The Poet X(40)



and pulls me onto his lap.

“I’m going to crush you!”

He smiles at me.

“Never, X. I have a present for you.”

And I see his phone

has gone from

the iTunes app to the Notes app.

I’m stunned when he begins reading a poem to me.

It’s short and not very good but I still blink away tears.

Because after all the poems I’ve written for him and others this is the first poem ever written for me.

“I’ll never be as good of a poet as you, Poet X, and I believe you’re strong enough to defend yourself and me at the same time,

but I’ll always have your back, and I’ll always protect your heart.”

And I’ve never heard something more deserving of a perfect ten.





Friday, February 8





At the New York Citywide Slam


With Ms. Galiano’s assistance:

I let the poem rise from my heart,



With Twin helping me practice:

I hand it over like a present I’ve had gift wrapped,



With a brand-new notebook:

I perform like I deserve to be there;



With Aman’s (and J. Cole’s) inspiration:

I don’t see the standing ovation,



With YouTube and English class:

I don’t see Caridad and Isabelle cheering, or



With Caridad holding my hand:

Aman and Twin dapping each other up,



With Mami and Papi in the front row:

I don’t see Father Sean in his collar smiling,



With Father Sean in the audience:

I don’t see Papi telling people “Esa es mi hija.”



With Isabelle and the club cheering:

I look at Mami and I give her a nod:



I stand on a stage and say a poem.

There is power in the word.





Celebrate with Me


After the slam,

Mami and Papi

invite my friends over and Ms. Galiano and Father Sean, too.

Mami makes rice and beans and orders pizza,

a strange mix

but I don’t complain.

Mami and Papi

won’t call Aman

my boyfriend

but they let him sit on the couch.

At one point,

Isabelle starts playing bachata on her phone and pulls Caridad to dance with her.

Next to me,

I see Twin tap his feet and pretend not to look at Stephan.

Aman starts Spotify DJing.

Ms. Galiano and Father Sean begin a heated convo about Floyd Mayweather, and then there’s a tap on my shoulder

and I turn to see Papi, holding his hand out to me, reaching for my arm, asking me to dance.

“I should have taught you a long time ago.

Dancing is a good way to tell someone you love them.”

I catch Mami’s eyes in the doorway of the living room; she smiles at me and says: “Pa’lante, Xiomara.

Que para atrás ni para coger impulso.”

And she’s absolutely right, there will be no more backward steps.

And so I smile at them both and step forward.





Assignment 5—First and Final Draft


Xiomara Batista Monday, March 4

Ms. Galiano

Explain Your Favorite Quote “The unfolding of your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple.”—Psalm 119:130

I was raised in a home of prayers and silence and although Jesus preaches love, I didn’t always feel loved. The weird thing about the Bible is that almost everything in it is a metaphor. So it seems to me that when the Bible describes church as a place where two or more people discuss God, they don’t mean just the cathedral-like churches. I don’t know what, who, or where God is. But if everything is a metaphor, I think he or she is a comparison to us. I think we are all like or as God.

I think when we get together and talk about ourselves, about being human, about what hurts us, we’re also talking about God. So that’s also church, right? (I know this might seem blasphemous, but my priest tells me it’s OKAY to ask questions . . . even if they seem bizarre.) And so, I love this quote because even though it’s not about poetry, it IS about poetry. It’s about any of the words that bring us together and how we can form a home in them. I don’t know if I’ll ever be as religious as my mother, as devout as my brother and best friend. I only know that learning to believe in the power of my own words has been the most freeing experience of my life. It has brought me the most light. And isn’t that what a poem is? A lantern glowing in the dark.





Acknowledgments


Writing a book can be a lonely endeavor, but I am lucky that my tribe held me up and held me close as I attempted to figure out how to tell this story.

Ammi-Joan Paquette—you the realest agent. Thank you for cheerleading me from the sidelines. I am honored be a part of the EMLA family.

To my editor, the OG of kid lit, Rosemary Brosnan, and her wonderful assistant, Courtney Stevenson, thank you for making such a caring home for me and this book at HarperCollins. I’ll be forever grateful for the unwavering enthusiasm of my HarperCollins team, who made my manuscript pages into this gorgeous book.

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