Untitled
by Kimberly Morales

the story has been
i am the fat greed
that’s killing me
the thief who guts herself
and snatches her own gold chain

the chubby welfare debutante
with my crown of acrylic nails
my coors light baby beer belly
poking out underneath my badly
stitched crop top,
“boriqua” emblazoned on
my ever sagging legacies

i am the food stamp collector
i am the world star hip hop historian
i am the famine goddess

i am sex and disease
and better when I’m on my knees

i am the uss maine sinker
i am the hilltop seeker
i am the lazy drowning Carib
the gold wearing savage still

the rumor is
i am dulce de leche witch
sweet and light and heavy cream
swirling in a hot cauldron
my cackling glazes like burnt sugar
i am rosa de Jamaica
tart but better than
my bitter black root
i spread myself
like the hibiscus flower
when it’s boiling
i am sugar cane fool
my jokes
are like machetes
and i always
make other people rich
i am habichuela con pollo ghost
i haunt houses with
my overseasoned smell
i fill your house with boleros and reggaeton
and when I moan of misery
rice spills out of my mouth

the gross rumor is
that I am
spicy slut
mango hoe
banana grower
tobasco temptress
tropical trick
coconut cunt
habanero whore
big bosomed and baked bread

…

the truth
my very singular
and temporary truth
i am the young mother
and the viejecita
en la misa
loving and loving relentlessly

without protection
catholic guilt laid on me
violated, used me
killed me for christ
and has only succeeded
in making me
sweat more

i am the love child
of ruined moon goddesses
squatting on the moon
sending hurricanes
i am the raised brown hairs of every

slobbering conquistador,
my european fathers
rest on my upper lip
i am the indebted isla del encanto,
broke Borinquén
i am the rich fecund beauty who slashed her
own veins over and over
searching for an imperialist to love her
love me mama España, love me daddy Sam

….

whiteness is an absence of a consciousness
white is nothing
that is the only true lie
and everything else is just a rumor
a hastened whisper in your ear in passing
a dirty trick
a sneaky fetishized untruth
an overheard half conversation with no one
in particular

i do not belong to myself
my blood is not my own i think
open my veins and see me america
again and again
stealing your menial work
anchoring my children to your stolen land
dancing on your tv
with my trilling tongue
i slice myself on the thin slivers of your
consonants

do not stop to look
to see
my families
encased in ice
their bones buried in deserts
struck down hung up hungry
feeding your children
cleaning your homes

our hands are not our own

and every fiber of my temporary self
is screaming softly
no
my story my skin my singular self
is

poetry