Reminiscing

Ever since the Bad Bunny Bowl, I’ve been fading in and out of memories from Puerto Rico. I used to visit my grandparents every summer from age 5 to 12, alone.

The first few nights would be the scariest. A strange house, without my mother, and the silence of the Puerto Rican night. Crickets humming. Grass shuffling. The singing of the coquí. And a high-pitched sound that I could never identify.

This was my summer home.

I remember people talking at me: Do this. Don’t do that. My grandparents’ house looked very similar to the one Bad Bunny was dancing on. Everyone talked in Spanish except me.

Then Ricky Martin started singing, and the part when he sang “Lelolai,” something broke in me, and this poem spilled out.

It is part memory, part loss, part present, and part longing.

You never know what will trigger you to spill on a page.

Here is El Sistema de Alertas. In all its imperfect glory for now 😊.