I am the Fetus of an Affair
I am the fetus of an affair
I wonder how long it would have taken mother to tell me, before I found out from someone else. I hear a heart beating
I see almond eyes staring into a brown-skinned oval shaped woman
I want to know who I am
I am the fetus of an affair
I pretend I know who I am, the child who came from Mother
I feel madness, because I grew up hearing that I looked like Father, a man I never knew, but a man that I look so much like
I touch my long fingers as mother says, “You have your father’s fingers.” Who is Father? Who am I?
I worry I will never know who I am
I cry myself to sleep every night, wondering if one day he’ll pass by. Just a glimpse is all I need.
I am the fetus of an affair
I understand my father never wanted me, that is why he left.
I say “screw him,” I didn’t need him anyway
I dream of marrying a man who could be father to my children, the father I never had.
I try to close to eyes so I won’t see the man who left me behind
I hope to be twice as good a mother as the one I had
I am the fetus of an affair.
Theme for English B
(based on the poem by Langston Huges)
The instructor said,
go home and write
a page tonight
and let that page come out of you
then it will be true.
15, oval shaped faced, almond eyed, brown skinned Hispanic girl
At home I'm considered the lazy no good.
She always says, "You sit there doing what? Nothing while I'm here cleaning up."
I don’t exactly just sit, if she only knew what I am doing.
Every day after school, I grab my journal and start writing.
I space into a marvelous world of no worries, no screaming, no demanding, just my mind and my journal. These pages contain my history, my biography, and she asks “What are you doing?”
I write my life
June 20, 1997. 7:45 pm
I was born that late night in Perla Hospital in Mexico. DF, birth seemed perfect. Everything seemed perfect.
She'd always say the first thing she saw were those light brown marble-shaped eyes
staring right into her.
Papa wasn’t there. He still isn't. He left before I was born.
I grew up with a good image of Mama.
Just before I entered my teens things started to change - my mind, my body. I felt like
my body was being invaded by a maniac diva.
It was never easy to collaborate with Mama.
We'd argue every day, over every single thing I did.
She only believed in right, her own meaning of right, to be like her, a strong,
hardworking, independent, responsible woman.
I was 13 dependent. I had no other shoulder to cry on. No other hand to hold.
I knew she wanted me to be responsible, but I couldn’t do it all alone. I've been afraid all my life of letting go. She will never understand that.
Never.
