The Cult of the Paper Colored Cages
a spoken word on migration and disturbance, love letter to el chorrillo
The streams of my bloodline run thick with corruption
With hijacking, thieving, and deceiving
The corrientes of mi trauma roja run deep in the occupation of our lands and bodies
The robbing of our speech
The bleaching of our skins
The crossing of the chorro allowed for many of what they call “opportunities” for her heir
The fragile paper colored man offered a life of abundance in recycled grievances
Of dispossession and disconnection
Of towns made of paper
Of searing cuts in the form of smiles, violence, and resources made to disfigure the heir, even to themself.
The abused one loses connection of what is real, eventually turning to wilting paper herself,
trying with her full heart to convert the heir to the Cult of the Paper Colored Cages surrounding her,
trying with all her heart to encourage the instinct of survival that originally made her leap across the small, dried chorro.
But that chorro does not exist anymore, due to the spread of the jaula.
and with it, goes the disillusion for the heir
These towns of paper could never match the heart and soul that had once existed around this chorro
These stolen, cleared, and dispossessed lands full of eraser colored cheeks and fragile glass egos could never hold a flame to the warmth the heir felt around the hearth that was their shared destiny
Every waking moment spent in this new land
where dreams could never come true,
Was a reminder of the life not spent where theirs could have been, and theirs could never be.
This chipped away at the stoney heir
Being mined and exploited and extracted from, but never revealing the gems inside
until one day
When the heir returns to that old chorro and heals the generations coming forth
And this once creature who had to be so hard
Opens up and glistens
And blossoms for the first time
Into a world full of color
A world full of old knowing
A world full of inheritance
A world of belonging.