Running and chanting, the word change in the air like it’s something you can grab and put in your mouth and sink your teeth into.
Because we were not in our country, we could not use our own languages, and so when we spoke our voices came out bruised.
I am starting to talk fast now, and I have to remember to slow down because when I get excited, I start to sound like myself and my American accent goes away.
And they had nothing, except of course memories, their own, and those passed down by their mothers and mothers’ mothers. A nation’s memory.
That’s what you do in America: you smile at people you don’t know and you smile at people you don’t even like and you smile for no reason.
You want Change, today we’ll show you Change!Here’s your democracy, your human rights, eat it, eat eat eat!
[Jesus Christ] used to have blue eyes but I painted them brown like mine and everybody’s, to make him normal.
We are all watching and not knowing what to do because when grown-ups cry, it’s not like you can ask them what’s wrong, or tell them to shut up; there are just no words for a grown-up’s tears.
…and the women spread their ntsaroz and sit on one side, the men on the other, like they are two different rivers that are not supposed to meet.
I am careful not to look anyone in the face because I don’t want them to see the shame in my eyes, and I also don’t want to see the laughter in theirs.
And so the spirits just gazed at us with eyes milked dry of care.