Our mom’s first word to me, and later to Ruby, was eat. The nurses probably expected an I love you or mi precioso, mi preciosa as they handed us to our mom, but thosewords only came after we’d been fed and burped. Ruby and I joke that our mom saw two lines on the pregnancy tests and prayed we were hungry. And we are, though often not enough. It’s our mom’s biggest worry. If we ran away, though we never would, our mom would first pray we’ve eaten before she’d pray we return home where she’d have a hot plate of food waiting. Here’s a truth: you’ve fallen for a conspiracy. The heart is not the real heart of the body, it’s the stomach, but stomachs are ugly when you peel the skin back. All those intestines, like some freakish thing you’d find at the bottom of the ocean. Stinky too, but to love ourselves, our mom always says, we must eat. Stop eating and it won’t matter how much blood is pumping through your heart, you’ll die, so eat, our mom says. And eat well too. Dios mio, our mom is always saying, how we don’t eat well. It keeps her up at night sometimes. When we’re older and move out, when we’re even older and she’s gone, will we love ourselves? Will we eat? We do eat, but it’s true, it’s usually not how she wants us to eat. I’m picky, I’m sorry. Ruby is too. Like with onions. We’ve tried, but they won’t stay down, and then there it is, our stomach on the dinner table, all gushy and smelly. But also my stomach hurts easily, and Ruby’s too. Sorry we eat our frijoles slowly and only finish half the plate, but doesn’t loving ourselves also mean not harming ourselves? And frijoles hurt us. Every time. But let’s talk about love for a second. I think I stopped loving myself when my stomach first fluttered for another guy. At church, the priest called that kind of stomach, the stomach of an animal. And animals, he said, don’t go to heaven. Animals were not made in His image. I don’t like the word animal and I’ve tried to starve mine, hoping it would die like the goldfish Ruby and I once won at the carnival. They didn’t eat their fish flakes and died overnight. Let’s talk about hunger. Mine’s rabid like the raccoons that eat our trash before the garbage truck can get to it on Wednesday mornings. I’ve fought against it. I’ve ignored it. I’ve told myself I love that prickling, sometimes stabbing sensation of emptiness. But I always cave. I give in. I lose to my hunger. Though lose is probably the wrong word. It’s more like I hope our mom is right. I am hungry. On those nights when I’ve stretched my hunger long, when I let myself have thoughts about him or him, when I sneak into the kitchen for a snack to soothe the sting in my gut, I tell myself that this cookie, this chip, this grape is a promise to love myself someday.