Not Your Mother by Christiana Castillo

Christiana Castillo (she/ella) is a Mexican-Brasilian-American poet, educator, cultural worker, and gardener born in Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, raised in Southeastern Michigan, and based out of Nashville, Tennessee. Previous work of hers can be found in Room Magazine, The Pinch Journal, Belt Magazine, The Acentos Review, The Detroit Metro Times, The Chicago Reader, among others. Her poetry chapbook, Crushed Marigold, was published in 2020 with Flower Press.

Not Your Mother

After La Virgen de Guadalupe Defendiendo los Derechos de los Xicanos by Ester Hernandez

Sometimes, I don't want to be sacred.

Do you know how many versions of me there are?

How many trips across imagined borders I have been supplicated?

Back and forth

and back and forth

and back and forth

I have traveled con sus abuelos ancestrales,

a través de las aguas, la tierra, la lengua de cada oración.

I stayed up with your grandma, your mama,

your sister, your auntie

held her and her prayers

like the land hugs the ocean.

I live on the gold chain around your tío’s neck,

on endless prayer candles, ofrendas, and rosary beads.

Did you know you can buy me at the Honey Bee on Bagley?

I’m even at the Walmart now, pues.

And listen, I like to help

I’m always doing the most -

But sometimes, I just want to be Lupita with her girls,

singing Chavela Vargas or Selena.

Let Madonna del Miracolo handle all this shit instead.

Have puffs of marijuana in between the burning copal

as endless as the water in the Río Grande.

I’ll break out of my sunburst again and again.

Otra vez.

I want a break from all these prayers,

Dios, even the bees need to rest.

Adorn me with anything but roses,

Juan Diego made that shit as tired as I am.

May I never know another offering again.

May I have a break from all this language.

Call me by my true name, Tonantzin.

I don’t care how it fits in your mouth.

Don’t you know I'm not even really here right now?

Nepantla

I can only step out of myself for so long.

Me, syncretism at its finest.

Survival without choice.

I’m always crushing serpents with my feet

like I’m in a never ending cumbia.

If rest is for the dead,

I don’t know if I want to be eternal anymore.