In my land there is no more talk of hope, no more talk of good. There is no government that one can see. There is not state. This is no place. This is land where we stand and we breathe on. No on knows why we try, we only try to survive, and we only survive to die. Mi hermanas shiver from hunger, mi hermanos look to me with faith in their eyes, only to be met with disappointment upon their next days. Today that streets are run by el jefe, the boss, the man that gathers his children in groups and holds power of this nothing. Mi hermano has joined this group, as I described before. He came home with blood on his shirt and black pasted on his eyes like a dark oil stain through the ground, his hair caked with crust from his open scalp, his hands offering a loaf of bread. Mi madre, she is fuerte, she is only strong so that we may not smell the lie, but it comes to our children anyways. They grow up with fear as their only game, they grow up with hunger as their only friend. When mi madre saw mi hermano, she wasn’t sad and she was not mad. She took his shirt and sent the little one down to the wash. She took the bread and said nothing. I feel anger and disappointment. Mi hermano, he smiles when no one is looking, he is proud. How can I be proud of a job I have not done, a job he must endanger himself to do, a job he has endangered this family to do. El jefe roams the streets now with our home in his territory, our names on his walls. Mi poco hermana’s in prospect for a consequence of betrayal. Their little faces sacrificed for the right of his game.

            El jefe knows all there is to know about all his territory, he knows everything about his people: their names, their lives, and their jobs. He does not know about me. He does not know about xseño. How will I hide it now? Now with el jefe down my throat, in my cellar, in my room, watching us with his right through mi hermano, through mi hermana’s. I am the oldest. These streets are dirty with my humility, shown through paths and doorsteps, stuck on feet and hoofs.