Ojos De Raiz

Ojos de Raíz

Writings by Brenda Montaño

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Table of Contents Poems Perris, California Malcriada this too, is love East Man Tia Kati La Santa Barbara Scars Short Stories Ojos De Raiz Balance Through the Reverie Fight

Thank you to Daniel Rosales, amazing photographer from Perris, California, for letting me use some of his photographs. Thank you to everyone in my life, for the constant inspiration. !

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this too, is love !

i cheated a white man because the taste of power is sweet i tasted it, sugar in men from essaouira, espaĂąa and ougadougou, burkina sweetness lingered on my tongue until forced out truth struck you like the unexpected storm destroyed my village i am infected

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i ignored promises despite the voice that screamed do not cheat the white man

East Man !

chilepino man, grow your hair long pass wide shoulders color of Mt. Shasta mud listen to Sixto Rodriguez ride skateboards down High st. clack clack clack clack bounce off lemon trees sing me sandia seeds wait for my heart to skip when smoke hits. ! !

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Perris, California !

i do not know palenque or tulum never seen coatlicue or coyolxhaqui only know what i have seen fast cars drive-thrus Cisco blue bottles george bush twice obama too dollar trees and you always you !

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Malcriada fallen i see her clearly lips parted sliced pomegranate red rubies quench my reawakened thirst earth pleases surround me cool me not yet tainted by heat of man’s desire i will remain here waiting for eyes searching for us never alone. !

La Santa Barbara ! before mamas eyes lay magic black blobs transform become skeleton bones name the body English needy tongue acquired taste down her throat like dirt kicked when Judy and Christy stuck pretty Mary-Janes in mama’s back This is American land and girl, you better love the taste of it. !

schools door! opens only with sacrificed body universities brought far away cities beach towns big buildings never seen only imagined in silence so as to not awaken sleeping brother who found the white envelope sitting on the front porch slipped it into breast pocket hides the key shuts locked door.

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Scars !

soy la otra mujer out of me are 14 who are half of you though 14 choose to forget it my memories do not fade easily i wear them scars on my face dirty imprints of my broken tribe my right cheek burns with the touch of your sons fiery forehead in sickness as in health we come to you on knees nuestro viejo viaje sagrado towards unfamiliar greying home beneath 710 freeway shakes with moving traffic ! !

door opens her 2 brown eyes stare onto your son his life falls onto wooden steps in round wet drops bullet size you, criminal, coming down the green mile flicking toothpick in your mouth place 4 fingers on her shoulder i saw the scars form slashes on her virgin face as sunset moves down window pane we see how orange blood sheds light on our reflection. ! !

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Tia Kati ! !

good at many things but never said moms one time forgot my 3rd grade Christmas performance kati dijo don’t worry mija packed me into Toyota Corolla smells of Tommy perfume eyeliner pencil shavings she speaks without filters tells me ‘wash culo before y after sex’

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‘you must run wild roots cannot be controlled so young or they will rot standing still with time’ damn first boyfriend made Kati believe he could make Earth stand still stop spinning for one second she could stop running paused, baby crawled into her stomach while she slept now, she sings only when the poison creeps she falls asleep in chairs though no one looks until all stand by watching. !

Balance Through the Reverie ! !

I walked into our apartment after a twelve-hour shift in which the sun had come and gone without me seeing it. In the living room, the only light that shone was the one in the living room. It hung from the ceiling, at a height that annoyed me— low enough to brush the top of my head but high enough that it illuminated whoever sat beneath it in a light that showed every line of the face, every encrypted message that said too much, talked too much, talked too loud. That’s where she was sitting.

She had my phone on her lap. She had been drinking, the empty bottle tilted on the floor. She had kicked it over and left it on its side on purpose. I knew she was angry because her eyes looked past me, looked through me intentionally so as to attempt to instill in me a feeling of guilt. But I am incapable of that. As she remembered my defect, her infuriation grew.

“I called her today you know,” she began, the irritation guised beneath condescension.

I knew the battle she was preparing for, could recognize it from one hundred miles away. But like the man entering his third military term, pain had become my friend.

“I did it while you were away so that she wouldn’t hear you in the background, though I doubt you’d say anything at all. She sounds ill. Disgusting, in fact. Sickening. These people are ridiculous.

Knowing damn well their health is shit and yet doing nothing about it.”

She let her words sink into the room. !

“God. I should have recognized your weakness from the beginning. Aren’t you mad? You hide behind your anger with fear, like a dog with his tail hanging between his legs. You’re hardly a man, really. Look at you.”

And I looked at me. My beard had reached the point of affront, where no longer was it a point of envy for men nor a point of conversation for women. But it was not so much the full hair that turned others away as it was my cold lips that moved without the flow of blood and my eyes that sunk into the sockets of my although I recognized it all with sadistic familiarity, I had once felt something more.

“You’re not even a bit affected by the fact that how fucked up you are? What if I told you I told her you couldn’t even get it up?

Weak bastard.”

She picked up the bottle, tilted on its side, and threw it, aiming for my heart. It was thrown too much at a right angle and it hit the wall on which hung nothing, on which only a white wall existed, blank, without the paintings and picture frames that make a home.

“This is not my home,” she said and stormed outside into the street, into her car, and probably off to the comfort of the arms of another man. The thought provoked a turning of the stomach, not because I longed for those arms to be mine but because I had no arms to run to. I sat in the chair beneath the light and picked up the phone, my phone, she had left on the seat.

Twelve minutes and thirty-seven seconds at 2:45 p.m. I wondered how her voice had sounded on the other line when Elaine, out of ignorant rage, dialed the familiar number. Familiar in my mind, !

I remembered the breath between her words and how it felt when she’d whisper in my ear a memory of her childhood, each story shedding light on how she had become the playful person she was in that moment. The curls in her hair reached the nape of my neck and I remember nothing, nothing at all, had ever felt so warm. What I would do to feel that again.

Elaine’s hair was short, straight, a light brown color, almost a blonde. When it touched me, I felt nothing. Even in the most intimate moments, nothing radiated. There laid instead a black hole that stopped me from feeling something. And yet it was this stark recognition that had initially attracted me to her. Even in black holes there is consistency.

When I met Elaine I wanted something that would pull me out of the delusion I was in, shape me back into something— a human, at best; but a person, at least, that could once again feel a heart beat and not be in fueled with rage, enraged by it’s steadiness because I was not steady, not steady at all. Not since she’d left. Not since she’d shared the love I thought existed only between us with others, countless others.

I never believed in much. Growing up, my father embraced alcohol more then he did my mother. I, I was simply the result of one embrace too many. I lived on secluded land, away from the annoying comfort of neighbors. I lived alone for time of two workers in order to sustain a meager life for her and her only son. I too, sustained myself, realizing early on that in order for one to survive in this fucked up world, one must do everything one can to maintain a sense of security, to maintain sanity. !

Not even my mother was able to make me realize security is not only for the lucky ones. She entered into my life like all fortunes— without warning but when one needs it the most. She was drunk when I first saw her. At nineteen, it’s what she did. It’s what we all did. And I laid no judgment on her actions.

She had a wide smile and expressed it regularly, each time as genuine as the next, as though everything she encountered, everything she heard and saw and touched, enveloped her in a sensation of gratitude for living, of being alive right then, in that moment in which she smiled. I wanted to feel that more then I ever had wanted anything in my life. And when her smile redirected itself towards me, I did.

“I’ve never seen eyes like yours before,” she said.

The vibrations of the sound of her voice penetrated the multiple layers of my skin so that when the smile rose, elations of living struck me as lightning strikes the tree that stands alone in a deserted valley.

“Did you hear me, handsome? If you did and you’d rather not speak, well then, I respect that. I do believe that each person has the right to speak just as much as they have the right not to speak.”

She took two steps forward, far enough so that my two arms could not wrap themselves around her waist, but close enough so that I could see a gloss in her eyes that shone from not merely the intake of alcohol, but also the bright light of curiosity. I found myself saying: “I speak, but not often. Maybe I’m not one of the lucky ones.”

“What does luck have to do with voice?” !

“Voice is discovered. It is the lucky ones that find the $20 bill in the ATM machines, the ones that grew up doing treasure hunts with the companionship of a best friend. It’s the lucky ones who discover the voice. They find it floating in the air, floating on water, hiding underground because they have the foundation it takes to search. I guess I’m still waiting to begin my own search. Or maybe I’m trying to build my foundation.”

My hands began to perspire and immediately my mind began to go over everything I had just said. Did I mispronounce a word? Did a sentence trail into the world of incomprehensibility? Hardly had I began to delve into my reflection when she took two steps toward me again. She reached into her pocket, handing me a silver charm of a moon in its middle cycle.

“Don’t give up. You’re on your way. I can see it in your eyes, your sunflower eyes. Discover the center and you’ll soon move to the edge, without fear.”

We went home together that night and lay on the floor on a red carpet beneath a lamp that gave off a yellow tone, as nourishing as the rays of the sun. I remember how her lips tasted when she first moved them onto mine.

The phone rings. I am in two worlds. In my reverie, I lay beneath the yellow tone of a distant lamp, but taken away I am back to my reality: the white light. The two worlds, though beneath one universe, do not exist within a harmonious pattern. Not now, anyway.

The phone rings. It’s Elaine. I pick it up and am grateful that she has remembered me. She sees in me the half moon, forever !

expanding, forever contracting into a new moon. She sees in me something worth holding on to. I am something to her.

But I am too far away, returned to the center, and stand unbalanced. I answer the phone. “Open the door, I’m outside.�

Before I get up, I shut off the light and take two steps forward. ! ! ! ! !

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Ojos De RaĂ­z !

Tio was the leader. Born male, Ama left him as guardian over his two sisters the day she left North. She left, carrying her two babies, one on each hip, and four others followed behind her. The oldest were of age to find trabajo en los sweatshops of Los Angeles, where two would help raise their eleven siblings through the delicate maneuvering of hand beneath machine— an artist; a seamstress.

Ama left these three behind because they were neither too young nor too old. At 4, 8 and 9 they were considered of an age in which they were able to manage on their own, away from their family now long gone in search of the missing figure: a man they hardly knew.

Though they lived underneath the care of Tia Pichina, Tio Adrian y Abuela Juanita in a one room shoebox tucked in the dilapidated buildings of D.F. Mexico, it was obvious to them that six eyes and one income was not enough to maintain the newly expanded family. The love and the pan y las tortillas had to now be divided for nine. Much went unseen.

No one saw when la guerita chiquiada would scratch at the arms of la mas Chiquita, la nueva; she would draw blood from her baby skin, draw tears from her large, expressive eyes.

No one saw when the middle hija would stare into the mirror, isolating her anger and frustration to the person that cut off her long,! dark curls, rather than isolating it to the unseen forces that imposed 1,828 miles between her and her mother, her and her older sister, the sister that would lose her life far too early, suddenly, because of !

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careless doctors in Tijuana. No one saw when the leader, Tio, said, “No mas”, put all their belongings into one suitcase and guided them out of the shoebox into the alleys of D.F. Niños de la calle; they are the children that search for a sense of security, for a consistent tortilla to feed their empty bellies, for a guardian that could love them completely, the ideal guardian that is liberated from the limitations of oppression— of living a life practicing self-destructive behaviors: abuse; of poverty, of forced separation, of cancer, of war, of isolation, of predestined expectations.

They are the children searching for rituals to sustain feelings of content, to control the unnecessary stresses that force children to age one thousand years. They seek the kind of rituals that involve strolls to el mercado, where un tio could bless you with fruitful kisses; or where abuelas both cry and smile beneath black veils while you hold their hands during Sunday mass. They are the children who seek laughter over sorrow, peace over conflict, and innocence over experience. They are the children who pose for a photograph, not knowing why, not remembering forty years later whether the two sisters are wearing the same sweater or not.

Now, me and my sister and my brother, we too search for rituals that will give us answers. But we work from the privileged positions of searching in las calles only sometimes. Instead, we turn to these images, these photographs: the one that shows my mother so small, so vulnerable; her tiny mouth is confused, unsure of whether to be turned up or down. The beautiful mole that is placed right beneath !

her nose is visible, the one that grazed our faces so gently con el amor that would sometimes go missing for her. The short bangs frame a face that is stunning, unforgettable to all those that see it; she wears the long hair she will always have.!

Her story, Tia’s story, Tio’s story, are the roots of my growing story. To remember them is: to blossom flowers; to smell the ripening skin of native fruits and to be safe; to be children; to be secure.

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Fight !

Your dad slammed my face against the concrete, bringing me down with a handful of my long, black locks. I can’t believe my clip-in extensions stayed in, I thought afterwards.

Just three hours before, we’d been at Johnny’s house off Redlands Blvd. because his parents had decided that the time was right to get away. We had an ice chest filled with Caguama beers, little turtles floating in melted ice, eagerly waiting for brown fingers to break into them. It was post-Prom, the day after the mansion party.

Fuck all that best-night-of-my-life, dancing-to-some-slow-pop-lovesong-beneath-a-disco-ball bullshit.

The homegirl didn’t win Prom Queen so we took the picture, a mandatory action required by our mothers and grandmothers, and bounced, filling up a Hummer limo with twenty bodies because that’s how we rolled. It almost flipped going up the mountain to the mansion, but our invincibility, fueled by ecstasy and teenage hormones and knowing that we all were looking damn good, prohibited fear from taking over.

Tonight was the post-Prom-mansion-party-party and Caguamo had joined in on the celebration. Luis was driving. He opened up his trunk to expose the treasure.

“We’re gonna be the kings of this party,” he said. “How many times are we gonna roll up with a whole ice chest filled with chelas?

Fucking tight, man!”

Kings. As if no queens existed. When in fact, it’d been the queens who made the purchase, gathering the money, finding someone over 21 to buy it, going to Winco and Food 4 Less, getting !

in line with the person who looked least likely to give two fucks that a bunch of 17 year olds were buying enough alcohol to supply an entire Quince with, storing it at their house despite the worried looks of their mothers and, of course, taking it to the mansion all the while making sure our appointments for hair and make-up were still on.

“Yup, Kings for sure,” I say, as we opened the door to Johnny’s house.

A brief yell by the already party go-ers announced our presence.

“Damn, she looked like a fucking walrus last night in that grey, Swapmeet bought dress. If she comes here, I swear, I’ll fucking leave.”

We heard the comment as we walked in and watched it blend into the whirling, white Swisher smoke and vibrating sonidos of Big L’s “Devils Son.” “Where’s Suly?” I ask.

Suly had been here since early on, having opted out of spending a day at home to rest. She had a new boyfriend, the first nonMexican one. He was Black and that was new not only for her, but for all of us, being that we could count how many Black people we actually knew on one hand. And although we acted like it was all right, every once in awhile, someone would say some racist shit. But the laughter really just hid the shame we all had because we knew these ideas were remnants of our first-generation upbringing, ideas imposed on us, mostly, by our fathers, uncles and big brothers who, because of their brown skin, had to deal and experience a great deal of pain due to the fact that we lived in a white man’s world. !

They’d been called lazy spics and lazy gang bangers. They’d been pulled over by the cops for no reason, searched and handcuffed and ticketed for no reason. They’d been told they’d fail school because they were stupid and hopeless. All of this pent up rage was thus manifested into a subtle hatred towards our dark skinned counterparts. Towards Suly’s new boyfriend.

“She left a long time ago with ese Moreno, but call her cause her cousins looking for her! He sounded freakin pissed!”

No answer when we call. Second time, it goes straight to voicemail. We are concerned because lately she’d been far-gone, not going home, not coming over to ours. We decide to wait to see if maybe she will return so that she could join in on our still-to-be-had conversation, the kind where we sit around and explain in every detail how and what we saw at prom, post-prom, and post-post-prom. But she didn’t come.

My phone rings. It is a strange number. I hear her voice. It is distant and muffled, something is strange. Something is different. I cannot understand her and only hear, “I’m okay. If my dad calls, don’t answer.”

We saw lying to parents as an action necessary to have each other’s back. We’d all done it.

But in this moment, something told me that this lie carried a different weight and though there was an instinctual feeling telling me to say no, I didn’t.

“Alright Suly, we’ll ignore the calls. See you.”

The music had lowered and the smoke had cleared. We decided to leave, to have Luis drive us back to where all our cars had !

been left to avoid all of us driving separately, to keep us together for just a little bit longer. Mariela’s house was only a seven-minute drive away.

The car pulled up to park beneath the street lamp. No one was outside, only the stars looked down, watching our arrival from far above. In a matter of minutes, there were two men surrounding the car. One broke the rearview mirror on the left side of the car. The other yelled and cussed. Luis jumped out. A fist slammed against his chin. Another man ran to our car screaming. Two then began beating down on Luis.

We were caught off guard. We did not know that turning off the engine meant we were now in battle. We reacted quickly, me and my two sisters. We realized that these men were men who had seen us grow up, men who had bought us cheeseburgers and ice cream when we were 9; men who would tease us when we’d spend the night at their house, taking the remote control away when we’d be watching TV. They were men who I thought might have loved us.

Suly’s father, brother and cousin had been possessed by an uncontrollable fear.

They had not known where she was. A rumor got out that she had been kidnapped. To release the fear they attacked us.

“Stop!” we screamed. Nothing stopped. I saw Lourdes get smacked across the face.

I punched someone, the cousin maybe, in his face, wanting to make him feel just a bit of what I was feeling in this moment— an immense confusion in which nothing or no one would ever be able to explain what was happening in this moment. I felt nothing and !

everything. I wanted to kill these two men for showing me how ugly the world can be and for taking away what remained of my 17 year old innocence.

Your dad slammed my face against the concrete, bringing me down with a handful of black, long locks. My lip was cut and my arms were bruised. Lourdes’ finger looked broken. It was blue and purple.

Luis was the worst. His face had swollen to twice its size. It ended when Lourdes’ parents came outside.

They saw a family of men whom they too had seen grow up, saw them, no longer men, but animals raged with fuel and substance.

The police came, but for nothing, as usual. What could they do to help us heal from these wounds, the kind that cannot be seen but only felt? This is what it is to grow up, I thought. I lose security, I lose the belief that people don’t hurt people they know, not like this anyway, not like this.

The following Monday at school we crossed the security guard checking ID’s at the gated, iron fence and sat at our usual table.

Word had gotten out about the events outside of Mariela’s house. But the excitement that usually comes with drama was not felt that early Monday morning. A couple of, “That shit’s crazy,” and, “That’s so fucked up!” escaped the mouths of those sitting around us, as Luis walked up to the table, eyes swollen shut.

In a month, we’d be walking across the stage wearing green graduation gowns and holding blank pieces of paper, an imitation of a diploma. The fight in front of Mariela’s house would be just another !

memory to add to the collection we had acquired in the ten years we’d known each other. Just another memory.

But Suly did not go to school that day, nor the next. Her absence represented the silence that was to become a common theme for the rest of our lives.

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