June 20, 2018
Nine months after the storm
and I’m still here.
Still hanging on,
adjusting to a life
I never imagined.
I’m not wearing black
though I still mourn.
I no longer light candles in the dark
though I share the fury,
the numbing frustration
of so many who still have no choice.
Nine months after the storm,
thousands remain without power.
Nine months after the storm,
thousands remain without safe water.
Nine months after the storm,
thousands still looking up
through the depressing,
suffocating blue hue
of wind-torn and leaking tarps
instead of a roof.
Nine months after the storm,
thousands still seeing life
through exhausted eyes
as if it were September 20, 2017,
frozen in amber.
Nine months after the storm,
273 days of suffering,
suffering scarcely comprehended
in our modern world.
Yet those of us remaining
on our beloved island
have our heads held high.
Defiant.
Determined.
Unbowed.
We rise.
Nine months after the storm,
Maria may have destroyed our island,
but never our spirits,
so please don’t weep for us.
We may have been battered,
but here we stand.
We may have been abandoned
but we still have one another,
arm in arm,
together,
with you,
we rise.
We rise in honor
of the thousands
who lost their lives.
We rise in honor
of our ancestors
who persevered through
incomprehensible indignities
that can never be forgotten.
Slavery.
Slaughter.
Humiliation.
Near-extermination.
Our enemies,
no longer in the armor of conquistadors,
now wears suits, ties and spray tans.
We’ve seen these demons before.
Their dyed faces cannot conceal
their true colors.
We’ve survived their wickedness before,
we rise.
Nine months after the storm,
we rise because we must.
We dust ourselves off
because we must.
We will not be defeated
because we are Borinquen.
Nine months after the storm,
regardless of our own struggles
our eyes turn to the West,
searching for any remnants
of Lady Liberty’s elusive promise.
Our brothers and sisters
are crying out at the border,
heartbroken and desperate.
The tears of their children
are our tears.
How could we not fight for them
as we fight for our own families?
their unholy enemy is our enemy.
Nine months after the storm,
grateful for allies,
a shocked nation now rises to confront
the very same man made disasters
inflicted upon our island after Maria.
Incompetence and heartlessness,
hypocrisy and indifference,
propaganda and lies.
My God,
the lies.
Suits, ties and spray tans.
Nine months after the storm,
The hearts of caring people,
forged in the fires
of this hellish administration,
are being tested.
Make no mistake,
our road ahead is perilous,
the cruel manifestations
of centuries of inhumanity
are stalking the halls of power,
right now,
like the monsters
of our worst nightmares.
Nine months after the storm,
they celebrate cruelty,
mock the less fortunate,
raise glasses to white supremacy,
thumb their noses at the rule of Law.
We see the unmistakable omens
and take heed.
Only the complicit cheer them on
in their haze of ignorance and hate.
Nine months after the storm,
we cannot give in to fear.
The sleeping giant of justice
is awake and on the move.
There had to be a tipping point,
finally we’re here.
Our rage and disbelief,
crippling anxiety,
so many sleepless nights,
now transformed
into resolve,
purpose,
strength,
hope.
We are rising,
cresting,
crashing onto the shores
of our nation’s conscience
with the combined force
of all who have sacrificed before us.
We were not defeated by a hurricane,
we are the hurricane.
We rise with the hearts
of every Native American
slaughtered by “civilization”,
we rise with the cries of every Taino
sacrificed on the altar of a “New World”,
we rise with the tears
of every Cherokee on
that forsaken trail.
We rise.
We rise with the souls of all those
once shackled by the chains of slavery,
we rise with the spirits
of those reflected in the flames
of the Jim Crow South,
we rise with the last gasps of the innocents
gunned down on today’s streets.
Their breath is now our breath.
We rise.
We rise for the children,
from Puerto Rico to Flint,
Sandy Hook to Santa Fe,
from Columbine to Parkland,
remembering the lives needlessly lost,
cherishing the inspired survivors,
blazing new trails out of the ashes.
We rise.
We rise for the children
of the Americas,
frightened and inconsolable,
even babies
ripped away from loving arms
by heartless tyrants,
thrown in cages.
My God,
we rise.
Nine months after the storm,
a new battle begins
with each new day,
no matter the destruction around us.
We simply cannot allow injustice
to infest and fester,
to shame and corrupt.
This moment in time
will forever be remembered,
the course of history changed.
In 200 years they will not remember our names,
they will remember our actions.
So we rise
because we must.
We dust ourselves off
because we must.
We will never be defeated
because we are Borinquen.