The wooden ruler with the brass edge is treason upon his brown arm and not until a week after you’d used it on the back of my hand did I hear the air hiss rip through to weal the skin of my childhood friend as Mexican hieroglyphs pulverized against the back of my teeth cringed at such a fantastic and frightful display from a being not our own tall white hair creature with thin lips flowered dress waist pulled in by a thick belt it was Cortez all over again but like I had done he also recognized el conquistador bled like any other human being and kicked your shin where I had left it scabbed and ran and ran into the desert like a wild flightless quetzal and as you bent to stop the poison from seeping out pleased I walked out myself to join in the desert nest of your victims.

Ismael “Izzy” Santillanes is currently enrolled in a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program at Antioch University Los Angeles. He believes in the process of writing what one knows exactly as exists in the body as a means to self-knowledge. Having lived in deserts most of his life, he engages the page with a xeric mindset, making every drop of ink a necessity.