Illustration by Laura Cerón Melo
I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
—Sylvia Plath
The story went like this: Camilo waited for me at the park next to my house every day after school. He brought Bon Bon Bum (look it up), cigarettes, and his tongue inside my mouth. He said, Quibo, qué mas? I like you. After he left I walked two blocks north to another park where Pablo under a hoodie munched Sparkies, also smoked cigarettes (although red Marlboros, so ew), and wrote me—ME who was barely twelve—a love poem. It was heaven-like. I was twelve and totally ki-lling it. My friends envied me! Should I tell you about Darío, my third boyfriend? Darío in a leatherjacket while I stroked his greasy brown hair, a leftist revolutionary wearing Zapatista shirts, a beard, etc.… I had not one, not two, but un-dos-TRES boyfriends (I know, and there you sat thinking I was just an angry lesbian).
The next day I arrived early and giddy from so much excitement at my all-girl Catholic school. Really quick: picture nuns, picture impeccable uniform, picture Jesús bleeding from the cross everywhere you look, picture this humble narrator in a ponytail and yellow headband (the 90s mi reina). Amén. Inside the classroom I whispered to all my girlfriends about my romantic whereabouts the night before. His tongue! His mouth! His index finger! His poetry! I showed them the poem, a letter, and the plastic wrap of the Bon Bon Bum as proof of my escapades. Sometimes this was enough, and by the end of first period most of them believed my triumphant romances. Other times, some girls’ skepticism made me repeat Uva Curuba Uva until my upper lip folded into two perfect semicircles proving I was not a mouth virgin, proving I was kissed the night before.
