Between the River and the Red Casita

La Llorona

¡Ay, mis hijos!

You hear my cries
and call me La Llorona.

The weeping woman.
The wandering ghost.
The mother who drowned her children
for the love of a man.

You tell your children
to fear my cries,

but you never ask
why I am crying.

So let me tell you.

Before I was La Llorona,
I was a daughter.

Before I was a ghost,
I was a woman.

Before I was a traitor,
I was a princess
Of a proud people.

Then came the murderer of my people.

I learned his language.
I stood beside him.
I told my people to surrender,

not because I loved him,

but because I loved them.

Every choice I made

was another bid to survive.

Yet every act of survival

became another reason

to call me a monster.

Sometimes survival
does not look heroic.

Sometimes there is no right choice.

But history does not forgive women
for making impossible ones.

So you called me

traitor.

Then I ran.

I ran with my sons
until my feet became so bloody that the sand and grass turned red.

Until there was nowhere left to go

but the deep,
merciful,
blue river.

Do not be mistaken.

I loved my children.

They were the most valuable pieces
of a life that had already taken
almost everything from me.

But dead women
Can't talk.

So you wrote my story for me.

You said I betrayed my people
for the love of a man.

You said I drowned my children
because he did not love me.

You turned my pain into a warning.

La Malinche.

La Llorona.

Traitor.

Murderer.

Ghost.

You called me everything

except

a woman trying to survive.

Perhaps that is why
you still hear me crying.

I am not asking,

Where are my children?

I am asking,

Where is my name?

Give it back.

Take the monster
out of my reflection.

Look at me.

Not La Malinche.

Not La Llorona.

Not the monster
you needed me to become.

Everything I did

was a bid to survive.

And you cursed me

for surviving!