CW: Suicide
The rolling sound of my carryon wheels traveled from the green tiles of Mama Lupe's hallway, up the exposed cantera walls, and back down from the mile-high ceiling of our forgotten childhoods. When my brothers would brave brick-colored avispas and collect them in a “No-Retornable” Coca de dos litros. Those days are gone, you are both gone, but that plastic bottle bottle exists nonbiodegradable somewhere and ain’t that some shit.
“Berkeley Study Abroad” my luggage tag boasts. I was supposed to be dancing in Cuba this summer but I'm crying in Michoacán instead. Fuck this pandemic, fuck this curse. A week-long spiritual retreat, a grand poorer, and the heavy lead inside of us cannot find the light.
I rolled in three nights ago and I still can't find my way upstairs to his room. Untangle through the fruit trees, up the concrete yellow stairs, dodge the clothesline, and face the reality of his empty room... my body knows the way, but my spirit cannot find a way. The last time I was up there, a bloody footprint by his door sent such a chill up my spine, no winter wind could ever contend.
Last week in-between meditations a doctor proclaimed that women who undergo hysterectomies suffer the greatest of phantom pains. A universe is ripped from their insides and they are never the same. When my cousin lost his mental health battle, he was at our Mama Lupe's house, feet away from where he played with my brother. His room directly above his mother, our grandmother, and all of their universes. I’ll never know what thoughts my cousin put into that bullet … but instead of finding its way out, it made a home of his cortex the land of our dreams. His mother, my Tia woke to indescribable sounds, she thought one of her pets was injured so she made her way, untangled through the fruit trees, up the concrete yellow stairs, dodging the clothesline, into a dark puddle that her womb felt was blood. She knew what happened but didn't want to know what happened…
My Mama Lupe told news reporters that it wasn't a suicide, he was cleaning our great great grandfather's rifle, it was an accident. Our family doesn't have a history of mental health problems, cancers, sexual assault, secrets and lies. The newspaper removed the story online, but the lie in print is floating around somewhere with him. Maybe somewhere under a Coca de dos litros.
They tried to operate… but he would be a vegetable if he made it. Why do they call it a vegetable? My Mama Lupe's garden has nopales, calabaza, and flor de calabaza we squish into quesadillas. We grow beautiful vegetables. Why do they call it a vegetable?
When they removed the bullet from his dreams, I imagined a beam of light pouring through, from his cortex, to his belly button, to his mother’s belly button, to Mama Lupe's belly button, to Mama Lupe's two other daughters who also lost two sons, to me.
My cousin Alexis passed while I was dancing at a wedding in a mint green dress and no one wanted to tell me… this family inherited silence but I screamed and cried into the emerald hills de la sierra. One of my truest friends held me and let me drink and sob until I fell asleep. Could I have made it in time?
But I’m here now.
So I untangled through the fruit trees, up the concrete yellow stairs, dodged the clothesline, and faced the reality... a sorrow so deep took over my entire body as his room came into sight. I walked towards it. I sat in it. I looked into it. The tears fell like a damaged faucet…not in a neat stream but in chaotic spurts. Somewhere downstairs My Mama Lupe’s bickering with my aunt over the medicinal plant for diabetes breaks me out of my trance. I offer you a smile, let me go solve the plant quarrel Primo. I got this one. Tu descansa.
Downstairs I pull and pluck yerabuena leaves from the garden for tea. The green tiles and high ceilings are abnormally quiet now. I could feel 100 years worth of suppressed thoughts and the water has yet to boil, so I pull out my phone… How do I search for a therapist?
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
Hours: Available 24 hours. Languages: English, Spanish.
800-273-8255
