If you are looking for me
I will be at 3 am
with the poets
searching for the right words to illustrate emotion
with the painters
who feel words are not enough
with the doubters
staring at the ceiling, feeling they aren't worth it
with the prayers
looking to the light for the strength they rely on
with the dreamers
living with a whole universe in there head
with the believers
positive their dreams will come true
with the broken hearters
whose dreams fought with reality
with the troubled
finding it hard to shut their brain off

So if you are looking for me
the poets, the painters
the doubters, the prayers
the dreamers, the believers
the broken hearters, the troubled
and me
will all be
at 3 am

My heart breaks every spring break
It breaks for kids like me who watch as others visit their home countries
While we cannot leave the USA
We have to sit and watch people butcher bachata
Watch how they're hips refuse to accept something other than Taylor swift
We listen when they come back with stories of how they thought our food was too different and not “Mexican” enough as if all Latin America is Mexico
We hear the laughs they make at our cousins back home for just being themselves
My heart cannot handle the privilege they wear on their sleeves when they come back
Knowing I might never see my own island
How I am thought it is ***** and dangerous
A place where girls should not be left alone
While they get the clean streets, they get to avoid the gangs
How they assault our girls
Don't tell me to just save my money and go next year
It is not that simple
We don't stay in your resorts
We live en el capital y los campos nunca los hoteles y la vida blanco
Aka the places you never set foot
You go to my island
You buy bracelets de mi bandera
You try to live my roots
But complain when I dare show pride for my people
The hypocrisy breaks my heart
It's blood pours onto my all American soil
Is my island nice?
Tell me do the trees sway as if they are dancing to Anthony Santos?
Do the branches act as the leading man guiding the leaves to swing their stems to beat?
Does the Dominican anthem ring in the hearts of the people
A pride that is new and vibrant radiating off their faces
How they have clear all their schedules to make sure you see the highlights of our land
When you eat do you feel as though each bite was made with the love of thousand of abuelas?
Can you envision the hours she spends over a hot gas stove stirring los habichuelas y arroz
Using what little food they have left over to feed you over their own blood?
Tell me does my island make you proud?
It makes my heart filled with joy
To know my people did something right that you would walk the same land as slaves
That somehow we got enough pride to make sure you had a good time that you were safe that you can have whatever you wanted
On my island
Tell me, what left is there to complain about?
Mi isla es mi corazón, mi sueño, es mi vida
Pero to you it is just another week out the calendar
My heart will break every march
Because when you come back you complain how in the Dominican Republic no one spoke to you in English
And I worry, how you think when Dominicans come here we should speak English
But when you come to our home you don't want us to speak our language
Your hypocrisy hurts
My island does all it can to make you happy
But you are never pleased
What more can we do
You take pieces of us and use them in your portrait of appropriation
You take our pride and use it as joke
My heart breaks
For the children like me
Never seeing their land
Except on Instagram in the middle of march

I got all the things I need I still want problems though
I don't want to go to funerals, friends not even getting old and going out early
am I really a real person anymore? Self-destructive
so selfish, I know there's pictures of me smiling still
and the cargo pants pink polo craze you went through,
streets shining gold and I'm still red like a kite though
just skateboarded and landed in a new job modeling glow
I'm glad my phases had to go and I can't describe my life when asked
by my mom about it, just bought some clothes
so I can look bomb at the club but I keep that on the low
I just want to be burdened instead of being one
Want to be insecure about things because my mind is broken
got to stop seeing things the way they are and embrace the fold
I'm sending xoxo's anyways, step dad too, I'm undoing myself
even if I don't even want to lose things I don't have

in a world
split into
groups of
two, what
and how and

                                 where
do I belong?
In the gender
binary, I feel
placeless. Not
quite sure if I

                                 will
ever belong
anywhere.
People say that
I am stuck
a woman, that

                                 I
will never be
a real man.
That when
I finally meet
my “well-deserved”

                                end
I will go to
the bad side
of the binary
of the afterlife.
They say I’ll end

                                 up
in Hell, just
for being me.

The apple of one's eye.
The creme de la creme.
The buffet at the wedding.
Where it's us and them.

The glow of the neon.
Instructing us to buy.
The latest moisturiser
For wrinkles round the eye.

The canvassers cold selling.
The need of starving cats.
The aforementioned wedding.
The shopping for the hats.

So come give us your money.
Your precious hard earned cash.
We'll offer you perfection.
In your supermarket dash.

The things you'll buy tomorrow.
Are better than today.
The new improved conditioner.
The advertisements say.

Consumers to be nourished.
Big spenders treated well.
You'll need a coat for winter.
And scarves and coats as well.

Your funeral arrangements.
A monthly simple plan.
Your loved ones fear when you're not here.
You've left them all you can.

So now our claws are in you.
Please kindly move along.
The facts and claims are always true.
We're seldom told we're wrong.

We're business types converting.
Your little wants to needs.
We'll squeeze you dry until you die.
From birth we plant the seeds.