I’ve been this way as long as I’ve had memory. I eat fast, no breaks between bites for laughter. The sun drilling through my skull. Sitting together on benches eating lunch. Me and my shadow. The grackle with its mouth open searching for water. The mountain lion no one ever sees or wants to see. All desert creatures are lonely. September 6th 6:00pm I don’t know why I’m here. Getting out of mom’s car and hitting the pavement. Falling in line with the crowd. Past the cheerleaders pacing and warming up for the pep rally. Past the groups of friends squealing and running into each other’s arms. Minerpalooza. The one university event I’ve heard being raved about for years. I glide through the crowd in my well rehearsed dance. Head up, eyes forward, pace fast. It gives off the impression I have a purpose, people to meet. I get to the main stage, and I am hit with a wave of people, bright blue and orange, loud music. Saturated in Miner pride. Pickaxes and golden nuggets surround me. It sinks in. The solitaire. Nowhere to go for 6 hours. No one to talk to. 12am seems a lifetime away. I think I just crash landed on Mars.  No signs of life. Cruising through post-apocalyptic Earth. That is how my favorite movie character lives. This little robot dude that organizes junk into perfect squares. That collects knick knacks and watches 60’s romance musicals on VHS. The moment when they hold hands, he holds his own hand with his own. He longs to connect. I live that life too. Collecting comfort items, plushies to hug. Touch starved. Absorbing myself in novels. Reading through the shelves of my local library. When I am looked over again and again. I too stare at the screen and lock my fingers between my fingers. In a silent prayer. September 6th 6:02pm I stand this way now. Being pushed and shoved through the packed sidewalk. A cloud being devoured by endless blue.  A landing on my shoulder. Rare phenomenon. Butterflies. People that go around and find your yellow goodness. Pollen to spread to others. They land with the intention to leave. I’ve met a few in my lifetime. The girl who read books as if they were water, we emailed until we didn’t. The European who made me smile and laugh at her passion, I was always asleep when she was awake. Poet 1 and Poet 2 who sat with me in the corner of the classroom, the semester ended when the air turned cold. The band kid who thought he could play me like his clarinet, his intentions were a sour note. September 6th 2:00pm One landed today. A deep thinker like me. We talked about the possibilities of language for hours. Swirling ourselves around on office chairs. I hold my breath as he’s here. I brace for farewell.  My therapist tilts her head when I ask her what I’m doing wrong. We dissect social situations like frogs. I follow all the instructions. I still get no where, I still can’t understand people. She says that most people don’t understand the way I socialize. That having me around can make them uncomfortable. The flinching over hugs after word vomit vulnerability. She calls this PTSD, Autism. Big, lonely words. September 6th 6:07pm Climb the hill towards the food or go left to the games. This is the choice I have. The games are towards the office I work at in my on-campus job. The job where I have coworkers. Coworkers that mentioned that they’re coming to Minerpalooza tonight. Who are most likely walking this way right now. The tall building shines in the distance. I snap my head towards the smell of tacos and take off up the hill. Pity is a sad thing to want.  I got a job because I was going insane. School home sleep, school home sleep, school home sleep, school home sleep, school home sleep. On a repeat until I graduate. Just me and my kitchen table for company, I needed people, the variation they bring to life. The adrenaline rush of meeting someone new. I learned I am an extrovert (shocking), and after a year of working here I am still completely alone (not shocking). I spend my evenings swiping through instagram stories of my coworkers hanging out. I’m their friend in a 7th choice kinda way. The acquaintance zone, as I like to call it. A person to joke with in the office, but the friendship ends once we leave the building.  I’m back in that season when I was 11 and my sister hated me. Growing pains of forming our own personalities. Mine is always wrong. I stayed in bed every afternoon rotting like a corpse. Insecurity vultures circling my head. The goof. The snitch. The mean girl. The crybaby. I asked my snotty red reflection who should I become instead? Peeling away the layers of my personality like dried mud. Bottling my feelings deep. Nodding and smiling. I started to live for others. Following their whims, falling deep in the affirmation. I never tried to find something tangible underneath all that surface. September 6th 6:11pm I pace the grounds in a frenzy. Past the boys laying like cats in the sun. I smile at them. I get a slow blink in return. If I pass the same tree again and again, I can become one with the chaos. I can lose myself to the noise.  She moved and the best parts of me moved with her. My sister is 2 years older than me, but we did everything together. We got bad haircuts and played pretend like we were movie stars. She is the nice one, the friendly one, the people catcher. Everyone gravitated towards her warm sunshine. I am the night sky of us. The one with the worst glare and the unfriendly face. The rattling tail. The one people don’t seem to want. September 6th 6:15pm My coworker breezes past me with her arm intertwined with her lover. I try to wave and call out to her, but she doesn’t see me. The traffic of the sidewalk moves around me as I stand still. That deep hollowness chasms my chest. I look at the sets of people around me. The plurality of it. I was never meant to be here on a solo mission. The clouds stack up in the distance. I think it’s going to rain.  Me and the earth keep a secret. The earth is the only one who has ever seen me unhidden. All airs of sarcasm and chill gone. Just me, my laugh, my dance, my unapologetic pain, the meaning I find in rocks on the floor. And the earth, its raindrop tears, the anger in its winds, the warmth of its embrace. I tell it: here is all of me. And the earth says: here is all of me. And we are both liars, we've never been to the core of the other. But we don't care. There is trust between us like the tide. It will retreat. It will always come back to shore. Unless we become a desert. And trust no longer occupies. September 6th 6:23pm The music vibrates my bones and threatens to spill me over. I walk fast past tents and friend groups laughing. Hands on people. Closeness. And me outside of all these bubbles. Breathing comes to me in short spurts. Urgent. I just need to find a blending point. A merge. A bench. A tree. A corner. A person. I push my way through. Eyes stalking the grounds like hawks. No open seats. A poster for a party. I need to belong somewhere. The DJ bopping his head. A balloon popping. Dark curly hair. I stop. The oasis in front of me. The latest landing. Through the crowd blurring by. My eyes. His eyes. Meet. A warm smile. Hand waving. Back and forth, wings of a butterfly. I'm pulled in. The ocean obeying the moon. This land was once the sea. Hello.

Somewhere between West Texas sand and the Mexican border, 100 degrees heat hid 1 million people deep under the sun. We spent our youth buried in that place, far from anything important, enough that no one would look our way. I viewed the desert town through the veil of teenage angst, a mirage of concrete and asphalt that had forgotten to fade away. A plague of entitlement was prevalent in the middle class youth of that summer, defined by loud declarations against authority, I found myself lost in the center of it. In a haze of privilege, smoke, pills, pipes, liquor and line, suburban teenagers buried deep in escape of the sun. Amongst the million was a nerdy boy with a laugh that seemed to get stuck between a hiccup and a stutter. I met Sterling at a middle school lunch table, a skinny, pale, blue eyed boy from a wealthy family. Throughout high school, most afternoon were spent in each others company, both on a mission with no destination, grasping at every and all chance to live a life outside of ourselves. His house could be describes as expensive, and empty. The maid was usually in the kitchen wiping down marble counter tops or oak cabinets. The ceilings of his housed echoed an air of sterility that I hadn't seen before. The help didn't make dinner but, the wine locker stayed fully stocked and Taco Bell had the $5 cravings box, this made Friday plans easy. I only ever saw his parents in passing at the parties they frequently threw. Our meetings consisted of the cordial change of names and an awkward handshake. On halloween they hosted a haunted house, his older sister and her friends scared the neighborhood kids, the adults handed out candy with a beer in hand and teenagers came in and out of the house with red eyes, reeking of marijuana. Summer started earlier that year. Aimlessly in white suburban neighborhoods, we were kids trying to stay out of the sun under the shade of ignorance. We weren't the first to discover pot, synthesizers, or Led Zeppelin, but we felt like the pioneers of a new-age lifestyle just like the rockstars, and hedonistic-martyrs we idolized. The summer only got hotter, and the shade we sat under only grew darker. The memories of the years that followed were stained with the gradual soak of addiction. On one of the instances, my phone rang on a Tuesday night. A few weeks had past since I had heard from my friend, and even longer since I had seen the pale, blue eyed boy I met at the middle school lunch table so to see his name on my phone was a pleasant surprise. The voice on the other end was unmistakable -fear weighed through the telephone, a somber cry. He said his heart was racing and needed to talk. We spoke for hours He rambled about his his plans for the future and how much he wanted to change. " 'It hurts to see the way my family looks at me, "'he would repeat. All I could do was listen. Around the same time, a passion for music, film and literature drew me away from the lifestyle my friend had cultivated, the lens which he viewed the world through became foreign and violent to me. The people around him became strangers. Rumors began to circulate of students showing up to class smelling of wine, this would later be confirmed by the empty bottles of red that administration found in the mens restroom. The school began to get involved. An arrest sent him away for a year. Eventually we weren't just kids having "fun," the tolerance of age no longer justified the behavior of a teenager lashing out against his parents. Time passed and life didn't wait for sterling. Our goals and dreams outgrew each other and soon his name was a story told by strangers in passing sharing anecdotes of a Skinny "tweaker" they had just seen. The shade he cultivated was no longer an escape. His obituary was full of kind adjectives. The place we grew up in had nothing to do with what happened to sterling. Some of us just stayed behind, Some of us are still buried deep under the sun.

On a very lonely and uninteresting summer afternoon, when the orange tint of the sun’s setting rays still peeked through my curtains beneath a gorgeously pink sky, I sat down and watched a movie duology for the first time. I’d never seen these movies before this moment, and even though I recognized the director’s name, I wasn’t at all familiar with his previous output. They were the Kill Bill movies, and – to Quentin Tarantino’s credit – both films were a very enjoyable introduction to his filmography. However, there was one minor, super tiny, probably very inconsequential little detail in the films that rubbed me the wrong way when it immediately caught my eye. And it would continue to bug me still by the time I tried to go to sleep when the full moon shone high up through my curtains that night. The second that the location text popped up on my screen during the flashback of the Bride’s wedding. The second that I read the words “Two Pines Church. El Paso, Texas” I immediately knew that this empty, dry, and isolated movie set wasn’t filmed on a single spec of my dusty El Paso soil. I knew at that moment that Tarantino had presented to the world a version that was the furthest representation of the real city, of my El Paso. A version that made it seem that we’re just a town of 500 or less made up of a primarily white population that completely neglected its bilingual scene, along with a complete absent presence of Ciudad Juárez; a version he thought could easily be showcased with what I guessed was the Mojave Desert. And that 2 AM Google search I did just to be certain of my gut feeling proved my suspicions right… I could be charitable and say that it doesn’t matter. At the time he just happened to be uninterested in using a small corner of our city considering the massive scope of these movies. But regardless, I really cannot pretend to say that I’m still not mildly annoyed with this depiction. At the end of the day, this is the image of our region that a large portion of the masses who have never set foot here perceive when hearing our name. That same image of a dusty, near empty town that one could completely ignore unless it’s to stop by a gas station while on a road trip. We are a desert region, no one is denying that truth, but in the early 2000s especially? Our sun city was so, so much more alive than any of the El Paso scenes in Kill Bill could even dream of capturing. And the best part? It still is. Our city has only grown over the years. I, like many in my age group, am a native born and raised El Pasoan. The only reason I have been able to call this entire border region my home for a little over two decades was because of my parents realizing the dream that they had for me and my future: The desire to give me a better life. In their time in Ciudad Juárez, their upbringing was a whole other world of difference compared to what they gave me here. Poverty’s embrace always seemed to follow their families at every turn, the gangs that ran their block kept a constant eye on their every move, and grief’s constant sting often made their hearts bleed. But the Franklin Mountains were always over on the horizon from wherever they stood. Whether it was on the uneven dirt roads that went up and down like stitched together hills on the way to la UACJ, or from the bright, lit-up red, white, and yellow store front of an OXXO. They always knew that the next step they wanted to take was to settle on the other side of the Rio Grande and figure something out. Their resolve to move only grew stronger by the sudden increase of the femicides in the city. The memory I have of the early 2000s El Paso is based entirely on the hundreds of cassette and VHS tapes that my parents had of me. Back when rusted brown metals weren’t fenced up by the border horizon for miles on end, before the modern surge of certain solid red caps, and before the giant Juárez red X came to be. Revisiting that footage now it’s easy to write it off as mostly me just doing a lot of walking and silent staring at the world around me. From navigating the long border bridge walks to a Juárez park because of my dad’s football reunions with his high school league compadres or exploring the Chamizal National Memorial Theatre right before my mom’s folklorico performances with my cousins who could only speak English. This was the world that my parents had worked so hard for me to experience, all captured on the lens of multiple plastic cassette tapes that are labeled with my name. I may not remember any of the thoughts that I had when I was six years old, but if I had to take a guess, I probably already knew then just how integral these sister cities were to my life. I really could not enjoy all El Paso’s offerings and pretend that Juárez wasn’t a part of my identity as well. On one side of the Rio Grande, I could stare in awe at the colorful houses stacked on top of each other beneath their mountain that read “La Biblia es la Verdad. Leela” all the way from the green grasses of Ascarate Park. In reverse, I could also be walking through the uneven dirt roads at La Feria and stare back towards the shining star on the mountain that flies above the small metal fences guarded by a border patrol truck. Both sights shared the same sky to me. The same sun kissed orange clouds that would fly above as our dusk settled into a final mural for the day, before the moon would take over the night. Sitting here now as a twenty-three-year-old on a bench at the Ascarate Healing Garden beneath the unrelenting heat of peak summer weather and basking under the smallest shade of a palm tree leaf, the color that I used to vividly see back then has grown dimmer over the years. The sun still commands the clouds beautifully and still paints the skies in a way that I could stare at them for hours on end, don’t get me wrong. But I cannot deny that the rusted, brown, miles-long wall feels more like a stain to our horizon line than it does offer any of the “protection” it was pitched with. I grew up seeing the constant construction of it way back when on the drives along the border highway to Cordoba Bridge. The once easily visible colorful houses on the other side where one half of my family tree still lives were now only visible behind the blank spaces between the bronze bars. The only thing that towers above it now es la X roja de Juárez that marks the spot of my childhood years, and with the barbed wire that has been recently added to the fence’s head, they seem more like gray hairs from this distance with the way their thin curls flap with the breeze. I really can’t help but feel like we’re still used as a prop. I mean, were undeniably used as such by an ex-President for racist remarks against our immigrant population. To spread fear that the supposed united fabric and safety of the United States is in danger from “invaders” despite evidence of the contrary. These people in offices of power may have visited us, but they didn’t bother to know us. To live with us. And it’s evident that they don’t really care to do so. As a result, we were targeted in a hate filled massacre that was also undeniably fueled by racism and white supremacy. El Pasoans were then used as props yet again when he and his wife visited with the goal of taking PR photos with our survivors that were topped off with his signature thumbs up and “nothing is wrong” grin. Sitting here, hearing the fountain’s musical stream run on both sides of this memorial. Seeing the memorial’s perpetually lit flame behind me dance with the temperate breeze and listening to the solitary bee buzzing through the flowers in full bloom, the news cycle and the headlines from that week flash in my mind. We may have survived as a much more united city, and we may have shown the world our steadfast resolve with “El Paso Strong”, but that doesn’t change the fact that the American cycle of public shootings keeps occurring again, and again, and again. And the fear mongering around non-white immigrants has only gotten worse, and worse, and worse. Before I allow myself to go home I walk on the garden’s brick pathways one last time. Looking at every single one of the bronze names engraved in the twenty-three plaques against the white wall that holds them in place. The fountain’s steady song blends with the wind, and by the time I reach the final name, the bee that kept me company flies away. We lost people from all walks of life that day from the violence that comes with ignorance, and there’s no way for me to know if El Paso being a more widely recognized city could have prevented anything that took place that day. And hell, I don’t even know if the building of the wall and the symbol of rejection that it immortalized could have been stopped either. But if there’s one thing I have come to realize after being a spectator for so long, it’s this. If our city and our region keeps being seen and treated as this intangible space without an identity of its own to be used haphazardly by people in power, it will just cause more harm than good. Especially for any other cities in the nation made up of minority communities like us…

The sun was just rising over the old peaks of Juárez, causing golden rays upon the expanse desert landscape of El Paso, Texas. For Amara Johnson each sunrise represented a new beginning. But when she laced up her running shoes that morning, the silence of her apartment was filled with memories of her first days in El Paso. She remembered arriving in El Paso and how it was both exciting and terrifying, the thoughts of her sleeping in the airport for 7 hours layover rushed back to her- first time on a plane. As it descended through the clouds. Excited that she is going abroad to study and run track but terrified - El Paso does not look beautiful at all. When Amara stepped off the plane, she felt a blast of emotions, happiness and excitement mixed with the weight of loneliness. She kept replaying every part of the day through her head, from her sisters taking her to the airport to checking in, to getting snacks and even sleeping on the floor between her flights- she cherished it all. The excitement of opportunity was overshadowed by the solitude of being alone in another country. She thought about all the things that she would be able to do, since her parents were not around. The first couple weeks were jumbled with practice, classes, awkward introductions in class and at practice and the appealing and intoxicating smell of new and fresh adventures awaiting. Still, loneliness clung to her like a shadow. She felt so distant from home and her family, despite all the friendly, warm and genuine smiles from her coaches and classmates. She missed her family, especially her dad-as he was sick. She missed the sunny morning runs to the farm, where they would sit and talk all day about absolutely nothing. She missed pulling all-nighters with her younger brother Jay, the sweet spicy scent of jerk chicken, and the loud ear bussing reggae music blasting from her neighbor’s house. She missed the daily walks with her siblings to the river, she missed the smell of green trees and fruits in her backyard- the heat of the day and cool of the nights and mornings. She missed churches on Sundays and Wednesdays and prayer meetings with her sisters. With all those memories, she was still excited for what was ahead as she knew it was great things. Days turned to weeks and weeks to months and Amara began to embrace the warmth and welcome of El Paso and its people. She found solace in experiencing the Mexican and Texan culture and food. It reminded her of home, and she thought she had found her new home. Running became her place of peace, afternoon practices with her training partner Maribel turned her loneliness into determination to make something good out of her life and track career as she felt and knew she was apart of something bigger. A community, home maybe. It was during a late afternoon practice, as the sun got hotter, and practice was about to start- the sun beaming. She met Miguel, he was a 400-meter runner- very quiet and had a great love for the sport. She remembered her from an Instagram post, she giggled as she thought about how she though he was cute when she saw the post in Jamaica and now, she is literally here beside him. After a couple weeks of her pretending not to notice him, even though she was attracted to him- he messaged her. They connected, their relationship grew into something more- they started dating and then got engaged after two and a half years. Love, a love that felt natural. As graduation got closer, Amara found herself reflecting on her journey and she thought about her experiences and how proud she was of herself. After visiting Jamaica twice in the three years that since she left, the quiet moments that she spent at the river with her siblings, watching the perfect water flow came back to her. There was a peace that she never noticed, the loneliness was no longer present- as she looked at the life that she made for herself, a life filled with love from people who has been apart for her experience- friends, coaches and Miguel who has made her nights less lonely. El Paso welcomed her with open arms, giving her peace that resides in her soul and wrapped around her like a warm blanket. She has grown to appreciate even the simple things in life, like the laughter shared over meals at a local restaurant to the taunting of her teammates, the relationship she has with them and the calm slow pace of life at the border. She had found a new home. And in these memories and experiences, from the desert wind to the great heat and frequent dust storms- she realized that home was not a place, but it was people and a feeling. She knew that wherever life took her next. El Paso would always be a part of her story.

For more than a year, my body had been put on the line numerous times training for the moment in which it would be put on the line for real. This time would be in a more serious atmosphere. From the many times I ran drills between the ring ropes, to the many bumps taken on my back practicing powerbombs, and even on motivating and working a crowd I had yet to perform in front of. I felt that if I was ever going to showcase the skills I’ve accumulated over the past year as a professional wrestler, then it would need to come soon. To be called for a wrestling event felt like being drafted to the NFL for my 21-year-old brain when I was told by my coach that I had been offered to be a part of a tag team match in an El Paso Lucha Libre event called Fight on the Star. I would be lying if I said I thought I was more than ready at that moment to finally have a match. I was as much of a beginner as a kid at a poker table. I only dreamed of wrestling in front of a crowd. These dreams consisted of a large pile of other wrestling hopes, such as me winning a world title at Wrestlemania. As much as I wanted these dreams to come to fruition, my nervousness and my own ego tried to talk me out of it. I thought I should skip it and train some more. I even thought that I felt more like a singles competitor, not a tag team competitor. I never trained as a tag team partner, so how would I be able to compete like one? The reasons to not take the match piled up higher and higher, and I almost let it overshadow me. However, after talking to my coach after another grueling day in the ring training, he told me what I needed to hear in the moment. He told me not only that I should take the match, but he also gave me proper advice: “It’s better to take a chance at success or failure than to never take a chance at all.” It was there in that practice ring, two weeks before Fight on the Star, that I agreed and took a chance on having my first ever match in a real wrestling event in El Paso. Fast forward to the day of the event, and I have spent more time in the toilet than in the general locker room chatting it up with some of the other experienced performers. Men and women who have been in the sport from a range of a couple years to even decades surrounded that room. People have killed to have the opportunities that I had. Just to talk to any one of these guys would have been more than beneficial, and I felt like a selfish prick using all that time voiding my nervous bowels. I was told earlier that my match was the second to last on the card and it would be between myself, and another wrestler named El Skybird versus the tag team known as Los Chicanos. Los Chicanos was a team I had kept my eye on as I viewed them as a fan attending past wrestling shows, and I was a fan of their high flying moves and classic Lucha Libre aesthetic. To know I would be facing them only added to my nervousness. After a good while in the bathroom, I finally worked up the courage to introduce myself to my tag partner. Skybird was a physically toned man who reached my height of 6’4”. He wore light blue tights that matched his light blue luchador mask. He was stretching his arms in the locker room and my immediate thought was that he wouldn’t want to even be bothered to talk to the novice he would be tagging with, let alone work with. These worries evaporated the minute he stuck his hand out to shake mine along with a gleaming smile after greeting me. At that moment, I wasn’t talking to just an experienced wrestler with a couple of notches on his belt, but rather I was talking to a guy who was actually excited to be working with a kid who was having his first match. Our initial conversation of general greetings and excitement over our match quickly switched to our ideas for what we wanted to work on tonight in our match. Soon after, we were met with our very own opponents, Los Chicanos, who greeted Skybird as an old friend, and greeted me as a new guy on board. Talking with these guys about what kind of fight we were going to have felt ironically exciting, regardless of the amount of pain we were going to subject ourselves to. They wanted to keep up their heel gimmick, meaning they wanted to be the villains of the match. Meanwhile, Skybird and I played the gimmick of the baby face, or good guys. After a solid few minutes of conversing, planning, and hyping each other up, we made our way to the entrance curtain. It was time. I was going to be introduced to the wrestling world and, I didn’t know if I fit in at all. In a building full of toned and flexible men with six-packs wearing lucha libre masks and bright colored tights who were used to doing flips and tricks in the ring, I was a big white guy who was more of a powerhouse wearing black jeans with wrestling boots, a black tank top, and had athletic wraps around my arms and wrists. I didn’t have a gimmick. I didn’t have a character. I didn’t have a persona to drive on. I was just me. I was a metalhead from El Paso, Texas who barely knew what he was doing except wanting to fulfill a pipe dream of being a professional wrestler, even if it was just for one night. As I stood behind the curtain waiting to make my entrance, I thought of all the greats who I grew up watching on TV when they made their debuts. Legends like Randy Orton, CM Punk, Roman Reigns, and my personal hero, John Cena. I kept telling myself that they all started from somewhere before they became great, just like me. They could do it, and they made it big even when no one knew who they were. They made their moment, and this was mine. Los Chicanos made their entrance first, followed by El Skybird. There was a moment before I went out. It was silent. I closed my eyes and told myself, This is the moment 7-year-old you wanted to make happen. Don’t disappoint him. That’s when Back in the Game by Airbourne started playing in the speakers and the ring announcer spoke: “And his partner, making his debut tonight! From El Paso, Texas, weighing in at 285 pounds, Nick Bowman!” I blasted through the curtain and went from being a shy and nervous kid to being an energetic and crowd-hyping fighter ready to take on the world in the middle of the ring that stood ahead of me. At that moment, all the worry in the world faded away. I was no longer Nick Bowman the student, the manager, or the writer. I was Nick Bowman the wrestler. From the minute the bell rang, all four of us engaged in a match that was both physical and exciting. Los Chicanos showed off their team dynamic with their special team attack set that involved them attacking Skybird and I with moves that sent us in and out of the ring. Skybird came back at them with his jaw dropping maneuvers off the top ropes and many superkicks he gave to both of our opponents. In the moments I stepped in and I felt clumsy, yet confident. I came at them with the power of a linebacker. My punches were as wide as they were hard. I was a heavy lifter in the ring, and my power showcased that. At some point, I even almost caused my own career ending injury when I landed on my neck as I was being piledrived on the side apron of the ring. For a moment, I thought my neck was broken. One of the Chicanos and the referee whispered to me to make sure I was okay while I was on the ground outside the ring. I don’t know if it was the adrenaline or my own sense of high pain tolerance, but I got up at only a moment’s notice and continued the match. The match went on every way I could have wanted it. It was exciting, physical, exhilarating, and fun. I even tested out my new finisher: a swift punch to the jaw I called the “Bow and Arrow.” The crowd loved it. I even got them to chant my name trying to inspire me to go on and win. In the end, Los Chicanos won the match after performing a somersault jump on me off the top rope and pinning me for the 3-count by the referee. With their hands raised as the victors, Skybird and I walked away to the curtain with our arms over each other’s shoulders as the defeated, yet also being clapped out by the crowd who gained a newfound discovery of respect for an experienced wrestler and a new and aspiring wrestler. Back in the locker room, I finally felt the full force of the pain in my neck after the hard knock. Both Chicanos patted my back and offered their respect towards me for a great match. Skybird acknowledged the same. I felt like a star. Of all the names in the hall of fame of wrestling and the legends that came from it, I felt like I was one of them. I was paid $120 that night, but I would’ve done it for free. No amount of money in the world would have filled me up with the same amount of gratitude and happiness I experienced that night. It wasn’t just a great night for me. It was a night for that 7-year-old kid who sat on his bed with a WWE bed comforter, surrounded by wrestling action figures, styrofoam title belts walls covered with posters of his favorite wrestlers. All while watching wrestling every day of the week hoping that even if it was just for one moment, he could be a wrestler just like his heroes. The tears I cried in that locker room were for that little boy. His dreams came true.

“Take me home.” In a maneuver to protest you reach to make contact with my clasped hand, but the goosebumps appearing on my arms cue that I should forbid it. Retracting myself from your seething action and reinforcing my tone, “Take me home. Now.” The reflection of light from the illuminated parking lot of the coffee shop allow me to see you clearer. The coffee shop we just spent hours playing Sorry, Not Sorry. A dry feeling invades my mouth negating the once delicate honey citrus mint tea. A ways past the coffee shop I part my lips as I attempt to make sense of the nude photos I saw. The same lips we had clapped together whilst our tongues played a competitive game of tag. Time came to a standstill when the knowledge that this – us – is going to come to an end. No… not yet. My lips purse together, sucking at my teeth while passing the unlit streetlamps as you barely drive the speed limit. I brace myself by regulating my breathing to draw an unsuspecting face. How will I continue to stay with you? I can’t. After this stabbing pain ceases I’ll want to, but for my sake I shouldn’t. If I have any respect for myself unlike you, I-I can’t. In the car I feel the uneasiness of a plague illuminating off of me and your concern battling it. “I… I accidentally saw the photos.” Glaring at you, your thin face sinks while meeting my sharp eyes repeatedly as you lower your gaze like a shamed dog. Silence. I feel the Hyundai come to a slow stop before it goes idle by a poorly lit curbside. Here I sit in my sweatpants and my tee, with my hair in a ponytail while those women sit in your phone with their makeup and hair well done to accentuate their bodies. As you rummage to find the right words your lack of them becomes interrupted by the stream of tears staining my sweatpants. My lip trembles as the image of us becomes blurred. “It’s not what you think,” you reassure, as if I hadn’t been bombarded by boobs and ass in multiple photos. “What is it then?” I ask hoping you’ll be honest, but all I need is a confirmation of why anyone would have obscene and pornographic photos of women. To my surprise the next words coming out of your mouth are, “I never cheated on you.” Processing this the heavy tears plopped down slowly. The AC in the car becomes so prominent I prefer the humming over whatever nonsense originated from your unfaithful tongue. Rather than accepting responsibility for the indecency on your phone you continue to believe it is okay to have that saved in order to protect yourself from my judgmental being. I consider it cheating, you-You know this. The fact that we had an intimate and sexual relationship I expect myself to be enough. Don’t I deserve respect? Or to feel attractive and desirable? I have been sent dick pics before but never once was I aroused nor did I have the indecency to save them. “Why?” I search in you. “Why?” I brace myself only to be stunned by the answer, your words dagger then scrape the insides of my heart, “Sometimes I just get horny. I don’t know why, it’s something wrong with me.” You deserve absolutely no pity from me, no understanding. Nothing. To even stare into your soul I will be unable because the person sitting across from me I do not recognize, those eyes are plainly unfamiliar. Someone I looked at with such admiration and recognition, I see nothing but a stranger. I had known you for years, we had been best friends prior to dating so I thought I saw all aspects of you. No more than a few days prior we had sex, not even a day ago I had you in my mouth allowing you to ejaculate. The thought of our sexual relationship winded me, while we fucked you could have been thinking of them; women that looked absolutely nothing like me. “Why? For how long? How often did you jerk off to them? When we had sex did you think about them? Were you going to tell me? Did you think I wouldn’t find out? What did you like about them? What about their bodies did you like? Do you find me attractive? Did you masturbate to them on our anniversary? How many pictures? What about me is so unattractive? Am I enough for you? Why didn’t you tell me, why- why did I have to find out? And-and I don't think just cause you were horny, I don't think that’s a good reason at all. And I know you don’t consider it cheating. I know you just consider it pictures, but I consider it cheating.” Your heavy hand covers your shamed eyes, even your tears work in your favor by blurring your vision from the truth you need to face. Though I absolutely hate you right now your drawn brows and your sunken face make me want to make whatever this is okay. No. As your teeth release your cheek your dull lips part to allow a sob to escape. I continue more calmly. “That is extremely disrespectful to me. I feel like our relationship didn’t matter. Didn't… matter to you at all.” The space in the Hyundai becomes narrow as the dim lights make me only more trapped before opening the car door to be struck by the crisp air that tries reconciling my tears on my bleak walk home. Your reasoning, for having sexual photos of other women on your phone, sent to me via text: “I never asked you for photos because I did not want to disrespect you.” Fuck You.

I’ve never given much thought to what happens to the human heart when you die. The fact that it stops beating along with your breathing and your skin turns ice cold is a concept my own brain can’t wrap itself around. I also never realized how long I held my breath after my father died. I remember the day I learned of his passing. A sudden jolt of energy forced me out of bed with only one thought in my head, “I’m hungry.” I went downstairs to the kitchen to find something to satisfy the growling in my stomach. Instead, I found my sister and mother quietly whispering at the dining table. I remember thinking, “How odd? Never once in my life have I seen them sitting so close with a vast ocean of tension flowing between them.” Their voices went quiet when they saw me standing within earshot. I noticed my mothers’ eyes were red and puffy, my sister fidgeting with her hands. I could feel a sense of uneasiness clawing up my throat. “Hey Zeira, we need you to sit down really quick.” My name rolled off my sisters tongue and I knew instantly that from this moment forward, I would no longer live in my peaceful innocence. With the thoughts of food long gone, I took a seat in the chair closest to the door because something deep inside me knew I was going to want to run away from this conversation. “We have something to tell you. It’s about your father. He passed away a couple days ago.” I watched my sister mouth these words to me, but my vision went blurry. My mother, having started crying the moment I sat down, made no effort to reassure me. My big sister, my role model, my rock was forced to tell me herself. To hold me as I caved into myself with my own tears. Her eyes were tearing up too. This surprised me since I knew she viewed my father as the evil intruder of her childhood. She constantly retells me the stories of my father’s intrusion into her home, her life, and how she stole our mother’s inner self and turned her into someone she didn’t recognize. Later, I realized she wasn’t crying because she mourned my father, but because she knew she had to watch my inner demons devour me whole. I had so many questions. How? When? Why? But my own thoughts kept returning to the guilt I felt for not knowing sooner. Years prior, I had cut all contact with my father. After learning about his infidelity throughout my parents’ marriage, I forced him out of my life. At the time, I was blinded by rage. Right then and there I decided I wouldn’t waste my time attempting to forgive him. I bottled up all those emotions and pain and forced myself to move on. I had time to face this later. I will make time, later. Now he was gone. I had lost time. I couldn’t stay angry at a dead man. It’s been 4 years since he passed. Every year I grieve differently. One year, I placed his photo on our families ofrenda during Dia de Los Muertos, only because I felt sick not including him. As if he would haunt me from beyond the grave. Another year, I drank so much that I would forget to mourn him. I woke up the next morning shivering, as if the blood in my own body had run cold. My brothers, who never spoke a single word to me prior to our father’s death because they despised my existence, had taken it upon themselves to critic the way I mourned. From pointing out when I forget to post on social media on the anniversaries of his death, to criticizing the number of tears I have shed since. I no longer talk to them. They say death brings family closer, but I’ve never felt more distant from them. Their judgment and my inner turmoil about how to mourn him have caused me more pain than I deserve to deal with. I am one human being with her own beating heart. With lungs that still fill with air and blood that boils at the trauma my father has caused me. I don’t need to forgive him until I’m ready. And I don’t need to force myself to think about him when the echoes of his heartbeat can be heard within me. Whether I want it to be or not, he will always be a part of me. That thought alone is what keeps me breathing.

I always wanted to live somewhere with mountains. Growing up in Minnesota, even a big hill was hard to come by. I had grown so accustomed to flat land enclosing lakes that mountains seemed otherworldly to me. The horizon was the first thing that caught my eye when I first touched down in El Paso. It was lined with these elevated that younger me dreamed of being surrounded by. My dad was with me to experience those first few moments of my move to the city. This sight was not so unfamiliar for him. He grew up in a village that was actually on a mountain, about seven hours from the capital of Ethiopia, in a small town called Nekemte. As we drove toward the west side on Mesa, I was reminded of what my coach told me on one of our recruiting calls. “They call it the Sun City” she said enthusiastically. The name came to mind as we watched the mountains turn red, reflecting the sunset. As weeks went by, I quickly found my new favorite hobby. Going to watch the sun go down over the city on Scenic Drive. I guess this means I’m a lot like my mom. She always told me how when she was a young adult, like me, she would go watch the sunset by a lake every night like clockwork. She found peace in the changing colors of the sky, and as the sun slowly went away, it seemed like the rest of the earth and time along with it became still. It’s crazy to me how much a young girl in Ethiopia and one who just moved to El Paso can relate. But I felt connected to that girl as I stared at the horizon on those summer nights. I remember one night in particular; I was on a rooftop with some teammates. We were next to 2Ten, and I suddenly became captivated by a thought that seemed to drown out the conversation. My mind echoed, in the Bible, why is it that so many significant events happened on a mountain? The ten commandments were given by God to Moses, Abraham (almost) sacrificed Isaac, the sermon on the mount, even Jesus’ death and more events, all took place on a mountain. In the Bible there was a common verbiage used which is a “high place.” Essentially it meant a place of worship or somewhere dedicated to God. When people were instructed to go to the “high place” they took a journey to the peak of a mountain to be with God. Intellectually, it made sense to me. High place equals elevated ground, equals being set apart, equals closeness to God. Makes sense. But it hit me in a unique way once I had the opportunity to hike these mountains. There is something about the journey that shows beauty in persistence. Whether it’s a hot day or a rocky path, there’s a certain dedication you have to reach the peak of any mountain. Also, there is a similarity in the peace mountains and sunsets bring. As I mentioned, mountains are set apart, they don’t blend in with the rest of the earth and there’s a solitude that comes with that. It’s an intimate experience at the peak of a mountain. You are above the noise, quite literally. Able to hear God clearly and directly. He whispers, but you can hear him loudly. The journey is worship, and the destination is solitude with his voice. Most people from here don’t see the Mountains the same way I do. They seem to always point out the dirt and it’s shades of brown. Most would prefer the forest mountains of Cloudcroft. But I think most would think differently if they saw them for what they are. High places. I’ve grown to love these desert mountains. The not so hidden treasure of the 915.

I could say the worst thing that's ever happened to me with a straight face. I've done it before. Enough times for my voice to stop shaking. I could say it wasn't just one instance but many. Again. and again, over half my life. I could specify the abuse. I could write a million pages on it. I could pretend it doesn't still feel like my soul is being shredded apart when I read it back. But I won't. Instead, I’ll think about September. The month all the poets on my Instagram feed write about as the end of light and warmth and I can feel it too. The trees can feel it too, shriveling in on themselves. I like to think of myself as a tree in September. My burning hot summer over. Too much too soon, I must leave. I write the way I socialize. Giving everything up, all my words exposed. Yet could we turn the years again, / And call those exiles as they were - W.B Yeats, September 1913 Last week I sat in an empty college classroom with new friends. There was rolly chairs and lack of attention spans. My chair had a drift, it would take me away from our uno game. I had to stick my foot under the wheel to stop it. And there in this silly moment I shared about my childhood. Where I should have stuck my foot in my mouth to stop it. A wholesome story, I thought, was met with horrified looks. A "thank you for sharing that". The joy sucked out of the room, and I was the vacuum. I was possessed by the past again. When we first came to this classroom my friends were afraid there was ghost. I guess they didn't notice they were walking with one. They didn't turn to see how the setting sun flickered straight through me. … September, it stays awhile like an old friend that you have missed. - Stephen King PTSD is a jerk. An undoable jerk I didn't ever want to know. I grew up afraid of everything. Dancing in public, small talk, spiders, tall buildings, demons. All things except for the ones I couldn't know to be scared of. Like how one moment, or a series of moments could brand me like a cow. Stitch fear into my nerves, my brain. Make me belong to a memory instead of myself. The kid I miss. The kid who was a mystery. A liar. A sweetheart. An anti-hero. Unlike me who understands what it means to be haunted. How fast this road I'm on can trick me into being Bad. I can't be morally grey because that's Bad. I can't say no because that's Bad. This PTSD jerk can turn me poltergeist fast. Take me over and shut everyone out. Send them accusatory text messages. Never speak to them again. Teeter on the edge of my mind into that dark pit of giving in. I can't even ask for help because struggling with being human is Bad. How I must fall to my knees and beg a God to make me pure and white and new. How I smile and nod and agree and don't talk from myself but from The Ideal I think everyone else wants. An angel who doesn't laugh at jokes. Who never tells a lie except when I probably shouldn't. There goes that Bad again. I can't ever unknow the handprints on my body. I can't ever experience what it's like to grow up with trust intact. To feel the solid ground of it under my feet. The roots deep below the surface. Unplucked. There is a time in late September when the leaves are still green, and the days are still warm, but somehow you know that it is all about to end, - Sharyn McCrumb Yesterday I sat in the aftermath of leaking. Showing too much of my soul to those friends. Who I don't even know if we're actually friends. Or if I am just interesting because of my scars, the way I'm barely human because of them. I sat in my bed wrapped in my blankets like a burrito. I debated staying there forever like a commemorative statue. Afraid these people only saw me as a caricature. Afraid I'll keep letting them open me like a history book and annotate over the torn and burn and crumpled up pages. Adding commentary to already broken pieces of me. I wrapped my arms around myself and felt the chasm in my heart. The place deep in me that whispers, you'll never be more than where you've been. The part the summer never reaches screaming at me to take back a moment that's already passed, aching for an impossibility. On the 3rd to last day of September when everything is ending, I realized what it means to be permanently damaged.

We arrived in El Paso on the summer of ‘01, my family and I settled into a pink house with a big Okame cherry tree, on Borderland Street, fitting name, isn’t it? We left a whole life behind, one that was so intertwined with my grandparents, who had helped raise us since we were babies. Whenever I sat in the kitchen table eating dinner in our new home, sometimes I would wonder about my abuelita, her tender hands chopping calabasitas or making her nightly cup of coffee. I missed her dearly even through she used to get mad at me for not listening and climbing on her bookshelves. We lived apart now, in different countries, I could not walk to her house a backyard away anymore, a whole border was between us now. We all got our own room, a luxury we didn’t have when we lived back in Juarez. My siblings and I had shared a room for the past four years of my life. While I had not minded the company of my brother and sister, I was also not the one being kicked in their sleep or pestered over irrational fears off the cucuy hanging out at the publicphone around the corner of our house, waiting to take me because I was not asleep when I should have been. We got the option to paint our rooms and decorate, the walls in my room were purple like the tinker bell comforter on my single bed. My mom took us to the neighborhood park nearly everyday that summer, there we played until we were red in the face, so thirsty we would ask the house across the street to let us drink from their hose. Sometimes the kids in the playground spoke Spanish, sometimes they only spoke English, but it was okay because words were not always necessary to busy hands gripping monkey bars and playing tag. I looked forward to this fun new life in El Paso, back in Juarez my playground had been my grandparent’s library of books with tiny texts, the corner store and the front of my house, not bad, but lonely and sometimes restricting. The night before my first day of first grade, my parents made carne asada to celebrate the beginning of our school year. The butterflies in my stomach did not let me sleep much that night, I wondered how I would be able to understand my teacher. They dropped off my older brother and me at our elementary school first, my mom walked alongside me as we made our way to my classroom. The knot in my throat felt like a brick as I swallowed back tears, I was being brave like my parents had asked me to be. My mom talked to my teacher while I peeked inside the classroom, unfamiliar, all of it felt, the language, the place, the faces. With one last hug my mom left, and my teacher walked me inside the classroom, closed the door and asked me to introduce myself, but tears began to stream down my face. My classmates stared in confusion; their whispers weighed on my shoulders all the way to my seat. My classes were in English and Spanish, yet it all sounded like one big, jumbled mess. The fluidity of Spanglish was a confusing concept. As a response to my lack of understanding of the language and my rejection to any new vocabulary, any question directed toward me brought on panic and tears which my classmates seemed to dread. My crying fits were a disruption to the class and their resentment showed in their treatment toward me outside of class. My attempts at making friends with them were met with silences and annoyed glances. This new life in El Paso, began to lose its luster for me, I wanted to go back. When the lack of improvement became evident to my teacher, she held a conference with my parents. I was falling behind, not grasping any new information, and not fit for that class. It was because of that, that midway through the school year, they decided to put me back in kindergarten and enroll me in ESL classes. I look back at this time in my life as the event that changed the trajectory of the person I came to be. Unlike many people or kids that have immigrated to the United States, I got the opportunity to start my journey learning English from a critical age. Words that had once seemed so alien became a fascinating. Reading circles in the library was where story telling ignited a passion for me. Books became a comfort, a friend, that held my hand in my transitional process adapting to a new country. After reading to us, the librarian would often let us peruse the isles. I found myself immersed in the shelves, admiring the spines of books with clever titles, not climbing them at last. Stories of myth and legend left my young heart longing for more, eventually inspiring me to write. I felt a sense of belonging in the sentences spread across my pages. So, I found myself in my purple room on my tinker bell sheets reading books that would inspiring me to continue writing because words had always been and will always be a constant comfort, in a life that is ever changing and not always accepting.