BIO
Melissa Castillo-Garsow is a Mexican-American writer, journalist, and scholar. She completed her Bachelor of Arts at New York University in Journalism and Latin American Studies, her Master’s degree in English with a concentration in Creative Writing at Fordham University and is currently pursuing a Phd in American Studies at Yale University. Melissa was awarded the Sonoran Prize for Creative Writing at Arizona State University and was a finalist for Crab Orchard Review’s 2009 Charles Johnson Student Fiction Award. She has had short stories and poems published in The Acentos Review, Hinchas de Poesia, The 2River View, Hispanic Culture Review, and The Pacific Review. She has also written articles for The Bilingual Review, Women's Studies, CNN.com, El Diario/La Prensa and Words.Beats.Life: The Global Journal of Hip Hop Culture.
To learn more visit www.melissacastillogarsow.com
El Paso 1917:
I am that woman
that refuses to be touched
tips over the carriage
runs "wild" through the streets
stares down the police -
yells too.
I refuse to be inspected
to be bathed and taunted
for your beliefs.
For the 19 victims of the container tragedy in Victoria, Texas, 2003.
contained in x-rays
they look like bananas
browned commodities
moved liked goods
worse than goods
they are so "good"
at producing.
It's a border picnic
he tells his wife
through a fence
as they eat
sandwiches and chips
she takes the valentina
passing it through wholes
stops to pat an arm
motions to their hijos
toddlers rushing towards the waves
an alien invasion
x-rayed into
"large scale border crossings"
(Department of Defense)
shipping immigrants
like its
free trade when
free
is the modern day ships
those ships
their shipping
this container country
a 1950 mile open wound
that divides a pueblo
a family
me.
One summer we drove
along Rio Grande
picking up cousins
like cherries
I never knew I had
so many cousins
never knew
i was so divided.
transported deported
it's not that passage
it's modern passage
people stacked like fruit baskets
containers like legos
a border turned trailer
trash trailers bringing
forgotten answers
containment en desierto
a quienes se quedaron en medio de ninguna parte
Papa es mi cumple
cumplo cinco
quiero pastel
en America habra pastel
y navios
navios mas grandes
cargados de comido y agua
familia y suenos
en America
esta mama?
drenched in sweat
begging for water
for authority (911)
their nails turned
black
theirs skins
grayish blue
dead stretched on the floor
piled to make room
sin air
sin luz
sin esperanza
Its more than a 1950 mile wound
It's more than a fence dividing a familia
a pueblo
Its a line
a lie
a container
of bodies
bodied left between borders
no right to mourn
discarded in production
or destruction
forgotten
in the containers
of our American Dreams.
De todo lo que no hay
en medio
de nowhere
I mourn you
without rest
without sleep
always in transit
I mourn you.
“Lo único yo sé es que pinto porque tengo la necesita de hacerlo, pinto siempre lo que me pasa por la corazón sin ninguna otra consideración.”
I.
That leather wallet
faded into memories
I see your image
blood thorns & bold panthers
body casts & thick vines
bedridden
pinned & sticked
needled but never cradled
alone
In our jungle
thorns sprout like daisies
but you sprout xochi
from your roots
from your temples
from your tears
And from your earlobes
hand earrings reach
into my soul
where the perfil
of a diosa
beats
refusing to be tame
to tame (in)perfections
highlighting
with pearls & flowers & lipstick
you returned the gaze
now I,
return yours
like the skulls you painted
onto foreheads.
II.
Sliding into life ruptured
a cracked skull
bleeding on
this flowerbed flowers
that grow through winter
(whimper in springs)
I will not be plucked
grasped
from the waist
because now I gaze
at a cracked wall
(of my own making)
It’s your canvas
this is my canvas
(fault lines)
burning bruises
(fault lies)
little cracks that
don’t heal.
I bear my scars
on ink stained fingers
sweat soaked stirrings
in railroaded rooms
filled with your likeness
consuming poems
in showers
I fall in love with you
everyday
like a letter in a bottle
like the caress of worn leather.
III.
Recuérdame (mi amor)
te recuerdo (mi amor)
stunning & strange
I suffer our realities
feel the light dull
from your eyes
because you drank tequila
at your funeral
and sometimes I
feel like an aperol bottle
cool & unused
skidding beneath the gaze
so I stare
at your red lips
it’s just lipstick
I bare your lipstick
like tus penas
(dame tus penas)
I can bare them
the way you did
better & bright
on the shelf
refracting sunlight
because it’s more
than just lipstick.
IV.
He tells me
I trash him
in public
in poems
but Today,
I want to write a poem
Today,
about something
that matters
but my mind is a
mushy mess
of tequila & wine
unrequited love
for a world that won’t love
our strangeness
too much liner
too many eyebrows
and so you,
paint reality
and I paint
basura
because your paint
slides down my back
to same cell
you lived in.
Today I
write a poem
that matters.
V.
You were so much more
than Diego,
I am so much more
than my nightmares
pesadillas of monkeys
& needles
& pushpins
& doctors
Doctor,
I’m taking this tequila to her grave
and showering in it.
VI.
Stunning & strange
on your back
you
scratched out their eyes
painted your own
and now,
I bear these scratches
those etchings
their ferocity
(you scare me)
porque te trago
por mis venas
porque estas
en mis venas
porque
tu llenas y you recibo
recibo
ya no recibo
mi sange
es un milagro
que recibes
en estas páginas
en estas páginas
porque al final
we have endured
we endure.