When My Brother Was an Aztec Quotes

“We aren't here to eat, we are being eaten.
Come, pretty girl. Let us devour our lives.”
― Natalie Diaz, When My Brother Was an Aztec

“Worry tastes so dirty when it's spread out like a banquet.”
― Natalie Díaz, When My Brother Was an Aztec

“Ecstasy that must look pretty from inside—to core not just an apple but the entire orchard, the family, even the dog. Leave the shells to the crows. A field of red lampshades in the dark Garden of Myiasis.

This is no cultivated haven. This is the earth riddled with a brother. The furrows are mountains. Waves of sand and we are ships wrecked. What’s left of a fleet of one hundred shadows shattered and bleached. A crop gone to sticks. The honeysuckle sags with bright sour powder. We have followed the flames, followed him here, where all the black birds in the world have fallen like a shotgun blast to the faded ground. The vines have hardened to worms baking in the desert heat. We are at the gate, shaking the gate, climbing the gate, clanging our cups against the gate.

This is no garden. This is my brother and I need a shovel to love him.”
― Natalie Díaz, When My Brother Was an Aztec

“Tonight I am riddled by this thick skull

this white bowling ball zipped in the sad-sack carrying case of my face”
― Natalie Díaz, When My Brother Was an Aztec

“Poor Antigone. Bury the horses, instead, I tell her.
What will we eat then? she weeps, not knowing weeping isn't what it used to be, not here.
Poor, poor Antigone.”
― Natalie Díaz, When My Brother Was an Aztec

“My brother. Our perpetual encore -
he riddles my father with red silk scarves before sawing him in half
with a steak knife. Now we have two fathers,
one who weeps anytime he hears the word Presto!
The other who drags his feet down the hall at night.
Neither has the stomach for steak anymore.”
― Natalie Díaz, When My Brother Was an Aztec

“this hidden glacier hungry for a taste of Titanic flesh,
this pleasure altar, French-kiss sweatshop,
abacus of one night stands, hippocampus whorehouse,
oubliette of regret”
― Natalie Diaz, When My Brother Was an Aztec

“Flyblown figs shimmer at you my bug-eyed boy. The glitzy-bodied flies boogie-woogie to your static grin numbing you while sexy screwworms empty you like a black hole.”
― Natalie Diaz, When My Brother Was an Aztec

“Instead of grace, we rattle forks in our empty bowls.”
― Natalie Díaz, When My Brother Was an Aztec

“Quit bothering with angels, I say. They’re no good for Indians.
Remember what happened last time
some white god came floating across the ocean?”
― Natalie Díaz, When My Brother Was an Aztec

“Like I said, no Indian I’ve ever heard of has ever been or seen an angel.”
― Natalie Díaz, When My Brother Was an Aztec

“There’s no such thing as gentle weeping.
Your gray guitar
is my sister—the hole in the chest
gives you both away.”
― Natalie Díaz, When My Brother Was an Aztec

“I hate raisins because now I know my mom was hungry that day, too, and I ate all the raisins.”
― Natalie Díaz, When My Brother Was an Aztec

“as I watch you from the window— in this city, the city of you, where I am a beggar— the Dawns are heartbreaking.”
― Natalie Díaz, When My Brother Was an Aztec