A Luscious Apparatus

I found then lost then found and the lost and the once again found the clip of an absolutely destroyed Charlie, on the violator press junket. The man was so drunk that he was speaking a whole other language. What was funnier than anything was how sincere he was. Absolutely rifled into oblivion but he was still going to do his very best to explain the album.

Derp drunk Charlie is the best Charlie. Second best after angry Charlie, but then he’s just choke-slam-me-through-the-floor-and-spit-in-my-mouth levels of sexy. It’s hard to choose. Derp is adorable. Angry is just clench before you drench levels of sexy.

I went looking through my Alan files, but I have 2Tb of Alan pictures and videos on the phone. I’ve got another 6TB that are saved. I can’t find this goddamn video anywhere and I promised someone a copy.

Twice erased.

Once from Mexico y Español

And before that from the indigenous land y Nahuatl

So I work to piece it back together.

I say:

Mi nombre es Rebecca.

Na no toca Rebecca.

Saludos.

Nimitzlipaloz.

Gracias.

Tlazocamati.

And that is medicine.

And that is longing.

Undoing shame heaped onto us over generations.

Decolonization guides me to this:

to everywhere and nowhere.

Colonialism is the language I learned and now

Unlearn.

Unbecome.

Because reclamation is my inheritance.

This altar is a holy act of etching lines along a map.

To trace tracks left by grandparents, great grandparents, ancianos, antepasados.

I feed them. The ones who drank pulque and bled into the fire.

I welcome the ones who knew that Jade was as sacred and precious as gold.

The ones who knew to bless the animals and crops because they were also holy.

I call them in and I thank them.

They who knew the mountain was anointed and the caves generative.

This is the “old way” - the path that’s mine to follow, ours to tread.

I do not wish to mystify nor romanticize (I say to my academic audience)

But it’s mystical—I whisper to my altar.

It is love, romantically weaving among stones and sky and temple and I can’t catch my breath because...

It’s all so holy.

The ancient is here with me.

And I with them and theirs with ours and tomorrow is already blessed

Waiting for us.

If I wait with eyes open there are smoke signals.

Bread crumbs of pan dulce.

And the smells of copalli

To guide us back to

Each other.

Today is one of the days of tracing

the remnants of colonized beings stashed away under masks of “culture”

The sacred survives in the secrets.

My anger bubbles up to my throat at the attempt to erase again.

You cannot have this too.

”Our culture is not your costume. Our culture is not your commodity. Our culture is not yours.”

This is a sacred way.

The old path that never ages.

The divine essences that never left.

So we welcome them and tell the tourists to stay away.