Este mundo de cenizas
no puede contenerme
No hay paredes
para detenerme
Soy libre.
This world of ashes
cannot contain me
There are no walls
to stop me
I am free.
I was free. It was a terrifying thought, but I let the power grow, and it sent a chill down my arms, raising bumps, and I welcomed las poemas. They always did this to me. Whoever wrote them didn’t just understand me. It seemed that they had reached far across the desert, dipped their hands into my heart, and removed the tiniest bit of my spirit. They folded it into each of these lines, and that’s why they pulled me. Called to me. Kept me hopeful. How was that possible? How could words on a piece of yellowed paper have such an incredible spell over me?
The sun was dropping to the west. I continued to the north, and I kept las poemas in my mind, allowing them to cool and comfort me, and then I looked up. How much time had passed? How far had I gone?
There was nothing recognizable behind me.
Ahead of me, there was a haven of árboles, thick and lush, the mesquites in bloom. There was ironwood there, too, the flowers a delicate lavender at the tips of its branches. Two gray palomas flew overhead, another sign that I had found a place that was alive. That had survived.
The patch was about a half hour short of las bajadas, the thicker growth that you find at the bottom of most montañas, but I could see shade as I approached. Shade. Relief. I stumbled briefly in excitement, because I needed a break to refuel, to relieve myself, to stop moving.
I kept the respite short because I still had a climb ahead of me, and it would be the highest I had ever ascended. I’d survived the heat so far, but climbing would only make Your heat feel worse.
A sound.
Soft. High. A sound so rare, so impossible, that my own heart leapt at the very chance that it was not my imagination. I stilled, as I did when I hunted for water, and adjusted to the silence of the desert so far from home, and there it was again.
A quiet trickling.
Water.
I took off at a full run, and my legs struggled to keep up with my own excitement. I plunged through a mesquite bush, and its branches whipped at me, striking my arm, scratching and tearing at my skin, but I didn’t care. It was louder now, the sound of water rushing and falling, and I pushed deeper into the thatch and emerged into a clearing, shaded and dim, and then I was on all fours, my face planted in a stream, my long hair dripping at all sides of my head, resting in the water, and I drank, deep and long and full, and it was real. My head flipped up and I gasped for air, and I couldn’t control the tears that began to run down my face. How, Solís? I asked You. How is this here? How has no one in Empalme ever found it? How had we not known?
I couldn’t stop myself. I drank again, my belly mostly empty, so when I filled it up, nausea forced me to stop. I let my pack fall off me, rolled over on my back, and panted, trying to keep it all down, but it didn’t matter. I had found relief from the heat, and it felt like a blessing, as though You had judged that I was on the right path.
The joy spread. My breathing slowed, a calm settled over me, and I sank into the earth, letting it accept me as I accepted it. We both benefited from each other; it was what mi gente had taught me. We all knew that one reason Solís had sent La Quema was because of the violence that humanity had subjected the earth to. It was why I gave the stories back to the desert first before they were sent home. The earth deserved our contrition, too.
But in that moment, the earth loved me, and I loved myself.
cuando estoy solo
estoy vivo
when I am alone
I am alive
I rolled over and pushed myself up, then removed my blouse, then my huaraches, my short breeches, my undergarments. There was a small spot of blood on the cloth padding there, and I was thankful that I had not bled too much so far. In all of this chaos, I had lost track of the days.
I set my clothing in a neat pile next to the stream, and I stepped into it, surprised at the depth at first, at the coolness of the water, and another step brought the water level up to my knees, then another dropped me down to my waist, and then I curled up and submerged myself, rubbed at my skin, cleansed my body. I then brought each item of clothing into the water, scrubbed them, too, until they no longer smelled of sweat and the odor of exertion. The dirt and dust came out, and I removed most of the stain of blood on my padding. As long as it was clean, that was all that mattered.
Before I dressed, though, I lowered myself into a squat, then eased myself backward so that my head rested on a large, smooth stone in the middle of the stream. I relaxed, let my arms float free at my side, rested my legs against the riverbed, and I imagined that I was part of the water, como un pescado. They lived in water, and now I did. I became a part of a new world, and I was thrilled by the transformation. My body adapted to the temperature, to the newness of freedom.
Soy libre, I told myself.
I lay in the water until I could feel the call of exhaustion. I wanted to sleep there, but I was too far from my destination to make this my temporary home. I had to keep moving. I
