by Julián Esteban Torres López

Assimilation under duress is assassination

... a slow-burn incineration

... a long-game genocide. We fold

our tongues backwards like gymnasts on balance beams and bend 

our spines as if on mattresses

during Catholic exorcisms ... we code

switch to survive on this stolen land

now run by glorified, idolized, and eulogized

tormentors and thieves ... but

in that masking,       our necks

are on the blade of the Guillotine

... awaiting decapitation

... an erasure of so-called

“worthless savage lives”

... another edict

of expulsion erected like the Alhambra Decree

... coerced to deny our nuclear Selves 

and the most remote islands of our hearts.

A most senseless

post-Columbian

colonial beheading.

Those of

us socially,

politically, and

geographically excluded from

the hierarchies of power — from the apex of

those inherited class and caste peaks — are gripped

then intimidated by the consequential claws of dominant

cultures and systems that proclaim that we are not right ... that we

are not worthy the way we are ... that we are preferred, accepted, and

can     only     belong     if,     and     only     if,     we     are     not     us.

But it is their fragile and insecure egos that stand

in the way of being able to regard us as fully human,

if human at all. No matter the extent

of our coerced assimilation, it will never be enough until they

can see beyond the reflections of their

collective narcissism ... until they

stop fawning over themselves ... until they

treat their sickness ... and disease-ridden they are if they

can only stand tall if they

force

their knees

on our necks until we

either submit or cannot breathe. Until then,

we are an affront to their exaggerated sense of

self-importance. Their sense of

entitlement requires constant,

excessive

admiration

just like the imaginary friends they worship.

They bewitch themselves to think they

are gods and goddesses, and

when miracles they cannot make, they

force themselves on others,

like you and me, so they

can at least feel like demi-gods. To them,

we are useful, only ... and can be of better use to them

if we can approximate their

supposed eminent image and worship their

tenets

as well as their   t    e   n   t   a   c   l   e   s.

To them, if our “ancestral potions and spells” cannot turn

rivers

into liquid gold, then they will regard us as mere

witches 

... burned

at the stake

for the sake

of a 21st-century Crusade

... a continued limpieza de sangre,

a blood-letting

... just another social cleansing Inquisition.

But we need no therapeutic phlebotomy.

We need no expulsion nor exorcism.

I am done bending my spi-

ne and folding my ton-

gue for your comfort.

If I can learn your entire language,

you can make the effort

to pronounce one word: my name.

Trust me, it won’t burn.