Bien Educada
Straight A’s, perfect English, and college-bound—"bien educada,” they say.
I master essays, recite Shakespeare with ease, yet my tongue fails at Spanish,
no sabo. My Spanish stumbles over diacritics like cars over potholes on the
freeway. My name pulls on a memory I never had, a shadow I chase between
the pages of books. I feel betrayed by the rs and ys. ”Shame! Your mama
should have taught you,” they say. No nin-tendo. My grandma’s language,
a subject never taught. My skin is no less brown, my heritage rooted in the
crumbs of our tamales and the notes of every canción. But my Spanish does
not flow–broken as the border it runs through—borrowed from Eydie Gormé,
Selena Quintanilla, and my mom’s kitchen. Every nada, a stone in my mouth.
This freeway is my home,
mi vida. There is
freedom in fluency—
to speak is to remember,
so I begin again,
rolling rs until
they sprout roots in
new soil. Bien educada,
yes, but now
bien hija.
Shortcut
The alleyway knows something
the street doesn’t—how to hold
sound: dryers tumbling behind the chain-link,
thunder clouds approaching like overdue bills,
the crackle of weeds pushing through
cracked asphalt. Rain
adds focus, makes the gray
walls sharper, closer. My cousin
lives down the street, but the front way
takes forever, every window tracking movement.
Here, nobody wonders where
you’re going. A murder
of crows unbothered.
The hallway inside was narrow, too—my mother moved
through it fast, the way she moved through everything,
teaching me that some spaces are just corridors,
meant for passing through. You don’t linger
in a shortcut.
You trust where it comes out.