Pero nosotros podemos con las manos platicar
We can talk through our hands

I always have seven thoughts running in my head at once.
Maybe it’s my head,
maybe it’s my wholeness that speaks to itself

I am often lonely in this endeavor,
speaking to the void inside my brain
as if a void was an oasis

And am often over-accompanied;
by the many voices,
universes and lives within

The voices of my characters speak to me:
often under the guise of a symbolic lesson
or a bid for connection and growth

The voices of my monsters sing to me:
often under the guise of chaos
or a bid for grit, growth and liberation

The voices of my anxieties shout at me:
often under the guise of control
or a bid for slowness and conformity

The voices of my ancestors whisper at me:
often under the shade of a tree
or during meals and dances

The voices of love drum at me:
their rhythms create intimate scales
or pitter-patter patterns to anchor in

The voices of my despair clamor at me:
to make space
for something transmuted and fecund

The voices of my mistakes paint me:
I pretend not to be
attached to the picture they project of me

Last night I heard a new voice,
I felt it . . .
It was the most palpable conversation I’ve had in a while

Hand holding: hands meld in an imagination of their own
Our voices and pores converse without sound
The hands converse with the stars

Whether we decode their message,
or not,
is not paramount

The voices of our hands pulsate,
Unmasking for me the vastness
to inhabit multidimensional exploration

This body of mine doesn’t carry a cross

In catechism, we heard, that your body is a temple
The song is so dry and monotonous
Tu cuerpo es sagrado, tu das el ejemplo
En tiempo de cuerpos autónomos
Our strangeness is always synonymous
With the things we fear, our shame false
The ways we pretend the rule is anomalous
This body of mine doesn’t carry a cross

At the end of the river, they allow the experiential
Unless my ascension denies the erogenous
Mis bases de crecimiento accidental
En contratiempo a los prólogos
Our connectedness is always in prominence
To the things they commit to, and we sustain by force
For the ways we allow ourselves to be enormous
This body of mine doesn’t carry a cross

I out-live the sacred promises
My sainthood will not be sanctioned in a temple
mi ejemplo de sanidad requiere adioses
a las cóleras que en sus voces contempló
I love the bridge in which I tremble
this back of mine will never carry you across
to the place where you hold your hostages
This body of mine doesn’t carry a cross

On the patio and the vinyl record player
The song we recorded for them is joyous
Nuestros ancestros cantan incitandonos al preveer
En la noche de los odios
Our future always growing autogenous
We are insatiable flora protected by a blanket of moss

We are always complete, always ambiguous
We refuse to bear your cross

Kitzia Esteva is a Mexican migrant, gender non-binary, DACAmented fiction writer and poet. They are a social justice organizer engaging in cultural work as imperative to sustaining and evolving social justice movements. They use storytelling as a place to shift narratives about queer/ trans, Indigenous, Black, migrant, and disabled people. Their documentary fiction contributes to our collective imagination of utopia and liberation while honoring the dignity, brilliance, and magic in marginalized communities. They have two non-fiction essays published in the former Black Girl Dangerous online journal. Their first short story, Mixe’s Feather, was recently published in the Acentos Review.