MEMORY DISSECTION
In honor of those who survived the 1964 Brazilian Dictatorship.
The lessons of this country often break you
My grandma’s voice cracks,
staring at the mirror,
tiny pieces of herself reflected.
Ditadura.
I felt the ghostly hands
that force-fed assimilation
and unfamiliarity into
my tongue as I repeated it.
Ditadura.
I imagined beyond the grey-aged photos.
People pressed together,
bodies tightened into bruises
disfigured feelings wryly clubbed
into inconspicuous mausoleums.
Cage of lost and found,
of excruciating Latin dignity.
Blistering lighting on the center man.
Who is him? I asked grandma.
I glimpsed her devoided eyes
As if his stare were still on her flesh.
And I too sensed his forced smile
Massacre written in his every move,
white teeth bleeding ghost stories.
His hands — wrinkled, old
fear trapped in the creases of his skin.
He seemed so little to me,
ordinary.
Grandma laughed,
yellowed and crooked teeth.
Like the first blooms of spring,
Interwoven hands carved
strength out of
untouchable spaces.
Glimpsing the mangled spinal cord of ancestry,
I revive those who came before me.
Those who fought
and tried to hold this country
tightly into parallel spaces
and times of justice.
My grandma’s smile riverbed the pride,
of who outlived their torturers.
The smile lingered
at each corner of her mouth
and I almost tasted the contentment
that whirl and suddenly coagulate
Into her own memories.
Luiza Louback is the first Brazilian Literary Apprentice of BreakBread Literacy Project and Community Ambassador for Write The World. Her work appears in Bridge Ink, Kalopsia Journal, Parallax Review, Rising Phoenix Review, and elsewhere, and has been recognized by The School of New York Times, Cambridge University, Barnard University, and more.