Metzil to Mexican girls - Nevaeh Castro

Where they burned bodies, they also burned people,
not at the funeral pyre but at the stake.
Selling our bodies like the gold they came for.
They told the world we were gone,
nothing more than ash and lost land.

When the flood came, you cried, afraid that this would be your end.
Child of Michoacan, do you remember the water?
These were the waves that you came from.
Chalchiuhtlicue wrapped you in her jade skirt
Teaching you to breathe new air.

I know they wanted you to believe them.
But mija, your grandmother never told you her stories,
how Toci crafted you from stars,
how the papalotl remember your name,
That your people are not gone.

Look at your mother’s house,
the altera that lives near the front door
at the cempasuchil, how the petals litter the floor.
How in winter your home smells of masa,
generations of women crafting tamales together.

Look at yourself,
braiding ribbon into your inky hair,
adoring your ears with gold and silver,
speaking the language so many died for.
Mija, it was not your fault.

Despite their efforts, look around you
See how Quetzalcoatl still chases the sun,
how I watch over you in the night sky.
Tenochtilan still stands,
look at how we have survived.