Maria

“Does anyone ever
want to leave their home?
The fresh fruit that drops from their backyard?

The neighbors who wiped their snot?
Does anyone ever
want to believe they won't come back?

To the dog that sniffs their heel,
to the bed that holds the echo of their body?
Is there relief in pretending it is temporary,

that one day it will be safe? That I will once again
wave to the kind school bus driver;
that I'll hold Carline's baby before he grows,

having never known me? They have no palm
trees in New York City, no leaves to shade me,
to brush against my cheeks like my mother's hands.

There is no one over there, alive or buried,
who held me as a child, who cradled me close,
who fed me from their table, who wiped my knees when

I fell & scraped them. Here, despite the bad & ugly,
is my home. & now I wish that I could stay. Does anyone ever
want to leave the place they love?”
― Elizabeth Acevedo, Clap When You Land

“If you are not from an island.
you cannot understand
what it means to be of water:

to learn to curve around the bend,
to learn to rise with rain,
to learn to quench an outside thirst

while all the while
you grow shallow
until there is not one drop

left for you.

I know this is what Tia does not say.
Sand & soil & sinew & smiles:
all bartered. & who reaps? Who eats?

Not us. Not me.”
― Elizabeth Acevedo, Clap When You Land

“Can you be from a place you have never been? You can find the island stamped all over me, but what would the island find if I was there? Can you claim a home that does not know you, much less claim you as its own?”
― Elizabeth Acevedo, Clap When You Land

“Papi learned to swim in water that wanted to kill him.
That ocean can't be so different; shouldn't be any different.
If any man could take a hard dive & come up breathing,

it should be one who had practiced for just that his entire life.”
― Elizabeth Acevedo, Clap When You Land