Crossing Mexico

It is near dark. The last light of day drapes across the hillsides of San Miguel. Each brilliant color playfully dangles like a child's pinata over the mountaintops. The air is warm and plumeless. From my terraza, I can see the silhouette of the Parroquia. It pierces through the clouds as if rising into the heavens to be closer to God. The peal of its bells drifts through the pueblocito. I listen to its heartbeat and then find my own. The throb inside of me is no longer my birthright. America is a mystery to me now. It cannot hold me or comfort me. I breathe in my new country the way I would inhale the damp skin of my lover. A surge stirs inside of me, a thirst and then this hunger. A thousand years could past and this moment would be enough to sustain me.

Everything is possible within this labyrinth of darkness. The rules of life are suddenly changed by the impending night. Love could grow in an instant or turn to dust. The shadows of dusk cloak the secrets of the day. They suddenly become small and transitory. Truth seems more ironic than clever. It is easy to hide in clandestino Mexico but you can only be stealth for so long. We are all more naked here. We bring our scars across the border but forget to tend to our wounds.

El dolor es real cuando Ud. piensa que lo es. The pain is real only when you think it is.

The Mexican night becomes a precious thing. It eclipses emptiness with hope. There is no time left for sorrow. This is a new world, where everything is disguised as a beginning that can happen over and over again.