Erika L. Sánchez Quotes

You think you're all grown-up. You're only fifteen. You don't even know how to make a tortilla.

I lean back into my clothes and take some deep breaths. Why does it always feel like life is a stupid puzzle I'll never figure out?

There is no heaven. There is only earth, sky, and the transfer of energy. The idea would almost be beautiful if it weren't such a nightmare.

She has compared me to my sister every single day of my life, so why should I expect that to change now that she's dead?

I'd rather live in the streets than be a submissive Mexican wife who spends all day cooking and cleaning.

But how do we live with these secrets locked within us? How do we tie our shoes, brush our hair, drink coffee, wash the dishes, and go to sleep, pretending everything is fine? How do we laugh and feel happiness despite the buried things growing inside? How can we do that day after day?

sometimes in life you don't get to do what you want to do. Sometimes you have to deal with what's given to you, shut up, and keep working. That's it.

This is bold--existing.

I've never been sledding in my life. I've heard of it, have seen it on TV, but my parents have never taken me, just like we've never been to Disney World or watched The Sound of Music. I assumed it was just something white people did.

Mothers are not supposed to be more beautiful than their daughters, and daughters are not supposed to die before their mothers.

I smile and say, thank you,' because the rudest thing you can do to a Mexican lady is refuse her food - might as well spit on a picture of La Virgen de Guadalupe or turn the TV off during Sábado Gigante.

Other times I just lie on my bed and stare at the ceiling, imagining the kind of life I want to have when I get older. I picture myself at the top of the Eiffel Tower, climbing pyramids in Egypt, dancing in the streets in Spain, riding in a boat in Venice, and walking on the Great Wall of China. In these dreams, I'm a famous writer who wears flamboyant scarves and travels all around the world, meeting fascinating people. No one tells me what to do. I go wherever I want and do whatever I please.

Admit it  -  
you wanted the end

with a serpentine
greed. How to negotiate

that strangling
mist, the fibrous

whisper?

To cease to exist
and to die

are two different things entirely.

But you knew this,
didn't you?

Some days you knelt on coins
in those yellow hours.

You lit a flame

to your shadow
and ate

scorpions with your naked fingers.

So touched by the sadness of hair
in a dirty sink.

The malevolent smell
of soap.

When instead of swallowing a fistful
of white pills,

you decided to shower,

the palm trees
nodded in agreement,

a choir
of crickets singing

behind your swollen eyes.

The masked bird
turned to you

with a shred of paper hanging
from its beak.

At dusk,
hair wet and fragrant,

you cupped a goat's face

and kissed
his trembling horns.

The ghost?

It fell prostrate,
passed through you

like a swift
and generous storm.

Girdle: such an ugly word, a word as gross as what it does.

If I end up being an office lady who wears slacks and changes into white sneakers to walk home from the train, I'll just jump off a skyscraper.

It's so stupid, I know, to want your life to be a sitcom