When We Make It

  that converts into a toddler bed. I’m confused.

  But you don’t even have Jordans & we share a bed.

  That’s the point, Estrella says.

  Her baby will have everything we never had.

  I’m still confused. How can we give what we don’t have?

  You gotta think about it first, dummy.

  Estrella says in order to get what we want

  we gotta imagine it first.

  She says it’s like

  window shopping

  for your dreams.

  I’m determined to prove I’m not dumb.

  Imagination is not real though, duh.

  It’s as good as the fiction I read.

  Estrella looks at me as if I said something brilliant.

  Exactly dummy, now go write yourself a book.

  PLAYING HOOKY

  Instead of going back to school I meet Church Boy

  under the elevated train by the cuchifrito spot

  on Knickerbocker.

  I miss the sound of the coquí but not more

  than I missed the sound of the M train.

  I tell Church Boy all about what happened to Mami

  and about Puerto Rican history

  and ask him if he thinks it’s weird that they

  don’t teach us this in school.

  Church Boy tells me that I’m talking too much

  and kisses me until my heart flutters like

  the M train is running right through it.

  THE 411

  My new job is to spy on Corner Boy Jesus for Estrella.

  She wants to make sure he’s not doing nothing

  with nobody. Whatever that means.

  Today, I report back that I peeped Jesus

  give Hermana Santiago’s daughter Nini mad money.

  Yo. You think Nini running drugs for Jesus?

  Like some kind of child drug ring?

  Think about it? Who would suspect a child?

  Oh! You know what’s even better than a child drug ring?

  Abuelas hustling smack! Yooo that’s genius.

  & also real messed up. You think G is in on this?

  I want to gossip with Estrella.

  I want to laugh and imagine ridiculous worlds.

  But she’s not in the mood.

  Nini is Jesus’ sister, stupid.

  The money is for their mom to pay the bills.

  & suddenly I know why

  Hermana Santiago is so angry all the time

  and also why they have cable.

  ESTRELLA GIVES BIRTH

  Noah is born on Halloween.

  Just like Estrella.

  She turned 18

  and I know

  the newspapers

  say teen pregnancy

  is a curse that plagues us

  but today on her birthday

  she declares God gave her

  this baby as a birthday gift.

  She named the baby Noah.

  If I had to guess

  she imagined

  this exact moment

  where she would

  get to choose

  a name that meant something

  a name that changed everything.

  Noah, conqueror of floods.

  Noah, who made her an ark.

  WHEN WE MAKE IT

  We’re supposed to wanna get outta here.

  When we make it, that’s what we’re supposed to do— leave.

  That’s the dream. Make it out the hood.

  No one tells us where we’re supposed to go though.

  So, I got questions about leaving.

  We are supposed to go live where?

  & with who?

  & if we leave the hood doesn’t that mean we gotta

  leave

  our friends,

  our family,

  our bodegas,

  our stoops and shit?

  Just like the Puerto Ricans who left the island

  to come

  to the Lower East Side, The Bronx, Bushwick,

  Chicago, Florida, Pennsylvania.

  But, okay,

  say we make it

  big enough,

  rich enough,

  bougie enough

  to take everybody with us—we give Goldo

  enough money to open a bodega

  in the new hood, oh and we give the boys on

  the corner

  new corners to dream on—then isn’t that just

  replicating the same hood

  we just tried to leave?

  Why are we leaving if we can’t take none of this

  shit with us?

  If we can’t take no one with us?

  Isn’t that just running away from everything that

  made us?

  Who taught us to be so afraid of ourselves

  that the dream is to find new places

  & new people to be afraid of us too?

  HOW WE HONOR OUR DEAD

  The newspapers said it’s real sad to see a new mural

  highlighting the death

  of another corner hoodlum.

  It wasn’t just one of the corner boys. It was Jesus.

  The article says the cop that killed him was afraid for his life.

  Everyone got questions about that except the news.

  They got Jesus’ picture in the black & white mugshot

  plastered all over the front page.

  Everyone is gathered around the mural telling stories.

  Jesus was tryna turn his life around for Estrella and the baby.

  He was getting his G.E.D.

  Estrella says he talked about being a social worker.

  Hermana Santiago said when he was little

  her son wanted to be a cop. Ironic.

  Maybe to some people

  it doesn’t make sense

  to talk about a dead person’s dreams

  after they are dead.

  But we know how important it is to show all of who

  a person is.

  All of who they could have been.

  I agree with the papers.

  It is really sad to see a mural for Jesus.

  But the newspapers also don’t know shit.

  The mural for Jesus is not meant to highlight his death.

  It’s meant to celebrate his life.

  That’s why we picked the biggest wall

  and the dopest graffiti artists in the hood.

  That’s why we use the brightest colors

  and asked Jesus’ moms for the best picture

  she got of him so we can always remember him like that.

  In color.

  That’s why we light candles

  and place them on the block

  and airbrush Rest in peace G.O.D.

  on T-shirts in the brightest neon letters.

  Even if in life we live in the shadows,

  in death we live in the light.

  HOLY WALLS

  At church, the pastor uses the sermon to teach us a lesson. He says the murals glorify the victims of the drug war as if it’s some kind of trophy to have your face on a wall. ¡Amén! He says the neighborhood shouldn’t be a cemetery. ¡Alabanza! It should be a garden. We should plant the seeds of Christ, not bury bodies. ¡Gloria! God should be on the wall, halleluyah! Let’s spray-paint the walls holy. ¡Alábalo que Él vive! On the way home God should be on the wall! replays like a song on a loop.

  I walk by Jesus’ mural.

  God should be on the wall!

  & today he is.

  & today he is.

  Amen.

  ESTRELLA IS
NOT THE SAME

  & I recognize this feeling.

  We all inherit a sadness we don’t know what to do with.

  Some of us stuff it into our laughter.

  Others in a suitcase to New York.

  Other’s cook with so much sadness

  it’s how we salt our food.

  We all have plans to go somewhere that’s better than here.

  Wherever here is.

  But we never plan to die.

  No we never plan to die.

  NEW WORDS/POSTPARTUM DEPRESSION

  A FEELING OF DEEP SADNESS, ANXIETY, ETC., THAT A PERSON CAN FEEL AFTER GIVING BIRTH TO A CHILD

  It’s the middle of the night

  and baby Noah won’t stop crying

  like babies do when they’re hungry

  or need their diaper changed

  or just want to be held.

  Estrella never gets to figure out which one it was

  and we never get to figure out if the shrieks

  are coming from Estrella or the baby.

  We follow the sound

  just in time to witness the kind of quiet that happens

  when somebody finally gives up.

  Estrella has a blanket pressed over the baby’s face

  as she rocks him back and forth while singing

  something in between an alabanza and a lullaby.

  ¡Llama a la jara! You know it’s serious when Mami suggests

  involving the cops. Mami snatches baby Noah

  from Estrella’s arms.

  Noah is okay.

  Gracias a Dios Mami says.

  Today she is God.

  Estrella just cries.

  She doesn’t fight back or even notice her empty hands

  still in the position of a mother rocking her child to sleep.

  PSYCHOLOGICAL EVALUATION

  The doctor asks Mami why Estrella broke.

  She blames our neighborhood,

  el Bloque, with all of the fast girls.

  In her version of the story,

  Estrella is a lonely race car,

  engine on, running the streets

  wasting gas on men

  who will never love her.

  The doctor asks Estrella why

  she broke. She blames Mami and

  her frostbitten fingers.

  She explains that Mami is sick

  and cold and never loved her.

  In her version of the story

  she is a lonely race car,

  engine off, who knows that waiting

  for someone to love you

  will drive you crazy.

  WE VISIT ESTRELLA AT WOODHULL HOSPITAL

  It’s good to see her

  laughing.

  Estrella jokes

  that she comes from

  a cracked rib

  & that’s why

  she’s in here.

  I try to join in on the joke.

  Word. If you’re part of some

  breakdown in God’s design

  why are we made to

  believe everyone is created

  in God’s perfect image?

  Maybe if we knew

  early on that God

  had crazy days too

  we wouldn’t be

  so ashamed of our own.

  Estrella scolds me.

  God didn’t have crazy days.

  He had creative days.

  All of us are different

  because God is a motherfucking artist.

  I think of Danny & Maravilla

  being created in God’s image.

  Maybe this even applies to Mami.

  God’s perfect image, huh?

  If God is creating self-portraits

  then we are all just unique variations of God.

  ESTRELLA WANTS ME TO KNOW

  When she gets out of the hospital

  she’s going back to school.

  Don’t get it twisted.

  She doesn’t think she needs to prove to anyone

  that she’s smart or nothing.

  Matter fact she already got mad skills

  that could maybe

  help her graduate faster.

  She wants to prove to herself

  that she can do it.

  & I know what it’s like

  to want to be better than yourself.

  So I start planning with Estrella.

  I sit on her bed just like if it was our stoop.

  BROOKLYN WELA ADOPTS THE BABY

  Mami says: Don’t worry

  you’ll get him back.

  In a way that maybe she wishes

  someone had told her about Danny.

  Estrella says she’s just glad he’s safe.

  She’s just glad he’s safe.

  BIRTHDAYS ARE STILL THE WORST DAYS

  This year my birthday came and went

  & no one said a word but I’m still here.

  The one thing I learned in Puerto Rico is

  that there are worse things than being forgotten.

  Like being deliberately erased.

  ONE DAY CHURCH BOY STARTS ACTING ALL FUNNY

  like he’s tired of hearing about my problems.

  It’s not even like

  I’m asking him to solve them.

  Boys can’t even listen

  without feeling

  like it’s too much work.

  Then leave.

  I say this in Mami’s voice

  So that I can believe that I mean it.

  GAINING WEIGHT

  Church Boy says

  I am getting fat

  but my size has never

  been a problem for me.

  I am shaped like the moon

  & on Knickerbocker Ave.

  men howl themselves

  into a werewolf at the sight of me.

  I AM PREGNANT

  Mami knows about it first.

  Says I am sleeping too much

  & gaining weight real fast.

  She buys a pregnancy test

  at Duane Reade & asks me

  to pee on it. I argue my case

  against peeing on the stick

  but she sounds like she

  wants to forgive me.

  For a moment I have a mother

  & who wants to pass on that?

  MIRROR

  & so I’ve seen this before haven’t I?

  I am my mother’s reflection.

  I am my sister’s shadow.

  I am everyone I tried not to be.

  I am them.

  & they are me.

  I TELL ESTRELLA I AM PREGNANT

  as she is preparing Tone’s old room

  for baby Noah’s return.

  She is the happiest I’ve ever seen her

  & I don’t want to upset her.

  I tell her that I’m worried

  I’ll be a bad mother like Mami.

  Or that I’ll have terrible postpartum like she did.

  Estrella is not upset at all. She reminds me

  that I am my own person

  on my own journey.

  I am my own person

  on my own journey.

  UNDERSTANDING TRINITY

  The mother is not the daughter.

  The daughter is not the spirit.

  The spirit is not the mother.

  They are all God together.

  They are all God apart.

  NEW WORDS/DETONATE/

  TO EXPLODE WITH SUDDEN VIOLENCE

  Church Boy said he’s not ready to be a father.

  I gotta approach this wisely.


  If I curse him out, I may lose him.

  If I stay quiet, I may lose myself.

  Mami taught me how to scream

  with my mouth closed.

  I get my loud from her.

  My who you think you talking to from her.

  Even when she is quiet

  there are explosions going off inside of her.

  I detonate like her sometimes.

  It scares me.

  Mami taught me how lethal

  a woman’s mouth could be.

  How it could cut someone sin cuchilla.

  How to spit a knife straight through a heart.

  How my mouth is an open wound.

  A pocket that stores the weapon.

  DISCIPLINA

  The pastor sighs like he knew I was trouble

  since Piano Man.

  His wife smiles and holds my hand

  while the pastor tells me how things will be

  different. There’s a section in the back of the church

  for sinners. Like hell? I think.

  People who fall from God’s grace, his wife interrupts.

  I’m not allowed to lead church service anymore.

  I can only approach the pulpit when I am called to do so.

  Or when you need prayer,

  the pastor’s wife interrupts again.

  I am not allowed to play any instruments;

  not the tambourine,

  not the clave, not the güiro and not the drums.

  You can still clap

  and use your vocal instrument to praise the lord.

  She’s full of useless good news.

  Who will play the drums? I ask.

  Church Boy will, the pastor says.

  Until they find a replacement.

  Both of us have sinned

  but only one of us fell short

  from the glory of God.

  BREAKING UP WITH CHURCH BOY

  I told Church Boy I didn’t need him.

  Sometimes you gotta remind boys of that fact.