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• 1 2019-01-14T02:54:15-08:00 On Suicide Notes in Place of Passports 11 gallery 2020-02-17T01:12:49-08:00

   

  Migrants were born from the river’s cavernous mouth 
  Cradled by overgrown bamboo and caña de azúcar 
  Ripe mango flesh dripping from our teeth 
  Caked in the desert’s grime 
  Abuelita’s palms fold in a symphony of praise 
  Her tongue wisps a language of smoke 
  Dense and oily, her words hang stagnant in the air 
  She keeps it tucked away in her diaphragm 
  Her lips imprinted with N-400 form 
  Naturalization isn’t possible when your body is already considered unearthly 
  While burning sage to keep the spirits away 
  Says “Hay un remedio para todo excepto la muerte” 
  There is a remedy for everything except death 
  Someone pray for the undocumented immigrants 
  The infants swaddled in crimson 
  Product of rape by border patrol 
  Dehydrated bodies cremated into sand dunes 
  Empty water jugs rolling like tumbleweeds 
  We hand down heartache like heirlooms 
  Recuerdos of suicide notes and bullet shells 
  For Jose de Jesus Deniz Sahagun, 31 
  Screams echoing off isolated cell walls 
  Copper teeth grinding against the ache of vacancy 
  We keep mistaking detention center for death sentence 
  He stuffed his esophagus with socks 
  Attempted to take his life 3 times before 
  A testament to the torture behind closed doors 
  For Joaquin Luna, 18 
  Who carved out his obituary in spiral notebooks 
  God’s greed gave him a gun 
  Holy bearer of bullets 
  Dressed in his Sunday best 
  He couldn’t be an architect without papers 
  So he sprinkled blueprints with lighter fluids 
  Envisioned the contrast of vermillion stains on his cream shirt 
  Formulated the spatial composition of the bathroom and his body 
  Mapped out his apology in blue blood 
  He shot himself a week before receiving his college acceptance letter 
  I can’t bear anymore eulogies 
  My bedtime stories are news reports 
  Sometimes I can’t tell real from fake 
  Alternative facts scream ICE raids in the wrong places 
  Tombstones cluttered my closet 
  Each inscription with the date scraped out 
  From when I wanted to die at 7, 10, 13, 15 
  Home is only 3 letters away from homily 
  And I will worship every god to keep this family whole 
  Turn our bodies into sanctuary 
  Welcome to this holy house 
  I keep waiting for a resurrection 
  But the dead don’t dance on the devil’s back. 
  
  By Arlene Campo

  This poem is a response to hardtruth #20:
  

  "Stress Related to Immigration Status Is One Result."