I n t e r c u l t u r a l P r e s s

Alex Salazar

It started with

I’ll be honest

We are having the best honeymoon

It’s not like we weren’t supposed to have a great time

But you know the pandemic

To some, I guess it changed everything

Sure we lost our jobs

And that felt like I was carrying a baby

Soon I will have to give birth to it and name it

But for now, all we could think about

Was the plate in front of us

tropical fruits

caju abacaxi goiaba

How the moment they entered my mouth

All my worries evaporated

The woman who brought them to our plate

Said they were native to this land

A part of her people

They have always eaten them

Now, we had also tasted the fruits

And I got to thinking for how long

Must I eat them for my offspring to become

Indoctrinated

Taste the sweet of this very moment

I took another bite of one of the fruits

The baby I was carrying along

No longer made it.

We are having the best honeymoon.

•
LA born queer poetess. Based in a small beach town in Brazil. My true home. I make the trek back to LA to visit family ever so often. The back and forth of living in two very different countries informs a lot of my writing. You will see a lot of carnaval, tropical fruit, and Portuguese, Spanish and English all mixed into a delicious feijoada named poetry. I am also passionate about lifting up femininity in a patriarchy, and advocating single relationship status as a choice and the end game not a consequence. Major themes in my poetry! I am currently working on a collection of poems and I am looking to publish a first children’s book I illustrated and wrote about sereias. 
Instagram: asereia1
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