Outside
We cry with our roofs below our feet
Inside we hide until it’s over
Outside under the moon so we can read
Inside we bleed from the Arawak wound
Outside the ones who left never to return
Inside the fear of the unknown
Outside the tyrants arrive like in 1898
Inside they eat the organs we puked from shock
Outside we are everyone’s utopia but our own
Isla Libertá
Shut my eyes to see you lively and light
You knew it was all yours again
The fort, the flag, the song, the bird
Opened my eyes to see you dying,
Drowning in a muddy bio bay,
Pale ravagers still owned you
I had made it up again, your freedom
Smell of Colony
“Colonizada” they call me because
I start in English and finish en Español,
But it’s not my fault that they arrived
by force, raping our coasts
I learned tongues that weren’t mine,
And I even carry their last names
I look in the mirror and see them
In my eyes, my nose, my forehead
“Colonizada” they call me and I AM
I smell of an old and tired colony
I start in English and finish en Español
My Taíno blood boils in both
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Photo: Jose Santiago via Unsplash
