Deathsquad Diaries

Deathsquad Diaries

Tearing down the lonely highway to Poptún, he really felt the jungle now, it was silently screaming. So many had been disappeared on this highway, it was called the highway of death but he had no other choice. His hair was as black as volcanic obsidian and it was whipping violently against his jacket and his companion’s face. The clouds and mist were ominous, the moon looked bloody, the howler monkeys kept up with their mischief releasing poisonous spores from some of the trees lining the highway. He felt like they were going to be a footnote in one of those horror documentaries about genocide in some random banana republic shit hole country on PBS. He felt her clutching his flimsy jacket from behind as he gained speed. He was worried she would feel the flimsy little black book tucked in his left pocket, it belonged to her sister. The motorcycle was an old school one that was easy to hot wire. It was 2am and he could feel her body was revolting and tensing, she allowed herself to feel nausea and pain and terror just for a minute before she started feeling faint again.

Just hours earlier, her precious one, her beloved, her companion Balam had been mercilessly poached. She was skinned, beheaded and all four paws hacked off and her fetus removed. The letters MB were slashed into her bloody skin and muscles and sinews. Mano Blanca, one of the notorious paramilitary deathsquads. They couldn’t find her so they decided to leave their calling card. Her wet hot tears had not even reached the ground when Camilo entered the jungle by the tracks. He was wet and the look on his face told her she had 30 seconds to get her belongings and run. Silently, she retrieved her weapons and the 20k in American dollars she had buried at her outpost. She tied it around with tape on her body like she had done a million times.

“libertad

a word we say

it’s like a hit

it’s like this shit

we fucking say to get us through this god damned day

to make

it all go away

the pain

of living

in decay

and i wonder

if one day

you would serenade me

in the killing fields of my mind

don’t enter

i don’t know what you will find

am i good and am i kind

am i a demon

or am i divine

just have to walk down this fine line

until you gift me

with your

sign”

She was freezing now too, ‘how long till we get there?” she said faintly. “We’re here, let’s go!”,

a compa she met once before was already at the riverbed waiting with the canoe. We did not speak, he just looked at me with his cobalt eyes. We took off from Guatemala to Belize.

On the airplane to Panama then Prague, Camilo wished he could get the Maya’s last words out of his mind, the wife of his best friend, the granddaughter of the Comandante, the younger sister of the woman he was sitting next to on the plane. He looked down at Itza, so beautiful and tragic. Godammit, he was prohibited from discussing these details with anyone not even her sister.

He couldn’t remember earlier when she had asked if he remembered the first time they met, but now he couldn’t stop remembering every jagged painful memory. She was everything, to everyone. She never stopped to complain, or whined about painful injuries or the jungle life. Mosquitoes never bit her and she was the first to volunteer for any and all life threatening assignments. Once, he was volunteered for urban commando, in Guatemala City, life expectancy for any rebel leaders was a joke, they said if you made it past 2 weeks you were really lucky. She was naturally beautiful and everyone loved her. She was our Maya, but her real name was never known. Her sister’s name is Itza but we call her Jade. She is also Revolutionary royalty as was the other sister whose body was probably in a ditch somewhere. She looked at him once at the safe house in Prague with those gorgous Mayan eyes.

“I have been directed not to recount anything with any precise details. And you don’t need to know. Needless to say, we have a mole in our midst of the worst kind. It resulted in the death and disappearances of more than 2 dozen of our compas in the city and it’s only a matter of hours before they know our coordinates here as well and have at least a partial list of your nom de guerre. The comandante has requested I escort you to Thailand, someone will roll with you to your next destination that is all I know.” Camilo said without any sign of emotion. She wanted to desperately ask about her sister but knew better than to ask.

“Your jungle eyes they kill and terrorize

They shoot and paralyze

I strain every single muscle

And silence every breathe

To hear your faint footsteps

You lose me in your Smoking mirror

You kill me with your vulgar

Temper

Your eyes

Like cosmic obsidian

Are full of magic and terror

Your heart

Full of answers and errors

I want to scream your name out loud

Without making a sound

Make love to you on the

Moss filled ground

But you lost me in your ancient temple

You lost me in your volcanic rumble

You lost me in your mystic slumber

while I watch the news on TV

i write down my obsolete feelings

so pathetically

but i wipe my tears quickly

because

i see they sent in the infantry

the tanks

and the military

against my family

pain and misery

you've thrown at us thousands of years of slavery

our survivors

hostages in captivity”

---------

“Lil Centroamerica

you are such a volatile area

you dress me up with terror

your lake massacres my only mirror

you serenade me with stolen marimbas

and you kill me with your bloody sonrisas

you serve me genocide with a side of pepian

arroz con leche in Usulutan

hacked off hands massage my hair

pobreza so much more than we can bare

we drink coffee that smells like burning flesh

you tell me the blood sweat and tears are fresh

you make me travel on a dismembered mare

but i dare

not complain

my little fried plantain

i drink gallons of neoliberalism in el lago de atitlan

platanos fritos from here to Cuzcatlan

you drown me in coca cola

y camino sola

por el pie de la manana

acompanada por

tu espada

you treat me to a show of puppet governments

an operatic masterpiece of

death and lament

you sing me songs of tyranny

you make me eat united fruit companies

you kiss me like ten thousands travesties

you pour lava all over my open wounds

you whistle these peculiar tunes

so people cant hear the wails and moans

where is your god

where is this fraud

can’t even take down mere mortals

or even hears our desperate calls

where is your god ?

on a throne

made of bones

oh little centroamerica

beautiful indigenas and shameful downcast eyes

mayan orphans with your mcdonald supersize fries

these jungles have seen too many atrocities

mass graves and US national security

modernity and technological ingenuity

a banana republic , our modern slavery

desaparecidos in ciudades perdidas

me acarician tus manos podridas

me besan con labios partidos

me abrazas con un million de cuerpos heridos

number one human rights violator

you are just a perpetrator

in this western hemisphere

is malaria my newest dear

is living life my newest fear

coffee plantations and

US force fed starvations

the oligarchy owns all 7 nations

mangos and escuadrones de muerte

mi destino

mi suerte...

you seranade me in volcanic shouts

with your ashy regal pout

your speech- clandestine whispers

and your menu- your twin sisters

famine and persecution

with their lovers

corruption and delusion

the welcome songs

gunshots my psalms

newborn babies

repression and exiled ladies

guerrilla screams

colonization and tears

golpes de estado and fear

jungles and social movements

overcrowded cities and revolutions

patojos fregones and disease

you make us drink like morning te

oh little centro america

you are such a hostile area

greedy and conformist

you are just a lousy 2nd rate terrorist

but your so pretty when you want to kill me

with your crimes against humanity

when you're all covered in blood

like men covered with hoods

am i in love with you

i was exiled from you

lil centroamerica

such an inhospitable area

earthquakes

and volcanoes

eruptions

and social combustions

redemptions

revolutions

oh how i wish i had a galactic intervention

land of the maya

quetzales

jaguars

chichen itza

and kukulkan

and caramel flan

ay mi centroamerica

fuerte guerrillera

pequena campesina

bella nina indigena

freedom from oppression

military interventions and hope

welcome to guatemALA

i KNOW THAT you are not missing

i know in my heart you are dead

i know you are not lost

like a ring or a Picture

or a memory

or a lost love

you are dead

and i cant stop your screams in my head

they came for you in the middle of the night

not like the usual, in broad daylight

rifles pointed in your eye

thats the moment when i prefered to die

they completely destroyed the landscape of your beautiful face

they pulled you away from my last embrace

tore the black hair from your head

struck me unconsious

i wish i was dead...

all i do is think and pray

that you are dead

and not tortured and tortured for months on end

going insane

bleeding for things you thought and never said

did they fill your soul full of lead a million bullets in the back of your head

fighting for your body

Your lightning eyes

Burn deep

And mystify

They heal

And terrorize

They love and paralyze

Your words cut deep

And hypnotize

I wish you were mine

like I love balams and quetzales

like I love Maya paisaje

And I remember you

Esos

Besos de mango

tus Cumbias y tangos

tus Risas y abrazos

In the punishing desert of your heart

Como brillaban

Tus ojos de cobre

You lose me

in your pretty

Smoking mirror

You kill me

with your vulgar

little Temper

Like cosmic obsidian

Are full of magic and terror

Your heart

Full of answers

and errors

In your psychedelic wonderland

you don't need my healing hand

in your lair

Everything is upside down

Don’t even know what’s right or wrong

I want to scream your name out loud

but you won't let me make a sound

But you lost me in your ancient temple

You lost me in your volcanic rumble

You lost me during your fitfull slumber

you lost me in your dull surrender

Prose and Poetry

You're the only ones for me

Tend to my broken rhymes

Mend my turbulent mind

You are pure , you are divine

You are lovely and sublime

You get me through the worst of times

You keep me up all through the night

You give me peace, you give me sight

You make me want to do whats right

You make me fight

State sponsored terror/perpetual horror

genocidios y pesticidios

cholera and children screams

free trade agreements and M16s

mass graves and extreme urban poverty

the military the suffering

the shots the misery

infant mortality, 90% illiteracy

injustice and pain for all to see

dollarization , human rights violations

summary executions and political assasinations

fraudulent elections

politicos vendidos , estudiantes desaparecidos

dictators, death squads and the para-military

persecuting my family

macheting off our hands and our knees

golpes de estado, corruption and fear

tortured cadavers, missing union supporters,

hunger and tears

gross malnutrition and no running water

malaria , AIDS and old women slaughtered