once we escaped the city and public housing we sheltered from sun in a house we found together at the end of the street on the cusp of gray windy plains where tornadoes scraped the land clean every so often hiding from the heat we would lay on our stomachs reading old books carpet cool against our skin alone all day sometimes we’d play in our mother’s jewelry box line up Guatemalan medallions of silver quetzals and geometric warriors their stories just out of our reach we don’t talk about being from Nicaragua but everyone knows we are different it’s our italics a set of parentheses we carry with us between ourselves we talk about things like the mistake Icarus made then we ignored the signs also fell into an abyss each of our own making why is it so hard to pass by what the ones with power think why is it so hard to shut out the sound of their words their eyes wondering who we are where we came from why are we here when just below the surface we glow