When We Make It

  Today, I decide to remember.

  Today I am Sarai.

  14 going on 15 from Bushwick, Brooklyn.

  I start describing my body.

  A body that is mine, and will never be anyone else’s.

  NEW WORDS/STATISTIC/

  A FACT OR PIECE OF DATA FROM A STUDY OF A LARGE COLLECTION OF NUMERICAL DATA

  Nobody wants to admit it,

  but everyone is scared of something.

  Sometimes anger

  is how we show we are afraid.

  Mami’s case workers are afraid

  they’ll miss a lunch break

  when the office is packed with people

  who haven’t eaten either.

  Mami is afraid one day they’ll send her home

  with no food stamps at all.

  Papi is afraid

  I’ll grow up to hate him like Mami does.

  Estrella is afraid

  of being afraid.

  Danny is afraid

  we’ll forget his snacks when we visit him.

  Bori Wela is afraid

  Mami will never come back to Puerto Rico.

  Lala is afraid

  if she doesn’t work hard she won’t make it.

  The cops are afraid

  one day we’ll decide we won’t need them.

  G is afraid he’ll never make enough money

  to quit dealing.

  I am afraid

  none of what I am afraid of will matter.

  TONY’S PIZZA

  At Tony’s Pizza, Estrella and I peep

  some weird couple eating

  a slice with a fork and a knife.

  Everyone around here folds

  their slice in half, maybe because it’s faster

  to eat and we are always in a hurry

  to get somewhere even

  if that somewhere is nowhere at all.

  Or maybe folding it in half only

  requires one hand

  and keeps the other free

  in case we need it to tell a story

  or protect ourselves from something, anything.

  The point is, I learn

  a lot about that couple

  just by how they eat.

  I know they not from here

  ’cause they not in a rush

  and look mad peaceful

  using utensils on a pizza

  like they found all of the calm

  and sliced it for themselves.

  NEW WORDS/RESENTMENT/

  A FEELING OF ANGER BECAUSE YOU HAVE BEEN FORCED TO ACCEPT SOMETHING THAT YOU DO NOT LIKE

  The newspapers said

  they gonna start planting trees

  on the block

  Mami is worried

  this means

  they are gonna raise the rent.

  No one but us

  can understand

  this anger.

  How poor

  you have to be

  to resent trees.

  WELO

  died before I was born. A freak car accident in Puerto Rico. Brooklyn Wela tells me the story as she lifts the mattress to pull out the envelope where she keeps her money. The medics said they had never seen something so gruesome. Welo was so unrecognizable they had to have a closed casket funeral. But Wela didn’t need to see his face to cry. She is almost crying now retelling the story. I feel bad for asking about Welo. For being a metiche. You must have been so sad, I say. She laughs a laugh I haven’t inherited yet. She said Welo was so evil not even the Devil would take him. She wasn’t crying out of sadness. She was crying because she was free. I promise myself one day I’ll cry for that reason too.

  THINGS WE DON’T TALK ABOUT

  PUERTO RICAN HISTORY

  At home there are no history lessons on Puerto Rico.

  We don’t sing the national anthem around the table.

  We don’t talk about being Puerto Rican.

  We just live it. You know?

  We just eat Puerto Rican

  We just drink Puerto Rican

  We just dance Puerto Rican

  We just sing Puerto Rican

  We just pray Puerto Rican

  We just fight Puerto Rican

  We just cry Puerto Rican

  We just laugh Puerto Rican

  We just dress Puerto Rican

  We just suffer Puerto Rican

  & we love Puerto Rican too.

  THINGS WE DON’T TALK ABOUT

  WHAT HAPPENED TO MAMI

  Everybody has a story.

  But Mami doesn’t tell us hers.

  Estrella & I take turns guessing

  who Mami was before she was our mother.

  A Russian spy!

  A salsa dancer!

  A drill sergeant!

  Yo. That last one though!

  Estrella and I laugh

  & laugh as we make up

  pasts for Mami

  that might help us understand

  her present.

  CHURCH BOY

  My whole body shivers when I see him.

  I blame the Holy Spirit in case someone notices my shaking.

  I feel so guilty trying to figure out what

  kind of sin Church Boy falls under.

  I don’t have any adults to ask about my crush.

  None of the women I know have husbands

  unless you count Jesus.

  All of the women I know are waiting for a man

  who left and promised to come back.

  Even though she is dating Raffy

  Mami says she is una mujer sola

  as if her loneliness

  is her greatest accomplishment.

  I don’t understand it but sometimes I’m proud of her.

  How brave to not need anything but hope.

  PICKUP LINES

  Church Boy says:

  I must have been a notebook

  in another lifetime.

  The one God kept in his back pocket.

  With instructions on how to build the world.

  FIRST KISS

  Our first kiss happens in the church van.

  We hop on before everyone else does.

  When our tongues first meet they dance

  like the white people do in the movies,

  awkward but sure of themselves.

  When it’s over

  Church Boy looks at me

  like he wants me to say something

  special about him.

  But this was never about him.

  END OF SUMMER

  We know it’s the end of summer

  when the usually crack-ridden park

  hosts a festival and tents it with meaning.

  I sneak in a swing

  while Mami watches the performers

  move their bodies

  in ways she has forbidden herself to.

  Her eyes look busy with questions

  and it fascinates me to see her curious

  about something other

  than how to keep us alive.

  I HATE MY NEW HIGH SCHOOL

  I didn’t get into the school for gifted kids.

  I didn’t get into any of the schools I applied to.

  I’m stuck with my Zone School.

  Lala got into a good school in the city.

  She’s on her way to making it and I’m so proud of her.

  At my new high school

  the teacher throws a Blue Emergency card at my desk.

  Said it had the wrong address.

  She came looking for me and the lady

  who answered the door said I didn’t live there.

  I
stared her right in her pretend caring face.

  Why you tryna come to my house anyway?

  Today, I decide to be braver than my mother.

  Today, I am a troublemaker.

  A malcriada. My father’s hands. An angry bitch.

  I give my mouth permission

  to be as dangerous as my neighborhood.

  She matches my energy. High school teachers

  be acting like they want smoke.

  She said maybe if I came to school the first week

  she wouldn’t have to go look for me.

  I’ve been cutting class a lot to hang out with Church Boy.

  My new best friend.

  THE COOL WHITE ENGLISH TEACHER

  Curses, lets us curse

  doesn’t yell, lets us yell

  Wears Tommy Hilfiger

  & knows the latest hip-hop joints

  Asks us what we wanna learn about

  tells us things we shouldn’t know

  Like how she’ll get in trouble with the principal

  if they know she is the cool white teacher

  So if they come by for a classroom visit

  we’ll have to pretend that we’re doing work

  & she’ll have to pretend that she’s teaching

  & of course she’s teaching but she may

  have to yell at us to be quiet and if we don’t

  she may have to call our parents right then & there

  So if we want her to keep being

  the cool white teacher we have to listen

  when people are watching

  just so they know she’s down

  just so they know

  she’s doing her job

  STRANGER DANGER

  In high school, we have to prove

  that we are not what the news says about us.

  Even if what the news says about us is good.

  Like when that genius kid from the hood got skipped a few grades

  and his family had to tell everyone it’s ’cause

  he reads a lot ’cause he ain’t have no TV

  and not because he cheats a lot like they say

  about people like us on TV.

  The white teachers won’t say it out loud

  but they feel sorry for us.

  I can tell by how nice they are.

  No one is that nice just because.

  They kneel down by our desks

  sacrifice their good knees for us.

  They get real close to our faces

  just like the news reporters do.

  Just like they do at the welfare office

  when they want to know if Mami is lying

  about where she keeps

  Papi’s abandon.

  They demand we look at them in the eye

  while they tell us they understand us.

  Pero, I don’t ever see them on the block

  so I know that they don’t.

  NEW WORDS/INVESTMENTS/

  SPEND MONEY NOW TO MAKE MONEY LATER

  The cool white teacher says today’s lesson

  is about making money.

  Class Clown TJ says

  Hey, how come we don’t ever learn

  about stocks and bonds and shit?

  A chorus of woooooord and yooooo carry a

  challenge straight under the cool white teacher’s nose.

  The cool white teacher says it’s complicated

  and that we wouldn’t really understand.

  Try us, I push.

  I mean to say we know mad complicated shit

  the cool white teacher wouldn’t really understand.

  The cool white teacher is cool

  when she explains.

  It’s like when you buy something now

  you think might be worth something later.

  Class clown TJ screams

  like he figured something out.

  Oh! Like when I buy Jordans!

  Them shits is worth mad bread, miss.

  No. The cool white teacher isn’t cool anymore.

  You can’t invest in sneakers.

  But you can invest in real estate.

  Let me give you a real life example.

  The cool white teacher uses investment in a sentence.

  My husband. . .

  Oooooh! all the girls who want someone to love squeal.

  Her cool white husband is a real estate agent

  and says houses in Bushwick are cheap right now.

  Buying houses when they don’t cost much

  is a good investment ’cuz they might

  be worth more later.

  TJ feels dumb now.

  I know because he cracks jokes whenever he wants

  to let the teachers know they lost his attention.

  Okay then.

  Ask your husband if he wanna invest in some weed!

  The cool white teacher

  doesn’t laugh with us & TJ like she normally does.

  Everything cool about her is gone.

  Now she is just the white teacher.

  You want to go to jail, TJ?

  Lots of new jails are opening looking for kids like you.

  & I think I learned something new today.

  I think she means that jails are someone’s investments

  but I don’t know if that means someone thinks

  we’re worth something or nothing at all.

  CLASS CLOWN

  I don’t know why we get in trouble for laughing.

  If they saw how much time we spent crying

  they would be encouraging our laughter instead.

  One day our laughter will be revered.

  Our laughter will have its own holiday & parade.

  Our laughter will be a mandatory course

  of study in school.

  Our laughter will be researched

  & analyzed by scientists.

  Religious organizations will call our laughter

  a false prophet, fearing we found a new god

  in our smile.

  We’ll blast our laughter out of car stereos

  in the summer so loud that they’ll want to feature it in the opening ceremony of the Olympics.

  Maybe our laughter will be the torch.

  Maybe they’ll want to make our laughter

  the national anthem.

  Our laughter will cure our bodies.

  Our laughter will be hereditary.

  Our laughter will be as full

  as the Check Cashing on the first of the month.

  Our laughter won’t ever be hungry.

  Our laughter won’t ever be worried.

  Our laughter will stay strapped.

  Our laughter will split skulls.

  Our laughter will dance

  like it’s never had sense.

  Our laughter will sound

  like it caught the Holy Spirit.

  Our laughter will be so much

  of a miracle that God will give it its own heaven.

  Maybe one day our laughter

  will be so valuable

  That someone will want to steal it.

  That they will try to bootleg it.

  That they will attempt to sell it back to us

  at a higher price.

  That we will have to protect it.

  That it will have to come with a warning.

  We’ll have to tell our children

  laugh at your own risk

  & they will.

  they will.

  & maybe they do.

  maybe we do.

  SECOND PERSON

  In English class you learn how t
o write in second person

  and it becomes your new favorite way to exist.

  Suddenly you don’t have to be present-day you.

  You can be you in the past.

  You can write about your life like you’re observing it.

  You can write like you’re wiser now.

  Removed from all of the stupidity of the first person.

  You are your smarter twin or you are future you

  who writes to you in the past

  & advises her to make better choices.

  You hope this is on the quiz.

  AN ENGLISH QUIZ I ACE

  The English quiz is on figurative language.

  & I have to write a poem using literary devices.

  I think of how yesterday’s newspaper

  said the police call my block The Well.

  & I laughed ’cause there are no actual wells in the hood.

  We lucky we even got water. Ha!

  They mean it as a metaphor—

  a connection between

  two unrelated images.

  If I had to break down the metaphor:

  The deep down water would be the drugs &

  the police would be the bucket &

  that would make the 83rd precinct

  the thirstiest village.

  TONE GOES MISSING

  It’s been three days since Tone last came home.

  In Bushwick, everyone is bound to go missing.

  It’s almost a birthright to disappear one day

  like your life has earned the trouble

  of being searched for. The truth is we all dream

  of disappearing somewhere someday.

  Mami wants to disappear back to Puerto Rico.

  Sometimes, I don’t think she even wants us to come.

  Disappearing has to happen alone

  in order for it to matter.

  In order for it to matter, people have to wonder

  and worry about where you could be.

  Knowing you matter is the best part

  about disappearing.

  The worst part is not being around

  to hear just how much.