Your perfect daughter. Who would she be?

Soft and obedient? Mijita. 

Not a protégé but a devotee. An adorer.

A failed endeavor but not for lack of trying. Our bond? A flash in the pan.

Our ties of blood, eternal.

Mi’ja. Mi hija.



Mine   to   poison.



I could thirst like you. Imagine that it was me who was lost. 

But I am not. Something instead, more than a mirror.

A father’s daughter. 



                                                                                Una bebé de alguien
                                                                                pero la hija de nadie.



You, a familiar stranger. 



Persona non grata.

TESS PANTOJA PEREZ is a doctoral student in Culture, Literacy, and Language at UTSA.

Cover Art: Madame Seurat, the Artist’s Mother, Georges Seurat, circa 1882-83, Conté crayon on Michallet paper (via the Getty’s Open Image Project).