.

If you love me, love all of me, goddamn it. Love the fur between my legs and the burns on my belly and the thunderstorms in my eyes. Love the dirt underneath my fingernails and the gaps between my teeth and the crookedness of my tiny toes. Love the way I chew loudly and cry on the bathroom floor and breathe too heavily when you hold me. Love that I do not like to be touched in the dark and that I do not like ice cream that much and that one minute I need all of you beside me and the next I only want to run away. Love that I always curse in the theatre and that I pick at the flesh on my lips and that I give myself to everyone, not just you. If you love me, you do not choose the parts of me you love. If you love me, love all of me, goddamn it.

A Mexican worker said: “If I am a wetback because I crossed a river to get here, what are you, who crossed an entire ocean?