Bleeding Crimson
(Take a Trip With Me Down to) New Orleans
The last part is a hidden treasure that the flashy brochures keep hidden beneath the centerfold. The French Market, Café du Monde—all of these sights screamed tourist. Walk into the streets and take a picture of impromptu street performers, try the King Cake, hope to find a baby Jesus. Leave the city with photos and a full stomach but you’re still the same; tasted the city but haven’t found the baby Jesus just yet.
The Color of Piraguas
My grandmother sits me down firmly and tells me this, but I can’t hear her. "Você é uma menina branca, que não entende." I can feel the bricks of the stoop biting into the back of my five-year-old knees as my eyes smart, hurt by the insults of the piragua vendor at the corner who sneered, jeering that blancitas weren’t allowed in this part of Newark. "Eres una blancita que no entiende nada." My sister saunters towards me, her olive-toned hands cradling her red shaved ice, and my face begins to burn, marring the constellation of freckles on my face, in the hopes I could grow up one day to look like her—Hispanic.
