El tiempo esculpe al hombre, el agua a la piedra.

Portishead - Sour Times

They Say

June is the month for fireflies,
The little things that dance
beneath the palm trees
that line the edge 
of your brain,
swaying and blinking and fucking. 
And you stand there
telling yourself you'll remember this
always
as the moment you fell apart.
Came to realize that, maybe,
none of it was meant for you.


After all, they don't owe you anything. 


You step closer to the edge
and open wide your mouth,
hoping, praying
that one of them will blindly enter,
take comfort in her impending death
and from within you
release all the light
she could no longer carry
and that she wished to give you.
Some fundamental torch.


So much light
that you are temporarily blinded
watching as shadows of your insides
are cast down upon
the dirty rocks at your feet.
Your heart, lungs, ribs, intestines
all on warped display.
Illuminated in a final attempt
by some dying thing
whose finest moment - 
to sway and blink and fuck - 
could never compare to all that
you have yet to do.


June, they say, is the month
for fireflies. 
And when you are
to take hold of the
palm trees of your brains, 
climb them,
and look out among the 

empty, grey space


you were meant to cultivate,
so they may return to those fields


and sway
and blink
and fuck


and stay as brief reminders
that they don't owe you

anything

which you don't owe yourself.

“Basique” - Little People

There's a sense of calm that being here brings me that no where on this earth can imitate. A pleasure of sitting barefoot on tile floor, french doors open to an old city where the scent of hot asphalt rises slowly as it begins to rain transporting me to an 8-year-old version of myself whose imagination could flood the cobble-stoned streets of her world twice over.

In my last month living in San Jose before my departure, I remember falling asleep on the 72 bus headed to work. I couldn't have dozed off longer than a few minutes at most, but when I sat up and looked out the window, half asleep, half in a panic that I had missed my stop all I saw was Her mountains. The slow, lazy slope of El Yunque as if her old arms were open to me, calling. Shocked, I held my breath, completely encapsulated in that image of being home, where fear and pain and disillusion held no home within me. For I was saturated in her entity, unable to hold not another ounce of love. But as I became fully awake, I realized what I saw was not El Yunque, but instead the Santa Cruz hills. I closed my eyes, choking back the tears that threatened to spill over the edge and into the hands of a woman who suddenly felt distant, older, and all at once less apart of this world.

Driving up the old, unevenly paved road that lead to our home, I once again closed my eyes and let my heart go back to that moment so that when I opened them, that dream could blend the seams of where hope met reality. I was finally home again.

In the 8 days since I've arrived, I have seen the town in which my Abuela was born, raised, and left to pursuit a better life in San Juan. I have bathed in buckets of rain water, feasted on Sunday's best lechon, been baptized in the waves of Luquillo, comeo un mayora y cafe con leche en la bombonera, listened to those marching in protest of Obama coming and to those who praised his work. And within these moments came a sharp and strong realization: That I am Mariel Eleni Valerio, daughter of Michael Dominic Valerio and Rosalina Lugo Valerio. Child, poet, y una boriqua. There is still so much for me to see, to taste, to write about, to cry over, to rebuild. It will come, I know the answers I seek are within myself. But for now....

 I will remember the lights of the bay, small out of focus halos.

 I will promise to capture those moments only now, right now can bring.

The laughter.

The food and the hands who make it.

 The movement of life,

 Held in a machete that meets

Coconut and rotting wood.

Dirty milk spilling onto overworked flesh

For a few moments of joy.

 To be shared among only a few.

 A feast for a poor king

 The spice of life, blood red.

 Ending in a miracle and the evening song of roosting pigeons.

I'm finally home again.