lihí

You are what you eat, or what your mother does, they say. Like she had flushed you out from inside her mouth and all she is is emptied and hollow. This is before she grew big and whole and pregnant. What is the edible woman, after all? Is she hungry? Afraid of her own mouth? Does she devour herself fully and leave nothing behind? Does she carry all her desires deep inside her? — a sadness, a loneliness, some peanut butter, a bag salt and vinegar chips, the black hole/Capricorn rising/the universe, the moon, whatever. When my mother had me, all she ate was fried fish from her tita next door and bitter melon. She craved the flavour, the pith, the rind. So maybe, they say, everything that comes out of my mouth is like salt water and wounds. So maybe, they say, I grew to be so bitter, made my flesh tougher, became inedible.

–Pamela D., 23, Toronto