself wrapped in sheets of black satin, My senses are unmoved by the darkness, For darkness is but inverted light, Harmless to the eyes of a soul such as mine.

When I wave my hands to and fro, And my fingers tear through matter like daggers Through the flesh of sacrificial hearts, Things move about in ways largely left unexplained To the minds of the uninitiated.

II. My Magick—Black in every way—consumes.

It is a savage beast of unbridled might, Covered in skin, soft to the touch, but reptilian In its behavior; in its ability to die and be born again In the image of something greater than it once was.

My Magick—older than time itself—creates.

It is a perfect union; an ancient system; The blending of, otherwise opposite, energies Into something supple, something sweet— Something destined to rise above its state of unknowing. ***

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“To the Frogs or Whomever”

by Garrett Mostowski midnight’s fingers rub lidded eyes till they fill with blood her melatonin-laced yawns stifle my croaking over crickets crickets lull songs she composed planting poppy between each note obtuse owls hooting applause forget we’re only just beginning her breath kisses my neck, combs my hair, massages my shoulders shiny leaves hanging nearby flash repeatedly secretly wishing they lived as long as stars charisma will replace order soon but I still wish the moon would be my sun ***

(Even In My Darkest Hour) Saboo, Leh, India by Michael Raj

Even in My Darkest Hour, If i had never met you, I would knock on Death's Door And Beg to be Let in.

Inside you, I Find Divine Treasures.

Forbidden Knowledge.

Man was not meant to feel This Paradise, till he was a flower with roots 6 feet under.

We do not talk, but exchange volumes of vocabulary, definitions of love, war & peace, between every breath and beautiful words we make.

When it is over, nirvana is reached. And I know man was not meant to be alone, and he will never be deserving of the passion & heart of a woman. ***

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“Julia’s Flesh” by Labecca Jones She is drawn to him like maggots to rot-flesh diving in sucking, breathing pus and blood covering her body with his stench wrapping him around herself to hide to dive away. From what?

I wonder wandering the walls of her home: children’s shoes, stained clothes, a comforter so old the moose’s antlers fade to barely-perceivable grays gazing with white-out yes beyond the fuzz and the fur.

How does she live eating disease in her decade attempt to digest what consumes him? *** “Rhetorical Question” by Paul Kindlon Who was that who ran wildly after school instead of playing war with Timmy and opened the bird cage so Willy could fly about freely, but especially so he could follow you around fluttering happily above and behind his favorite kid in the whole house while you led him down the corridor and through the hallway to your bedroom whose door was open until you

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slammed it shut knowing full well that Willy was right behind ready to enter with you, but who came crashing into the suddenly closed door instead bashing his tiny blue head with a bump you could hear as you stopped inside the room where no one but you knew what happened or why and where you stood in awe and shock as if surprised by the effect you intended but now regret because you’re not that way or so you thought until this moment as you fear the consequences after mom finds out which will be soon so you hide and pretend you don’t know while you wait for the bird to be found hopefully alive because you don’t want it to die really or so you try to convince yourself as footsteps draw near and a frightening scream is heard which forces you to open the door and see the work you’ve done on the floor with its feathered torso breathing heavily as if trying to pump back more life by filling up with more air while you watch with remorse and a sickening feeling that maybe you do know who you are as mom takes the bird into her palms and carries him back to his cage telling you that you should have been more careful because birds have wings and need unhindered space to fly through freely, you see, which is something you knew all along, but you act like this is fresh news and express your regret hoping that maybe Willy will make it through with only a few bruises, but when you see him lying in his cage with weakened eyes and breathing slower now you know that soon your soul will change forever and that you’ll

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have to live with the fact that you murdered an innocent animal who loved you - even sang for you - and who still, even at this late stage, stares at you in wonder with a puzzled look on his broken face and beads of blood slowly dripping down over sad sleepy eyes that finally close making you burst into tears as your mother consoles you without having the slightest idea that she gave birth six years ago to a monster who still has the power to close a door quickly at any time.

*** “Analyzing” by Katie Traeger I mean you start analyzing analyzing everything until you get tired of that and you start analyzing your analyzing and analyzing that and analyzing that until finally snap you see there’s nothing here but analyzing analyzing itself but by now you’re addicted like the banana fish and you can’t get out and it turns bad very bad and it’s going to explode you * but you try to make a go of it you know

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in the real world but you have to deal with the long limbs lean radiant pulse and you’re asking is this it is this it is this it and time pours out and you’re asking does this matter does this matter does this and the whole time you know nothing matters but the fact this is happening analyzing analyzing itself and this is the most beautiful thing of all * but still it makes you sick there is no real understanding understand this ha ha it could be very funny. * So then you drop another question on yourself from thousands of years past and guess what the answer is the same the same the world including you snaps inside your mind and that’s it that’s it and

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now it’s not bad it really is the answer and you knew this the whole time too but of course you couldn’t tell anyone including yourself so you try to make another go of it jostled a bit but not too bad the universe doesn’t care. * Disappeared they’ve disappeared and now they’re really not coming back and your question is were they you ever here to begin with. * Doesn’t care. * Into black hole out no relation to what went in now what slipping * spraying pouring out at the edge * analyzing analyzing analyzing analyzing analyzing. ***

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“Sana Sana Sana”

by Abra J. Espitia Nombre de paciente: Cardenas, Alanza DOB:07.12.1982_ Age: _5___ Diagnosis: Bilis___ I was about 5 or 6 years old when I went to live with Tita and Abuelo in Coleman, Texas. According to mom it was only temporary, just until she could save up enough money to move to a big city called “Dallas” and get “us” out of San Angelo. She was pregnant with my baby brother and Dad was working in another state for the time being, in Georgia or Alabama, I can’t really remember.

I was ecstatic. The idea of getting to stay with Tita and Abuelo and see Chalina or “Chali”, my favorite cousin, who was always staying with them too, seemed more of a vacation than an alternative to paying for childcare. We’d get to play together and we could start working on our Cowgirls of Central Park dance routine and help Abuelo and Tita do their magia.

Abuelo was a strong silent type but every once in a while with persistent begging, Chali and I could get a story out of him. His stories were a way of keeping the tenuous link between the past and the present; he was the descendent of a culture that had almost lost their entire history, burned in the streets at the feet of holy men. Buried underneath the Spanish Empire, Abuelo said we didn’t even speak the same language of our ancestors. It was lost along with everything else. The only records that remained were the stories passed down through the oral tradition and the enigmas etched in stone, still being deciphered by archaeologists today.

One morning while Tita was preparing a huge, delicioso mexicano breakfast for four, I asked Abuelo about the story of his nose.

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“Eh, que dice?” Tita asked as she placed papas, huevos rancheros, frijoles y

tortillas into multicolored serving dishes with elaborate rooster designs and floral motifs and one by one brought them to the table.

“Ella me pregunta sobre mi nariz, ja ja ja,” Abuelo replied with a huge crooked toothed grin.

We sat anxiously waiting, giggling at the thought of him telling the story again.

“PLEEEEEEEEEEESSEE!!!” Chali and I whined in unison.

He added salsa to his eggs and took a few bites, then removed his red handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped the beads of sweat that had simultaneously appeared after eating my Tita’s cooking.

He shook his head and mumbled to himself, “La Flaca y La Blanca”, nicknames I’d sometimes heard him call us. Interchangeable until I hit puberty and was no longer flaca anymore.

“My nose, is a big nose, it’s a strong nose and it is the nose from my people,” he paused, “from our people.”

He always told the story in English; perfect English with no Spanish accento, just a deep raspy Texas twang from decades of working for the Santa Fe railroad station in Fort Worth. He’d taught himself and he insisted that we, his granddaughters, speak English in the house, despite the fact that Tita only spoke Spanish. Now that this country was America, we had to “integrate and assimilate with the times” a notion my Tita refused to adhere to.

“Our people have been here for generations. We were here before the Anglos, before the Spanish, we inhabited the Southern deserts, the mountains, and even the

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coastal areas of this land, before it was the United States, before it was Texas, even before it was Mexico. This nose,” he paused and pointed to his coffee colored eagle-like beak of a nose, “This nose is the nose of the highest chiefs, priests, and kings of our people.”

Chali’s eyes grew wide as she listened and sucked on a rolled up tortilla she was clutching between her two tiny flaca hands. Her golden brown bangs dangled past her eyebrows and her perfect tiny nostrils flared on her perfect tiny tulip shaped nose.

“My great great great grandfather was a chief and a medicine man, so was my father, and so am I. And that’s why you two…. are Indio chief princesses!”

“Ahhhhh! I knew it! I knew it! I knew it!” I squealed in excitement, threw down my plastic oversized “kid-fork” onto my dish and stood up in my chair. “I have that nose!

That’s why I’m a princess, a real Indio princess. I knew it!”

“But, Abuelo, Chali’s nose, her nose is small. Is she still a princess?” I asked.

“Yes, mija. She doesn’t have the nose, but she’s still a princess because we all have the same sangre running through our 2veins.”

“Ay dios mio, no les diga esta historia! / Don’t tell them that story. Ella cree que

todo lo que dices. /She believes everything you say.” said my Tita, angry that I was overexcited, she then began to scold me. “Y tu, siéntate.”

I defiantly shook in my chair and crossed my arms and stuck out my pouty lip.

“No! I’m a princess y yo quero pancakes not tacos again!”

My Tita’s green eyes glowed with anger, and her thin lips pursed as she stood up to grab my arm. She almost had me…but I howled like a coyote, jumped out of the chair,

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and onto the yellow linoleum floor then ran past her, Chali, and Abuelo, who was laughing hysterically.

I ran out the kitchen, slammed into the screen door which flung open and crashed against the red vinyl siding. My bare feet hit the pavement and glided past Tita’s herb garden and towards the backyard’s chain linked fence.

Dressed in my blue corduroy Smurf printed overalls, I tackled the fence and climbed over it and ran past “Bogey” AKA “Boogieman”, Abuelo’s furry orange mutt, who was barking and running alongside me, thrilled to have some company.

Dirt kicked up all around me in a brown cloud as I ran the full length of the backyard which in my childhood mind, seemed the size of a soccer field. I then clawed my way up the biggest tree I could find. Panting heavily, I waited. No one was chasing after me, not Tita, not Abuelo, not Chali. The only one there was Bogey, barking incessantly…confused by the whole debacle trying to find a way up the tree.

Sweat was dripping down my forehead and my curly brown hair was stuck to the sides of my head. The Texas summer sun was miserable almost unbearable, but I was gonna stay up in that tree all day and night if I had to…rather than risk getting a butt whoopin’ with a wooden spoon or chancla.

“Hey boy!” a voice yelled.

A young boy about 10 or so with dirty blonde hair and tan skin peeking out from his cut out shorts was standing on the other side of the fence with a small framed girl in a flowery dress who looked like she could be his twin sister. She was nursing a Rocket popsicle, and her lips were bright red from the first layer.

“Is this dumb dog yours?” he asked.

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I tried to quiet my breathing, maybe if I didn’t move or even breathe – I could imagine myself invisible, because if you believe it enough, you can do anything, even be invisible. I took one last deep breath and inflated my cheeks to hold in as much air as I could before going invisible.

The boy laughed and kept his stance, “Hellllooooooo, you hear me?”

“Maaaaybe he’s stuuuupid…or deaf,” the little girl whispered with her tiny red stained lips.

That was it! I turned off my invisibleness and jumped down from the tree.

“I’m a girl! And you’re stupid!” I yelled.

They busted up laughing. Bogey stopped barking and growled as he stood beside me.

“You don’t dress like one,” the little girl giggled and motioned with her popsicle at my outfit. I looked down at my faded khaki colored punk skunk t-shirt, my dirty overalls, and bare feet. I knew the girl had me beat, girls didn’t dress like me - especially princesses.

“Well, my daddy said ya’ll need to keep this dumb dog quiet. He’s trying to sleep.”

“He’s my Grampa’s dog and he’s not dumb.” I replied with a hand on my hip and a defiant head nod.

“You talking bout that old duuuuurty Mezican!?! He’s your granpaaaa!?! Ha ha ha, that Mezican is crazy. How come you ain’t dark like him? I guess you arrreee durty like him!” He and his sister howled with laughter.

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I clenched my fist and scowled at them, my heart began to beat faster and hairs on the back of my neck stood at attention. I readied myself.

“He’s not duuurrrty and he’s not crazy, he’s a chief and I have his nose, so I am a

Indio princessa, you shut up!”

“Yeah right!! We thought you was a boy!” Red Lips hissed.

The boy snickered and laughed. “Ya’ll just better keep that dog quiet or else!”

“Or else what…estupido?” I retorted.

“Ruff! Ruff, ruff, ruff!” Bogey had had enough of these kids.

The boy then picked up a rock and hurled it towards me and Bogey, he missed.

Then his sister picked up a smaller rock and hit Bogey on the hip.

Bogey whimpered and ran behind me all the while still barking and creating the biggest commotion.

“Ahhhhhhhh!” I screamed, tears beginning to well up in my eyes.

I looked in every direction blinded by salty water for rocks but there were only sticks and pecans in the yard so I grabbed a fistful and threw -- but it did nothing.

Desperate, I scoured the ground and found one - a big one, a rock bigger than both my hands put together and I began to dig and claw at the ground with my fingernails to free it. I was going to murder these two.

“Hijas de puta!” I snarled and yelled through my sniffling sobs.

Just before my scrawny dirty figures were about to pick up that rock, I was hit with a wave of water. I fell to the ground, soaked in confusion. Then the wave hit the two kids who were just about to start throwing more rocks. They screeched and ran off in the

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opposite direction, leaving their rocks and that red, white, and blue popsicle to melt on the black asphalt road.

I wiped the tears, sweat, and water from my eyes to see Abuelo standing across the yard with the water hose. His brown skin looked like rough leather that had been dried out in the sun, the lines etched into his skin a calendar of the past, present, and future. A dark shadow was cast across the left side of his face from the profile of his nose; his face was stern and serious, his chin held high but still. He brought his thumb and index finger up to his mouth and whistled, Bogey rocketed towards him like a stallion as commanded and sat proudly at his master’s heels.

I heard the screen door slam in the distance. Within seconds Tita, carrying Chali in her arms, stood behind him. She got one look at me and shook her head. She sat Chali down and walked over to her lemon tree, she pulled out a small knife from her apron, and cut off a lemon from the branches.

I understood. I got myself up, soaking wet, utterly defeated and terribly frightened because I was going to be in really big trouble. I knew in that moment that it was all a fantasy. I wasn’t an Indio chief princess. I was just a big, angry mess.

That night, after a spanking with no lecture, no dinner, and a steaming hot bath, I laid in the middle of the living room in an oversized white t-shirt and chonies on a white sheet in the middle of the floor. Chali had been put to bed earlier even though she had begged to stay up and watch but my grandparents had refused her. They put her in a room with a white candle and the visage of the Virgen de Guadalupe.

Tita lit the santos candles all around me and began the ritual of cleansing with the lemon. I tried to be still and not giggle while the lemon tickled my flesh as she used it to mark crosses up and down my feet, legs, arms, hands, torso, and head. She recited the

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Hail Marys in Spanish, over and over while my Abuelo chanted and hummed some indistinct language in the corners of the room, a language I would not hear again for almost 20 years…when his dementia recalled it from his past, the language of his ancestors, even though he would not remember us.

After it was over, the three of us went to the kitchen and Tita placed the lemon on the stove in a burner and lit the flame. It burned until it was black. She then took some foil and wrapped the lemon. She placed it in a brown paper bag and handed it to me then nodded at Abuelo.

He handed me a pair of pants and my shoes. I put them on and we headed out to his red Ford truck and he rolled down the windows and began the drive. He didn’t say anything to me for what seemed like an eternity.

“Are you hungry?”

I nodded my head, “yes” still afraid to speak. He opened the glove compartment and took out a bag of chicharones. I placed my brown bag on the seat between my legs.

He took out two and began to munch on them, then handed me the bag while I began to munch away -- trying to keep my mouth closed tight so as not to smack because he hated smacking. The truck creaked and roared softly on that dirt road and I could smell the earth and hear the cicadas chirping in every direction. I hung my head out the window and looked up at the night sky, full of a million stars while the wind tangled my curls. This was heaven, a strange, hot, sweaty kind of heaven.

“I was wrong to tell you that story earlier.” Abuelo’s voice brought me back down to Earth.

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“Your Tita was right.” He let out a sigh as he stared into the windshield dazed by the dust cloud rising up from the tires in the headlights.

“You’re not a princess, mija. Your cousin, Chali, I think she’s the princess. What do you think?”

My smile turned to a frown and I looked down at my once satisfying chicharones, now they made me feel sick. I was silent.

“That’s okay, mija, because you are something else I think. I saw you with those kids today, they were a lot older than you. But you were fearless. You took up for Bogey, you didn’t run off for help. But I had to… I had stop it – because your anger mija, your

bilis. It could have made you do something terrible that you’d regret.”

“But Abuelo, they said…”

“I don’t care what some kids said. They don’t know any better. I do care about you though. Because one day mija, I’m not going to be there to stop you, your Tita is not going to be there to spank you, and you let your anger take control of you like a wild burro or

coyote!”

“I’m not a burro!”

The engine roared louder as we hit a bump in the rocky dirt road. I felt as if it were mocking me.

“No you’re not mija.” He paused and cleared his throat. “You know we thought you were going to be a boy? Well, I did. I dreamt about you when your mama told me she was pregnant with you. I was so proud, I was going to have a grandson from Maria Juanita…I knew he’d be smart and strong. I bought you those overalls and some

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wranglers even though I knew they wouldn’t fit you for years…I guess I got carried away.”

“I know, I know, mom told me. And then I was a girl, and she didn’t want to waste the clothes, cuz clothes cost money, so she dressed me like a boy ‘til she could buy me some dresses. I don’t even like the dresses.”

He wasn’t listening.

“I guess I just thought, I’d have to be the one to teach you things. But then Jim was there for your mom, and he’s a good man and he said he’d teach you things and raise you up like you were…but then you turned out to be a girl. Ayyyy, I guess we all just wanted to make sure you were…protected.”

“Hissssssssssss” the truck was hissing and about to overheat.

The truck stopped at a crossroads in the middle of nowhere. The cloud of dust parted just enough for the moon to shine down from the celestial skies and I was pretty sure I was looking at “Little Bear”, or what my Kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Kinnsington called the “Little Dipper”. Then Abuelo got out frantically and came around to my side and opened the cab.

“Mi hija,” he looked me straight in the eye, “you’re strong, you’re smart, maybe you’re not a princess type of girl. Esta bien conmigo, even if it drives your mom and Tita crazy.”

He was rambling at this point. “Little Bear” was waving on the horizon, I waved back and smiled.

“One day you will find out the truth about where you come from. And mija, you are going to have to be strong, loving, and brave because the people around you will hurt

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more than you do when it happens. Does that make sense? That’s why we are here tonight. You have to trade your anger for love in those moments that hurt the most.”

I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about but I nodded my head “yes”. I knew it -- I wasn’t a princessa. He lifted me up out of the truck with my brown bag. I stood in front of the headlights of that beat up old ford pickup and unwrapped the lemon from the foil and then I said the words.

I held it up to my forehead,

“Sana, sana, sana” / “Heal, heal, heal” Then I held it to my heart

“Cura, cura, cura” / Cure, cure, cure Then I held it to my belly

“Si no sanas hoy, / If you don’t heal today, Then I threw it out at the crossroads as far as my tiny arm could throw.

“Sanarás manana.” / You’ll heal tomorrow. * Ritual Limpieza con Limon o Huevo – Necessitas: 1 lemon or white egg from a hen 1 cup CRYSTAL CLEAR WATER **the glass of water (a little more than half) is filled.

Either the lemon or egg is passed over the body starting with the head making crosses continuously passing over the forehead, chest, hands and legs.

The lemon is burned afterwards and thrown away, but not in the house one resides in.

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The egg is broken and poured into the glass of water. (What appears in the glass, is the evil, sickness or curse that had resided in the person). *** “When the Dust Finally Settles� by Holly Day one day, paleontologists will uncover our dead bodies gape at our minute brainpans, our easily broken skeletal construction speculate on our skillful tool-making capacity generate ridiculous mythologies concerning our lost and forgotten civilization. they’ll fondle our alien carcasses with suction-cupped tentacles, or claw-tipped footpads caress the interior recesses of our skulls with feathery antennae give pretentious and erudite lectures on how we once fluttered across the skies, flopped along the sand, or dwelled deep underground. ***

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