If you give a girl a Bratz doll
— once a girl, but now a woman
She will remember the first Bratz doll she received
and in her remembering a grief will return to her body that she did not realize she still carried.
If you give a girl a Bratz doll
She will tell you of the tianguis she visited with her grandmother in Mexico and the moment she came across that doll. And how her grandmother gathered what little money she had and bought her, her first Bratz doll.
and you, who left Mexico when you were a child will wonder what the tianguis must have looked like, what it smelled like, what it sounded like and what treasures were sold there. You wonder about what divine force placed a Bratz doll there for that little girl to find.
If you give a girl a Bratz doll, she will tell you that Yasmin was her favorite
and in her remembering she will tell you, that her maternal grandmother took the doll from her and gave it to her cousins. “Tu no la necesitas, despues te compro otra.” and she never did get her another doll.
If you give a girl a Bratz doll
She will tell you that, the Yasmin Bratz baby from the babyz collection you picked out for her is the second Bratz doll she has ever owned.
and in that moment you get to be girls together, across time and space.
If you give a girl a Bratz doll
She will leave it inside the box, and place it on a pretty shelf next to a framed picture of her and her fiancé.
and she will tell you about it, and something about that will make you emotional and you will sit down to write and realize how
it wasn't just a Bratz doll, but an offering. An I see you. I see you. A simple, you and I are one and the same. You played with Bratz and so did I. And in our girlhood we are tied together forever. And in our womanhood the same binds us still. And I see you, sister, friend, woman, girl.
and in this moment we get to be girls together, across time and space.