Eating My One-Year-Old's Leftover Smash Cake | Essay"Months later, this same OB delivered my perfectly healthy daughter after 57 hours of labor. She threatened to cut me open 3 hours into pushing if it took me longer than one more. She called in the NICU, whispered to the attending nurses “probably shoulder dystocia,” and used a vacuum that planted a purple and black bruise on my daughter’s head, like an open dying flower."
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Dear Sarah | Essay"The carefully planned life I had laid out for myself dissipated. When I walked amongst crowds I was keenly aware of the freedom I was about to lose and was instantly ashamed of my own selfishness. Strangers held my gaze, their eyes traveled down and lingered. A beautiful woman with big sunglasses and sleek hair carried her child by the hand and held her coffee in the other. She looked at me with a judgment that could only have come from my own insecurities."
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Today My Abuelitos Have Been Married Fifty Years | Short Story"At the reception my Abuelito gets mariachis. For my dear one, he says. A teenage cousin brings a güero because last time her Ma said why don’t you date Chicanos. My older cousin has a new baby, and my Abuelita won’t speak to her because she isn’t married to her man. She wears the baby against the skin on her chest wrapped in a pouch. I curl my finger under the stretchy fabric."
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