La Llorona

Hear my story, even if you think me an evil spirit. I did not drown my babies or myself. My husband started that myth. I’m tired of crying; it gets me nowhere. I don’t enjoy groping through the rushes along the river verge at night—this is where my husband left me. I was not given a choice about where my body should reside for all eternity. This is not my native home.

Don’t get me started on that; my distaste for this place grows stronger every year. You can imagine how I feel after so many forlorn years. But how could you? You just need to hear my crying to run away. Heartless person that you are. You don’t know who I am or anything about my solitary plight, only that suddenly, out of the night, my shrill and hideous sobbing rends the air. This is my prison, and I am innocent. My sentence is a thousand years. This swampland chokes me with its bogging miasma as much as my husband’s hands choked my neck.

Lo, dear husband, you devised this hell for me—all because I mocked you with my eyes. I do not belong here. Now you, night wanderer, see me as a twelve midnight witch or a banshee—some incomprehensible omen of terror. You think I don't feel ice-cold in this place, chilled to the core of my being with chattering teeth? My husband told me my beauty frightened him. He said, “You are mine, but I cannot keep other men’s eyes off you,” in that whiny voice characteristic of him. You, dear husband, sensed my power over you, and a dark cloud crept down around you. The madness seized you first with me, then our babies.

My face is still pale, and my hair is still long and black—it has not stopped growing. And yes, I still mock you, dear husband, with my eyes and voice now, even if my bones lie deep in this black river.

My mystic hell is also yours, dear husband. You reside on the far side of the river, the foul side where you belong, beneath the withered tree where you hanged yourself. No one found you, and the rope rotted until your dead weight broke it. You thought someone would discover your body and lay it to rest in a dolorous boneyard with a headstone, but I scared everyone away. I’m sure you now regret your poor choice for your final rest, not quite the family mausoleum you had in mind.

Bog and roots clog your mouth, as if you were wearing an ancient scold's bridle. You have no voice, not even to cry. I hope your tears are not just river water.

I appreciate the open air more than you do.

My mocking laughter may sound like sobbing to you, dear wanderer, but my darling husband recognizes it for what it is.

I know: Of what account this pitiful historia?

No soy de aquí, soy de allá. Como tú.