A new work by alumna Erin Stalcup (fiction, ’04) appears online in the magazine, Hinchas de Poesia.

I want to tell them. I want to tell them what is wrong. Why I no hit. They going to ask me, soon they will ask me, but all I can say to them is I don’t know why I am not me.

Before, they ask me how it feel to win big, they ask what I doing different when I hit 22 homeruns one season, 41 the next. They notice when I do good, they ask me what I doing to be so good. So they will ask me this. Soon.

And I will have to say to them I am doing what I always doing up there, nothing different. But now I no hit the ball.

Mi papá me llama, he say I scared of the pitch. He say never before is he seeing this in me. He watch the game against Tampa on the television I buy for him, he call me and he say, ¿Por qué te da miedo la pelota? Nunca te asustas antes. I say I don’t know, Papi, but the hitting coach, he will tell me what is wrong. Papi say he will tell me I scared.

…

Finish reading online at Hinchas de Poesia.