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We called it el Borrachero,
the Drunken Tree.
Who’s to say why Mamá decided to grow that tree in her garden? It may have been that long mean streak in her, or it may have been because she was always saying you couldn’t trust anyone.
It was, after all, the tree whose flowers and fruit were used in burundanga and the date-rape drug.
Apparently, the tree had the unique ability of taking people’s free will.
Burundanga was a native drink made out of Dru...
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la Soltera
Pablo Escobar.
North America seemed like such a clean, pleasant place.
The rain was sleek on the black-tar street and the police were well-mannered and filled with principles.
Petrona didn’t look thirteen, though that’s what Mamá said. Her face was ashy and her eyes bitter-old. Her hair was cut short like a boy’s and she wore a white apron with border lace like a fine tablecloth. She always had flushed cheeks and red knuckles.
I wondered what Petrona thought about as she closed her eyes.
Petrona wore a cloud of silence
the silence in Petrona’s throat
silence
Mamá
her Indian grandmother, seeing ghosts,
silence.
Petrona, Our Lady of the Invasiones. Petrona, Patron Saint of Our Secret Girlhood.
it must have been Petrona’s saintlike qualities that stilled Mamá’s distrust.
Mamá
people who pretended to be weak disgusted her.
she called any nonviolent person a li...
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“Virgilio Barco
I wanted to yell at the television like Mamá and Papá, but I had to learn how to properly do it. I gathered that being a mouse was better than being a mosquita muerta, and being a snake was better than being a man, because flies pretending to be dead could be crushed, mice were shy, and men were persecuted; but everybody always avoided snakes.
I wanted to yell at the television like Mamá and Papá, but I had to learn how to properly do it. I gathered that being a mouse was better than being a mosquita muerta, and being a snake was better than being a man, because flies pretending to be dead could be crushed, mice were shy, and men were persecuted; but everybody always avoided snakes.

