some days i wish i could cut off
my mother tongue—
my extra limb of foreign pain.
a white man asks me
what i think of donald trump.
i tell him,
i don’t know who that is,
to see if he will leave me a l o n e.
i can taste the blood
pooling in my mouth
as my teeth take a piece off
of my mother tongue
while he laughs at his reaction
to my joke— and asks me again.
a boy once asked me
if the candy cane scar
on my mother’s leg
was from it being cut
o p e n
when she jumped the wall.
i gnaw on my tongue with
aching teeth as i hold back
from asking if his father
is proud of
the colonizers in his bloodline
while he laughs
and claps my shoulder.
i chew through my tongue
like a wolf with its leg caught
as my father in law’s fiancé
speaks to me in b r o k e n spanish
and tells me her nanny
was mexican, too.
mexicana—she calls me
as i choke on the blood
that has started to run down my throat.
ignorance—is not bliss, i know.
ignorance is the weight
my atlas tongue carries
as i struggle to swallow the blood
while i laugh—again—at the jokes
some people make.
tongue and cheek
Isabel Flick is a Mexican-American artist and poet based in Saint Louis, Missouri. Her work has been showcased in many local galleries and publications. She received an Associates of Education from Saint Louis Community College and a Bachelor’s in Studio Art from the University of Missouri – Saint Louis. She is also working towards her first book, Anthropophagist’s Digest.