Iliana Rocha

She don’t believe in shootin’ stars, but she believe in shoes and cars . . . —Kanye West, “Flashing Lights” Always growing out my bangs, childhood, that strange small. The place written for me invites me to hoarder and not mother, so I’m living in this mirrored chest of drawers called the body—my brother is hidden in there, next to all of 1996. I have predictions for my cancer—colon or breast— a tattoo artist exacting areolas above the dark canals of my heart. Yes . . . I spend too much money, I cheat on everyone I love, I know what it’s like to desire everything & nothing at all, the air inside a potato chip bag. I count the sweaty, greasy envelopes on my nightstand, each a letter for every person I’ve wanted & never had. I don’t trust the guiding powers of stars, but I do believe in the Magic 8 Ball of the city, night the shaken blue inkiness of Signs Point to Yes, Reply Hazy, Try Again, or Outlook Not So Good. My happiness I can point to on a map— New Orleans, legs swinging, red stilettos poking their noses out the window of Big Daddy’s in the French Quarter, gone now, torn down. The strippers’ legs perpetually swinging, each dark fold keeping time.

The mouse hangs by its tail, & kitchen chairs stand still on their beaks. I left the eggs boiling on the stove, the iron hot. Everything is going up in flames. I don’t mind. I watch the children float like leaves while the plastic car sinks to the bottom of the tub. A steady beat within my diaphragm predicts the  next earthquake, records its rhythm in blood vessels until the walls collapse. I was once a boiled egg before I was this: chewed cuticles & orchids, ponytails & rapes. Somewhere in Texas, a crowd predicts my death. They say it will sound like the scream of a tuba being born.

I was born drunk & paisley, vestige from the womb. My face laughed into itself— eyes sank into earlobe & nostrils warped into seahorse. I was vanilla bean & Mexican vanilla & amniotic dessert, & my mother did everything she could not to devour me. I became comino & ajo & hibiscus— all good for grinding. Mocajete, fist, & knuckle decomposing mass & matter, baby & mother. When she tried to stillbear me it hurt until she cried diamonds while my father was swapping spit with the agave.