Grecia Espinoza

What’s Eating My Sister

When we were girls our mother 
sewed knots inside our throats 
to muffle our cries. 
We learned to communicate 
in low and pained croaks 
and now neither of us knows how to ask 
for what we want
so we settle for what we have.
 
our childhood was spent hoping 
our mother would leave her room 
but she never did. When i cried
My sister would rub my back 
and brush my hair with her small hands 
gently combing the loneliness out of it
 
When she cried, she did so softly 
and always while I slept.
Her long hair draping off the bed- 
tangled with years of untreated loneliness
She’d lay there shaking, her small body 
moved by the ocean of sorrow 
that trapped and banged inside of her.
 
When the sadness of nighttime fell away
we’d fling pots at one another 
and say ugly things that we picked 
from our mother’s mouth.
We were storing our rage inside each other 
hoping someday we’d have the courage to use it 
When I try to calculate the magnitude 
of my sister’s suffering, I multiply it by my own
 
Each time I see her she’s smaller. 
And there it is, our pain, 
still multiplying in her hair uncontrollably, 
like cancer cells.


Grecia Espinoza is a writer and poet based out of Brooklyn. She received a B.A. in English Literature from the University of Central Florida, but has been writing poetry since before she knew she could study it. Her poems are inspired by moments of intense individual experience that illuminate a new way of life. In her writing, she hopes to expand the personal "I" of the individual to include the universal, so that you may see your life reflected in her poems. Her work has appeared here and in The Rising Phoenix Press. Grecia's body of work can be found on her website: greciaespinoza.com