February 26: How To Survive The Zombie Apocalypse As An 82 year old Guatemalan Grandmother

[February Feels Like]

Here's Melissa Lozada-Oliva performing her poem, transcribed below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-Y9zgOSUnk

When Telmundo and Univision go dark, know this shit is no joke. 

When the gringo news channels go dark too, start counting the platanos you have
left in your fridge. When the man you've been living with for 10 years comes at you with his shirt loose, his teeth bared, and half of his face missing, end his misery with your favorite kitchen knife. 

Pull the knife out and wipe it against your apron. Take a moment to
congratulate yourself on the fact that the knife only cost $2.99. Que barato!
Call your granddaughters. Tell them no te precupes, I'm on my way with a month's supply of tamales, platanos and empanadas. Hang up before they can ask you anything about what happened to Mariano. 

The less they know, the better. 

Fill up your biggest bowl of water and open the windows. Tell the birds you leave water for, I will miss you. Tell the birds, "Do not expect me back." Tell the birds there are more buckets of water on the other side. Let one tear fall and keep moving. 

Slip on your panty hose, the dress you made out of last year's Christmas tablecloth and your orthopedic sneakers. 

Leave your apartment, push back your sleeves, and wrap a red scarf around your mouth.

Prepared for la batalla. 

Pause. 

Go back into your apartment because you forgot your diabetes medication.
Put it somewhere you'll remember this time. You're getting older. It's okay.
Leave your apartment. Become warrior abuelita. Zombie destroying Abuelita. You are the shorter, more wrinkled version of Rick Grimes. You are centuries of backbreaking labor. The corn crumbs you turned into meals for your family forever. Your mother's disappointed face. The night you gathered your three children and ran away from a man who stopped reaching for your hips and started reaching for his beer, his belt, the whispers of puta and bruja in the wind. You are no school. No speak English. No read words. No spell words. Signature only. Mas sugar, all puta, all bruja. All ready to survive with just head, just mouth, just heart, just hands, just sweat, just eso eso y eso.

When the zombies are lying around you like old platano carcasses,
Run into the street and flag down an army truck with your red scarf. Demand, as you always do, to speak to somebody in Spanish. 

When they bring out Michael, a first generation Honduran American soldier, tell him your mission. He will understand. Pass out food to the hungry muchachos, but tell them not to be too greedy and to hurry up. When Michael opens the cover of the army truck to shoot at some zombies, you join him. You let your scarf go in the breeze and laugh when it slaps a zombie in the face. Ciao niñas, you say into the wind. The zombies passing by you in every direction like all of the years you have lived. 

Esperame, I'm coming. Girls, wait for me.
---

Melissa Lozada-Oliva (She turned this poem into a novel, se llama Candelaria! I liked it but it was also too weird for me.)