The Frogs That Hide In the Windowsills | Sabrina Soriano

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Sabrina is an 18 year college student at Florida International University. She was born in Santo Domingo, Dom. Rep. and has lived in Miami, FL for most of her life. She is a Women and Gender Studies major who hopes to intertwine her passion for activism and creativity through poetry. Her work has been featured in WLRN and she was part of 100 Thousand Poets For Change in Miami, FL in response to the Parkland shooting.

 

La Republica

 

I used to pretend to be hungry so my grandmother could make food and her tiny open-windowed apartment could churn out the tomato paste scent I’d missed so much. I used to pretend to not be lactose intolerant so I could drink room temperature chocolate milk in my PJs at noon from a carton with a white bendy straw. I used to pretend to believe in monsters so my cousins would hold me closer in the dark, wet heat of summer nights. This is what home felt like. An island where everyone knew of each other. Where malls were the few air conditioned buildings. Where men with cart-fulls of fruit stood on street corners. Where rain was a gift to the rich and a curse to the orphan kids who were scattered across the streets, trying to make a living by washing windshields. Where family was important. Where music polluted the air. That immense peninsula covered in English was el diablo. Where I had been sent for being malcriada and  cutting the hair off my dolls. But I was Persephone; able to return to the light once a year.