Little Known Facts

I haven’t changed the world yet.

I never met Mumia or John F. Kennedy.

I met Salma Hayek once on a plane, but I doubt she remembers.

In 1983,

A priest poured holy water over a newborn infant in Mexico

City. My mother says I howled as the water touched me.

My father says that even religion couldn’t put out the

Fire in my belly.

I never

Voted for a war,

Invaded a Middle Eastern Country, or

Laughed at Andy Griffith.

I’ve never wanted to

Eat that many Flaming Hot Cheetos

Lie when I said “I love you,” or

Wake up covered in bruises from a night I still can’t remember.

When I was six years old, I began to lose my hearing

An inverted ear canal, genetic birth defect, and difficult labor

Began its final approach toward Silence.

There was hope,

But “hope” in my family is synonymous with “fear,”

I feared silence. I hoped for silence.

To illustrate his point,

The doctor cupped his hands around my ears.

But all I could hear were my mother’s tears

Falling gently across the room,

Guilty that she had birthed a defect along

With a little girl who looked nothing like her.

The doctor repeated,

“There is hope.” 

My mother and I nodded,

Not because we agreed, but because we heard

Different things.

I’ve never gone pearl diving.

I’ve never created a monster that didn’t already exist.

I once

Jumped of a cliff,

and

Ate a box of Little Debbie snacks alone.

I’ve only spoken for myself, and one summer day, 

I didn’t speak at all. 

I made a fort in the living room around the stereo and I listened. To

every song, every radio play, every cassette that I could

find. I listened past the point where the walls of my fort fell, past

the point when my parents joined me, and 

started falling in love again as they danced around me. I listened as 

my mother told me her childhood dreams and what she wanted to be when she grew up, I listened, because I was afraid I would

never get to listen again. And I wanted to memorize noise. I thought I could make enough sound with my memory if I wanted it enough. And I did.

I’ve fallen in love thrice.

I’ve fallen on the floor infinitely more times.

There was always hope.

I made a bargain. I promised the Gods I would do my best to live

In exchange for the opportunity to die as I entered this world:

Howling and with fire in my belly.