I am a mutant. A being living between two spaces I (don’t) know how to occupy.
I don’t know how to speak Spanish, a torment that pulls at my insides. A feeling that festers like anger like rage, it bubbles like tears as they slide hot down my face. I am reminded of this feeling when my grandmother is downstairs watching telenovelas after my brother’s graduation. When the voices drift up the sitars and pour into the crack of my bedroom door like a lullaby of sounds I can only piece together. When I laugh at the half-broken text messages my grandmother sends me on my birthday, an attempt to tell me that she loves me but the words just don’t line up right. When my grandmother calls my mother in the car and the conversation carries through the speakers, a blending of languages as they slip between worlds, the ease of a conversation I can’t follow.
How much easier would it be to talk to her if I could bend my tongue to her language?
When I look in the mirror, I see a shape. It is (not) a reflection. I dip my hand into the mirror, soft like jelly between my fingers. I (think about) rip(ping) out her tongue.
My mother says Spanish was my first language. As a child I was constantly watched over by people who spoke a language I don’t. As a child my grandmother would speak to me, and I could understand her. It should have been my first language.
People see my name, my face, and expect me to know words that I don’t. There is no proper way to explain myself. I (don’t) tell them I am a mutant. I (don’t) tell them the truth.
Children are supposed to bake cookies with grandma, go over for holidays or go over just because. Instead, I was pulled away. Transported between worlds. An opportunity lost.
What happens when you’re torn away, unsure if you were even in the same world to begin with?
I would be better with my tongue cut out; I would finally have an excuse. Sometimes I dream about sewing my lips together, a lace decoration. My mouth could not fail (others) if it did not move.
My grandmother has lived in this country for over fifty years. The way that she speaks would have anyone fooled. My mother was born here, grew up learning English from the television, spells words in Spanish, passed up a job opportunity because it entailed more writing. And here I am.
My mother once told me I spoke Spanish with a country accent, a southern twang picked up from living in a state I was not born in. I stopped (trying) shortly after that.
How easy it is to forget when one gives up.
Josafina Garcia is a writer/zinester currently living in Williamsburg, Virginia. She graduated from Northern Kentucky University in 2023 with a degree in Integrative Studies. Garcia has had work previously published in Vast Chasm Magazine, and she is also a recent recipient of the Kentucky Foundation for Women’s Firestarter Award. When not writing she can be found crocheting or visiting the nearest amusement park.
Idle Ink 