Two Poems by Saúl Hernández

At Night My Body Waits

It’s winter outside, sharp
tree branches scratch
my window, I can hear
the sound of a train
passing. My uncle slips
into my bed and wraps his
hands around my boy body. Tightly
he cups my moon face, and
says, I’m not going to hurt you.

I lie in bed and I think
of my brother and cousins:
Do you keep his little secret too?

My voice underneath the blankets
Grows smaller as his hands feed
off my body. At night, I wake up
to a train in the distance.

At dinner, I see my uncle
in the man sitting next to me
his body asking for more space
as his arm sits on my left leg
adding more weight than
what I already carry.
I become small again
laugh awkwardly.

The man at dinner
tells me to smile more.
In those words I remember
my uncle and I want to yell
rot in hell motherfucker
but the man is not him.

After dinner, I play back
the encounter, I ask myself if what
was underneath my clothes tempted
him like it tempted my uncle to
touch me underneath the blankets.

I know I didn’t lead my uncle to
touch me underneath blankets but
maybe that’s why I sleep naked at
night waiting for my uncle to show up again
in my bed telling me to quiet down as
he puts the hand with which he’d high five me
over my mouth.

When I first came out, mamá asked
if my uncle touched me.
I looked her in the eyes, shook
my head, and I swallowed my uncle
whole again.

Tonight winter comes gently and
in the distance the sound of trains.
I lie naked in bed. My own hands
tempted to touch my body
all the way.

---

For My Queer Ancestors

Somewhere across the border,
beyond the desert,
beyond cerros,

my family history
is erased each day.
But I only know them by name:

Federico

Elvira

Antonio

Magdalena

Maybe you, too, held
hands with a boy like you
or a girl like you?

Matheo

Griselda

Luis

Zoraida

To take a leap,
means sometimes losing your family:

Gustavo

Micaela

Angel

Esmeralda

If I lose them I will ask
you to help me find myself,

Arnulfo

Esperanza

Luis Mario

Marisol

If you can read this
I’m losing myself.

In Mexico, l ask my
grandfather if anyone in
our family is gay
he says, in nuestra sangre

there aren’t any of them,
And I say:

Tomas

Francis

Juan Jośe

But he walks away.

---

Saúl Hernández is a queer writer from San Antonio, TX. He was raised by undocumented parents and as a Jehovah Witness. Saúl has a MFA in Creative Writing from The University of Texas at El Paso. He’s been featured on the radio show Words On a Wire, where he discussed gender roles and read a poem titled “Tortillas.” He’s the former Director for Barrio Writers at Borderlands; a writing workshop for the youth to learn, craft, and perform their work, as well as be published in a yearly anthology by SFA Press. He's a semi-finalists for the 2018 Francine Ringold Award for New Writers, Nimrod Literary Journal, and a quarter-finalist for The Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry, Nimrod Literary Journal. His work has been featured in Rio Grande Review, Brunch Club in Association with Hello Mr. and Adelaid Literary Magazine. His work focuses on the dangers of existing and being a threat to oneself. He teaches Advance Placement Language and Composition at a high school. 

Photo by SubodhBharati on Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND

Death Toy Therapy by Andrew Gretes

It began like Baywatch: brawny lifeguard to the rescue, CPR, water-vomiting resurrection. One moment, Rachel was dog-paddling. The next moment, she was Lazarus.

Of course, Rachel remembers it differently. One moment, she was bobbing in the water, a stranger’s surfboard gliding dangerously close to her head. The next moment, she was perusing the aisles of a vast toy department, pulling an action figure off a display rack.

Call it what you will. Near-death experience. Misfiring neurons. Low-oxygen shopping.

The action figure looked conspicuously like Rachel: rust-colored hair, pear-shaped body, left foot noticeably longer than the right. Upon closer inspection, it was Rachel. At least, that’s what the lightning bolt label on the packaging read: “Rachel (Weak-Ass) Dudley!”

Weak-Ass was Rachel’s middle school nickname, coined from her habit of toting a seat cushion—an oversized latex donut—for three years as she recovered from a bruised tailbone. Truthfully, Rachel only needed the cushion for a month and a half, but the desks at her middle school were designed with a Paleolithic understanding of ergonomics, and so she milked the cushion until high school.

Inside the vast toy department, a boy approached Rachel and advised her against buying her own action figure. “Ma’am, it’s a rip-off,” the boy said. “You have to buy the ass-cushion separately. Besides, the wind-up nervous breakdown feature is a total bust. She takes two quick breaths and the gears snap.”

Rachel tried to ignore the boy as she read her own product description. Apparently, her action figure was part of the “Plebians of the Universe” set, a group of toys devoted to the most stunted creatures in the cosmos. Her toy came with a “give-up grip!” feature, guaranteed to drop whatever it touched. It also included a keyhole located at heart-level that promised bonus features (such as turning Rachel’s entire action figure inside-out) but which could only be unlocked by an accessory—a soulmate—that was never built due to budget cuts.

*

This was Rachel’s first near-death experience. She was thirty-one years old.

Call it what you will. Revelatory. Objectifying. Disappointing.

So disappointing in fact that Rachel set about transforming herself. She called it “Project Butterfly.” Meditation. Art classes. Exercising her glutes. Her life became an 80’s training montage. Despite her agnosticism, Rachel even sampled confession: “Father, I can’t hyperventilate correctly.”

*

It wasn’t until her late-thirties that Rachel’s curiosity got the better of her. Was her action figure still, well, pathetic? She had to know.

Rachel simulated cardiac arrest by renting a helium tank and taping a plastic bag (an “exit bag”) around her neck, making sure to provide a steady helium flow with a hose slipped under the plastic. According to a do-it-yourself suicide website, the less carbon dioxide the body inhales, the less alarmed it becomes. Rachel’s sister, after much coaxing, was enlisted to monitor Rachel’s breathing. Her job was to tear the bag off her sister’s head once sufficient—but not too sufficient—asphyxiation was induced.

Here’s what happened.

Rachel, once again, found herself inside a vast toy department, pushing a shopping cart, and holding an action figure that was unmistakably herself. “All new!” the packaging read. “Rachel (Post-Larva) Dudley!”

Sure, some of Rachel’s features were familiar. The “give-up grip!” was as yielding as ever. But there were also new features, such as a “turn my life around!” button on Rachel’s forehead which, when pushed, twirled Rachel’s head in a creepy, Exorcist sort of way. Not to mention a new accessory, a plastic bag (sold separately) that fit snugly around Rachel’s head and promised to “promote clarity!”

Again, a boy—the same boy—approached Rachel. He stood in front of her shopping cart and said, “Ma’am, wait a week, and they’ll throw that toy in the discount bin.”

Rachel blushed. She couldn’t help but feel that the discount bin was progress.

*

Rachel went public. She guest-starred on podcasts. She held retreats. She sold customizable plastic bags. Sure, anyone could talk to a shrink, but there was something about seeing your own action figure—mid-asphyxiation—that was positively breathtaking.

Call it what you will. Internet sensation. Therapeutic breakthrough. Near-death fad.

It wasn’t uncommon to find Rachel sitting cross-legged at a mountain resort and coaching her acolytes. “Remember,” she’d say, “friends lie, therapists sugarcoat, but your own action figure, I assure you, is brutally honest. If you don’t like what you see, by all means, do something about it. But above all, ask yourself: if you wouldn’t play with it, who would?”

---

Andrew Gretes is the author of How to Dispose of Dead Elephants (Sandstone Press, 2014). His fiction has appeared in Witness, Booth, Sycamore Review, and other journals.

Photo on Foter.com