dividing line.
Muerte.
Destrucción.
Desesperación.
Olvido.
La nada infinita.
La noche eterna full of screams.
Crossing la frontera is like crossing a swamp because you end up covered in unpleasant shit no matter what you do. La frontera is a place of crying espíritus. It’s a place of almas perdidas y en pena, all of them looking for a way back, for a way to undo what happened, for a path back to their loved ones and their known places and a time before they made their awful decision.
La frontera is a place where miedo seeps into your bones and the silence you’re forced to keep allows the cries of dead children to enter your soul and break you in half like a dry twig. La frontera is a place where los huesos de los muertos are never buried deep enough and the pain of broken familias and la sangre de los inocentes has mixed with the plants and the air and the soil. All that darkness is what gives el río its peculiar smell and green color. Some things have a bottom but they are bottomless. The infinite darkness that hides in that flowing jade vein is what makes white men with guns pull the trigger even when the figure moving under the crosshairs is a woman or a child.
What happens when you cross la frontera is that you shatter, you stop being you and turn into a new person that belongs nowhere, that has no home, no roots. Going back is impossible and moving forward is like jumping into a ravine and hoping that it’s not too deep, that the rocks don’t mangle you too much, and that el monstruo that waits for you en la oscuridad is not too hungry.
What happens when you cross la frontera is that you have to do whatever it takes to survive, and that’s what pushes you into a life of crime. You need money to survive and washing dishes or mowing lawns are easy gigs to get but they don’t pay enough. In this country, fairness is a concept and nothing more. Los pinches gringos will send dinero to Africa and will pay thousands of dollars to chop their cat’s huevos off and remove their nails, but they won’t pay you a fair amount for painting their fucking mansiones and, if you complain, te llaman a la migra. Pinches hijueputas. Why the fuck should you do stuff in this country that you would never have done back home? Why should you smell like the shit you have to clean when you used to roll around with chingos de lana in your pocket? Thinking about that either makes you look for something different or breaks you again.
What happens when you cross la frontera is that you want to clean up, find a good job somewhere, meet a beautiful, sweet girl. You want the American Dream. But fuck all that. The American Dream is as false as the meat in your one-dollar burger and the canned laughter you hear on television. And it’s even worse for you. You have no skills and no diploma and no friends and no nada. You’re a problem. Un ilegal más. A beaner. A television joke. A wetback. You’re nothing but an issue brainless white politicians discuss from the safety of their offices. That’s when any offer becomes salvation, any desperate move a solution, every bad idea something that gives you a bit of hope. That’s when you realize that you will always live in a silent war and that anyone who’s not from your patria can be your enemy at any moment. That’s why you easily fall into selling rich white kids drugs while you pretend to work security at a bar.
Desperation leads to the gig at the door and the gig at the door leads to some money and the bills in your pocket leads to a sense of accomplishment. You talk to Guillermo and he talks to a white college student who drives a shiny new BMW and asks you for $400 cash and leases a one-bedroom apartment under his name and hands you the key. “You pull any stunts, I’ll have my friends find you. You don’t want that to happen, amigo,” he says. You smile, nod. Pinche gringo pendejo playing tough guy. You want to tell him No mames, güey while you grab him by the throat and
Muerte.
Destrucción.
Desesperación.
Olvido.
La nada infinita.
La noche eterna full of screams.
Crossing la frontera is like crossing a swamp because you end up covered in unpleasant shit no matter what you do. La frontera is a place of crying espíritus. It’s a place of almas perdidas y en pena, all of them looking for a way back, for a way to undo what happened, for a path back to their loved ones and their known places and a time before they made their awful decision.
La frontera is a place where miedo seeps into your bones and the silence you’re forced to keep allows the cries of dead children to enter your soul and break you in half like a dry twig. La frontera is a place where los huesos de los muertos are never buried deep enough and the pain of broken familias and la sangre de los inocentes has mixed with the plants and the air and the soil. All that darkness is what gives el río its peculiar smell and green color. Some things have a bottom but they are bottomless. The infinite darkness that hides in that flowing jade vein is what makes white men with guns pull the trigger even when the figure moving under the crosshairs is a woman or a child.
What happens when you cross la frontera is that you shatter, you stop being you and turn into a new person that belongs nowhere, that has no home, no roots. Going back is impossible and moving forward is like jumping into a ravine and hoping that it’s not too deep, that the rocks don’t mangle you too much, and that el monstruo that waits for you en la oscuridad is not too hungry.
What happens when you cross la frontera is that you have to do whatever it takes to survive, and that’s what pushes you into a life of crime. You need money to survive and washing dishes or mowing lawns are easy gigs to get but they don’t pay enough. In this country, fairness is a concept and nothing more. Los pinches gringos will send dinero to Africa and will pay thousands of dollars to chop their cat’s huevos off and remove their nails, but they won’t pay you a fair amount for painting their fucking mansiones and, if you complain, te llaman a la migra. Pinches hijueputas. Why the fuck should you do stuff in this country that you would never have done back home? Why should you smell like the shit you have to clean when you used to roll around with chingos de lana in your pocket? Thinking about that either makes you look for something different or breaks you again.
What happens when you cross la frontera is that you want to clean up, find a good job somewhere, meet a beautiful, sweet girl. You want the American Dream. But fuck all that. The American Dream is as false as the meat in your one-dollar burger and the canned laughter you hear on television. And it’s even worse for you. You have no skills and no diploma and no friends and no nada. You’re a problem. Un ilegal más. A beaner. A television joke. A wetback. You’re nothing but an issue brainless white politicians discuss from the safety of their offices. That’s when any offer becomes salvation, any desperate move a solution, every bad idea something that gives you a bit of hope. That’s when you realize that you will always live in a silent war and that anyone who’s not from your patria can be your enemy at any moment. That’s why you easily fall into selling rich white kids drugs while you pretend to work security at a bar.
Desperation leads to the gig at the door and the gig at the door leads to some money and the bills in your pocket leads to a sense of accomplishment. You talk to Guillermo and he talks to a white college student who drives a shiny new BMW and asks you for $400 cash and leases a one-bedroom apartment under his name and hands you the key. “You pull any stunts, I’ll have my friends find you. You don’t want that to happen, amigo,” he says. You smile, nod. Pinche gringo pendejo playing tough guy. You want to tell him No mames, güey while you grab him by the throat and
Similar Books
