Crossed Over

by Santana Knox

I was meant to be a trophy, a medal, a prize, but she couldn’t hang me on a shelf.

her stare burning into mine. “If a girl is calling me Kitty, she better be making me purr.”

I was born in Latin America, Antônia. Do you think people in Brazil sit around debating their latinidade? No, they just are, existing, next to each other. I don’t think I even said the word latino until I moved to this country. You are just as Brazilian as I am, as your father is, and your grandparents before us. Don’t let people who don’t understand the sum of our experience try to define yours. I craved that kind of confidence, that kind of right to my heritage.

When you’re a woman, your anger is either childish or irrational. It’s never justified. So I didn’t care to try to explain myself anymore.

sometimes, everything was all too much, and something to dull that sharp sting of existence didn’t feel so bad every now and then.

“Please tell me I can kiss you.” Her eyes were glued to my lips, and my stomach fluttered something awful. “I think I’ll die if you don’t.”

“I’m already brown and autistic. I wasn’t prepared to add ‘lesbian’ to the mix.”

I could be my own damn hero, and that meant sometimes letting someone else do the saving.

But Death was right. Fairness had nothing to do with this. We lived and we died. And my time had come. A gift only we possess.