When We Make It

by Elisabet Velasquez

  That you were somebody before them.

  That you’ll be somebody after.

  I stood in front of him glowing

  like I imagine Jesus did

  after he resurrected

  & before he bounced back to heaven.

  Church Boy looked at me with all the doubt

  Thomas had when Jesus showed up all radiant & shit.

  I guess he thought I would die without him.

  & maybe a part of me did.

  But even Jesus knew that some deaths are necessary

  to ascend into glory.

  FIRST PRENATAL APPOINTMENT

  Sarai, today you get to meet your baby.

  Everything is happening in slow motion.

  The doctor keeps talking

  but the last words he said replay in my head.

  The baby.

  I’m gonna meet the baby.

  I’m gonna have a baby.

  I think that makes me someone’s mother.

  No. Okay. Maybe not yet.

  But it does make my body someone’s home.

  Body.

  Home.

  Mother.

  Every word feels more dangerous than the next.

  Every word makes me want to learn a new one.

  SONOGRAM

  That’s how I’ll meet the baby.

  A sonogram takes pictures of the baby

  inside of my uterus.

  Uterus.

  I’m learning medical terminology for parts of my body

  I never even knew I had.

  It’s kind of exciting to learn

  new things about my body.

  To understand yourself in a new way

  means to love yourself in a new way

  too.

  BABY PICTURES

  Dear Unborn Baby,

  The doctor asks me

  if I want him to print out a copy of your first picture.

  Do people actually say no to this question?

  I want a memory of this moment,

  of the first time I see you.

  I want to save it for

  when the school assignment

  asks you to bring in a baby pic

  & you show up with a black & white

  picture of you in my belly.

  Make everybody laugh.

  Go ahead, be the class clown.

  & let the teacher call me complaining.

  So I can laugh in her face too.

  We can be a chorus of clowns in a circus.

  I want you to have everything I never had.

  I want you to be everything I could never be.

  But I don’t say that to the doctor.

  I just say yes. I’d like a picture.

  AT THE COUNSELOR’S OFFICE

  Everyone has a job to do

  and mine is to be the girl somebody saves.

  I want another job.

  The one where the girl saves herself, maybe.

  But that doesn’t help anybody get anywhere

  and everybody wants to go somewhere.

  The counselor wants to go home.

  I can tell by the way she sighs

  when I tell her I am pregnant

  like I am a job she isn’t getting paid overtime for.

  I AM A DANGEROUSLY BAD EXAMPLE

  The counselor is transferring me

  out to a school for pregnant girls.

  She said it’s a safer space for me.

  But didn’t I die in some of the safest places?

  & didn’t the church ask me to forgive the man

  who made my body a sad hymn?

  & don’t our stomachs growl while the news watches?

  & isn’t my hood where I learned to love

  everything that hates me?

  I smile at the counselor like she’s doing me a favor.

  Like Mami does at the caseworkers.

  But there are no favors here.

  Everyone is just doing their job.

  & my job is to smile.

  & my job is to not die.

  FIRST DAY AT THE SCHOOL FOR PREGNANT GIRLS

  I walk into the soundtrack

  of new babies trying to convince their

  mothers to miss first period.

  The daycare makes me smile.

  It also makes me sad.

  It is a reminder that there is a school for mothers.

  But there is no school for fathers.

  MAMI SAID I’M A WOMAN NOW

  & I gotta do woman things.

  Like keep track of my own appointments.

  & figure out how to buy my own bras.

  She hands me my social security card,

  birth certificate & immunization records

  as if they were diplomas I earned.

  Being a woman comes with paperwork

  but none of those papers are instructions.

  THERE IS NO ROOM IN THE BUDGET FOR BOOKS

  At the School for Pregnant Girls

  we read off loose sheets of paper

  xeroxed from the teacher’s only copy.

  We don’t really talk math unless

  we are discussing how many weeks

  we have left till birth.

  The teachers keep us busy sewing quilts

  for the babies’ cribs.

  I don’t know how that’s gonna help us

  get into college.

  They say this school is closing soon.

  I wonder if it ever opened.

  THE WRITING ASSIGNMENT IS TO IMAGINE FUTURE YOU WRITING TO PRESENT YOU

  Shit. You’re pregnant. Damn. You’re not even 16 yet.

  Shit. Stop crying. It’s okay. You’re okay. Stay in school.

  I said stay in school. You shouldn’t have let them kick you out.

  You should have cursed at your guidance counselor.

  Said something like I’m pregnant, not stupid.

  It’s okay. You’re not stupid. Stop crying.

  Yes, he’s gone, but it’s better that way.

  It’ll teach you about gravity and space

  and boys who will love you

  like a black hole

  as if they can swallow you

  without chewing.

  Your stomach will start to globe soon

  and you’ll feel like the prettiest piece of earth.

  It’s time now. Look, no one will be here for you.

  You know that. You’re ready for that.

  BABY SHOWER

  I wish I would have known about the baby shower.

  I would have gathered the energy to comb my hair.

  Maybe even worn a nicer outfit.

  I’m rocking Mami’s T-shirt and an ankle-length skirt

  which drapes over my pregnant body

  like curtains attempting to hide the sun.

  I look around the room for Mami . . . Papi. . .

  Estrella can’t come ’cause she’s busy studying for her GED.

  Maybe Lala will show up.

  Nobody I love is here.

  Nobody who loves me is here.

  I don’t even see Church Boy.

  The church people say they love me

  but my name is spelled wrong on the cake.

  C-SECTION

  The operating room is as cold as a Brooklyn winter.

  I am alone & that makes it colder.

  The nurse gives me an epidural.

  She says it’s to numb me.

  Who am I if I don’t feel pain?

  I am worried

  about giving birth.

  I’ve gotten used to owning two heartbeats.

  I don’t want to be alone
again.

  Stop crying, Sarai. It’s okay.

  The nurse holds my hand.

  You get to meet your baby soon.

  Maybe I’ve been looking at it all wrong.

  Maybe giving birth is different.

  Maybe it’s the most beautiful kind of abandon.

  I GIVE BIRTH TO HOPE

  I name the baby Hope because

  Hope is a good name for a girl

  who will have to grow up

  believing in herself.

  VISITING HOURS

  Mami swings through and tells me she’s proud of me.

  I don’t know what to do with her kindness but I decide

  maybe I don’t have to do anything but accept it.

  Estrella switches places with Mami ’cause babies aren’t

  allowed on the floor. She’s happy baby Noah has a cousin

  to keep him busy while she tries to get her degree.

  Kids are mad work. You’ll see.

  Papi comes through

  with a salami, turkey and cheese sandwich

  from the bodega but he forgot my tropical fantasy.

  What you gonna do for a job?

  Don’t end up on welfare like your mother!

  But I’m too busy scarfing down the hero

  to appreciate his ridiculous advice.

  SORPRESAS TE DA LA VIDA

  I didn’t cry when they cut me open.

  I didn’t cry when Mami told me she was proud.

  I didn’t cry when I woke up in pain.

  When Lala walks in, suddenly I am

  a rainstorm. She sits next to my hospital bed

  & picks up the phone on the nightstand.

  Can we call the chatline on this?

  I laugh so hard I almost pop a stitch.

  Lala brought Hope a gift.

  A tiny onesie with the Puerto Rican flag in the front.

  For her first parade, she says.

  We gotta make sure she’s representing.

  HOW WE GOT OUR NAMES

  POSTPARTUM DEPRESSION

  Dear Hope,

  Let’s end this story where faith meets Hope.

  Isn’t it weird how a womb is the only place on the body

  that can be both a home and a graveyard?

  The sadness tells me I am worth nothing now

  that I am a ghost town, a cemetery.

  The doctor says my hormones are to blame.

  Estrella jokes that at least my hormones

  didn’t try to kill my baby.

  I worry that you will leave me

  or worse I will leave you.

  Until then, I promise—

  No, I’ll have faith

  that I’ll always give you

  the most habitable parts of me.

  The parts that made it.

  VISITING DANNY

  This is your tío Danny.

  I help Danny hold his niece.

  This is where he lives.

  Brooklyn is our island.

  & I promise that Hope

  will know her history.

  WHAT IF MAKING IT LOOKS LIKE THIS

  What if making it happens every day.

  To each of us. Differently.

  Hear me out.

  I’m saying:

  What if making it is trying to find good news

  on a bad news day.

  Or the corner boys finding safety

  on the street that everybody fears.

  What if making it is finally affording a pizza dinner

  or a really good acrylic nail set.

  Or having just enough money to buy maxi pads.

  What if making it takes the train

  from The Bronx to Brooklyn every day.

  What if making it plays dominoes on the corner

  of Starr Street and Knickerbocker

  and doesn’t get kicked out by the cops.

  What if making it peddles a broken shopping cart

  with enough groceries for three days

  and dances in the line at the food pantry.

  What if it sells maví.

  What if making it is saying today is wack

  & it hopes tomorrow is better.

  What if making it is not answering the teacher

  when she says your name wrong.

  What if making it takes naps or laughs loud in class.

  What if it creates poems that no one will ever see.

  What if making it is Diasporican.

  What if it is still learning how it got here.

  What if making it drops out of school.

  What if making it gives birth to hope.

  What if making it learns every day it is alive

  is a part of history.

  What if making it is today, is yesterday,

  is tomorrow.

  What if it is the very basic act of breathing.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Wow. We made it. Thank you.

  If I have forgotten your name in these pages please forgive me or send me a text or email so that I can tell you how sorry I am and how much I appreciate you.

  Let’s start with my children. Lisa, thank you for choosing me to be your mother over and over again. I am so proud of who you already are and who you are becoming. To the stars, my love. Adrian, your wisdom astonishes me, your laugh replenishes me, your questions help me grow. I love you both more than I have the vocabulary to express.

  To my super dope, super fly editor, Nancy Mercado, thank you for taking a chance on an Instagram poet from Bushwick. I am forever grateful. Forever ever. Immense gratitude to Dial Books and the entire team at Penguin Books, Lauri Hornik, Rosie Ahmed, Regina Castillo, Margarita Javier, Kenny Young, Jason Henry, Theresa Evangelista, Vanessa DeJesús, and all of the folks behind the scenes who helped bring my dream into the physical realm.

  To Fanesha Fabre, girlllllll. Thank you for saying yes to being my cover artist. I am forever in awe of your skill, passion, and vision. Pa’ lante.

  Katherine Latshaw, I am so grateful for your representation, your belief in this book, and your incredibly impressive email response rate to my thousand questions.

  Okay, y’all know this book would not be possible without poets. Vamo a empezar por ahi.

  To Rich Villar, thank you for saying yes when I asked for mentorship many moons ago. To Caridad La Bruja De La Luz, your light beamed in such a way that it reached the young girl in Brooklyn who was living in the dark. To Miguel Algarín, the house you built gave birth to me, thank you. To Mahogany L. Browne, Jive Poetic, and the entire Nuyorican Poets Cafe family, you showed me that it was possible to dream out loud. To Elizabeth Acevedo, thank you for paving paths & guiding first-time authors down them. To Ocean Vuong, thank you for the time you took to talk poems with me one summer afternoon at Poets House. Vanessa Hidary, thank you for always championing me, celebration at Bodega soon! Nicholasa Mohr, for your dedication to the stories of Nuyorican femmes. Willie Perdomo, for being the realest, I picked up a pen immediately after hearing you spit for the first time. Sandra Cisneros, you are the reason so many of us found our home in literature.

  This work would not be possible without my literary ancestors, Tato Laviera, Pedro Pietri, Judith Ortiz Cofer, Luisa Capetillo, Jesús Colón, Pura Belpré, Juan Antonio Corretjer, and so many more Boricua literary pioneers. Thank you for your work in the world. I hope my work does you justice.

  To all of the homies & original Bushwick heads still doing work in or about the community long before and after it was forgotten. I see you. We out here. Flako Jimenez, Vanessa Mártir, Danielle De Jesus—they said we wouldn’t make it. They lied. I’m so proud of us. Seguimos!

  Gratitude to Latina magazine, who published “To All the Black & Brown Girls Who
Go Missing Before They Go Missing,” an earlier version of “Estrella Goes Missing” and to Muzzle magazine, who published “Psych Ward,” an earlier version of the poem “Psychological Evaluation.”

  I’d like to thank the church basement in Bedstuy, Brooklyn, for hosting the program that helped me earn my GED as well as all of the adult educators who believe that high school drop-outs deserve to make it too. On that same note, shout-out to everyone in educational justice work. Special shout-out to Integrate NYC, Coalition for Educational Justice, Teens Take Charge, Educolor, New Yorkers for Racially Just Public Schools, and everyone who believes and works towards equitable education.

  Thank you to the homies, Zarah Peña, Joel Sahadath, Annette Estevez, Jasmine Aequitas, Michelle Cardona, Alberto Bruno, Stephanie Velazquez, Vanessa Castro, Angelique Imani Rodriguez, Keomi Tarver, Wendy Vaquer, Jasmine Rodriguez, Cheila Reyes, for helping shape parts of who I grew into, for lifting me in my lowest moments, coming to my shows, listening to me talk about this book and for loving me so wholly.

  Thank you to the following teachers who guided my early works and my understanding of craft. Chris Abani, r. erica doyle, John Murillo, Phillip Metres.

  Honorable mentions and special shout-outs to Salsa music, my beta readers, The Bible, my social media cousins, P.S. 123, Enrico Fermi Intermediate School, indie booksellers everywhere, bookstagrammers, Bushwick Public Library, affordable housing, the MTA, everybody navigating the NYC welfare system, and anyone who had to survive Bushwick when it was unsurvivable.

  Thank you to my immediate family.

  Mami, Papi, Marilyn, Keko, Jahaira, Ashley, Ralph, Luis.

  Jon, thank you for showing me that love is a series of actions.

  To the people who have fought and continuously fight for the independence & liberation of Puerto Rico. I understand myself better because of you. Hasta la libertad!

  I honor my abuelas who have passed on and continually guide me: Gabriela Hernandez, Carmen Rosa Velasquez.