The fish is going crazy in the aquarium. The fish is too large for that small glass box. This is a story. This is not a story about a crazed fish. This is a story about a woman. This is a story about a girl. This is a story about a cipher. This is a story about a phantom. This is a story about a gringa. This is a story about a white rainbow. I do not know her name or blood type. She drives all over Texas crying to the Patsy Cline moon. Maybe you've met her at Valero. She never picks the winning cards. Scratch and scratch and scratch until there is blood. There is no dinero. One day she dreamed up a simple white wedding cake with a turquoise flower on top. One day she petitioned Our Father Who Art in Heaven.
God, she said. Look, she said. And she meant every syllable. God. Look. Please. Mira. Mira. Broken glass and me in the middle. Her in the middle. Bad luck for seven years. Saturn on her shoulder. YOU WILL LEARN. Bitch you will EARN every tortilla. Am I good enough do I look good enough is my lipstick the right shade will you drink my lemonade and ask for mas? Green sauce. Verde. Put me in the corner. Stuff me in the closet. Su chorizo por vida. God. You. Us. I'm confused. I was voted most likely to suicide in each creative writing workshop. Who is God and who are You and what is Us? Deleted text messages. Poisoned carrier pigeons. Blocked at Facebook. The phone rings and rings and no cubic zirconia, bitch, and no buttercream frosting, bitch, and no Corpus Christi and no sacraments and no redemption. What is sacred? Sangre. Daddy's sangre all over El Alamo. My double Sagittarius maternal grandfather...white, quite...dying his love into my ear from hundreds of miles away. Bridgeport by morning. Hell by noon. South of no north. "I love you so much. I love you so much." And I am worth exactly nada.
Hemingway is dead. Hemingway wrote fiction. My dad is alive. My dad lives fiction. "You're Hemingway without the typewriter," I told him once. She told him once. She is not me. She is a product of at least one imagination. She could be a tumor. But she won't kill you.
God, she said. Look, she said. And she meant every syllable. God. Look. Please. Mira. Mira. Broken glass and me in the middle. Her in the middle. Bad luck for seven years. Saturn on her shoulder. YOU WILL LEARN. Bitch you will EARN every tortilla. Am I good enough do I look good enough is my lipstick the right shade will you drink my lemonade and ask for mas? Green sauce. Verde. Put me in the corner. Stuff me in the closet. Su chorizo por vida. God. You. Us. I'm confused. I was voted most likely to suicide in each creative writing workshop. Who is God and who are You and what is Us? Deleted text messages. Poisoned carrier pigeons. Blocked at Facebook. The phone rings and rings and no cubic zirconia, bitch, and no buttercream frosting, bitch, and no Corpus Christi and no sacraments and no redemption. What is sacred? Sangre. Daddy's sangre all over El Alamo. My double Sagittarius maternal grandfather...white, quite...dying his love into my ear from hundreds of miles away. Bridgeport by morning. Hell by noon. South of no north. "I love you so much. I love you so much." And I am worth exactly nada.
Hemingway is dead. Hemingway wrote fiction. My dad is alive. My dad lives fiction. "You're Hemingway without the typewriter," I told him once. She told him once. She is not me. She is a product of at least one imagination. She could be a tumor. But she won't kill you.
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