Detention Center

Haunted (2019)

Dieciseis. The oldest children to die in US detention centers were only sixteen .

Quince. It only takes moments for a child to become infected.

Catorce. Children breathe in more air per pound than adults do.

Trece. They have fewer fluids and have worse health problems on account of dehydration and blood loss.

Doce. They put their hands in their mouths more often than adults do.

Once. Separating children from parents or homes will most likely have significant negative consequences.

Diez. At age ten, a little girl should not die from the flu in the United States of America.

Nueve. Every second counts when very young children grow ill.

Ocho. An eight year old died. That young boy’s life lasted 2,921 days before it was cut short by a flu in a detention center on Christmas Eve.

Siete. A little girl never saw a day of eight years old; she died at seven, in the custody of US Customs and Border Patrol on account of neglectful practices.

Seis. How many children should die?

Cinco. Was five just not enough?

Cuatro. Because I remember four lives didn’t merit an end.

Tres.

Do you remember being a very small child and thinking of anything new you encountered as so full of promise and possibility?

Dos. The two-year-old was too young to die without justice.

Uno. At age one, he never got to understand the concept of living.

Felipe Gomez Alonzo

Carlos Gregorio Hernandez Vasquez

Jakelin Caal Marquin

Mariee Juarez

Wilmer Josué Ramirez Vasquez

Darlyn Valle

Juan de León Gutierrez

These are the names we know of children who have died in CBP

And, sometimes, I feel their forgotten joys in the laughter of children where I work

And, sometimes, I feel their sweating and shaking and crying on the concrete floor of detention centers

Oh, I hope you will wake in the middle of the night and see their ghosts dressed in the colors they once called home

Death stains the air we breathe

And tears taint souls torn in two

Child bodies must be swallowed into the dirt so quickly

Bones thrown away like toys your child didn’t want

And I hope the empty cold they leave behind makes your skin crawl

Gives you chills

I can still hear sadness echoing in my own throat

The sobs of a moaning ghost can keep you company as you justify letting children die

I will sway in the bell chimes at midnight

With flowers for a family I’m unfamiliar with

We’ll never meet

Crying at the weight of cemetery stones on my shoulders

What the hell do you write for a seven-year-old’s epitaph?

I will love the moonlight until the pain becomes numb

And I scream for the forever silenced ones until someone can hear me

Until you say these dead children’s dead eyes make you wake from your slumber

Pull you under with us all in the chaos

Time is passing

And you have been passing

Broken people in broken systems on the sidewalk for far too long

Kids passing away

Cinco. Hurry, there are hands grabbing for you in the darkness help them.

Cuatro. Grim reaper got loose, somebody, please, go get him.

Tres. We have too many doctors for these children to not make it to eighteen.

Dos. The tally is so much higher than seven.

Uno. I’m sorry did the screams just start for you?

They won’t stop.

No, not until you listen to the spirits calls to

Stop slitting the throats

Of these sacred shattered bodies.