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The Analysis of Return.
Tell the tamarind tree to stop waiting for me. Tell Carlito to bust out the domino table. Tell Portillo beach to stop creeping into my day dreams. Tell “Hot Dog” José: One chimi with everything on it. Tell grandma to start praying. Tell Eddy to fix the car. Tell Sam to COME HOME. Tell Flaco two bottles of Bugal Rum. Tell the lizards, the palm trees, the cousins, the Saint Thomas crowd, the Cayenas, the beisból players, and ORANGE-PINNAPLE ice-cream not to worry.
And save my spot on the parking lot wall.
I’m coming home.
Papi, you can write me 10 000 letters with jumbled answers to the crossword puzzle of your torture victim heart. It still won’t change the fact that I hate your silence just as much as you hate my distance. But I’m not the one that’s dying, so I’ll compromise.
All of a sudden, you look up from your papers and your face shatters into the biggest smile I’ve ever seen. You smile - and when you do, it doesn’t matter how old or tired or heart-broken you really are. When you smile, it cancels out every time you raised your belt or hand or voice at me. It cancels out all those years of bad blood, and how you raised me right in the worst way.
When you smile, the tears slip right into those deep and quiet wrinkles near your eyes, and I forgive you for every demon you ever tried to shake out of me, grandma.
Homeboy, you took way too long to come around this time. Maybe you just got tired of the same old magic tricks. The cards under your sleeve. Your disappearing acts. How you abracadabra your way out of the knots in my heart.
Maybe I just got tired of breaking my own damn rules. Of spitting out “last chances” … clean slates. Emotional amnesia.
You and me know how to talk like it hasn’t been months and miles. A while ago I woud've missed our stairway blues. Your hit-and-run heart.
But the nights are too hot for promises … and even though we’re both experts on vicious circles. It took us way too long to come around.
I like to see the way secrets pool in your eyes like very soft and sad songs. Maybe the kind you would hear on any Dominican radio station, late at night, when everything just hurts. I like to see the way you stare out the window, and the cigarette hangs from your lips, the cherry-red tip burning a hole into the silence.
I like it only because you laugh louder and longer than anyone I’ve ever met. María, no one ever sees you cry but I know what you look like when those long hot nights hit you with their sweet and thick nostalgia … and it feels good to know someone this well.
Who know what the hell this summer's gonna bring?
Tell the tamarind tree to stop waiting for me. Tell Carlito to bust out the domino table. Tell Portillo beach to stop creeping into my day dreams. Tell “Hot Dog” José: One chimi with everything on it. Tell grandma to start praying. Tell Eddy to fix the car. Tell Sam to COME HOME. Tell Flaco two bottles of Bugal Rum. Tell the lizards, the palm trees, the cousins, the Saint Thomas crowd, the Cayenas, the beisból players, and ORANGE-PINNAPLE ice-cream not to worry.
And save my spot on the parking lot wall.
I’m coming home.
Papi, you can write me 10 000 letters with jumbled answers to the crossword puzzle of your torture victim heart. It still won’t change the fact that I hate your silence just as much as you hate my distance. But I’m not the one that’s dying, so I’ll compromise.
All of a sudden, you look up from your papers and your face shatters into the biggest smile I’ve ever seen. You smile - and when you do, it doesn’t matter how old or tired or heart-broken you really are. When you smile, it cancels out every time you raised your belt or hand or voice at me. It cancels out all those years of bad blood, and how you raised me right in the worst way.
When you smile, the tears slip right into those deep and quiet wrinkles near your eyes, and I forgive you for every demon you ever tried to shake out of me, grandma.
Homeboy, you took way too long to come around this time. Maybe you just got tired of the same old magic tricks. The cards under your sleeve. Your disappearing acts. How you abracadabra your way out of the knots in my heart.
Maybe I just got tired of breaking my own damn rules. Of spitting out “last chances” … clean slates. Emotional amnesia.
You and me know how to talk like it hasn’t been months and miles. A while ago I woud've missed our stairway blues. Your hit-and-run heart.
But the nights are too hot for promises … and even though we’re both experts on vicious circles. It took us way too long to come around.
I like to see the way secrets pool in your eyes like very soft and sad songs. Maybe the kind you would hear on any Dominican radio station, late at night, when everything just hurts. I like to see the way you stare out the window, and the cigarette hangs from your lips, the cherry-red tip burning a hole into the silence.
I like it only because you laugh louder and longer than anyone I’ve ever met. María, no one ever sees you cry but I know what you look like when those long hot nights hit you with their sweet and thick nostalgia … and it feels good to know someone this well.
Who know what the hell this summer's gonna bring?