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First published in USA 2018 by HarperCollins Children’s Books
First published in Great Britain 2018
by Egmont UK Limited
The Yellow Building, 1 Nicholas Road, London W11 4AN
Published by arrangement with HarperCollins Children’s Books, a division of HarperCollins Publishers, New York, New York, USA
Text copyright © 2018 Elizabeth Acevedo
First e-book edition 2018
ISBN 978 1 4052 9146 0
Ebook ISBN 978 1 7803 1844 8
www.egmont.co.uk
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
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To Katherine Bolaños and my former students
at Buck Lodge Middle School 2010–2012,
and all the little sisters yearning to see themselves:
this is for you
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
PART 1: In the Beginning Was the Word
Stoop-Sitting
Unhide-able
Mira, Muchacha
Names
The First Words
Mami Works
Confirmation Class
God
“Mami,” I Say to Her on the Walk Home
When You’re Born to Old Parents
When You’re Born to Old Parents, Continued
When You’re Born to Old Parents, Continued Again
The Last Word on Being Born to Old Parents
Rumor Has It,
First Confirmation Class
Father Sean
Haiku
Boys
Caridad and I Shouldn’t Be Friends
Questions I Have
Night before First Day of School
H.S.
Ms. Galiano
Rough Draft of Assignment 1—Write about the most impactful day of your life.
Final Draft of Assignment 1 (What I Actually Turn In)
The Routine
Altar Boy
Twin’s Name
More about Twin
It’s Only the First Week of Tenth Grade
How I Feel about Attention
Games
After
Okay?
On Sunday
During Communion
Church Mass
Not Even Close to Haikus
Holy Water
People Say
On Papi
All Over a Damn Wafer
The Flyer
After the Buzz Dies Down
Aman
Whispering with Caridad Later That Day
What Twin Be Knowing
Sharing
Questions for Ms. Galiano
Spoken Word
Wait—
Holding a Poem in the Body
J. Cole vs. Kendrick Lamar
Asylum
What I Tell Aman:
Dreaming of Him Tonight
The Thing about Dreams
Date
Mami’s Dating Rules
Clarification on Dating Rules
Feeling Myself
PART II: And the Word Was Made Flesh
Smoke Parks
I Decided a Long Time Ago
Why Twin Is a Terrible Twin
Why Twin Is a Terrible Twin, for Real
Why Twin Is a Terrible Twin (Last and Most Important Reason)
But Why Twin Is Still the Only Boy I’ll Ever Love
Communication
About A
Catching Feelings
Notes with Aman
What I Didn’t Say to Caridad in Confirmation Class
Lectures
Ms. Galiano’s Sticky Note on Top of Assignment 1
Sometimes Someone Says Something
Listening
Mother Business
And Then He Does
Warmth
The Next Couple of Weeks
Eve,
“I Think the Story of Genesis Is Mad Stupid”
As We Are Packing to Leave
Father Sean
Answers
Rough Draft Assignment 2—Last Paragraphs of My Biography
Final Draft of Assignment 2 (What I Actually Turn In)
Hands
Fingers
Talking Church
Swoon
Telephone
Over Breakfast
Angry Cat, Happy X
About Being in Like
Music
Ring the Alarm
The Day
Wants
At My Train Stop
What I Don’t Tell Aman
Kiss Stamps
The Last Fifteen-Year-Old
Concerns
What Twin Knows
Hanging Over My Head
Friday
Black & Blue
Tight
Excuses
Costume Ready
Reuben’s House Party
One Dance
Stoop-Sitting . . . with Aman
Convos with Caridad
Braiding
Fights
Scrapping
What We Don’t Say
Gay
Feeling Off When Twin Is Mad
Rough Draft of Assignment 3—Describe someone you consider misunderstood by society.
Final Draft of Assignment 3 (What I Actually Turn In)
Announcements
Ice-Skating
Until
Love
Around and Around We Go
After Skating
This Body on Fire
The Shit & the Fan
Miracles
Fear
Ants
I Am No Ant
Diplomas
Cuero
Mami Says,
Repetition
Things You Think While You’re Kneeling on Rice That Have Nothing to Do with Repentance:
Another Thing You Think While You’re Kneeling on Rice That Has Nothing to Do with Repentance:
The Last Thing You Think While You’re Kneeling on Rice That Has Nothing to Do with Repentance:
Leaving
What Do You Need from Me?
Consequences
Late That Night
In Front of My Locker
PART III: The Voice of One Crying in the Wilderness
Silent World
Heavy
My Confession
Father Sean Says,
Prayers
How I Can Tell
Before We Walk in the House
My Heart Is a Hand
A Poem Mami Will Never Read
In Translation
Heartbreak
Reminders
Writing
What I’d Like to Tell Aman When He Sends Another Apology Message:
Favors
Pulled Back
On Thanksgiving
Haiku: The Best Part About Thanksgiving Was When Mami:
Rough Draft of Assignment 4—When was the last time you felt free?
Rough Draft of Assignment 4—When was the last time you felt free?
Rough Draft of Assignment 4—When was the last time you felt free?
Final Draft of Assignment 4 (What I Actually Turn In)
Gone
Zeros
Possibilities
Can’t Tell Me Nothing
Isabelle
First Poetry Club Meeting
Nerves
When I’m Done
Compliments
Caridad Is Standing Outside the Church
Hope Is a Thing with Wings
Here
Haikus
Offering
Holding Twin
Cody
Problems
Dominican Spanish Lesson:
Permission
Open Mic Night
Signed Up
The Mic Is Open
Invitation
All the Way Hype
At Lunch on Monday
At Poetry Club
Every Day after English Class
Christmas Eve
It’s a Rosary
Longest Week
The Waiting Game
Birthdays
The Good
The Bad
The Ugly
Let Me Explain
If Your Hand Causes You to Sin
Verses
Burn
Where There Is Smoke
Things You Think About in the Split Second Your Notebook Is Burning
Other Things You Think About in the Split Second Your Notebook Is Burning
My Mother Tries to Grab Me
Returning
On the Walk to the Train
The Ride
No Turning Back
Taking Care
In Aman’s Arms
And I Also Know
Tangled
The Next Move
There Are Words
Facing It
“You Don’t Have to Do Anything You Don’t Want to Do.”
What I Say to Ms. Galiano After She Passes Me a Kleenex
Going Home
Aman, Twin, and Caridad
Divine Intervention
Homecoming
My Mother and I
Stronger
Slam Prep
Ms. Galiano Explains the Five Rules of Slam:
Xiomara’s Secret Rules of Slam:
The Poetry Club’s Real Rules of Slam:
Poetic Justice
The Afternoon of the Slam
At the New York Citywide Slam
Celebrate with Me
Assignment 5—First and Final Draft
Acknowledgments
PART I
In the Beginning Was the Word
Friday, August 24
Stoop-Sitting
The summer is made for stoop-sitting
and since it’s the last week before school starts,
Harlem is opening its eyes to September.
I scope out this block I’ve always called home.
Watch the old church ladies, chancletas flapping
against the pavement, their mouths letting loose a train
of island Spanish as they spread he said, she said.
Peep Papote from down the block
as he opens the fire hydrant
so the little kids have a sprinkler to run through.
Listen to honking cabs with bachata blaring
from their open windows
compete with basketballs echoing from the Little Park.
Laugh at the viejos—my father not included—
finishing their dominoes tournament with hard slaps
and yells of “Capicu!”
Shake my head as even the drug dealers posted up
near the building smile more in the summer, their hard scowls
softening into glue-eyed stares in the direction
of the girls in summer dresses and short shorts:
“Ayo, Xiomara, you need to start wearing dresses like that!”
“Shit, you’d be wifed up before going back to school.”
“Especially knowing you church girls are all freaks.”
But I ignore their taunts, enjoy this last bit of freedom,
and wait for the long shadows to tell me
when Mami is almost home from work,
when it’s time to sneak upstairs.
Unhide-able
I am unhide-able.
Taller than even my father, with what Mami has always said
was “a little too much body for such a young girl.”
I am the baby fat that settled into D-cups and swinging hips
so that the boys who called me a whale in middle school
now ask me to send them pictures of myself in a thong.
The other girls call me conceited. Ho. Thot. Fast.
When your body takes up more room than your voice
you are always the target of well-aimed rumors,
which is why I let my knuckles talk for me.
Which is why I learned to shrug when my name was replaced by insults.
I’ve forced my skin just as thick as I am.
Mira, Muchacha
Is Mami’s favorite way to start a sentence
and I know I’ve already done something wrong
when she hits me with: “Look, girl . . .”
This time it’s “Mira, muchacha, Marina from across the street
told me you were on the stoop again talking to los vendedores.”
Like usual, I bite my tongue and don’t correct her,
because I hadn’t been talking to the drug dealers;
they’d been talking to me. But she says she doesn’t
want any conversation between me and those boys,
or any boys at all, and she better not hear about me hanging out
like a wet shirt on a clothesline just waiting to be worn
or she would go ahead and be the one to wring my neck.
“Oíste?” she asks, but walks away before I can answer.
Sometimes I want to tell her, the only person in this house
who isn’t heard is me.
Names
I’m the only one in the family
without a biblical name.
Shit, Xiomara isn’t even Dominican.
I know, because I Googled it.
It means: One who is ready for war.
And truth be told, that description is about right
because I even tried to come into the world
in a fighting stance: feet first.
Had to be cut out of Mami
after she’d given birth
to my twin brother, Xavier, just fine.
And my name labors out of some people’s mouths
in that same awkward and painful way.
Until I have to slowly say:
See-oh-MAH-ruh.
I’ve learned not to flinch the first day of school
as teachers get stuck stupid trying to figure it out.
Mami says she thought it was a saint’s name.
Gave me this gift of battle and now curses
how well I live up to it.
My parents probably wanted a girl who would sit in the pews
wearing pretty florals and a soft smile.
They got combat boots and a mouth silent
until it’s sharp as an island machete.
The First Words
Pero, tú no eres fácil
is a phrase I’ve heard my whole life.
When I come home with my knuckles scraped up:
Pero, tú no eres fácil.
When I don’t wash the dishes quickly enough,
or when I forget to scrub the tub:
Pero, tú no eres fácil.
Sometimes it’s a good thing,
when I do well on an exam or the rare time I get an award:
Pero, tú no eres fácil.
When my mother’s pregnancy was difficult,
and it was all because of me,
because I was turned around
and they thought that I would die
or worse,
that I would kill her,
so they held a prayer circle at church
and even Father Sean showed up at the emergency room,
Father Sean, who held my mother’s hand
as she labored me into the world,
and Papi paced behind the doctor,
who said this was the most difficult birth she’d been a part of
but instead of dying I came out wailing,
waving my tiny fists,
and the first thing Papi said,
the first words I ever heard,
“Pero, tú no eres fácil.”
You sure ain’t an easy one.
Mami Works
Cleaning an office building in Queens.
Rides two trains in the early morning
so she can arrive at the office by eight.
She works at sweeping, and mopping,
emptying trash bins, and being invisible.
Her hands never stop moving, she says.
Her fingers rubbing the material of plastic gloves
like the pages of her well-worn Bible.
Mami rides the train in the afternoon,
another hour and some change to get to Harlem.
She says she spends her time reading verses,
getting ready for the evening Mass,
and I know she ain’t lying, but if it were me
I’d prop my head against the metal train wall,
hold my purse tight in my lap, close my eyes
against the rocking, and try my best to dream.
Tuesday, August 28
Confirmation Class