Comptine d’un Autre ete: L’Apres-Midi by: Camila Tellez Pardo, Mixed media on canvas, 2016.
20 Years Ago (March 31st)
by: Jenise
March 31st, 1995 Tejana singer Selena was shot.
Twenty years later, I was surprised to find out my mother
Thought she was dying of cancer.
As news kept coming in about the woman who died so young,
my mother locked herself in the laundry room,
Sat on her new dryer,
And grieved.
Both newlywed, aspiring women,
Yet here one was sitting on her dryer in tears
because she thought she was dying.
Tejanos remember the day
Selena Quintanilla was taken,
My mother remembers because
It was discovered she was pregnant.
I was the cancer she thought she had.
Thinking about it now,
I fit both definitions.
I was a malignant growth of uncontrolled cell division in my mother’s body,
But also, I grew to be evil, destructive, and hard to eradicate.
I am evil because I caused my mother birthing pains,
And I drained my parents of money.
I am destructive because I deteriorated my mother’s health
for nine months and, after my birth,
I continued to destroy my parent’s peace
and my mother’s clean house.
I am hard to eradicate because of forensic science.
So many years ago today my mother thought she had cancer.
Perhaps she was right.
Most importantly,
Twenty years ago today my favorite singer died
And I am sitting in the open,
Listening to sirens and remembering her death,
As if I was here.