A Settler Colonial Phlebotomy
Assimilation under duress is assassination
... a slow-burn incineration
... a long-game genocide. We fold
our tongues backwards like gymnasts on balance beams and bend
our spines as if on mattresses
during Catholic exorcisms ... we code
switch to survive on this stolen land
now run by glorified, idolized, and eulogized
tormentors and thieves ... but
in that masking, our necks
are on the blade of the Guillotine
... awaiting decapitation
... an erasure of so-called
“worthless savage lives”
... another edict
of expulsion erected like the Alhambra Decree
... coerced to deny our nuclear Selves
and the most remote islands of our hearts.
A most senseless
post-Columbian
colonial beheading.
Those of
us socially,
politically, and
geographically excluded from
the hierarchies of power — from the apex of
those inherited class and caste peaks — are gripped
then intimidated by the consequential claws of dominant
cultures and systems that proclaim that we are not right ... that we
are not worthy the way we are ... that we are preferred, accepted, and
can only belong if, and only if, we are not us.
But it is their fragile and insecure egos that stand
in the way of being able to regard us as fully human,
if human at all. No matter the extent
of our coerced assimilation, it will never be enough until they
can see beyond the reflections of their
collective narcissism ... until they
stop fawning over themselves ... until they
treat their sickness ... and disease-ridden they are if they
can only stand tall if they
force
their knees
on our necks until we
either submit or cannot breathe. Until then,
we are an affront to their exaggerated sense of
self-importance. Their sense of
entitlement requires constant,
excessive
admiration
just like the imaginary friends they worship.
They bewitch themselves to think they
are gods and goddesses, and
when miracles they cannot make, they
force themselves on others,
like you and me, so they
can at least feel like demi-gods. To them,
we are useful, only ... and can be of better use to them
if we can approximate their
supposed eminent image and worship their
tenets
as well as their t e n t a c l e s.
To them, if our “ancestral potions and spells” cannot turn
rivers
into liquid gold, then they will regard us as mere
witches
... burned
at the stake
for the sake
of a 21st-century Crusade
... a continued limpieza de sangre,
a blood-letting
... just another social cleansing Inquisition.
But we need no therapeutic phlebotomy.
We need no expulsion nor exorcism.
I am done bending my spi-
ne and folding my ton-
gue for your comfort.
If I can learn your entire language,
you can make the effort
to pronounce one word: my name.
Trust me, it won’t burn.
Author:
Julián Esteban Torres López
Julián Esteban Torres López (he/him/él) is a multiply neurodivergent, Colombia-born storyteller, public scholar, and culture architect with Afro-Euro-Indigenous roots. For two decades, Julián has worked toward humanizing those Otherized by oppressive systems and dominant cultures. He is the founder of the social justice storytelling non-profit organization The Nasiona, where he also hosts and produces The Nasiona Podcast. He’s a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best Small Fictions nominee; a Trilogy Award in Short Fiction finalist; and the author of Marx’s Humanism and Its Limits and Reporting On Colombia. Julián's work appears in PANK Magazine, Into the Void Magazine, Novus Literary and Arts Journal, Havik 2021: Inside Brilliance, Moonchild Magazine, Alebrijes Review, and The Acentos Review, among others. His poetry collection, Ninety-Two Surgically Enhanced Mannequins, is available now.