Content warning: this story discusses suicide.
I have just started eighth grade in the Bronx, NY. We are four months into school, but nothing has changed. I still see them pointing, see them laughing, hear their whispers, poorly hidden behind cupped palms. As I slump over the table, nibbling on my empanadas, I ask myself, why bother? Why should I put myself through this when I can make all the pain, all the suffering end. This isn’t the first time I ask myself this, and it certainly won’t be the last.
I barely scrape by in my classes, unable to focus or find a reason to try. My teachers can’t be bothered to try to pronounce my name correctly, so why should I care what they say. I just want to go home to la tierra. La tierra where we eat fried, fatty food and still remain skinny because we dance for hours after the sun goes down on el horizonte. Where la musica tells the stories of our ancestors, their souls in our letras, their hearts in our dances. Here in this foreign land, la tierra seems to be drifting away, further and further out of reach.
I wish I could be the perfect Catholic, Colombian girl, but here in this place where conformity is presented as the only option, I am lost. I slip through the cracks between European beauty standards and what we did at home. Merely a tiny blip on God’s radar, when there are so many larger ones.
I trudge towards my last class. Study hall is the worst, because the teachers don’t pay any attention to what we do. People could choke each other and nobody would notice. As I walk into the room carrying my books, a leg shoots out from under the table and I go tumbling down, again. You would think I would learn, learn to stop, and wait for the leg shooting out from under the table to knock me down, mercilessly toying with me. Apparently you are wrong. I don’t bother trying to get up, knowing someone is there, waiting to knock me over again, only they don’t come. Instead, books, papers, pens, and pencils come flying at me. Then I hear it.
“Go home Pollo!” I hear someone scream.
“You don’t belong here!” another voice yells.
“Latrinos don’t belong in America!” someone else shouts.
The final straw is the girl who screams “You and your lowrider father should have stayed in Colombia and died!”
Water from the ocean, warmed by the sun on the shore, rolls down my face in little droplets, like la lluvia on a bright augusto morning. I run, as fast as my legs will carry me, pretending I am back on the beach, racing barefoot with Maria and Natalia across the hot sand, our feet immune to the temperature. I stop at our apartment for my gun. Papi is at work. I pretend the tears streaming my face are made of water from el océano, falling from our hair, still wet from the waves. I come to the park and slow myself. I check my jacket pocket for my gun, and pocket of my leggings for my phone, wallet, paper, and pencil. I hide in the trees, pull out a piece of paper and begin to write. ‘… I just don’t belong here, you’ve done nothing wrong. I’ll be waiting for you, but don’t come too soon. I’ll see you en la tierra Colombia. I’ll see you at home. Que dios te bendiga, may God bless you. Te amo – Miguelina.’ My paper is covered in splotches from my tears. They’ll become crystals, a last bit of beauty amid this darkness.
Back in Columbia, Papi taught me how to use a gun. The nights were filled with the sound of screams and gunshots. Shattering glass and pleas were as common as the sound of a passing car in the city. When we moved here, he bought two so we each had a means of protection, a way to save ourselves.
I know it will kill Mami and Papi, but there is no longer any other option. As I look at my words, scribbled onto the paper that sits before me, I am sure this is the right thing to do. With my wallet and note in my pocket, I take a deep breath. It’s so easy. All I have to do is press a button. As I hold the barrel to my temple, I take one last look at the cruel world surrounding me, breathe in, and pull the trigger.