Member-only story
Texas Bitch
The suffering of the Facebook poet
I’m talking to this rich white lady from Texas on Facebook about the fact that my wife is an undocumented Mexican. It’s no secret. Everybody knows by now. The government is putting us through hell, sucking our bank account dry, making us strip naked for strangers. My stripping is metaphorical. I am only expected to reveal every detail of my life. To prove that I am a good citizen who has never lied, who loves his mother, who pays his taxes. I have no doubt they even scoured my social media accounts. But with my wife, the stripping was literal. They gave her not one, but two physical exams. Both by state-approved doctors, both expensive. They needed to make sure she wasn’t hiding anything. They checked her orifices, her blood and urine. Got to make sure she hadn’t been smoking any contraband or carrying any “dirty people” diseases. Never mind the fact that she’s been living here for 5 years without starting an epidemic. We have to prove that she is worthy of living in this great land. We have to prove that she is worthy of working at McDonald’s or cleaning rich white lady’s houses.
And still they don’t want to give her a green card. It’s kind of like paying an editor a submission fee so he can read your poems. Then waiting six months for a glorified index card in the mail telling you your poems not only suck, but they are also…
