Tupi or not Tupi? This is not a question; it is a devouring.

I stand before the mirror of my own origin and I do not see a face, I see an appetite. To be Tupi is to eat the world, to swallow the stranger until his strength becomes my own blood. But to not be? That is the silence of the bone. That is the desert where nothing grows because nothing has been consumed.

I feel the weight of this choice in the bridge of my nose, in the way my feet grip the floorboards. It is a dizzying thing, this “Tupi.” It is a word that vibrates with the pulse of a jungle I have never seen, yet feel beating inside my chest like a trapped bird.

Is it a choice or an inheritance? To be “not Tupi” is to be hollow, a porcelain cup waiting for a tea that never pours. To be “Tupi” is to be the tea, the cup, and the heat that cracks the ceramic.

I am suspended in the “or.” That tiny, fragile word that separates the being from the non-being. It is a thin thread of silk over an abyss of identity. I look at the fruit on my table and I wonder: do I eat it, or does its existence eat me?

The question isn’t whether I exist. The question is: What am I currently digesting?

©️Beatriz Esmer