El Proyecto de la literatura puertorriqueña

All the roads lead to you,

but be careful with all the bumps on the road,

they multiply with every new month of this municipal,

state, and federal administration. So careful with our car

because fixing it cost $600 and Mayor Carmen Yulín doesn’t give a shit, 

and we may have to survive two or three more months of this plague.

You are brave and still have a lot to see,

even if no one really gets it when you say you’re not feeling well,

even if no one really gets it when you say you can’t go on like this,

this wasn’t the world you wanted to be birthed into,

this wasn’t the dying round mother you needed to be happy in.

Hope is the work that we must do, so much work to fix this.

And fix we must, or you’ll lose me.

So we must survive the invisible foe in the air,

the virus with a crown brought to us by our bringers of death: 

an Italian tourist and a Panamanian doctor.

We must survive, cause if happiness is a warm gun,

then hope is the resulting bullet in my brain.

This is no land of cherry blossoms,

there are no sycamore trees on Calle Estrella,

but we have naturalized your apples and peaches

and our people have survived everything Gringo Man has thrown at us.

You are brave and still have a lot to see, 

you still have to buy that cabin on a fjord,

you haven’t been to Bali,

you haven’t made that peach flan you were gonna call “impeachment,”

you still have so much to paint and so much to write,

and so much to cry for the world, 

and so many of our people’s tears to chronicle,

and so many kitties and puppies to rescue,

you still have so much to give,

you still have so much to give,

so, please, don’t give up, even if life itself tries to force the knife that’s already in your hand.

Say it, over and over again, in front of the mirror if necessary,

even if you can no longer see, or breathe properly,

don’t worry, you don’t have Covid,

it’s just one in a long string of panic attacks.

You can’t die here, cabrón, so hold me tight, 

particularly in those nights in which the summer punishes our skin

even when inside our shelters and under the A/C,

hold me please, and don’t let me die by my own forced hand.

Hold me and wash away these killer thoughts

and let them fly away like cucubanos from a jar.