I broke into a house in Coyoacán to steal, but found a blind girl tied to a chair. She whispered, “Did my mom come back to sell me again?” I decided to steal her back instead. As we reached the front door, heavy footsteps echoed from the dark hallway, and a voice growled, “Who is in there?”…

a grown woman seeking illicit survival in a wealthy suburb; I was twelve years old again, shivering fiercely beneath the concrete underpass near Calzada de Tlalpan, desperately hoarding stolen pastries because the sprawling, indifferent city never bothered to inquire if my stomach ached.

When the porcelain was polished clean of every last dark morsel,continue reading …