There’s no way around the fact that I am a crier. Soy un llorón. If I find myself getting too emotional about any one thing, you can be assured that the tears are probably not far behind. As a first-generation Dominican-American trying to make sense out of life in New York, there was always something to be emotional about. Try as I might, it’s something that I have little control over. It has happened in times of great joy or bitter despair. While not exactly on the level of a blubbering toddler, I’ve had tears for years. For God’s sake, I even found myself getting misty-eyed at an episode of Spongebob one time. All in all, I’ve always just been a heaping hunk of emotions.

My overly-emotional nature has put me at odds with my Dominican identity for quite some time. The unspoken code of machismo orders that men not become too emotional for much, if anything at all. Growing up, I can recall my mother making offhand comments about needing to be duro, or hardened, even in times of duress. If life gave you a pecozón, you were simply supposed to take it. Don’t budge, don’t react, and definitely don’t cry. After all, real men don’t cry. On top of that, sprinkle in the reality of growing up in the grimey Mount Eden section of The Bronx, a place where tough skin was as essential as having a roof over your head. The

alternative is being looked at as weak. I was conditioned that people wouldn’t respect a weak man. Or worse, that a woman wouldn’t want to be with a weak man. I didn’t want for that to happen, nor did I want to be perceived as less of a Dominican. So, I set out to be as stoic and even-keeled as I could be.

But alas, it just could not be helped. I am one weepy man, and the world around me was less than sympathetic about it. As a child, taunts from bullies never failed to rile me up, and the tears rolling down my cheeks was their trophy. During many quarrels with my family growing up, they would casually toss the term pariguayo, or silly coward, at me to silence my trembling words. On one particularly gutting occasion, I tearfully confided in an old supervisor about a distressing situation I was living through, only to overhear them gossiping “I hate men who cry” to another coworker. From friends to family to lovers, it appeared that no one wanted to put up with my vulnerabities. “Why couldn’t I just man up and stop being so weak?”, I thought. “Was I that addicted to the release of feelings I get that I just can’t resist?” It was in these reflective moments that I slowly began to understand.

I am a crier, and perhaps that’s never been such a bad thing. After I weep, I tend to feel better. I release the vices of stress and regret over my mind and spirit. More often than not, I’m even able to overcome whatever it was that was stressing me to begin with. When the dam wants to burst, I have always allowed it to. Sure, it’s annoying to have such a hair-trigger on my emotions, but that doesn’t have to be a negative. If anything, it’s become somewhat of an advantage for me. Being forced to reckon with my emotions has allowed me to get to know them, and myself, much more intimately than I could have ever thought. That might make me less of a real man, but more of a human. However, I choose to believe that the two don’t have to be so exclusive.

In today’s social discourse, much has been made about how us men struggle to open up emotionally. Truthfully, that emotional arrest begins the moment a boy is told to save their tears for the first time. For me, saving tears was never truly an option and now, I am grateful for it. Why should I be ashamed of something that continually helps me? I’m confident that I’m not the only Dominicano who has had to wrestle with these thoughts. To them, I encourage your tears. Cry when you’re sad. Weep when you’re joyous. Hell, just let it out however it comes. As people, we are blessed with a natural, inherent ability to release the dams of our mind when we start drowning. Should I disobey my body and my heart just because our culture dictates it? I don’t believe so, and that shouldn’t disqualify me from the exclusive brotherhood of real men if I do. I can be just as Dominican as anyone, even if I’m just a big llorón at the end of the day.

Indigo Diego Carvajal is a 28-year-old poet who currently resides in The Bronx, NY. His family originates from the town of Bani in the Dominican Republic. Indigo has shared their poetry publicly for over a decade, with their work centering on the examination of human emotion and behaviors. Indigo has previously collaborated with Dominican Writers as part of the DWA Cuenticos - Una Visa Por Tus Sueños anthology. (contact: cabanamaner@yahoo.com)

Dear 7 year old me,

I thought I lost you.

I was driving to work today listening to RM’s “Come Back to Me” and wishing you’d come back to me — that I could be who I was meant to be before I came to the US and new loneliness and all that trauma submerged me in a darkness where I lost myself.

I was a bird whose wings were stuck in the petroleum of the oil spill that was my childhood.
I’ve been fighting to break myself free all my life — feeling dirty and tainted because of others’ abuse of me, because of their savage handling of my body and soul.

I thought I was broken beyond repair.

The thing that hurt the most all along was that I lost my essence. My true self before the oil spill was gone, and I didn’t think I could ever go back to you. I thought I could only live to survive and to try to control the pain.

To pacify it.
To take cover.
To live in fear of the next hit, of the next heartbreak, of the next disappointment.

Always walking in a war zone.
Always looking over my shoulder, fearing the next bomb that would detonate and shake up my life.

Sometimes willingly putting myself in the line of fire, ready to end it all.
Hell really is other people.

I walked.
I crawled.
Even in the hardest moment I persisted.

I survived it all for you — but it still felt like I could never get you back, I could never get myself back.

But today, this morning, as I called for you to come back to me, I felt you.
I felt you here, driving this car, directing this life.

Because I’ve been working hard on myself.
I’ve been standing up for myself, living in my truth, in my power.
I am beginning to be unapologetically me.

And when I am that, I am you.
And we are one.

Now I promise to give you all that you deserve.
I promise to shelter you.
To hold you.
To love you unconditionally.

And to remind you that broken is beautiful.
I will seal our cracks with gold and make art out of our suffering.

We are dark and light.
We are forged by fire.

We are.
I am.

— Me

Idalmi Acosta is a Dominican writer and educator whose work explores identity, diaspora, and advocacy. Born in the Dominican Republic, she has been journaling her whole life and has published poetry and book reviews in literary journals at Syracuse University. As a teacher, she’s written op-eds for The Huffington Post and The 74. She is currently working on a poetry collection and a work of fiction.

Today left me mentally exhausted. A familiar voice echoes in my head again, and I can’t stop asking why the past keeps resurfacing, as if sacrifices made long ago should always overshadow the present. I am sometimes praised for what I do, but it usually arrives braided with guilt, jealousy, and the kind of resentment that re surfaces from the past.

There are moments I am made to feel inferior, uneducated, not smart enough—just like I felt all my life. Today it was about that letter again: another round of mail, another set of small humiliations handled in silence. It has been a year with the same issue—typical of the systems made to oppress designed to keep our families small.

“No te hagas la bruta,” they said, over and over—as a way to show off their intelligence. I remember staring at the letter on the kitchen table: why do I even bother to explain, I said in silence, but then something told me to answer:

“Yo no soy bruta….”

Why would I be? I am a writer, educator, and a researcher. I know the systems that are designed to keep us small, and that knowledge itself seems to cause discomfort for many—because I used the very tools handed down to me by my ancestors, tools that were never fully embraced by those before me. Because others’ voices drowned out any chance of expression, the voice settled into silence, and I was left to carry forward, ensuring everything still runs, ensuring everything stays intact. Week after week, it’s the same cycle: more mail, more emails to respond to. And I ask—am I still “Una bruta” when I’m the one managing the weight of your life? Why can’t the words used towards me be uplifting, rooted in perspective instead of tearing me down? This back-and-forth continues because there was never truly space for your voice to exist—not as a child, not as a partner, not as an individual. When tears fell and people left you, I felt the failure too. The wasted time was etched in the eyes of those before me, and I often think about how we are paying the price for something we never began. Yet here we are—smart, educated, well-rounded women moving through life, emotions, and responsibilities, still showing up for dreams, aspirations, and goals. That presence, that persistence, is often envied but rarely acknowledged. Self-doubt builds walls that prevent reopening what was once desired. So mi Mantra now is,

Yo no soy bruta.

Soy astuta,

inteligente,

hija de inmigrantes,

hija del sol,

la luna, de Dios.

This system may have failed us and our fathers may have failed generations—but I am not to blame. I am the child of immigrants who learned that dreams can be reached when you work, use tools, and set fi rm boundaries. Resilience was passed down to me from silence and survival. I carry the lessons forward, and I speak up now because silence was the inheritance—and speaking is the remedy.

“Yo no soy bruta.” I say it until my voice is full.

Zeline Santana is a Dominican American educator, mentor, and creative based in Brooklyn, New York. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Sociology and a master’s in Higher Education Administration. With a passion for journaling, travel, and student advocacy, Zeline creates spaces for refl ection, growth, and community. Her work is rooted in honoring her Dominican heritage while helping others fi nd stability, voice, and purpose.

Es un mundo extraño este en que vivimos los escritores, ¿no? Leemos más de lo que nunca hemos leído en nuestras vidas, sin embargo, no importa cuánto lo intentes o lo digas, no puedes convencer a tus amigos de que ellos también pueden leer un libro.

A veces, el problema puede ser la vida misma, tantas responsabilidades y problemas que no tienen tiempo, o están muy cansados como para darle la atención que creen que tu obra se merece. Algunas otras veces, pueden ser experiencias previas con tu forma de escribir; quizá trabajos anteriores no estuvieron al nivel que esperaban y, a pesar de que has cambiado (o al menos eso crees), ellos te siguen viendo a ti y a tu trabajo de la misma manera, pero no tienen el valor para admitirlo. El último, el más doloroso y, a la vez, el más útil, es que tu trabajo fue malo desde el inicio y ellos, para no lastimarte o por falta de interés luego de ese inicio, deciden no continuarlo, pero tampoco decirte. Todas las opciones válidas. La vida es compleja, es posible que haya perdido muchas otras razones por las que no pueden leer lo que escribes... Sin embargo, con el tiempo, me he dado cuenta de que es más bien un problema de marketing que un problema de calidad. No digo que tu trabajo no sea malo, pero créeme, mi buen amigo lector, que aprendas más de tus errores que de un «fue bueno» o «está bien».

Nos han metido la mentira de que no somos lectores. De que leer es cosa del colegio, cosa de gente de alta clase y de educación excelente, y de que no tenemos el tiempo para hacerlo; ¿pero tenemos tiempo para ver cincuenta shorts, veinte videos, y leer ochocientos mensajes en Twitter (todavía le digo Twitter, no me jodan)? Muchos podemos comentar y tener opiniones en todo, absolutamente todo, pero cuando se refiere a interactuar o darle la atención a lo que queremos opinar, de repente, no tenemos tiempo o tenemos algo mejor que hacer. ¿Pero por qué lees esto? En tu caso, lo más probable es que sea porque lo estás viendo en un lugar que ya ha atrapado tu interés, que ya hizo el marketing que en cualquier otra ocasión tú (asumiendo que eres escritor) tendrías que hacer. Imagínate si esto no fuera un ensayo sobre los amigos no lectores, sino uno sobre las protestas que sucedieron recientemente en Francia, y te apuesto que hasta a un analfabeto curioso le gustaría leerlo, ¿Por qué? Porque quién necesita hacerle marketing a un chisme. Un ejemplo claro de esto fue algo que me pasó reciente, donde logré convencer a unos amigos de leer una historia de superhéroes que escribí (algo corto, claro) solo porque uno de ellos no había leído algo de mí antes y eso convenció al otro, que sí tenía experiencia con mi escritura, de que lo hiciera. Les gustó, hubo algunos errores gramaticales que no noté, pero vean el poder que tuvo la curiosidad de uno para convencer al otro, solo la curiosidad, pues todavía cometí el mismo error de siempre: no supe cómo hablar o vender mi historia.

¿Me pregunto si soy el único. En serio, si son escritores, por favor, díganme. No es que no pueda poner en palabras cortas lo que la historia es, pero es que quiero decir más de lo que es. Ese deseo de describir todos esos temas profundos que tu historia desea alcanzar, pero no estás seguro si alcanzó, y tienes esa necesidad de mencionarlo para que otros puedan encontrarlo, pero entonces hace que te falten palabras para poder hacerlo y te enredes en tu propia «grandeza». Sé que suena extraño, arrogante, en especial cuando acabe de decir que era una historia de superhéroes, pero por eso pregunto si soy el único que se encuentra tratando de decir más con los géneros o las historias más sencillas. Deben entender que si fuera cómic, tendría una ventaja gigantesca, pues a muchos les gusta leer cómics de superhéroes; quizá si fuera otro tipo de novela, tendría más suerte (como algo de romance, o dominicano, o hasta algo más común), pero sería una pena rendirse antes de encontrar si diste la talla con el género que deseas usar.

Bueno, ya me fui muy lejos, tiende a pasar; volvamos a los amigos. Es un problema de marketing, y el marketing va en contra de nosotros. Siempre hay algo más interesante sucediendo en el mundo que evitar que tus amigos puedan darle atención a lo que les compartes, al menos que estés arriba de ellos como una mamá helicóptero, y DIOS SABE CUÁNTO ODIO ESA PRESIÓN. Ellos también, estoy seguro, y lo olvidan todos los días; eventualmente me rindo y el trabajo se queda ahí, en nuestros DMs, pudriéndose junto a memes, mientras yo sigo en la nada... en el medio de soy el mejor escritor que no sea descubierto, o el idiota más grande que alguna vez ha escrito... ¿por qué siempre hay que ser el mejor o el peor, nunca mediocre. Nunca.

Luego del problema de marketing viene el problema, viene la barrera mental. Honestamente, es el problema más grande de toda la sociedad en general, pero no estoy aquí para hablar de eso, o sí, pero solo en amigos. Verán, he hablado con otros dos escritores antes y me han dicho lo mismo sobre el dominicano: «El dominicano no lee.» Así de sencillo. Es una realidad que, a pesar de que la mayoría sabemos leer, no leemos ni siquiera las señales de tránsito (los semáforos, ¡y eso no tiene letras!), pero eso es una mentira que estoy seguro de que la esparció el diablo. Leemos la Biblia, leemos en las redes, leemos los subtítulos cuando nos gusta lo que estamos viendo o jugando, pero el mundo nos ha dicho que no leemos, que la atención se está yendo a la mierda, que nos estamos yendo todos a la mierda, y esa barrera crece cada día más hasta que se vuelve algo casual. Estoy seguro de que muchos están así con otras cosas, no solo la lectura; es algo muy humano y somos todos humanos. ¿Qué hacer en ese caso? ¿Cómo escalamos esa barrera si el marketing no es suficiente? ¿Cómo puede un escritor mejorar sin feedback, cómo puede un escritor escribir si nadie en su país lo leerá, ni amigos, ni familia, ni siquiera su leal perro o gato?

Preguntas muy difíciles para un ensayo corto, pero seré idiota y daré la respuesta en forma de pregunta: —¿Por qué escribes? En serio, esa es la pregunta final y la respuesta a la razón de por qué yo y quizá tú, mi buen lector, si eres escritor, seguimos escribiendo. Poemas, novelas, ensayos, y más. Luego, si la suerte está de tu lado, o si te estudias para ser un maestro del marketing, alguien lo leerá y te dirá en tu cara que necesitas escuchar. Esta barrera es muy alta, cada día más alta, pero mientras tengas la respuesta a esa pregunta tan importante, creo que encontrarás lectores, o lectores que convenzan a tus amigos de leer, y, algún día, podremos transformar a nuestros amigos en lectores.

Jhon De La Mancha, was born in Santo Domingo during a hurricane and has been writing since childhood. Inspired by the stories his father read to him and the cartoons he grew up watching, he uses humor and reflection to explore the contradictions of Dominican life and creativity. Through his alter ego, Jhon De La Mancha, he writes freely and without filters, embracing the absurdities of being a writer in a world that doesn’t always read.

Este testimonio is me finally expressing my feelings and showing my heart. When I was a teenager, my family lived in Alabama. Un lugar un poco raro para una familia dominicana vivir. Ahí casi no había dominicanos, los hispanos todos eran mexicanos o guatemaltecos. My dad couldn’t find a job and so he decided to go to another state to look for a job. Before he left, he and my mom sat me down and let me know that they would not tolerate me having a boyfriend or talking to guys. This was shocking because my parents never spoke to me or had “talks”. Mis padres me dejaron saber que no querían que saliera como mi tía embarazada y teniendo hijos de distintos hombres. Mis padres son bien religiosos y sé que eso era parte de sus creencias. Estando mi papa en Massachusetts yo comencé una relación con un muchacho de mi iglesia. Pero uno puede decir que no fue una relación como debía hacer, it was toxic. He told me if I loved him, I would give myself to him, which I did. Y esa fue la peor decisión que yo tuve. ¡I got pregnant! I am pregnant and 16 and I feared the reaction that my parents were going to have. I didn’t even want to tell them. I broke down in tears in the darkness of my room and strategized a plan. When my parents had had that “talk” with me ellos me dijeron que si quedaba embarazada me iban a

botar de la familia. I was on the verge of getting disowned. I was so distraught about the decisions that had gotten me to that point, but my bad decisions didn’t stop there. No, because I was so scared of being kicked out and my parents, I decided to confide in that boyfriend. Yo lo llame por teléfono y me desborde de sentimientos y el me dijo vente conmigo entonces. I packed a bag and while my mom was at work I left. Me fui con el muchacho, el me llevo a comprar cositas que no pudi agarrar y después me llevo a su casa. Yo estaba con unos nervios, que no podía quedarme tranquila ni un segundo. Yo no se ustedes, pero en esos momentos yo pensé que mi vida había acabado. Que no había salida forward. This is when my mom was calling me repeatedly when she found me not at home. At the time my boyfriend answered, and he told her I was pregnant. Yo ni pude decirselo yo misma, porque estaba tan preocupada como iban a reaccionar. Ella claro llamo a mi papa y entonces llamaron a los pastores, y trataron de hacer reunión conmigo y mi novio. The only one that went was my boyfriend. From what I’ve heard a scary situation because they threatened to call the police on him, and as he didn’t have papers it would make it a bigger situation than it needed to be. Entonces yo le dije que iba a regresar a casa. Mis padres claro estaban enojados con la situación completa, pero ellos no me botaron. My parents did move us to Massachusetts donde mi papa estuvo trabajando por casi un año cuando sucedió lo sucedido. I’ve never actually talked about this whole situation, and I think it’s time I let go of my emotions. Si, no ayudo que mis padres fueran como son, pero ellos nunca me hablaron como algunos hablan con sus hijos. Ellos no fueron directos conmigo. Y después de lo sucedido en Massachusetts sentí mucho resentimiento a la situación, pero no con ellos sino conmigo misma. Yo pensé que fui la hija más horrible que ellos posiblemente tenían, y que ellos nunca me iban a perdonar. En vez ellos me empujaron a ser una mejor versión de mí misma. Y hoy en día yo se que ellos me aman tal y como soy. Yo le doy gracia primeramente a Dios y

después a mis padres por todo lo que hicieron por mí. Esta es mi verdad, claro que fue difícil pero because of it I am stronger.

Mayra Peña Martínez was born in Bonao, Dominican Republic, and raised in the United States. A proud Dominican-American mother, she draws inspiration from her roots, faith, and family. Through writing, she explores healing and resilience, using her words to honor the strength that comes from vulnerability and truth.

Desahogo. The closest thing to this in English is “to get it off my chest.” But that phrase doesn’t fit, not entirely. Some words can’t be translated cleanly because they are born from people and places so textured, with histories so layered, they refuse to be flattened into another language. Desahogo is one of those words, convincingly translatable, yet impossible to grasp in full unless you’ve lived it.

“To get it off your chest” suggests something pressing down on you, a weight strapped to your back, a burden you release so someone else might carry it. But desahogo is different. It doesn’t describe something you cast off, it describes something that has already entered you, seeped into your pores, settled in your lungs, calcified in your bones. It doesn’t just weigh on you. It suffocates you.

To desahogarse is not simply to let go. It is to claw for air, to fight from the inside out. When you “get something off your chest,” you are still alive beneath the weight. But desahogo goes further. It is what happens after you’ve drowned, when you have no breath left, and in releasing it, in speaking it, you come back to life.

I want to tell you about my desahogo.

I travel often, back and forth between the Dominican Republic and New York. At first, not by choice. As a kid, my mother sent me back each summer like one of those shipping containers she filled with food and old clothes. Sometimes for months, the whole vacation. Later, as I grew, I went less often, school breaks, PTO days. When I married, I took my husband. Later, we brought the kids.

I still go back at least twice a year, and each time I return with a new realization. Before every trip, I idealize it, the food, the house, the weather. I tell myself about the way people meet your eyes there, unlike New York, where everyone seems to look past you, too stressed, too angry. But the moment the plane touches down, no later than the wheels scraping the tarmac, I start pretending. I pretend everything is exactly as I imagined. I force the dream to match the place, even when it doesn’t.

Every visit feels like a rehearsal of the past, like I’m atoning for the sin of leaving. I perform Dominican-ness, trying to seem more rooted than I am. But it always feels like I’m pretending, like I’m grasping at something that no longer belongs to me. Lately, I’ve begun to notice the gaze of others, as if they can see it too, see that I’m trying too hard.

This last trip, something shifted. Maybe it was the heat. Maybe it was my cousin with her relentless stories, hoping I’d fix her life by paying whatever bill was overdue. Or maybe it was my daughter’s hand, swelling from an allergic reaction, mosquitoes, seawater, or maybe the old well water that sits stagnant under the sun. Whatever it was, I cracked. I was tired.

That was the moment me desahogué. With my husband, I let it all out. I told him how much I hated the hardness of life there, how even simple things, driving, buying groceries, walking to the park, felt heavy, dangerous. I confessed how exhausted I was from forcing myself into a place that no longer wanted me, a place I no longer belonged.

And then I said something I hadn’t admitted even to myself: once my grandmother dies, I will not return. I will be just another immigrant generation, forgetting roots, remembering only on tourist trips every decade. No more boxes of clothes and food shipped across the sea. No more fans, no more groceries. They don’t need my scraps. They don’t need me pretending to sustain them with the leftovers of my life.

That was my desahogo.

It ended in tears, me confessing the simplest, rawest truth: that I didn’t want to be homeless, floating between two worlds that never claimed me fully. In saying it aloud, I felt a shift, a new tide coming in. In the drowning and in the resurrection, in confessing, I found myself alive again, gasping, breathing, and facing a new question: what is home, where is home?

Jennifer Núñez was born in Puerto Rico to Dominican parents and raised between the Dominican Republic and Washington Heights, NY. She began writing as a way to express feelings she was too afraid to speak aloud, often softening truths in conversation but preserving them honestly on the page. Writing became her way of holding on—a record to return to when memory blurred. Through her work, she explores the complexities of family, truth, and emotional survival.

When I was in prison, the box, I learned what it meant to drown without water. Me ahogué. The air smelled like rusted metal and something left to rot inside a machine. I drowned in concrete and an industrial-strength light that never went off to the rhythm of my own breathing. And every sound was so loud: the slap of my chancletas on the floor, the thump of my heartbeat in my ears, the echo of a cough bouncing back at me from the walls.

My thoughts would circle like sharks, tiburones, feeding on every regret, every mistake, every bad decision I’ve ever made.

And time bent, warped, and broke into pieces. Minutes felt like hours, then vanished as I tried to count them. And the walls didn’t move, but they pressed in tighter each day, like the aperture of a camera closing in.

In the box, solitary confinement, la caja, time doesn’t move forward or backward; it just loops, en círculos. And you start measuring it by the wooshing of blood running in and out of your heart, or when the food tray hits the floor. Three trays, that’s how I counted time. That’s how I knew the day was done.

And a lot of times, in between the second and third trays, I would get mail, a letter, a magazine, or better yet, a book. And every time my wife or my cousin sent me something good: Harry Potter, Stephen King, Piri Thomas, or Angie Cruz, me desahogaba a little bit, I vented, I released. Those books became life jackets, paper rafts floating with sprinkles of freedom. A teleportation device. Una máquina del tiempo.

And then my wife sent me Drown by Junot Díaz. That title. Drown. Ahogar.

Even though Spanish is my first language, a lot of times I don’t think I know it for real. Most times, I can flow with the best of them, and other times I stutter and get stuck. For a long time, I thought the Spanish word for hand was manubio. A Doorknob.

You see, this language has never really felt all mine. It belongs to my aunts and uncles, my parents, and my grandparents. It belongs to the kitchen tables crowded at Thanksgiving, la Nochebuena, and Christmas. I know pasteles, pernil, and bendicion, the language of food and prayers whispered through clasped hands and closed eyes.

Then my wife sent me The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. And when I opened Junot’s second book, I felt myself surface. Like someone had cracked the cell door just wide enough to let in a little more oxygen. You see, I’m not a Dominican or an intellectual like Junot, yo soy más violento, más bruto, I was born here and have sworn an allegiance, but I am brown like him, broken and brilliant in ways only I could understand without translation. He wrote in Spanglish, in street codes and curses I understood. You see, this is my language, las mala palabras. The cocolos, coños, mierdas, and hijo de gran putas. And my father always swore to me that he was a victim of el fukú. Mi hijo, alguien me hizo brujería. Those rhythms and words sounded like home to me. I loved that Junot’s stories weren’t clean; that they were messy, full of contradictions, like the life I lived, that we’re all living now.

So yeah, in that box, la caja, I wasn’t just reading. I was being read to. Junot was speaking to me, for me. Until something in me cracked open. Algo se rompió, but in a good way.

And then a couple of months ago. I saw the Dominican Writers’ call for submissions to write about Desahogo, and it took me right back to that cell in 2007. Drown. Ahogar. If ahogar means drown, then desahogo must mean to undrown. Right? To come up for air. To breathe again. The word itself carries a kind of onomatopoeia. De-sa-ho-go. You can almost feel and hear the breath inside it, each syllable like a step in an exhale, a sigh wrapped in sound, the hush of air sliding in and out of your lungs. It sounds like what it is: a release, an exhale, a letting go.

And only recently, after talking with my wife, while in bed, she’s always correcting me at night, I learned that desahogo means relief. But in that cell, at the time, coño, both definitions were true. Relief and undrowning.

You see, that’s the thing nobody tells you about books and writing: they don’t just take you away. Sometimes they give you back to yourself. Reading isn’t always an escape. Sometimes it’s a mirror, and a confrontation, and it’s way cheaper than therapy. Terapia. Sometimes it’s also a confession. And sometimes it’s church. Una misa without priests, just pages. Páginas.

Yeah, so in that cell, I laughed. I cried. I talked back to the pages like they were alive. And I scribbled until my hand cramped, underlining sentences that sang, circling las palabras I didn’t know. And I filled steno pads with my own stories and sentences that poured out like floods, stories I didn’t even know I was carrying. I wrote about las manos de mi papá. And I wrote about my first daughter and the man I still wanted to be. I wrote about the smell of rain before it hit the concrete, petrichor. It’s a Greek word. And I only know this because I read it in a thesaurus, and my son, who’s named after the greatest Ninja Turtle that ever lived, his middle name is Pietro. After Pietro Maximoff, not because I like rocks or rain. Sorry, Quicksilver’s just cooler than Barry.

So yeah, my first real stories weren’t about prison. They were about breathing again. Respirando. About remembering that even in the dark, words can drag you back to the light, back to the surface.

So yes, desahogo means relief. But for me, it will always also mean to undrown. To exhale the water, la agua you’ve been carrying in your chest. To cough up the silencio that’s been killing you slowly. To write until the weight lifts. El peso. To let it go before it buries you. To use words like air. Como el aire. To write your way back to life. Más vida.

And that’s what I kept doing. I kept living, and when I finally got out of prison and went to work, then to college, and eventually to graduate school the first time, with writers who didn’t look like me, didn’t talk like me, didn’t come from where I come from, me desahogué all over again. I inhaled deep, so deep. Every workshop was another chance to exhale the past and hurt I had ever swallowed. I didn’t know it, but I was healing. Every story I turned in was me gasping for air, reminding myself: sí, yo pertenezco aquí. I belong here.

And now that I’m in graduate school again, this time for screenwriting and poetry, me estoy desahogando in a whole new way. Aprendiendo to bend words into dialogue, to stretch silence into meaning, to shape poems that carry both my breath and my bruises. I found out que desahogándote, unburdening yourself, undrowning, isn’t something you do once. It’s something you do over and over, as many times as you need to. There’s no right or wrong way. You just do it til you feel more alive.

And maybe that’s what writing, la escritura, really is, it’s a kind of resurrection. Una resurrección. A slow resurfacing. You go under again and again, and every sentence you come up from, every book, every truth you pull from the bottom of yourself teaches you how to breathe a little bit deeper, mas profundo.

So yeah, writing saved me in the box, esa maldita caja, and it saved me in undergrad, and it keeps saving me now. Cada palabra es un respiro. Each word is a way to undrown. Each page is another chance to come up for air. Cada historia, una exhalación, and a relief.

Miguel Angel Castillo Jr. is an American Dominican writer and boxing coach from Washington Heights. A Marine veteran, ex-cop, and criminal, his work explores redemption and the power of platanos. He holds an MFA from NYU and is pursuing a second MFA at Manhattanville University. His memoir The Rogue’s Gallery traces his journey of violence, prison, and writing. Born in Hell’s Kitchen, he now lives in Westchester with his wife and kids.

She opened her 4^th-story window and screamed, “Fernando, PICK UP THE PHONE!!!” at the top of her lungs. She probably yelled a couple expletives too, spewing the anger that had built up over the last few months onto Saint Nicholas Avenue. She was HOT! She had enough!

In a futile attempt to renew her lease, she had been calling the leasing office for months and leaving message after message for Fernando. Pasaban las semanas y nada—Fernando never returned her calls. Y ya, it was already May; the damage was done. She had run up her credit card bills to get through her final semester of law school. The stupid law school wouldn’t allow her to take out the loans she needed to pay her rent without a copy of the lease. AND FERNANDO, the leasing manager, WOULDN’T PICK UP THE PHONE. It was over; she had her J.D, but she was still mad, big mad, and she needed to get it off her chest. Fernando needed to feel her pain, to know how much harm he caused. She had so much pent-up anger with nowhere for it to go. “I’m raging,” she repeated to herself over and over as her heart rate rose and her breaths shortened . . . “I’m raging.” “I’m raging.” “I’m raging.”

---

2022. That was the summer she tasted euphoria for the first time. There was nothing like it. It was a sweet, savory, intoxicating goodness. Por fin. For most of her life her mental illness was an anchor, pinning her to the depths of a sea of cold nothingness. Quando se desahogaba, she rose to the surface and felt the warmth of the sun on her pale, shriveled skin. But this time was different. She was at the surface, basking in all her glory. She was euphoric, bright, a goddess. Slights that used to weigh her down now fanned the flames. Each day she became more luminous. More creative. Her days were consumed by a whirlwind of feverish activity.

2022. That was the summer she graduated from an Ivy League law school. Now, she was what they call “double-ivy,” having earned her bachelor’s degree from Harvard College and now her

J.D. from Columbia Law School. The decades of hard work, sleepless nights, and subjecting herself to the wrath of white supremacy at predominately white institutions had finally paid off. She was supposed to be studying for the bar—focused, diligent, sane. She was almost at the finish line, but there was still work to be done.

One last hurdle… but it was so hot outside.

2022. That was the summer the Supreme Court decided Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, overturning the landmark case Roe v. Wade and declaring that there was no constitutional right to an abortion.

And it was so hot outside.

2022. That was the summer she jumped in as a first responder when a biker was hit by a car. As blood dripped down his face, she took his phone and called his parents, telling them in Spanish that he had been in an accident and was going to be taken to the hospital.

And it was sooo hot outside.

2022. That was the summer her fearful dog was intensely reactive, a barking, lunging American Pit Bull Terrier in a city brimming with other dogs, bikes, strange men, and numerous other triggers. Her dog would go off as soon as they left their apartment building.

And it was soooo hot outside.

2022. That was the summer that she thought maybe someone broke into her apartment. There was a weird new neighbor that maybe was working with the police to surveil her. She saw him get out of an unmarked van once. Was Fernando in on it? Letting the police violate her civil liberties? She saw a jeep with the words “Department of Homeland Security” emblazoned on it nearby. Was someone following her? Her computer was different, like someone tried to download her data. Was someone trying to hack into her Wi-Fi too? The super had come in to fix something under her sink. Maybe he bugged her apartment?

For real? In THIS HEAT??

2022. That was the summer Fernando was part of an insidious ploy to raise her rent and ultimately kick her out of her apartment. He intentionally ignored her all semester because he didn’t want her to renew her rent-controlled lease. Fernando was evil.

And it was sooooo hot outside.

2022. That was the summer she took her sink apart to find the bug the super had furtively placed under the sink when he fixed it. Earlier that day, she had sought refuge at a church on Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Avenue because someone had been following her. She called her sister to tell her that they weren’t safe, and she heard a click during the call because someone was listening in on her conversations. And then the police arrived to conduct “a wellness check,” so she asked them to turn on their body cameras because she wanted evidence that they had been surveilling her. Her mom and sister arrived, with frantic worry etched into their faces. They walked her home. But before they entered her apartment, she asked them to turn off their phones because someone was listening. She pulled out a book from her shelf, “American Spy” by Lauren Wilkinson, to help explain the invidious conduct law enforcement agencies engage in to quash revolutions and gather intel on rebels. Her sister refused to turn off her phone and left. Her mother cried, so she asked her to leave—she had plans to watch Judas and the Black Messiah that night. She couldn’t deal with the tears on top of the heat.

So not only did Fernando ignore her all semester,

                                          she was finally a lawyer-ish

misogyny became public policy,

                                          red blood dripped down his face 

her dog wouldn’t stop going off,

                                          she was being surveilled. 

her landlord wanted her out on the street.
 
                                          Y pa’l colmo, it was SO hot outside.

But inside it was worse. She wasn’t just hot. SHE WAS RAGING. EXLOPSIVE, FIREY, RED. Like MOLTEN LAVA, READY TO BURN IT ALL TO THE GROUND. So, she opened her

window and beseeched him, “Fernando, PICK UP THE PHONE!!!”

Her RAGE had turned to mania. Quando se desahogó, she damn near exploded.

2022. That was the summer her repressed anger and mental illness coalesced, setting her and everything around her ablaze.

L. Salomé is the second of three daughters born to immigrants from the Dominican Republic. L. Salomé was raised in East Harlem, New York where she attended primary and secondary school. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard College in 2016 and her Juris Doctorate from Columbia Law School in 2022.

Prelude

noun | \ ˈprelˌyo͞od \ :a : an action or event serving as an introduction to something more important

When you reflect on the pivotal moments in your life, where the most significant and recurring theme is trauma, it becomes almost instinctual to keep your story to yourself. ¿Por qué a quién carajo le interesan los problemas ajenos? It’s easier to keep these experiences a secret and protect yourself from reliving the pain you’ve kept buried deep inside. Being vulnerable is not an option, and you learn to keep a positive attitude through tough times. Como decía Padrino, “¡A mal tiempo, buena cara!” It’s the art of maintaining a composed and hopeful exterior, even when the world seems heavy with doubt and challenge. I always lacked a clear vision of a light at the end of the tunnel, but I never lost hope in one day seeing it. My light may be forever dim, yet the dim is still a thousand times brighter than the darkness I’ve known. A darkness that was once all-consuming, but now, even the faintest glow feels like a victory.

Triumphant yet full of guilt for the inability to move past my past. Por la maldita culpa siempre jodiendo el parto, ¡no he tenido chance de mejoría! I am failing to evolve or leave behind the version of myself shaped by the pain I’ve endured. I see myself through a lens sharpened by wounds once lived. Wounds that I try to bury beneath layers of laughter and outward strength. But no one else sees that side of me. Y me da un mardito pique que a nadie le importe lo suficiente para parar y preguntar, ¿estás bien?”

My family sees a person with little patience. They say I’m always yelling, quick to react, and perpetually in ‘fight mode.’ Siempre ando encara’a. I have a chronic resting bitch face that gives off the impression I’m on edge, even when I’m not. But they’d also mention how, when I let my guard down... underneath that sharp exterior, I can be incredibly loving, compassionate, and charismatic. To them, I’m a mixture of fire and warmth, a paradox they’ve come to know well. My friends, on the other hand, might say I’m rigid, sometimes rude or blunt, and come off as too direct. Yet, they’d also add that beneath that bluntness, I care deeply. So deeply that through my actions I show them my love, time and time again. They see the sides of me that I don't always share with others, the vulnerability behind the tough exterior.

I am a complex mix of scars, indifference, and love. Each of those layers defines me in different ways, often contradicting one another, but together they form who I am. I wear my contradictions like armor, fully aware that they make me who I am, no apologies. With a Fuck With Me and Find Out demeanor, I know I can’t be anyone else but myself. La mardita madre de’l que me hable e’truja’o. Yo no soy mojiganga de nadie. I express myself the way I express myself unapologetically, without pretense, and with a quiet confidence. I never intend harm when none is meant, but I am also not afraid to speak my mind or stand my ground when the situation calls for it. When harm is intended, you’ll know because my words and actions will make it clear, with no ambiguity. I am not easily misunderstood, but I also don’t expect anyone to fully understand me. I’m not here to be figured out; I’m just here to exist as I am. And that’s all there is to it.

My memories reflect the chaos that has shaped my life, offering a mirror to the person I’ve become. A person in pieces yet whole in its own way. Each memory is like a thread in the tangled web of my experiences, revealing the highs and lows, the moments that have tested my resilience, and the ones that have left scars, both seen and unseen. Desde chiquita mi vida ha sido un arroz con culo emocional y desordenado. My hope is that as you read, each story sparks your curiosity, inviting you to step into my world, see it through my eyes, and feel the weight and wonder of the journey. These aren't just my stories; they are reflections of what it means to be human, to confront vulnerability, and to grapple with the parts of yourself you’ve long kept hidden.

Mi historia tiene vainas que yo juraba que iban a morirse conmigo. Momentos que era mejor meter debajo del colchón, que ponerles cara. Pedazos de mi vida que yo ni loca le contaba a nadie, ni a mi hermana, ni a mi mejor amiga, ni a la gente que ha estado conmigo en las buenas y en las malas. Esa parte de mí siempre la tuve guardá’. Porque en verdad, ¿pa’ qué? ¿Pa’ preocuparlos? ¿Pa’ que me miren con pena o con preguntas? Nah. Yo aguanté callá’, con mi lío por dentro, creyendo que era mejor así. Pero algo cambió. Se me revolteó el pecho, como un fueguito por dentro que me dijo: “Ya tá bueno, suéltalo.” Y aquí estoy, sin filtro, con el corazón en la mano, sacando a la luz to’ esos episodios que me comí sola, diciendo lo que nunca dije, y echando pa’ lante con lo mío. Porque esta historia es mía, aunque duela. Y ya es hora de dejar de esconderme de ella.

Mickey Patxot is a Dominican-American writer born in Newark, New Jersey, and raised in Yonkers, New York. Her mother, Matilde, and father, Jose Leonel, were both born and raised in La Vega, Dominican Republic. Patxot, her paternal grandmother’s surname, originates from the Basque region of Spain. A storyteller for over three decades, she now debuts with ¡Coñazo!, a memoir that blends raw humor, Spanglish, and cultural truth to illuminate girlhood, silence, and resilience.

If you walk along the public beach in several Caribbean and Latin American coastal towns and cities, you will likely see stacks of souvenir paintings. These works of art often depict a small house in the countryside surrounded by bushes of bright flowers, or a beach scene with dark, lush palm trees. In my childhood, my mother and I would walk El Conde in the colonial district of Santo Domingo, and we would see old men selling these paintings as they sat and listened to bachata on a 20-year-old boombox underneath the unwaveringly hot sun. My favorites were the ones with indigenous Taino symbols for goddesses and common animals. I wondered if these old men were the painters, or if there was some hidden practice behind these souvenirs.

Growing up, I noticed that every single one of my immigrant family members had one of these paintings in their house, usually in the living room where guests could see it. Sometimes, it was hung crooked, but it didn’t matter: it was the presence of the familiar scenes within these new American homes that really mattered. The one my mother let me buy on one of my childhood trips to DR was hung in my bedroom, and here, it felt like an intimate reminder of my experience of DR that was unlike anyone else’s in my family. I was born and raised in the U.S., but I dreamed of closing my eyes and escaping into that painted little pink house in the mountains. The place that my family worked so hard to leave was the very place I visited constantly in my mind. Of course, I knew I was foolish to think of these tranquil scenes as anything like real life in the countryside. When my mother was 8 years old, her father died in a motorcycle accident. As the eldest daughter of a now single mother, she raised her 3 younger siblings while my grandmother worked. Her circumstances were far from luxurious or serene, despite the fact that her surroundings looked just like these perfect paintings.

My mom took me to the campo outside of Santiago every summer to keep me connected to my heritage (and so that she could get some quality time with her cousins who still tended to the farm and little houses along the steep callejón). There were three houses on one hill, and the middle one was bright pink with a tin roof. My grandma’s house. Since those early visits, she has now built out an outdoor kitchen made of wooden beams: an elaborate pergola constructed with love. The walls of the space almost remind me of the clean interior of an art gallery, replacing stark white with a tropical appreciation for nature. On one side of the house was a grassy area with farm animals, as well as the acerola trees I would often climb to pick their sour fruits. On the other side was a baseball field. I showered outside with a pot of water, and I left every trip with dozens of mosquito bites. As I entered my teenage years, I complained about the lack of air conditioning, about the constant crowing of roosters. I wanted to stay in the city with my cousin instead of going out there with my mom. How silly was I not to listen closely to the goats and roosters, to never pay attention to the intimidating red color of the flamboyanes.Going home now, it’s the most soothing place in the world, and I’m wise enough to understand that it’s because I didn’t grow up with the same painful feelings that this scene gave my mother.

About three years ago, I started to view my adulthood in New York as a catalyst for cultural alienation. Although I was surrounded by a rich community of Dominicans in the city, I knew I was missing the serenity that could only be found in the hidden corners of life on the island. That year, I sent myself to DR for the entire summer, and I established a more practical goal of learning Spanish. We did not speak the language in my home growing up, and I was tired of being the stereotype of an Americanized girl clueless about her roots. I took intensive Spanish classes, ran errands by myself, and tried to make friends in Santo Domingo. I spent plenty of time with my mom, who moved back to DR after I left for college. Although I felt happy for her, I was also scared of the fact that my closest bond now lived in another country entirely.

At the end of the summer, I brought another landscape painting home. This one was huge, and featured a purple border around an orange sunset beach scene. At the top was the Taíno symbol for the sun. I knew now what the reality of these scenes were, and they didn’t need to be perfect to appear in my daydreams just as they did when I was a child. Now, I mostly notice the rough buildup of paint, the exposed texture of the canvas, the cracks from rolling up the painting for the flight home. It is more comforting now to see the flaws of the painting itself, rather than idealizing a scene that I know to be imperfect in the best way. I deserve to find that unique sense of solace, to calm the layered internal battles of a child of the diaspora. Yes, my world within these images is radically different from that of any of my Dominican-born community members. Still, I can appreciate both the sorrow and the joy, the love and the resentment, the tranquil and the brash elements behind the scenery. I am right to feel that pointed sense of consuelo behind these perfect paintings, as they show exactly what I choose to see.

Nikki Myers is a Dominican-American curator and writer based in New York City. Rooted in the cultural memory of migration between Latin American and the United States, her work centers on the intersections of diaspora, queer identity, and design history. She earned her MA in History of Design and Curatorial Studies at Parsons, where she focused on Latin American and Caribbean modernism, and she is currently a Gallery Assistant at Sargent’s Daughters.

At least the water is warm,

 its color turquoise—

 a crystalline reflection of paradise.

At least the wind blows gently at times,

 and powerfully at others,

 filling my lungs when I felt I couldn’t breathe—

 from fear, shock, frustration,

 and from exhaustion.

At least the seasons change;

 the flowers bloom in vibrant colors,

 the beauty of the natural world

 forever amazing, uncapturable, yet familiar.

At least there are sunsets

 that announce endings and beginnings—

 with splendor, with celebration,

 and with the darkness of closure.

At least a classroom can be a shelter,

 a teacher a savior,

 a classmate, a friend.

At least songs can be played

 that screamed the words

 I could not dare say out loud.

At least writing can help a soul

 release itself, express,

 gain clarity,

 and free itself from heavy internal burdens.

At least hands were leant,

 warmth was felt,

 words were empowering and encouraging.

At least a good mangu can change a mood.

At least a plane ride home

 can connect you to parts of your soul

 you didn't even know were there—

 to a joy that cannot be explained,

 exuberant in nature and feeling.

At least the shadows of the past

 always recede.

When I feel overwhelmed by regret,

 when I feel I hate myself

 because of the mistakes I’ve made,

 when the weight of those mistakes

 becomes overbearing,

 even as I am trying to fix them

 or atone for them—

When I feel like giving up,

 because I think that I will never

 be able to get out of this hole—

At least even those painful feelings pass.

At least on sad days, hard days, dark days—

 a voice, a melody,

 brings me back

 from the brink of complete darkness.

Idalmi Acosta is a Dominican writer and educator whose work explores identity, diaspora, and advocacy. Born in the Dominican Republic, she has been journaling her whole life and has published poetry and book reviews in literary journals at Syracuse University. As a teacher, she’s written op-eds for The Huffington Post and The 74. She is currently working on a poetry collection and a work of fiction.

Me ha tocado habitar la vida entre mundos distintos. Mundos que, aunque forman parte de mi esencia, me duelen. Soy mujer e hija; y al elegir vivir, es aceptar que mi destino parece anticipado, casi predeterminado. Son mundos difíciles de navegar, cada uno con su propia carga e ideología, y atravesarlos ha sido un reto interminable pero como ella nunca renunció, yo tampoco lo haré. Vivir en ellos es reconocer que el pasado se convierte en presente y que el presente, inevitablemente, marca el futuro. Es aceptar que no se puede permanecer sin antes romper.

Aprender a convivir con el dolor fue una de mis primeras lecciones de vida, no solo mía, sino también para las mujeres de mi familia: mi madre, mi abuela, mis hermanas. Y aunque somos de generaciones distintas, todas fuimos formadas bajo la misma cadena de dolor—un dolor que no era nuestro, pero que nos guiaba. De tiempo en tiempo, heredamos el sufrimiento y lo convertimos en parte de nuestra identidad. Y así de fácil, entre ciclos, continuamos reencarnando el patrón, como si no existiera otra vía.

Mami, a temprana edad, cuando apenas comenzaba a descubrir su cuerpo y a renacer en la juventud, decidió huir de casa. Escapaba de los abusos constantes de su madre. Abuela, sin embargo, no hacía más que manifestar lo aprendido: lo que le fue transferido desde el vientre de su madre antes de nacer. Su versión de “amar” se expresa en gritos, golpes, humillaciones, rechazos; en silenciar el dolor y en pedir perdón mientras servía un plato de comida.

Ella, que apenas entendía lo que significaba nacer en una sociedad donde ser mujer es una maldición, se vio obligada a defender su honor a la fuerza. Así se instaló el ciclo. Con miedo y furia, Mami empacó sus sueños en una mochila y se marchó sin mirar atrás. Aquel acto de amor propio se convirtió, sin que lo supiera, en el comienzo y el final de su mujeridad. En un camino

incierto, inmaduro e inocente, conoció a Papi: un muchacho que, como ella, vagaba por las calles de Bonao, huérfano de amor.

Su madre—mi otra abuela—también había huido de casa, pero para escapar de la pobreza extrema en que vivían. Rompió con los mandatos de género, dejando atrás los roles de esposa, ama de casa, cuidadora y madre. Que, para una mujer dominicana, eran consideradas acciones de pecado sin perdón.

Papi, cargó ese duelo hasta perderse por el camino del bajo mundo y los malos hábitos. Mami, en cambio, usó su dolor para reinventarse: intentó volver a la universidad. Intentó varias veces no graduarse, pero se auto educó. Ma, puso en práctica sus cualidades y virtudes y comenzó a vender pastelitos, arroz con leche, habichuela dulce; pintó estatuas y cerámicas en forma de angelitos; cosió hasta que sus manos y ojos no pudieron más; trabajó en factorías, como sirvienta, cuidando ancianos, recogiendo perros. Todo lo que ganaba lo traía a casa, para que sus hijas comieran. Y aunque el dolor fue motor para sobrevivir, también lo fue para resistir.

Sin piso, sin cocina, sin estufa, sin gas, sin baño, sin privacidad, sin un hogar propio y sin un sueldo estable que nos sostuviera, llegamos a vivir en la calle. Nuestras pertenencias estuvieron guardadas en cajas y bolsas durante meses. Cuando llovía, nos mojábamos.

Solo había un colchón viejo, tamaño queen, donde dormían Mami, Papi y mi hermana mayor. Yo, junto con la del medio, descansamos sobre una tabla ancha apoyada en cajuelas de cerveza Presidente. A veces, Papi juntaba plásticos para venderlos por unas monedas; dinero que después usaba para alimentar su vicio. Había tanto plástico que terminamos utilizándolo como muebles y adornos del hogar. Un hogar construido con madera vieja y zinc oxidado, con huecos, pero que nos sostuvo; y fuimos humildemente agradecidos.

Tenía apenas diez años, pero encontraba paz al darme cuenta de que no éramos los únicos moribundos del barrio, porque en el vecindario la gente era como nosotros o un poco mejor. Al otro lado de la calle, las mansiones de los ricos—alineadas como una barrera, con pintura fresca, arquitectura grandiosa y árboles tallados en formas perfectas—me daban la ilusión de que algún día, cuando creciera, yo también sería rica. El barrio se ayudaba entre sí, sosteniéndose un día a la vez. El que podía compartía un plato de comida o un vaso de agua con el vecino de al lado. Mientras que los ricos, aunque no violentos, mantenían la distancia en sus vehículos de cuatro ruedas, ignorando responsabilidades ajenas. Aun así, el barrio llevaba el corazón en la mano, latiendo fuerte entre la pobreza, como si la solidaridad fuera su única riqueza.

Mami, se cansó de vivir en derrota y tomó una de las decisiones más grandes de su vida. Rompió el vínculo tóxico que tenía con Pa’ y nos fuimos, y él se quedó atrás. Y con vergüenza y pena, regresó a casa–donde abuela. Priorizando nuestro bienestar, se retó a comenzar un capítulo nuevo, pero esta vez como madre soltera.

Semanas antes de regresar, cuando menos lo esperábamos, llegó la visa. No lo creímos hasta que nos encontramos a las cuatro de la mañana, de camino al aeropuerto. ‘Dios provee si te dejas’, recuerdo escuchar a Mami decir mientras se secaba las lágrimas que corrían por sus mejillas. Ya en el avión, el cambio se sintió en cuerpo y alma: el frío se manifestaba, dando la bienvenida a lo que venía. Pero nosotras, unidas en amor, nos refugiamos la una en la otra, sosteniéndonos con fuerza.

Aterrizar fue volver a cero. Emigrar —movernos de un país a otro— resultó una realidad brutal de aceptar. Llegar a Brooklyn fue un reset, un reinicio, un awaken. El choque cultural, las barreras lingüísticas y la dificultad de adaptarnos nos transformaron, pero también se convirtieron en oportunidades de crecimiento, para cada aspecto de nuestras vidas. Y aunque

hayan pasado casi veinte años, y aunque no lo hablemos–y quizás aún nos duele—cuando andemos por las calles de NYC con el duelo migratorio activado, sé que no nos arrepentimos de haber salido.

Y ahora, con treinta años de edad, gracias a Ma, aprendí a sostenerme sola y a atreverme a romper la cadena del dolor. Gracias a su fortaleza de voluntad, tengo el privilegio de vivir en Brooklyn, practicar mi autenticidad en dos idiomas y culturas, y formar una carrera basada en priorizar la salud mental ante todo. Gracias a su dolor, tristeza y resiliencia, hoy puedo vivir por muchos e intentar ser feliz. Gracias a su amor puro e incondicional, puedo darme la oportunidad de sentir, sanar y perdonar; puedo verme en otros y dejarme guiar por mi corazón, aunque a veces llore de angustia. Porque si ella no se hubiese atrevido a sostenerse, ¿qué hubiera sido de mi destino?

Jenniffer Vasquez was born in Bonao, Dominican Republic, and raised in Brooklyn after emigrating as a teenager. A bilingual creative who prefers to write in Spanish to honor her Dominican identity, she began her journey in the Dominican Writers’ Sunday Workshops. She is the creator of Las Maravillas de Ser Una Loca, a personal blog where she writes as part of her healing and growth.

I wish people would stop calling Mami to tell her how sad and depressed I seem. This only brings on the “Are you ok?” calls and “Do you want me to come over?" offers. "I'm fine, ma, en serio." It’s a bold-faced lie; the only place I seem to thrive is at work, where the priority is not my feelings and how much I live in them.

The truth is, grief is lonely. People genuinely feel for you at the beginning, but after a while, no one wants to be in the constant presence of you and your now bff grief. When you wallow too much, you stop getting invited to brunch.

I guess I’ve been wallowing past the permissible, and now the family is reporting my solemn disposition to my mother. Mami is great at so many things, but being emotionally available was not one of them. In our dynamic, there was no space carved out for my feelings—it’s the way it’s always been. She was hurting too. I didn’t want to make it harder for her.

But I missed my grandma. I was walking around aimlessly. It hadn’t even been two months yet. No one prepares you for the absence of your person.

I kept replaying that morning in my head—my mom’s frantic call at 7 a.m., telling me something was wrong and we had to make our way to the Isabella Senior Center. It had been only two weeks since her tracheotomy and since making the painful decision to move her into hospice.

I became Mama’s healthcare proxy about five years before she got sick, and we had planned out her care in case she couldn’t make decisions for herself anymore. “¡No me ponga en la tierra con los gusano!” was her first request. She wanted to be cremated and have her ashes returned to Santo Domingo, placed in her family plot where her mother lay.

Mama had been a smoker all her life and quit about 15 years before her death—but the damage was done. She was diagnosed with chronic COPD, and her doctors said it was progressive and would get worse over time. She was in her mid-70s. That’s when it dawned on me that she might not live to be 90, telling jokes and being her sassy self. I could tell that this realization hadn’t missed her either; I noticed her more reflective at family get-togethers.

Looking back at the last years of her life, she never lost her sense of humor. Mama was disarmingly funny and witty. Her comedic timing could make the men in our family break down into belly-aching laughter. It was my favorite thing about her.

Mama also came up in an era when women did not go outside without being dressed to the Gods. She was a showstopper in her day. In those last few years, I noticed she was losing her vanity. She no longer colored her hair red or wore makeup, and she wore her bata most of the day.

When cleaning out her medicine bag after she passed, I noticed she had several prescriptions for depression. I had periodically gone through her medications before and tried to recall how I had missed them. Now I know she hid them. She never talked about feeling sad—it wasn’t

something she would ever bring up anyway; feelings aren’t part of conversations in our culture. She was suffering in silence, dealing with her mortality on her own. I wish I had asked more questions—cared more for her emotional well-being, not just her physical health.

I don’t remember getting out of my car, entering the hospice, getting in the elevator, or walking down the hallway to her room. All I remember is seeing her there on the bed, lifeless. All the emotions I couldn’t register on the ride there poured out of me in that moment like an ocean. I grabbed her arm and pleaded with her not to leave me here. The sobs, the wails that came out of my mouth bounced off the walls of that room and landed right back on me like a sucker punch to the chest. “¡No me deje, por favor, no me deje!”. I needed her to wake up more than I had ever needed anything in my life.

I remember being pried off of her. Her arm was cold and now wet from my tears. I didn’t want to let go of her hands; I knew it was going to be one of the last times I would hold them. I don’t remember walking out of that room, but I remember wanting to die too.

In that moment, I was that little four-year-old girl again—the one who would wrap my arms around her tightly when it was time to say goodbye and fly back to New York. The one who was constantly surveying the room to make sure she was within eyesight or arm’s reach. She was my person, mi consuelo during dark times, the one I could bare my truths to. Mama was the only person who made me feel unequivocal safety. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye permanently, and it shattered my existence.

Mama and I shared the same love language. She wasn’t overly affectionate, but spending quality time with the people she loved was everything to her. I wasn’t a child who needed a lot of hugs, kisses, or words of affirmation. She demonstrated the grandeur of her love through her food,

time, and her care. We enjoyed the simple things, like sitting together on Saturdays in Boca Chica watching Sábado Chiquito de Corporán.

Mama must have known from the moment I burst forth into life that I would need her desperately. Looking back, I used to think she just knew my parents were two young knuckleheads trying to make their way in the world, and I needed consistency. I now also believe I was her do-over—the opportunity to parent the daughter she had left behind in Santo Domingo for seven years to make a better life for her family in New York. Through me, she could rectify her absence in my mom’s life.

All I know is that the bright-colored spots of my innocence were painted by her. By her side, I felt the world at my fingertips. Her falda was always my comfort and my solace. She always knew, she always showed up, she always held me.

Even in the later years, when I did more of the holding, the safety of her voice, advice, and jokes held me in place. She knew that grown me was still that four-year-old girl— Who would know, like her, that my strength was all a facade of survival, and that I needed soft love too?

I miss her wit, her sarcasm, her bluntness. I miss how she got on my nerves. Her hands. Her voice.

Therapy helped me navigate this difficult road and embrace the many seasons of loss. I had every right to feel unsettled by the loss of my best friend.

Ten years later, I can hold it all now—the pain, the love, the memories, and the sadness—without falling apart. Mama was always the buffer between Mami and me. Her departure brought us

closer. We learned to lean on each other more and have the hard conversations. I’m deeply grateful for that.

As a family, we were all reeling because Mama was our rock, our collective safe space, and consuelo. We had to figure out how to be that for each other. Luckily for us, we had the best teacher. Mama, your impact persists, your legacy persists, and your love lives on in me. It lives on in all of us. We were blessed with your light, and it was an honor to bask in it.

This is for you.

Yalenis Cruz was born and raised in New York City is of proud Dominican descent. She works in the nonprofit sector in roles that aliagn with her values of community and service. She finds joy in reading, writing, spending time with her husband, three children, family, and friends, and being near water.

My Grandfather, The Poet

Invisible in English. Invisible in Spanish.

My grandfather taught me about being seen

and not allowing anyone to keep me in a cocoon.

He lived the way he wanted and how he wanted.

A rebel with a leather jacket until his late sixties,

he spoke-- I listened.

His verses were medicine, a strong cup of coffee.

There was nothing wrong with me.

I was broken because I allowed others to break me.

I wear red lipstick now and let my curls hang loose.

A tattoo of a butterfly sits on my lower stomach.

I draw the curtains. I make pottery. I don’t worry about valleys.

I stand on Pico Duarte. I close my eyes and see my abuelo with a cigarette.

He has a grin of “¿Qué lo qué?,” “Dímelo cantando,” y “Deja esa vaina, coño.”

Comfort. Consuelo. Chord of an electric guitar: existing, resisting, refusing to be obscure.

Consuelo.

Elaine Nadal is a Dominican-American writer. She is Poet Laureate of Milford, Connecticut and the author of two poetry books: When and Sweat, Dance, Sing, Cut, published by Finishing Line Press. She is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net-nominee and has delivered a TEDx talk on hope, poetry, and music.

On the morning of the last day of her life, my mother woke up early, like usual.

She liked “getting herself ready” every morning, even when she didn’t plan to go anywhere. I found her by the cereza shrub hours after I, half asleep, had heard her shuffle out of her bedroom. Her mouth was slightly ajar and the gloss on top of the brown cream lipstick still refracted in the light. The dark burgundy lip liner still formed sharp lines against her skin. Her hair was slicked into a tight ponytail. Her widow’s peak was a perfect triangle pointing down at her chestnut eyes, still wide open. She looked bewildered, her brows were furrowed, and her stare was cemented on the patch of dirt directly in front of her.

The first thought that crossed my mind was how unfortunate it was that I would never sneak into her closet again, just to try on that specific blouse without her noticing. Its purple and teal swirls complemented her skin tone perfectly– she was cool-toned. She looked even more cool-toned now that her blood had slowly stopped circulating and blue veins had begun to appear on her neck and cheeks like constellations. The blouse could just be mine now, really. I doubted anyone would oppose me having it, but frankly, why would I want it? It would forever be haunted by the cloying smell of her Escada perfume, the rotting cerezas that surrounded her, and the pungent sweetness of death.

“She looks like she is asleep,” the neighbors said later during the wake, a sad attempt to console my grandfather and me. He nodded in response, as he collapsed over his chair repeatedly, his sobs violently shaking his body. I disagreed. My mother did not look asleep, she looked as dead as she was. I still believed she looked beautiful, but she looked very dead indeed, especially after they stuffed her nose with cotton and propped her up inside that casket on top of the dining table. It was anti-natural and unbelievable: she never slept on her back.

For many years, I wondered what took my mother, because we never found out. But with the relentlessness of time, I inevitably made peace with her demise. I imagined her exploring endless gardens in the Beyond, or in places she never got to see during her natural life. I could have even sworn I felt her rub my swollen feet and hold my hand when my own daughter was born.

On the morning of the last day of my life I woke up early, which was unusual. I washed my hair, took a wide-tooth comb to the knots at the nape of my neck, and twisted each strand around my gel-covered fingers with a gentleness that felt foreign to me. I had nowhere to go, but I still checked my reflection twice, thrice.

When I walked to the garden, I noticed that after many years, the cerezas were ripe again. “Finally!” I exclaimed, grabbing one and popping its sweet blood into my mouth. The tart juice coated my tongue and palate, I took another one, then one more. I spat the seeds into my hand, then dropped them on the ground.

Behind me, my mother said “Finally,” and extended her hand once I turned around. When I took it, warm as usual, coarse from digging yucca roots from the dark damp soil, she pulled me into her chest and held me there until our breaths became one. She still smelled like Escada, cerezas, and sweet death.

Daniella Castillo Vasquez is a Dominican writer whose work focuses on complex family ties and loyalties that transcend blood and blend into culture and community. She writes from a Dominican perspective about Dominican people, exploring the curses of miseducation, self-erasure, and violence imposed by family and society. Her heritage drives her to examine the layers of love, resentment, and forgiveness that she extends, through memory, to her culture, family, and self.

Te has ido. Otra vez.
Y me quedo sudando esta fiebre que tengo de ti,
que no se me baja ni con pastillas.

Una fiebre metida entre mis piernas,
y en la memoria de tu lengua,
que me persigue en mis sueños.

Me arde el pecho,
me tiemblan los huesos.
La fiebre se me acurruca entre las costillas,
recordando las veces que me perdía en tu cuerpo.

Sudo tanto que mojo la cama entera.
Como si el cuerpo confundiera el duelo con el deseo.

El sudor me ahoga.
Siento que me voy a desvanecer.

Entre el delirio, creo oír tu voz.
Pero es otra, más áspera,
que atraviesa mi sueño.

“¡Muchacha!”

It’s Mami. Storming in, ripping the curtain open, como si quisiera espantar la tristeza out the room.

“¡Te vas a pudrir en esa cama!” she says, as if it weren’t obvious.

“¡Párate, párate! Que te voy a hacer un tecito, coño, a ver si se te quita esa amargura que llevas dentro.”

***

De niña, whenever one of us got a fever, Mami would make us tea. She’d use las hojas y yerbas growing wild en el patio de Lala. Lala, la vecina de al lado, had a yard full of medicinal plants que curaban de to’ tipos de enfermedades: la gripe, el mal de ojo, dolor de barriga, y hasta los ataques de nervios que no se quitan con agua de azúcar. She always knew cuál arrancar y pa’ qué. Mami, preocupada, le contó que yo estaba tirá en la cama con una fiebre rara. “Ay sí,” Lala said, nodding her head. “Eso anda por ahí. A la hija de fulanito le dio y se pasó un año entero que ni se podía parar.”

“¿Un año? ¡¿Cómo va a ser?!”

“Tranquila, tranquila. Esto no es nada que no tenga cura. Espérame aquí.”

Lala tied her apron tight and stepped out to el patio. She began yanking las yerbas pa’l remedio one after the other. When she came back, she handed Mami las yerbas, bundled in her hand like a bouquet.

“Toma. Hierve eso, pa’ que la reviva.”

***

Remedio Pa’l Mal de Amor

Ingredients

● Yerbas y hojas del patio de Lala

● A chunk of ginger

● 1 cinnamon stick

● 3-4 cloves

● Honey or azúcar prieta to taste

● Chinola, optional

Preparation:

Put a pot on the stove and fill it with water. When it begins to boil, turn off the flame. Mami says not to put las yerbas en el agua y la dejes hirviendo. The water should be hot, but not at a rolling boil. Add the yerbas, ginger, cinnamon stick, and cloves, letting them steep until your gut tells you it’s ready. If you’re not sure, lean into the pot. It should have a strong herbal smell, and the water will have darkened. Strain well and pour into your favorite mug. Endúlzalo con miel o azúcar prieta.

Notes:

Un truquito que le enseñó Lala a Mami es echarle chinola al té. Además de la vitamina C, le da, como dice Mami, un saborcito ma’ bueno. If you don’t have chinola, no pasa nada, you can leave it out.

***

Mami brings me the tea in my favorite mug, the one with the chipped handle. She sits on the edge of the bed, and presses it into my hands.

“Toma, bébete eso.”

I stare into the mug, not ready to let go of my sorrow, wanting to stay a little longer in that strange but pleasurable pain, like pressing on a bruise that hurts but feels so fucking good.

“Bébetelo, que se te va enfriar,” Mami says, shoving the mug closer to my mouth.

I take a sip y el té me sabe amargo, como si adentro hirviera todo lo que no nos dijimos, por miedo, y por orgullo. ¿De qué sirvió callarnos todo eso?

I hold the bitterness in my mouth, refusing to swallow. Why did it all have to fall apart?

“¡Que te lo bebas! Bébetelo entero sin dejar una gota.”

Mami stares at me. Her eyes full of worry, desperate for me to heal. Begging me to let go of him. The memories. The pain. But I don’t want to. Su mirada, como si mi dolor fuera también el de ella, no me deja.

So I drink it all, and it moves through my body like thunder, cracking open my chest, causando que las lágrimas me salgan igual que un aguacero de mayo. El techo empieza a gotear, the windows fog with droplets sliding down like tears, even the light bulb above pestañea como si también tuviera los ojos aguados. El cuarto entero llora conmigo.

Mami me hala pa’ su pecho, sobándome la espalda, y yo me dejo caer como si fuera una niña otra vez. Her hand on my back feel like paños de agua fría, bajándome la fiebre lentamente.

Mi llanto se desborda like a swollen river, arrastrando con él mi dolor. Las lágrimas hierven al tocar mi piel, soltando nubes de vapor que se escapan por la ventana.

Little by little, the room starts to clear. El techo deja de gotear y el bombillo deja de pestañear.

Dentro de mí también todo se va aclarando. El ruido en mi cabeza se va apagando, y el nudo en el pecho que apretaba mi corazón, por fin se va aflojando. Por primera vez en mucho tiempo, I can breathe again.

The calm in my body feels strange. Me quedo esperando la tormenta otra vez, como si estuviera dentro del ojo del huracán. Is this what it means to love you? Saber que siempre viene otra tormenta detrás de la calma?

In the wreckage left after the storm, I found a truth I did not want to face: healing meant letting go of the fantasy that he and I could ever be together. Or at least, how I wanted us to be together. So I stopped leaving the door open. Aunque a veces, por costumbre, la dejaba semiabierta, por si volvía. Porque a veces la cura, como dice Frankie Ruiz, resulta más mala que la enfermedad.

Alejandra Rodríguez is an emerging writer of Dominican and Puerto Rican descent, born in New York City and raised between The Bronx and Monte Plata, Dominican Republic. Her work, written in Spanglish, draws from personal experience, exploring food as a way into memory, culture, identity and everyday life. She shares her stories on Substack, Tastes Like Memories.

I remember everything

I remember being born
ripped straight through
a slice of light above me
where a scalpel perforated
my cocoon as I squirmed
out of the way, lest I lose
an eye before I opened them
wide and stare at that good for
nothing doctor’s stupid masked face
with the scrub cap durag
I remember my mother speaking
from the other side of the partition
I knew everything would be different
her voice raspy and sultry spoke
my name for the first time:
God is God.

I remember the machete on
the side of the road levitating
as if controlled like a marionette
by the god of coconut water,
lifting its forehead and
slicing through shell and pulp
slipping a straw past coir and shell
giving moisture to organs and dermis

I remember my father when he
was fourteen, climbing up
coconut trees, scaling bark and palm
shaking out fruit, cracking heads
of enemies and the aloof, saying
ten cuidado abajo,
I remember my mother at twelve
the youngest girl cooking for
a family of nine, the cooking spoon
often smashing into her face
for giving her mother the lazy eye

I remember being superhuman
carrying my parents through the
loss of their first born, either one slung
over a shoulder, flying them over
funeral home and cemetery, over
grief and devastation, until my father
jumped off my back and crawled his
way to a new family, making me
mortal once again.

I remember pledging my life to a god
I couldn’t believe in, and oh my god did I try,
being dipped into a pool under floorboards,
in a theater in Sunnyside Queens,
and underwater I saw an aquatic zombie orchestra \
playing songs from their canticle, slowed down all
chopped & screwed tempo, strings
beckoning me deeper while the brass section,
sensing my incredulity, kept blowing me back
up the water, but I insisted on swimming
deeper down, in search of god’s voice
or hand or sword, until a gong joined
the brass and blew me out of the water
seventy-two hours later, to a dark
empty coliseum, where the only light
twinkled from stars encrusted on an
obelisk with a gaudy chandelier made
of the petrified tears of abandoned flock.

I remember standing guard outside
the procession of congregants as they
filed out of the kingdom hall one by one
making sure to avoid all eye contact
afraid of catching a bad case of disbelief,
one by one I see sisters who changed
my diapers and brothers who taught
me how to grip a baseball bat and swing
for the heavens, because they were
family and saw me grow ever inch,
and fed me stews over rice, and took
me to beaches and roller coasters
but now I have been removed, shunned
and mourned alive, because my entry pass
to paradise has been revoked and I would
not be there to greet them in the promised
land, which is to say, there will be no
milk and honey for me.

I keep telling you I remember so much
I keep showing you my mind is a trap
I keep reminding you that I am outcast
shunned, excommunicated, disfellowshipped,
I am no longer. And you keep making me
family, you keep insisting a place for me
Love, I Remember Everything
Love, I Remember On Our First Date
When We Found An Abandoned Drum Kit
Off The Canal In Gowanus, And I Said I
Wanted To Return And Give Them A Home
And You Slung The Bass Drum Over Your
Shoulder And Tucked A Snair Under
Your Pit And Asked Me To Lead The Way
And Love, We Gave That Floor Tom A
Family Again, And You Made Me Family
And Love, You’ve Watched Me Remember
For So Long, And Weep A Body Of Water
Into Our Stained Cushions, And Love You 
Are So Patient, You Remind Me
Love

I am no longer afraid to forget

Eliel Lucero Salonlucero@gmail.com Eliel Lucero is a Dominican York Poet and DJ. Their work appears in Before Passing (Great Weather for Media) and Best Small Fiction 2016 (Queen’s Ferry Press), among other journals and anthologies. They are a co-founder of The Acentos Review.

My Father calls me on 
the eve of my first wedding.

                                                                            Hayao Miyazaki is on the other line  
                                                                            drawing the conversation.
                                                                       
My Father asks how I am doing 
before the bid day. I feign excitement. 
I already know what is coming 
and I hope I’m wrong.

                                                        Hayao draws a child packing an overnight bag,
                                                                          folding shirts and underwear neatly,
                                                                   the father is on his way to pick the child
                                                                          up for the weekend. Miyazaki draws
                                                                the child’s anticipation, mouth wide open,
                                                                                       eyes huge oval orbs showing
                                                              the child’s hope, scenes of wrestling Father
                                                                    at the sand park, giggling and grappling
                                                                             trying to bring Father to his knees,
                                                                                        before ending on their back.
                                                                                                 Father’s eyes are bright
                                                                                 and happy and with a smirk tells
                                                             the child that they’ll never knock him down.
                                                                                                      The daydream ends.
                                                                             The child is waiting at the window,
                                                     hoping this time they’ll make it into Father’s car.
                                                            Miyazaki draws a doorbell with white gloves
                                                                and a furrowed mustache, set on the door
                                                               as an armed guard jerking around avoiding
                                                                          the Father’s fingers until he gives up
                                                                           and drives away. Miyazaki animates
                                                                 the house floating away from the Father’s
                                                          black 1990 pontiac grand prix. The front yard
                                                                 lengthens until Father and the grand prix
                                                                      are miles away. The Child runs after it,
                                                                                         dragging the too heavy bag,
                                                               worry lines exaggerated on their forehead
                                                    as smoke from screeching tires engulfs the Child
                                                                until they no longer recognize the terrain.


The Father does not recollect this scene
but is sure Master Miyazaki drew it right.
I ask Father if he’s coming this time.
He begins to speak in bible quotes.
I know how this dance goes.

                                                      Miyazaki draws the parable of the prodigal son.
                                                                                  Hayao draws the Father pacing,
                                                                  worried with exclamation marks floating
                                                                     over his head. The prodigal son returns
                                                                                          road weary and disheveled,
                                                                      sees his Father and drops to his knees,
                                                                                  as the Father joins him and says
                                              Welcome back son, I knew you would return to god.
                                                          They both kneel and pray holding hands tight
                                                                          and bow until their foreheads touch.


My Father tells me he and his “new” family
cannot attend my wedding because
of inner turmoil. I am outcast and their
god might not want them to celebrate
my fickle union. Hayao coughs on the other line.

                                                                          He draws a heart holding a crowbar,
                                                                                       prying open ribs and dermis,
                                                                     jumping out and staring at its so-called
                                                               owner. The heart dances around the child,
                                                             surrounding them with taunts and laughter,
                                                                            repeating Father Doesn’t Want You,
                                                                                             Father Doesn’t Want You.

I speak into the receiver,
tell my Father that I completely understand
how his family can’t compromise
their collective spiritual conscience.
My voice is slightly cracking
Hayao coughs again, but this time
slips in a “ liar” in a muffled croak.

                                                                                      Hayao draws the Child locked
                                                                                 inside their home, trying to find
                                                                               a crevice to hide from the house’s
                                                                            evil snarling boiler, steaming water
                                                                                       clumsily spilling from its hat.
                                                                                 Hayao animates water fountains
                                                                                                          pouring out of the
                                                                                                child's blood-shot eyes.

I tell Father I understand his plight
and decision. Hayao sneers my way
                                                                
                                                                                  draws the child alone, in a void,
                                                                                                        head hung too low.

I tell my Father I love him.
He hangs up the phone on his end.
Hayao lets out a deep sigh.
I drop the phone and turn
around to see my Mother,
patiently waiting to console
her second born, her baby,
her ñoñudo. She knows how these
calls tend to go. I am now the
animated tears and she is stroking
my hair, telling me she loves
me and she’s sure Father does too.

                                                                                  Hayao draws the child in a void,
                                                                          being rescued by their tired Mother.
                                                                            She presses the child to her bosom
                                                                                     soaks up all of the salty water.
                                                                                               Hayao draws a montage
                                                                   Child and Mother leaving Father behind,
                                                              settling into a new apartment, a stepfather,
                                                                                another apartment, a new house,
                                                                                 escaping that stepfather, finding
                                                                          a new one. Fighting, loving, dancing,
                                                                          raging, laughing. He draws the story
                                                                          of a lost Child and their lost Mother,
                                                                          who always find home in each other.

In our backyard my salt-stained face
is pressed to my Mother’s chest.
She has always been here to pick me up
when my Father’s failed to show.

                                                                                 Hayao draws us in that backyard
                                                                                            holding onto one another.
                                                                      Hayao Miyazaki lets out a great gust of
                                                                                            sorrow and fades to black.

Eliel Lucero Salonlucero@gmail.com Eliel Lucero is a Dominican York Poet and DJ. Their work appears in Before Passing (Great Weather for Media) and Best Small Fiction 2016 (Queen’s Ferry Press), among other journals and anthologies. They are a co-founder of The Acentos Review.

Consuelo. Así se llamaba una señora del ensanche, del barrio de mi abuela: Consuelo.

Era una mujer reservada, casi no hablaba con nadie en el barrio. Mi abuela decía que era jamona. Nunca entendí de dónde venía esa palabra, pero desde pequeña me sonaba fea. Jamona… siempre me imaginaba un pedazo de jamón, olvidado, pudriéndose con el tiempo. Como si fuera eso: carne vieja que ya nadie quiere.

Consuelo nunca tuvo hijos, ni pareja, ni marido. Solo un perro, y su mata de guayaba, a la que cuidaba como si fuera una hija. Por lo menos le quedó eso de consuelo: que cuidó de un árbol hermoso, uno que sí daba fruto. No como ella. Una jamona.

Así entendí yo la palabra consuelo. Nunca como algo que alivia, sino como lo que te queda cuando la vida no te dio lo que esperabas. El consuelo de otra cosa. Algo que no es suficiente… pero es lo único que hay.

Cuando era niña, siempre busqué el consuelo de mi madre, pero nunca encontré nada… ni siquiera algo que se pareciera a consuelo. Ella siempre fue una mujer muy fría, incapaz de dar ni siquiera lo único que uno espera cuando lo que realmente quiere no es posible: un gesto de alivio, un abrazo, algo que calme.

Ella nunca me dio consuelo. Y creo que a ella tampoco se lo dieron.

Siempre he pensado que el consuelo nace de un espacio donde alguien desea aliviar tu dolor, aunque no pueda cambiar lo que te duele. Pero mi madre… yo no creo que ella haya querido aliviar el mío. Ella era de esas personas que creen que el dolor se tiene que sentir para poder aprender. Que uno se fortalece aguantando, no llorando. Y con el tiempo entendí algo más duro todavía: no es que no quiso, es que quizás nunca aprendió cómo. No sabía aliviar. No lo había recibido nunca, y por eso tampoco sabía darlo.

El consuelo lo vine a conocer más tarde, en mi vida adulta, y de personas totalmente inesperadas. En el trabajo conocí a una amiga—Dominicana, por cierto—con quien conecté de inmediato. La contrataron el mismo día que a mí, y desde el primer momento nos hicimos amigas. Yo era mucho más joven que ella y, en ese entonces, estaba comprometida para casarme con mi esposo. Recuerdo que estaba planeando ir a comprar mi vestido de novia. Como una ilusa pensé que sería algo que haría con mi madre, que ella querría estar ahí conmigo… pero me equivoqué. A ella esas cosas no le interesaban. La que fue conmigo fue mi amiga. Ella me dio consuelo.

Me dolió mucho que mi madre no pudiera ir conmigo. Ella siempre fue muy práctica con las cosas. Tenía que trabajar, y para ella, comprar un vestido de novia no era razón suficiente para tomarse el día libre. Pero para mí sí lo era. Yo sabía que ese momento no iba a repetirse. Era algo único, algo que había soñado compartir con ella. Y cuando me di cuenta de que no iba a pasar, me dolió más de lo que pensé que dolería. Lloré un poco. Y fue mi amiga—esa compañera nueva del trabajo—quien me dio consuelo. Sin hacer mucho, solo estando ahí, me acompañó. Y ese gesto, tan sencillo, sanó algo en mí que mi madre nunca supo ver.

Hoy soy una mujer entera, pero eso no siempre fue así. Hubo años en los que pensé que jamás lo sería. Aprendí, con el tiempo y a fuerza de muchas heridas, a dejar de buscar validación en mi madre. Eso, que hoy me parece tan claro, antes me parecía imposible.

Mi madre y yo tuvimos una época en la que no nos hablábamos. Nuestra relación siempre fue complicada, pero llegó un punto en el que ya no podía seguir ignorando lo que dolía. Tuve que enfrentar lo que más temía: perder a la única familia que tenía… a mi madre.

Un desacuerdo fuerte nos llevó a una ruptura total. Ella, que siempre estuvo presente físicamente—pero nunca emocionalmente—dejó de estar incluso en cuerpo. Y ahí, en su ausencia, sentí una crisis de identidad profunda.

Recuerdo que lloraba cada noche. Me recostaba junto a mi esposo y le hacía las mismas preguntas, una y otra vez:

“¿Tú crees que mi mamá me quiere?”

“¿Tú crees que alguna vez me quiso?”

“¿Tú crees que en el fondo siente remordimiento?”

“¿Crees que algún día me va a pedir perdón?”

Era un dolor intenso, devastador, que parecía no tener fin. Pero en medio de esa tormenta, mi esposo me dio consuelo.

Nunca me mintió. Solo me escuchaba. Se sentaba a mi lado, después de un día largo en el trabajo, después de acostar a los niños, después de mirar un rato la tele, justo antes de cerrar los ojos. Yo le hacía esas preguntas, y él se quedaba ahí, una hora si era necesario, diciéndome lo mismo:

“No lo sé… pero estoy aquí contigo.”

Me recordaba que él me amaba, que nuestros hijos me amaban, que yo era suficiente… y digna de ser amada.

Él me dio algo que nunca había recibido: consuelo.

Ha pasado mucho tiempo, y mi relación con mi madre ha mejorado. Me he dado cuenta de que el consuelo y la honestidad van de la mano. Nadie puede ofrecer consuelo verdadero sin antes ser honesto.

Hoy en día, mi madre es más sincera. Ha aprendido que no necesita mentir para ser aceptada, que no tiene que disfrazar la verdad para que otros la reciban con agrado. Todavía no he sentido consuelo de su parte… pero he dejado de buscarlo como quien busca algo perdido. Porque entendí que el verdadero consuelo no siempre viene de quien uno espera, sino de quien tiene el corazón abierto para darlo. Y eso… ya lo encontré.

Jennifer Núñez was born in Puerto Rico to Dominican parents and raised between the Dominican Republic and Washington Heights, NY. She began writing as a way to express feelings she was too afraid to speak aloud, often softening truths in conversation but preserving them honestly on the page. Writing became her way of holding on—a record to return to when memory blurred. Through her work, she explores the complexities of family, truth, and emotional survival.

The CONSUELO issue of Palabras del Alma is a tender exploration of the Dominican ways we find solace in the face of heartbreak, grief, and uncertainty. Through poems, stories, and testimonios, writers reflect on the healing found in an abuela’s words, a madre’s tea, a neighbor’s gesture, or even the songs and rituals that soothe us when language falls short. Together, these pieces honor the uniquely Dominican embrace of comfort — reminding us that in our culture, pain is never carried alone.

Hija, llora, llora, llora.

Si eso tu alma implora.

Gárgaras las razones.

Ay, mujeres, bidones.

Desvelar la vergüenza.

Él es un sinvergüenza.

Más pa’lante vive gente.

Y hasta más inteligente.

El sol sale en la mañana.

Luego pasará la semana.

Como ingenio de caña.

Hombre lleno de maña.

Su pan encima del brazo.

Acógelo en cálido abrazo.

Eres dulce niña, otrora.

Mécete en la mecedora.

Con estos fuertes brazos.

Bordaré límpidos retazos.

Hija, llora, llora, llora.

Si quieres en esta hora.

Ana María González Puente nació en El Seibo, República Dominicana. Es Doctora en Derecho. Durante veinte años se desempeñó como funcionaria de la ONU en Nueva York donde reside. Su historia Botija y yo forma parte de Quislaona A Dominican Fantasy Anthology publicada por la Asociación Dominicana de Escritores (DWA). Su contribución Mamá Tina, Doña Tina forma parte de la colección de ensayos acerca de las matriarcas dominicanas publicado por DWA. Su ensayo Entre Luca y Juan Mejía forma parte de la antología Ni de aquí, ni de allá, acerca de la diáspora dominicana, publicada por DWA.