A Julia de Burgos,

After Julia de Burgos

Julia,
I'm afraid I am too different to call myself “Puerto Rican”
Too light-skinned, too rich, too white,
too unoppressed, too privileged,
too removed, too distant
I grew up sheltered
from sights of police clubbing students
knowing nothing of grandma's island
or your strife

Puerto Rico
is like a birthmark on my back
I never saw

But like you, Julia,
my heart beats words
my true self is poetry
and she hates my pretensions,
breaks down my fences, calls out my mierda
speaks the unspeakable while the moment lasts
challenges me forever to react and evolve
lately I have learned and loved too much about Boricua
for my poems to stay silently separate

Breaking news:
Puerto Rico is the adopted child of an abusive parent
Who inflicts precisely the same violence he promised to reverse
But worse, colonialism infused with racial hatred
Exploitation that can only be described as national rape
They lied, Julia de Burgos, when they said they would make us a state
All they wanted was a practice place for bombs and neoliberalism
Puerto Rico has always been poorer than poor
Its struggles for justice covered-up and ignored
Right now a civil war is being waged on peaceful protesters in the streets
They don't say it on TV, so I am obliged to speak

Today my heartbeat says
My veins don't end in me
But in the unanimous blood
of those who struggle
for life, love, little things,
landscape and bread,
the poetry of everyone.

This is where my Puerto Rico lives
In my voice, my power, my light
my truth, my religion, my weapon, my life
Soy poeta, Julia, soy poeta como tú
and this poem is boriqueña, like you
I am what I am, which is everything else
What I eat, drink, read, learn, love makes my self
Your words birthed mine, Julia, this makes us kin
and means infinitely more than the shade of my skin

I am Puerto Rico for I am my poetry
My voice is my identity; you can quote me
Truth is in the naked heart
To speak it is prophetic art
So I say hoy soy boriqueño
and that makes it true
por que soy poeta,
Julia de Burgos,
like you

I, too, sing Puerto Rico,
I sing you, Julia,
I sing my teachers Martín, Aracelis,
Willie Perdomo, Pedro Pietri, Luisa Capetillo,
Jesús Colón, Jack Agüeros,
Mi abuela, mis primos, mis amores, amigos,
I am you, who rise in my writing and speech
My breath is your breath
My voice your voice
My battle your battle
My victory yours
My independence is your independence
My howl for justice is your howl
My language your tongue my music your song
My story your story her story his story
The blood of my words is the blood of your words
My Spanish is made of the sounds of your seasons
My love, anger, passion are yours
When I read, you are my poetry
When I spit, you are my spit.

Give me your torch, Julia,
I am proud to take it now
Today Boricua fills my lungs
rises in my chest
and flies from my throat
in freedom songs

¿Qué será de Puerto Rico?
¿De mi islita que será?
Hoy yo pienso en su futuro
Y no sé que va a pasar

Viva Puerto Rico libre
Adelante a luchar
¡Hasta la victoria siempre
Y la independencia!