Just like how Mami
always reminds me she almost died
giving birth to me. Points to her C-section scar
that goes from her belly button to her breasts.
But I never asked to be born.
You would think Mami would appreciate the cross.
This in your face I suffered because of you stuff.
But no, we gotta keep Jesus in our hearts,
which is stupid wack
and my heart got way too much shit in it already.
I THINK WE MAY BE HOMELESS
but I’m not sure.
Today is our first day back from winter break.
Ms. Rivera thought it would be dope to start the year
writing good things about our home.
What makes our home special?
Is it the room we sleep in or the people we share it with?
Maybe it’s a meal we eat or a tradition we follow.
I already hate this assignment
but if I wanna make Ms. Rivera–type money
I gotta be the first in my family to graduate 8th grade.
I told Ms. Rivera I didn’t understand the assignment.
She looked at me like she wanted me to be someone else.
Someone who didn’t ask questions. Someone who didn’t make her work so hard.
I try not to make teachers angry so I explained
that where I live changes all the time
and we eat the same thing every day.
I wanted to add if we even eat at all
but I figured I said enough.
That’s just how it is where I’m from.
That’s just how it is.
& don’t we all got the same story anyway?
Ms. Rivera asked me if I was homeless.
I’m shocked. I can’t believe she tried to play me
in front of the whole class.
Yo. I looked up to her!
Don’t people who are homeless sleep on the street?
You tryna say I look like I sleep on the street?
Homeless Miss. Home-Less.
The word is literally self-explanatory.
Are you dumb?
These are all the things I should have said but I didn’t.
So, I just laughed ’cause sometimes laughter
is the only thing that makes sense
when you’re angry.
People who are homeless
don’t have a home and we do. Right?
Our home is wherever we need it to be.
THINGS YOU CAN’T DO TO SURVIVE: BREAK THE RULES
We’re moving again.
We usually move whenever Mami finds
a cheaper place to stay through word of mouth.
Today, I found a section
in the back of the newspaper
that advertises rooms for rent
& Mami gave me a quarter
to run to the payphone and call the ad
and act like her.
She’s afraid if they hear her accent
they won’t rent to her.
I can sound like a white girl on the phone
if I pronounce my r’s and say the word great a lot.
It must have worked ’cause the Italian man
said we can stay there for three weeks.
We’ll be sharing the kitchen
and the bathroom & we have to follow his rules.
There’s nothing new about following
somebody else’s rules.
The only new thing is
the person who’s making them.
THINGS YOU MUST DO TO SURVIVE: BREAK THE RULES
I am just finishing in the bathroom
when the Italian man starts chasing me
down the long hallway that
leads back to our new room.
Homeboy is screaming like I clogged the toilet
or something.
He is shaking my wet panties in his hands.
I guess I forgot to take them off the shower rod
when I finished washing them.
Mami hears the escándalo and comes out of the room
just in time to pull me inside
and slam the door in his face.
He starts banging on the door
and calling Mami a puttana
which I’m not sure
but sounds like it could be puta’s Italian cousin.
He ain’t never even slept with Mami
but all it takes for you to be a ho is a man’s anger.
Anyway, homie starts wrestling his keys
against the doorknob.
But Mami always says if you want to survive in this city you have to break the rules.
& changing the locks is about survival.
Mami says she never trusted no man
to respect her space
even when they sign a contract
promising they will.
SACRIFICIO
Everybody makes sacrifices.
That’s what Mami says when
she’s trying to justify leaving
the Italian man’s room
with no real place to go.
It’s for our safety, she says.
But we don’t really feel safe anywhere
so who cares if we get yelled at
by a grumpy old Italian man.
Mami cares.
Mami cares so much that
tonight we sleep in a church.
The hardwood benches
are not meant for tired bodies,
but tonight they are the perfect
shape for our slumped skeletons
just like a lidless casket.
Near the altar,
Jesus almost looks asleep
on his own wooden bed.
BROOKLYN WELA
I went to visit Brooklyn Wela today
’cause Mami needs twenty dollars for food.
Brooklyn Wela is Papi’s mom.
She lives in a two-story house on Suydam Street.
Mami waits for me up the block on the corner
inside the chicken spot
which is where we’ll get dinner from
once I cop the twenty bucks.
She doesn’t want to step foot on Wela’s block
and risk running into Papi.
Wela asks for Mami.
I say what Mami told me to say:
She’s not feeling well.
Wela’s eyes are small buttons
that fasten her wrinkles to her doubt.
¿Qué le pasa?
Wela knows English but won’t speak it to save her life.
She’s given enough of herself to this country
and I guess she’s decided that she’ll keep her tongue.
I don’t know, she’s just sick.
¿Qué?
She understands but wants to hear me talk in a language
that Mami should have taught us.
Está enferma.
Wela gives me a twenty and some yerba buena
for Mami’s sickness.
I don’t say it out loud
but I know that only one of these green things
will make Mami feel better.
THINGS WE DON’T TALK ABOUT
COLOR
When describing Wela everyone uses the word trigueña which means not white but not Black either. There are pictures of Welo hanging on the walls of Wela’s apartment. Papi looks just like him. Welo looks like a white guy, I laugh. Sí, tu abuelo era blanco así como tu papá. Brooklyn Wela explains that Welo & his parents were born in Puerto Rico but their parents were from S
pain. Brooklyn Wela says her father was blanco too and her mother was Negra. ¡Pá que lo sepa! That’s all she says about that though. This was not meant to be a history lesson. Just a fact. I don’t hear anything else about this fact. Nowhere. Not in the kitchen. Not en la sala. Not from Papi. Not from Mami. Not when the neighbors talk to Wela like she understands English. That’s all Brooklyn Wela will ever say about that. We’ll never get no other details. Not casually. Not in conversation. Pá que lo sepa. Just so you know.
¿PASTELÓN O PERNIL?
Sometimes I get to chill with Lala’s family
after school while Mami finds us a new place to sleep.
Lala’s mom asks me what I want for dinner
in a way that makes me suspicious.
I’m not used to having options,
so I say whatever in case it’s a trick question.
No. Not whatever.
Tell me what you want.
I want to try something new for once.
I want to know what choice feels like on my tongue.
I want to know the shape my mouth makes
when what comes out of it matters.
I want to be asked again
just to make sure I heard right.
THINGS WE DON’T TALK ABOUT
COLOR
Lala & I talk about everything.
I tell her about Wela and Welo & how cool it is that
Puerto Ricans are White & Black & Brown & Beige
& every shade and color
that we don’t even have names for.
Lala said she gets called Negrita & it’s mad annoying.
I know. I agree.
I’m tired of everybody calling me Blanquita
like I’m some gringa or something.
Lala says it’s not the same thing.
What do you mean?
Lala repeats it like she shouldn’t have to.
It’s just not the same thing.
She sucks her teeth & that’s all she says about that.
& just like Brooklyn Wela,
this wasn’t meant to be a history lesson.
Just a fact.
WHEN SOMEONE ASKS IF YOU HUNGRY THE ANSWER IS ALWAYS NO EVEN WHEN IT’S YES
Lala’s mom drops me off & tells Mami she fed me.
Mami smiles and tells her thank you
but I know I won’t hear the end of it.
En casa ajena no se come.
No matter how much shit our stomach is talking.
As Christians we not supposed to lie
but as Mami’s kids we not tryna get beat
for telling the truth.
Pero, maybe saying we not hungry
when we are is not a lie
if it serves a greater purpose, right?
Like, maybe God would be proud
that I said no to food I wanted.
Food I needed.
Jesus went through this too, right?
When he was fasting for forty days on the mountain
and the Devil came through and was like:
Ayo, you not hungry son?
Stop playin,’ I know you can
turn them rocks into bread!
& Jesus was as calm as Mami is
in a face-to-face
at the welfare office
when her caseworkers wanna know
how much her job at the factory is paying
off the books so they can lower her food stamps.
& the story goes that Jesus broke character
and regulated on Satan real wild like:
Get thee behind me, Satan!!
I wonder if Mami ever wanted to break character
& tell her caseworkers to get behind her,
like really behind her & wait online for once
& see how it feels to watch your kids
beg for a life where they don’t have to beg
for their life.
Get thee behind me, Satan!
And just like that Jesus chose to stay hungry
for a greater purpose.
Yo! Ain’t it ironic that now we eat bread
to symbolize Jesus’ body.
Damn, the Bible has like the weirdest plot twists.
Anyway, I think it’s mad brave to believe
that one day your body
will be the only food you need.
But at Lala’s house I didn’t feel brave.
I felt hungry.
So maybe bravery is the wrong word for what I needed.
Maybe I needed faith. But first, I needed food.
HOOD CREDIT
So, check it. It goes like this. Goldo, the bodeguero, needs to make money to stay in business and Mami needs to feed Estrella & me. The relationship is a no-brainer. Trust is a huge part of this relationship. The bodeguero needs to trust Mami is gonna pay her tab when she gets paid and Mami needs to trust that the bodeguero won’t suddenly switch up his borrowing policy in the middle of one of our hunger tantrums.
Fiao is a kind of credit that only has value in the hood. It’s borrowing from the bodega when you ain’t got no money. Just like a credit card or a loan from the bank if you think about it. Except the banks won’t trust us to borrow money & the only card Mami got is the welfare card. But who needs any of that when you got Goldo? Next to Jesus, Goldo is the most revered saint on the block. Jesus feeds us spiritually and Goldo actually feeds us. Fiao is an unspoken pact to keep each other alive in a world that doesn’t care if we die.
FIAO
Goldo could be a journalist too. He has a composition notebook he writes in like me
except the only way you can guess the people’s stories is by looking at how much they owe.
$400.00 $200.00
Juan
$32.50
Miguel
Milagros
$45.75
Olga
$249.00
Manuel
MAMI IS PREGNANT
Raffy is Mami’s new boyfriend.
He has his own room.
Whenever Mami disappears
for hours, we know she’s at Raffy’s.
Raffy has suggested we all move in together
but Mami says she’ll never live with a man again.
Mami & Raffy are having a baby
but we not supposed to know that.
Nobody tells us nothing around here,
which is fine, if they didn’t act like we were stupid.
Being left out of conversations
means we start our own.
Being left out of conversations
just makes us more curious.
& being curious
means we go searching
for all the information
we not supposed to have.
BABY PICTURES
The assignment is to bring in a baby picture for a classroom game where everyone will guess who was who. Mami says I don’t have baby pictures. We don’t have any pictures at all. Mami couldn’t afford to keep buying film, or she lost them all in a fire, or she is the fire, or she doesn’t believe in remembering this life we live or looking back at kids she had from a man who did not love her.
GOD’S NOT DEAD
HE’S STILL ALIVE
Today Biggie died & our entire 8th-grade
homeroom is in mourning.
I say: All of this crying for a rapper?
Everybody in the class tells me I’m buggin’.
I gotta save face.
Aight chill, I know death is sad but come on—
It’s not like we knew him—knew him.
Aight. The truth is I don’t know Biggie’s music.
Like. At all.
But it’s wild embarrassing to admit
that there is only one radio in our apartment
that Mami insists belongs to Jesus.
Lala said I sounded mad dumb but she got me covered.
She’s not tryna have me sounding stupid
in these streets. These are the kind of friends you need.
Friends who don’t judge you
& instead talk shit about you to your face.
Lala got a dope Coby CD player with FM radio.
She stretches the headphones over both of our heads
until they almost break.
Biggie’s lyrics vibrate through the flimsy ear covers.
We used to fuss when the landlord dissed us
No heat, wonder why Christmas missed us
Birthdays was the worst days
Now we sip Champagne when we thirsty
Uh, damn right, I like the life I live
’Cause I went from negative to positive
I watch my classmates dance, and cry at the same time.
The way Mami does when she catches the Holy Spirit.
My stomach does its own dance as I listen to a dead Biggie
rhyme about all of my deaths.
Maybe this is how Mami feels
when she listens to her Jesus radio.
I bet if my homegirl’s CD player belonged to a god
it would be Biggie.
Biggie is dead.
Jesus is dead.
& somehow they are both still alive.
HOTEL, MOTEL, HOLIDAY INN
The church passed a collection plate around
so we have enough money to stay in a motel
for a couple of weeks.
Estrella says motels are dirty.
It’s where girls convince
stupid lonely guys to pay them for sex.
How do you know this stuff? I ask her, mad suspicious.
I hear shit. Damn. What you tryna say?
We crack up and inhale the secondhand smoke
seeping through the door
while Mami splashes olive oil on the walls