#chicanismo intensifies

thehappymediumsteapot:

ecc-poetry:

orácules / joss whedon

-elisa chavez

No me sorprende.
No es jumpscare.
Cuando tenía 18 años,
famélica-flaca
con la mente hirviendo,

me coqueteaste.

En mi cosplay de Inara,
fui una muñeca de muñeca.
Todo el mundo es tu casa

de muñecas.
Tu fábrica de violación.
Manipulas los miembros,
haciendo y deshaciéndo;
grabas tus historias en carne.
Cuando la luna crecía,
tú la torturabas para brillar.

La cortaste en cuatro y tiraste.
Hablaste por su boca
y tragaste el crédito.

Of course, I’m a feminist.
I have piles of affidavits.
Have you seen how she slays?
Have you seen her be the moon,
waxing and wild?

The dolls in a house don’t control
how they move. Have you seen
my alleyful of oracles?

Since antiquity,
we’ve picked the right man
to interpret flailing limbs.
To frame breasts
and madnesses,
cleanse foreign rages
into something palette-able.

The oracles say they’re happy.
They told me to tell you
how happy they are.

For those who don’t know enough Spanish to appreciate half of this (or maybe even to catch that the right side is not a translation, and therefore get the whole point of the poem) here you go. Apologies, as my Spanish is quite scanty so I mostly relied on Google.

I’m not surprised.

It’s not a jump scare.

When I was 18,

famished-skinny

with my mind boiling,

you flirted with me. *

In my Inara cosplay,

I was a doll of a doll.

The whole world is your house

of dolls.

Your rape factory.

You manipulate the limbs,

doing and undoing;

you record your stories in the flesh.

When the moon grew

you tortured her to shine.

You cut it in four and threw it away.

You spoke through her mouth

And you swallowed the credit.

*I can’t be certain, but I think Google is being a bit prudish here. I’d appreciate it if someone who speaks Spanish better than me can confirm whether “me coqueteaste” means something more sinister than “flirted with me.”

Reader translationnnnnn!!!!

So, as those of you who follow me may know, I’m a Chicana and not natively bilingual. Sometimes I choose the wrong words or make grammar mistakes. On the one hand: embarrassing. On the other: heckin’ authentic to my experience as someone whose family underwent assimilation and language deprivation over several generations.

I try to let my mistakes just be a part of the imperfect translations in some cases, but not when I feel it impedes understanding or messes with the mood. So!

• For “fábrica de violación,” I intended something closer to “factory of violation”
• In the penultimate stanza, I see I made a classic por/para mistake, and will update that later this morning!

As ever, thank you all for reading, for engaging, and for puzzling.