the gulf of you and me
by
maya ochoa
It felt like a storm was forming. The usual heavy winds up in the north clashed with the sunny south. My bones were feeling humid, my lips opened just a bit; I felt I couldn’t breathe. I was ready to water all the corners of the world and it was just your first glance at me.
I’m melting like a popsicle lost in the streets of Mexico.
The storm was going to be a hurricane. It was ready to destroy me, to eat my insides, one of those seaquakes that never end, deep inside the oceans. Are those really here to divide, or to put back together what has been lost?
I’m looking at you and you don’t seem to notice me from this far.
I am a sailor, I said to myself, I can navigate you, I thought, I can tame you with kisses, with my quirky sense of humor, I figured. Oh, how wrong I was. You were the master of the sea, or, some would say, the monster of the sea, so cold and distant, you might be Antarctica, the tip of Tierra del Fuego.
In this part of the world where I’m nowhere around you, I still feel you, don’t you feel my presence?
My heart, without protection, could have never stand those big waves. The last time we saw each other I had my diving suit on, ready to clash the deepest side of you. The darkness extinguished my flames and here I am, trying to swim back to the shore.
perra
by
maya ochoa
soy un perrito faldero
un operario del sistema que le inyecta sangre a tu cuerpo
he estado susurrándole cositas simpáticas al viento
a ver si me persigue
como yo a él
si me babea el rostro
si me tira un beso
si me disloca el hombro cuando duermo mal
miro el viaje que he dado con mis pasos de perro
y he ido andando bien lejos
tan lejos que el espejo se quedó sin nada que reflejar
he pisado la mierda
he olido a cerveza
quién soy si no estoy aturdida por tanta belleza
quién corre tras la pelota, tras los ruidos de los coches.
Soy tu perrita faldera.
Artist Statement
These poems explore identity through desire, rage and vulnerability—both personal and political. Perra plays with submission and rebellion to expose the contradictions of performing docility within systems of domination. The gulf of you and me was written during the renaming of Mexico’s Gulf. The piece delves into the emotional and geographical displacement where love sometimes confines us. The body becomes a territory that overflows with intimacy. Colonialism can shape the ways we love, suffer and narrate ourselves—and that was the feeling while writing this down. How do we narrate ourselves when deep oceans cut through? Both pieces offer an anticolonial perspective through the lens of affect. With their rhythm and broken, exposed cadence, they do not seek escape but rather inhabit the fractures, speak the wound, and find freedom within.
QUOTE AS:
Maya Ochoa. The gulf of you and me & Perra. The Living Commons Collective Magazine. N.5, July 2026. p. 118-121
