Dulces de Coco by Angely Mercado (grave mercy txt) 📕

Comenzó como un charco
Un derrame de mis pensamientos
De todas las palabras
Que no sabíamos decir

Continúo como un pozo
De aguas enlodadas
Llenándose de todas nuestras lagrimas
Tapada por todas las cartas que no te pude escribir

El piso se tapo
Y de mi dolor, nació un rio
Sus corrientes son rápidas
Y suenan como nuestros llantos
No sé si debo llorar o reír

It began as a puddle.
A slight spilling of my thoughts,
And all the words
That we didn’t know how to say.

It continued into a spring
Of muddy waters,
Filling itself with our tears,
Covered by all the letters I wasn’t able to write

The floor was covered.
And from my pain, a river was born
One with deadly currents
That sound like our sobs.
I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry.

During the last weekend of August, I was in an airport in Orlando, waiting to be on standby for an earlier flight to JFK airport in New York. Hurricane Issac had announced itself on the radar the night that I had arrived to Florida with my brother and father. The huge, swirling splotch on my uncle’s television screen scared my mother enough to skip church and have my uncle and father escort us to the airport early.

Since we had arrived almost 3 hours before the first afternoon flight would leave for New York, we had to kill time at the airport’s food court. After purchasing spinach rolls, mushroom slices of pizza and finding the one table that wasn’t occupied, my uncle was bored enough that he started talking about every topic that came to mind. According to family legend, he was almost labeled as a mute when he was a child. My uncle used to refuse to speak and usually had to be coaxed into conversation by relatives. He makes up for it now as an adult by being the first to begin an entertaining conversation whenever family members happen to congregate around him.

After my father and uncle reminisced a few long gone family friends from the Dominican Republic, my father decided to throw in a story of his own.

“This happened before I started school, so I think I was about four years old,” my father began as he dug his fork into some steamed vegetables.

“Mami had taken me with her and Papi to a wake in town after a family friend had passed away. I remember that the man who died had several daughters and they were all kind of weird. They probably had issues,” My father added.

He then continued to say that once he arrived to the wake with his parents, his mother had him seated right next to the coffin on a small chair. My grandfather had went back outside to chat and smoke with the other men as my grandmother had joined a group of gossiping women near the kitchen as they discussed who had done this or that. From his seat, my father was able to look into a room that was partially closed by a curtain. Inside, the dead man’s daughters were getting dressed for the funeral.

“Soon after that, they announced that everyone should give the dead guy their final goodbyes. And that’s when all hell broke loose,” my father laughed.

“What do you mean?” my mother asked.

“I bet some crazy old woman clung to the coffin and screamed for the poor dead guy to wake up,” my uncle commented.

“Worst than that,” my father said shaking his head, “the man’s daughters ran out of the room screaming and hollering. One of them ended up tackling the chair I was sitting in and I ended up flying across the room along with that woman and my seat.”

I laughed into my palms and tried to imagine a tiny version of my father catapulting across a room full of mourning and gossiping women.

“By then the whole place began to sound like an asylum. I was howling, the man’s daughters were screaming, and other relatives were weeping and clawing at the coffin.”

My mother giggled into her spinach roll and wiped the tears that formed at the corner of her eyes.

“What happened next?” she asked.

“Mami returned from her group of gossiping biddies and tried to get me out of the door, which turned out to be impossible thanks to all the crazy women there. She ended up having to hand me over to Papi through a window,” my father laughed “I was freaked out because I thought she was going to drop me, but Papi caught me and made me stop crying.”

"How did they get the coffin out of the house then?" my uncle asked.

"Through the same window I was dropped out of, the coffin wouldn't fit through the porch so I guess the family members had no other choice."

By the time my father had finished saying all that, we were all laughing and ignoring the curious glances of a German family that was seated at the table next to ours.

“Funerals were cooler way back in the day, now I understand why so many old people like to hang out at wakes,” My father concluded.

As he ended his tale, I looked down at my watch and realized that I only had an hour left before it was time for my mother and me to head towards airport security. My mother then began to start a story of her own, aided by my uncle and I started to wish that it would be a very long hour.

His name is Angel David
But call him Angel,
An angel with no wings
A too-tall boy-man
Too young to be one thing
Too old to be another.
An angel with
no heavenly
direction.
Willingly scarred.
Dreams and sufferings
Tattooed over a
Barely
Beating
Heart.
The universe.
So
Big.
Yet so
Small.
Over his chest.
Scattered stars like broken glass.
And maybe he’s broken too.
Running out of hope.
Running out of choices
And running out of time.
Is Angel David.
But you can call him Angel.


This poem is dedicated to my younger brother, Angel. I originally wrote this in 2010 when I saw that he had gotten his first tattoo. During that time, he was going through a few things, and I feel that the stars tattoos had become a physical embodiment for a few of his insecurities. But today, he leaves for Marine Boot Camp and I am very proud of the progress that he has made over the past few years. (9.3.12)

I had always known that my father grew up during hard times. The middle child of 12 children is bound to have it rough. Sharing, hand-me-down shoes and having to hear out the older siblings, while being obligated to help out the younger siblings. He had told me before, that it was common for a southern Puerto Rican family to be large, especially if they lived in the countryside as farmers.

But I never knew how his lifestyle affected his grades. I learned about that one morning while I was standing at the counter in my kitchen pouring almond milk over my cereal. My father was sitting at the table talking to my mother’s friend about how he had never done homework growing up.

“There wasn’t any time since I had to help out in the fields.”

My father proudly told my mother’s friend that he did however manage to pass the majority of his classes by just paying attention in class and attending during exam days. He elaborated that he had to use his memory all the time in order to make sure he wouldn’t have to attend summer school.

“I’m sure participating in class helped your grade as well,” My mother’s friend commented.

“No, I was too embarrassed to participate.”

My mother’s friend was confused as to what he meant by that.

“If I would volunteer to answer a question on the board, everyone would look at my dirty shoes and laugh. They’d know that I was a farmer’s kid.”

The walk from where my father used to live as a child to his school was a very long walk that was only made longer if the weather was bad. And since Puerto Rico is an amazingly humid island, the weather is usually very fickle. Severe rain fall would cause mud slides from the mountains to cover several roads and the rivers would swell, making it so that my father and his siblings had to trudge