Grieving by Cristina Rivera Garza

Author:Cristina Rivera Garza
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Feminist Press at CUNY
Published: 2020-10-14T16:00:00+00:00

Under the Narco Sky

XV

Horrorism

Cf. Medea and Medusa, the gesture of the victim. The shards.

I never want to read these words again: My son died in my

arms.

“My son died in my arms,” Cinthia Salazar Castillo

proclaimed.

I never want to read these words again: The bullet was meant

for me but killed my son.

“The bullet was meant for me but killed my son,” she

repeated.

I never want to read these words again: They were soldiers, all

in uniforms.

“They were soldiers, all in uniforms,” the family’s mother

reported.

And the resurrection?

“They were minutes filled with terror, fear, courage,”

she repeated over and over.

“They were minutes filled with terror, fear, courage,”

she repeated over and over.

“They were minutes filled with terror, fear, courage,”

she repeated over and over.

“They were minutes filled with terror, fear, courage,”

she repeated over and over.

The result: Two dead boys. High-caliber firearms. Easter

Sunday.

The word: shard. The words.

They began to shoot and shoot and shoot.

While the violence invades and acquires unprecedented

forms, contemporary language has difficulty giving it

plausible names: Martín and Bryan Almanza; Nuevo

Laredo–Reynosa–Matamoros.

An ontology of vulnerability: that which exposes us to the

dependency of the other; for their care as much as their

outrage.

Someone bleeds out on the mountain. Someone breathes,

terrified. Someone is afraid.

The word: shard. The words.

They began to shoot and shoot and shoot.

I never want to read these words again: They began to shoot and shoot

and shoot. I never want to read the word unarmed.

“I told the one who was pointing his gun at me to kill me, that

two of my five children were already dead,” the mother recalls.

I never want to read these words again: They kept launching

grenades at us.

“They kept launching grenades at us,” she says.

The mother’s face, chest, and arms still bear traces of the

shards.

The word unarmed. The gesture of the victim.

A vigil is held for two white coffins containing the remains of

Bryan and Martín in the modest home at 1135 Calle Esfinge

in the crowded community of Los Colorines.

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