my gender is (not) //
your colonial project
By: Juliany Taveras
i am one of three daughters.
long dark hair frames our faces like
static electricity
and we have made our way
along every current
between one island
and another
but we are stuck in orbit—
the buzzing electrons
of a beautifully decorated
nuclear family
dysfunctional and
stuttering
its atomic blueprint
came to us
on decaying wooden ships,
down the barrel of a gun,
in gleaming
gilded
bibles
IMAGÍNATE: ANACAONA
telling the white man
as he lowered his anchor
in the waters of her isla
and raised his gibbet
to the sky:
YOU CAN KISS
MY HURRICANE ASS*
figuratively, of course
because we never asked for his pale hands
a cold plague
to touch us at all
to pillage our bodies
and uproot our land like
splitting a coconut open
they made us this
out of greed.
and today when
my mother buys me dresses
in colors i never wear
and asks when i will find my husband
and prays
prays
prays
from sunset
to moonrise
her rosary
looks like a beautifully decorated
chain
running from wrist to ankle
to anchor
at the bottom
of the Caribbean Sea.
* Reference from The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz.
