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“He laid the demons in me to rest. Only because they slept so well with his. And I think that’s what I loved most about him - the fact that he saw me for everything that terrified me, because it terrified him, too. And in that fear we birthed an intoxicating understanding of each other. The only kind satisfying enough to believe in. The only kind satisfying enough to live for. And so we did - we lived. We lived the rawest, freest way possible and we loved just the same; recklessly, selfishly, abundantly. And I still love him. I’ll always love him.” (3/3)

Ride - Rebecca Rivera 

Photo Cred: Jade Biggavel (@Jadebiggavel on IG)  

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“I was a loner for most of my life - at least in my head. I felt as unstable as my thoughts; always changing; always racing off to somewhere else, unable to stay still. I was a wanderer inside of myself. A sufferer of my own delusions. And there was noise. There was always so much noise. Then he came and saw me, and I saw him. It’s dangerous to be seen as clearly as we saw each other. It was the kind of interaction that made everything else feel meaningless. He came and he made the noise stop. He came and he made me feel real, less alone. It was all I ever wanted.”  (2/3) 

Ride - Rebecca Rivera 

Photo cred: Jade Biggavel (@jadebiggavel on IG) 

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This photo is from a shoot I did with a friend (@Jadebiggavel on IG) back in 2016. I wrote some prose inspired by both the photos and the song “Ride” by Lana del Rey (which I couldn’t stop listening to at the time) that I will share in the next two posts. The following lyrics that open up the song are what inspired me in particular : “When the people I used to know found out what I had been doing, how I’d been living, they asked me why - but there’s no use in talking to people who have a home. They have no idea what it’s like to seek safety in other people - for home to be wherever you lay your head.”  Post 1/3. 

Ride - Rebecca Rivera

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Prologue to Womanhood | Rebecca Rivera

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What happens to the women who stay? | Rebecca Rivera

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People say you never really know someone until you live together, so… I try to see the ways in which our love would change if we inhabited the same space If i’d wake to your dimpled smile and pull you closer in my sleep If we’d lay there until we could no longer ignore our desire to witness the way the sun spills into our room How it is so comfortable with the seeing of things And i try to see a life of netflix nights Of kidney beans and cauliflower rice Of cleaning up the mess we made while sipping on vodka sodas with a slice of the limes we keep around for our homemade drinks and taco nights. And I see the safety. The never needing to say goodbye for too long. I see you in all your wicked charm leaving to meet a client, then me following you to the door. And i try to see what i’d see when i catch my face in the mirror on the way back inside. And I squint. Look to see if everything is in the same place. If there are signs of wrinkles or any noticeable hint of loss. Something I could’ve left in-between the turning of the sheets. Something like seconds, or the minutes I would have spent laughing elsewhere. What i mean is, somedays i wonder if I will wake feeling I have missed a train.     a meeting.     a flight.    [a life.] Something that is not real, but could have been.

Rebecca Rivera

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“We took turns being the wild one” is a quote from the novel How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accents by Julia Alvarez about three sisters from the Dominican Republic who come-of-age and navigate their experiences adjusting to life in the United States. In the novel, Julia used this line to describe the way each sister took turns misbehaving and being “wild” throughout their adolescence. Though this poem is about a romantic relationship and not sisterhood, it still reminded me of how often relationships are a sort of dance. A daily give and take. We mirror each other and then respond accordingly. It’s true, We took turns being the wild one. We took turns loving and hating each other. We took turns creating worlds we could survive in by morning then burning them down at night. Sometimes drunk, sometimes sober. Sometimes in front of an audience, sometimes in front of no other witnesses but ourselves. 

[rebeccariveraa]

i do not like statistics. statistics mean numbers and i’m no good at those/ but tonight i am with my sister and mother/ and we are watching a show in which one man has made two women understand what it feels like to die and not die/ and i think: one in three. the first girl is drunk and half asleep/ and after my passing and protective father offers what he believes to be his usual, helpful advice on how to avoid these situations/ i wonder/ how many other men are raising daughters with straight lines for mouths. i do not like statistics / but tonight, i count the number of women in my home./ i think: four/ i think: three of four/ and pray to a god i’m not sure i still believe in/ that this house never fills with only women who have all learned how to die and not die/ and make the best use of silence. the second girl was not drunk. but did not say no/ and as she curls her fingers against the wet cement and unlearns how to breathe/ i close my eyes/ my mother closes her eyes/ my sister/ keeps them open. i think: how many deaths have we watched that were also our own? I think: does it get easier to watch a death when you and death are on a first name basis? / I think: did our fathers ever notice the night we stopped breathing? / and did our mothers ever think their stories/ would also be our own? but my mother, her tongue always wet with self-preservation/ still says/ defend/ still says/ protect/ still says/ this is why you should be careful when drinking/ and though i know she means well/ my shoulders tighten/ with all the blame that will never be my own/ my mouth becomes a fist/ she is not expecting a blow from/ and when her lungs fill with the little bit of air left in the room/ i tell her of Solmaz Sharif/ i tell her, “it matters what you call a thing.” in one language/ i am silent/ in one language/ my mouth is a straight line/ in another/ my father does not give me advice on how to not become the women that already look like me/ in another/ i tell him that they do/ in another i have the words to do so/ in another language/ we are not statistics/ in another language/ we all have names/ in another language/ we are not afraid to speak them.

The Night we Watch '13 Reasons Why' | Rebecca Rivera

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Raulin Rodriguez sings Medicina De Amor from the youtube app in my cell phone and my body promptly answers the call home; tries to recall the feeling you get when you walk into a party at eight, and ten, and twelve years old, and every face that’s ever meant safety is taking two steps to the right. Beat. two steps to the left. Beat. and even though your family is Honduran and not Dominican, you recognize the sound of Latin joy in any song, and anyway, the swing of hips has ever only meant we all survived long enough to turn our joy into music; our music back into joy, no matter what island or country sky we slept beneath.   Raulin Rodriguez sings Medicina De Amor. Medicine for love. He is asking for a cure for his lovesick heart and I, now twenty two years old, still swing my hips two steps to the right. Beat. two steps to the left. Beat. and think this the cure; play his song at the end of every work day once all the White servers and managers have gone home, so my remaining Latino co workers & I can remember a piece of ours. And we can all meet our Tio’s and Tia’s in the kitchen, no matter what island or country sky they sleep beneath. And in the middle of the song Carlos, who is from the same city as my father, laughs; cleans to the rhythm of guitar   so lightly, he almost floats across the floor. While Willy, who is Puerto Rican watches for only a moment, before he joins the ceremony And soon we are a parade of rising hands we are all throwing our heads back; lifting our faces towards the moon Calling for a medicine for love Calling for love As our voices rise above us like ghosts and dance to the sound of conjured memories both ours & not ours we sing Medicina de amor and every drop of Latin blood spilled onto an undeserving earth rushes back into its body we sing medicina de amor and every ocean in between here & home forgets itself we sing medicina de amor and all our primos & primas & abuelos & abuelas gather in one room offer to hold our heaviness for the night hand us our joy next to plates of pernil & arroz con gandules instead give us besos & laughter &  a medicine for love give us love grant us permission to be children for as long as our feet can hold the beat & we do & we sing

Medicina de Amor | Rebecca Rivera

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I leave my home And call it an exodus Historically, I have always been in a state of migration. Constant, To allow my feet enough time to negotiate my existence with the earth. I think: If i plant myself in enough cities, I cannot be washed out of them all. I think: If I coat enough tongues with my Spanish, this country will call me back home. To stop before this has been granted Would be to succumb to a history of dying nameless Like Juan Seguin, Once proud Tejano Who after fighting alongside fresh faced Anglos And leading them to victory in what is now known as the Alamo Was then chased out of Mexico, now America And died a stranger to his own land Died unsung and forgotten And I cannot be a mirror to that kind of unhonorable fate To be told I do not belong where I have been firmly planted I want to have endless roots, Gripping the earth Something to trace a lineage with. I want to swallow enough water to soak you up Or wash you out Before your English thinks itself brave enough to whitewash me Out of every history textbook. Rebecca - the fact that I know my name is its own revolution. But it is not enough Say: Juan Seguin - 1836. hero of the Alamo Say: Octaviano Larrazolo - 1928. first Latino elected to the U.S. senate Say: Ensign Manuel Gonzalez - 1941. pilot & one of the first American casualties at the attack on Pearl Harbor Say: Half-a million Latinos fighting in WW2 and then coming back home to a country with “No Mexicans” signs hanging in front of their restaurant doors. Say: Us fighting anyway. Say: Us thriving anyway. Say we have always been here. Calling this home. Calling this resistance. Writing ourselves back into the narrative. Giving our children a history they will not have to rip themselves open to find. Showing them their roots Showing them we have always been here Saying: we have always been here. we have always been here We have always Been here

Self-portrait as a lost Latino history | Rebecca Rivera

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"is there a hurt?    and if so    is it killed at the origin?   do all Honduran boys move as fast as you?   you have a good eye has anyone told you that lately?    can I see your hands?    I don’t mean to pry   I just wonder what you silence the wound with

Inquiries for the boy inside my father | Rebecca Rivera

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"We should speak Spanish more often," I tell you as we sit in the back of a New York City cab. We are both bilingual, but navigate English with more fluency. That is usually how the story goes. First-generation American. Vehicle for dreams. Inheritor of a special kind of loss. Anyway, I feel obligated to bridge the distance between our home and that of our parents, so I say, “verdad?” and you agree. You wonder why I ask this of us now. To speak in a language we have both neglected. And I could tell you that the current presidency has vilified our people to the point where I am often more numb than not; to the point where I have no tears to offer and purposely scroll through the news too fast to avoid testing this theory; that speaking Spanish is my own kind of protest. But really, it's because I've binge-watched Narcos. Don't laugh. It's true. We're not Colombian, and obviously not drug lords, but we are still Latino after all and that is enough for me. I mean Quica could be my cousin, probably. And Tata has all my tias’ dark hair. And despite all the men being incredibly horrible, they all laugh like my uncles. So you see, it's kind of a Hollywood miracle. The best part is, there is no American-English dub over their voices, just subtitles at the bottom of the screen trying to translate their singing Spanish. The more they speak, the more it sounds like music. “I want to speak more Spanish because I want us to always sound like we're singing; because the translations aren’t always accurate and I want to live honestly; because if the world wants to know what I am saying they will have to actually listen; because if I inherit anything it should be another language to understand you in.” I don't say this aloud, just in my head. But you know me and I do not have to translate what I mean into sound. I just say, "we should speak Spanish more often, verdad?" and you agree.

Narcos | Rebecca Rivera

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Trying to write more for National Poetry Month, so here's a lil fiction free-write. "Liza wants me to be "authentic" about my suffering. She says it's something you can't run away from and thinks people should live honestly. I roll my eyes and tell her there are plenty of ways to be honest that don't include adopting the main character flaw of Holden Caulfield. I tell her Nellie from next door is super honest about loving astrology and doesn't care whether or not anyone likes the posters of the moon in her room. Berto is really honest about being a soccer player and actually likes waking up for his 5am cardio. Most white guys are really honest about liking power dynamics and hold up The Wall Street Journal that close to their face while on the train because they're really considerate about giving everyone else a better chance at reading the headlines in finer print. Liza smiles and says she gets it, but Liza is really honest about "getting people" so she could just be saying that. The point is I'm not running from anything. I mean, I know the reason the breathing gets harder sometimes the same way Andrea knows her kids aren't really at a game night on Friday's when they come home smelling like peach Ciroc. The way I see it there are two options: Andrea could cry and mourn over the fact that her kids are becoming strangers, or she could go the fuck to sleep. Andrea is honest about having good values so she chooses to cry. I'm honest about waking up in the morning so I go the fuck to sleep."

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Sandra Cisneros, Pixar's Coco, and Latinx representation

 Let’s talk about representation, but first, navigation. As in, I have only ever navigated and existed in this world as a women of color (WoC), more specifically, as a Latina. And everything within this identity that I have come to view as a blessing was once its own set of wounds, inherited or otherwise. When I say “inherited wounds”, I mean that women of color either know or come to know that this world was not built for us to thrive in (see racism, sexism, and all of it’s intersections) . And this knowledge is passed down or born into us. It is inherited. And then becomes a truth you cannot separate us from. You cannot separate me from my struggle without erasing a vital part of who I am. But that is understood by those I allow into my life. Now, if you do not know me too well, then here are the basics: 

I am a Latina WoC. I am an artist. I have big dreams. Many goals. No blueprint. And very little representation in the fields I wish to break into. All of these smaller truths have molded my bigger, more personal one which is that - 

I have had to carve out and fight for the space I occupy. I have had to dig deep and coach my now booming voice out of its body. I have had to seek out my own mentors, role-models, and inspirations who looked like me and navigated the world in a similar way. And mostly, I have grown up impatient and starving for representation. 

One way I actively heal and seek out representation is by consciously consuming and surrounding myself with art, films, media, literature, podcasts, and all content produced by women, PoC, and mostly Latinxs. This month it has looked like this: 

I’m not sure why Sandra Cisneros didn’t come into my life sooner being that she is one of the most prominent Latinx writers of our time, but I’m glad I was able to sit down with her words. There is an indescribably comforting feeling that comes with knowing that someone who shares the same name as your mother, has a father with a voice like yours, shares part of your history, can love in the same two languages you can, can easily pass for one of your tia’s, and dreams the way you do, has already accomplished so much. And it’s not that you ever need permission to be great, but reading her books felt like a silent permission. 

These books provided a mirror and a temporary home for me. An excerpt from A House of My Own illustrates why perfectly. Cisneros writes, "We find ourselves at home, or homing, in books that allow us to become more ourselves. Home 'is not just the place where you were born,' as the traveler Pico Iyer once noted. 'It's the place where you become yourself.'"

part 2 in this month’s healing looked like this:

Before going to see Pixar’s newest box-office hit “Coco”, I was warned not to wear my signature winged eye-liner to the theater. Two on-screen duets and several wet tissues later, I was glad I had adhered to that advice.

If after my previous spiel about representation and navigating the world as a Latina/WoC you are still wondering what warranted such a teary-eyed response (besides the fact that Pixar endlessly loves to pluck at the heart strings of their audience) I want you to picture this:

A young Latina woman with the goal of one day becoming a successful actress goes to the cinema and for the first time in her twenty-two years of living is watching an animated film in which the characters look like her uncles, and cousins, and aunts. For the first time she can point to the screen and say, “that is me”, “that is us”. And in this way, watching “Coco” felt like coming home; like walking into a room full of the people I love and belong to, but who are rarely ever celebrated - especially in such a public way.

I went to see this movie with my boyfriend and nine-year-old sister. Being able to take her to see this film was another victory in itself (on par with being able to take her to see Wonder Woman). I had to wait twenty-two years to see this kind of representation in film; one that is both authentic and empowering. But my sister is still in the midst of her childhood; still being molded and shaped into the person she will become later in life, and I hope that holding these mirrors up to her this early on in her development will prevent her from inheriting the wounds I have had to fight daily to heal myself from.

And so, in the midst of all the tears, the melancholic sounds of guitar strings strong enough to conjure my grandfather’s face, and holding the hands of my younger sister- a silent way of saying, “can you believe it, Sofie? He (the protagonist) has our last name?” a part of my younger, more broken self was healed and for that I am endlessly grateful.

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Mami says college is important. Says beauty fades, men leave, and entire countries slip through your teenage fingers, but no one can take a college degree from you. A degree is with you, always. Is a shield/ to any mocking of the way English sits inside a mouth. Mami says, ‘I may have an accent, but I graduated summa cum laude/ took charge in all of my group related coursework, even if they did not want me in the group. I didn’t care, I had daughters to feed.’ Mami says never to rely on anyone / on any man/ says, ‘your grandfather drank until the liquor burned a hole in his throat, then in everything else/ but I didn’t focus on what I couldn’t control/ and read my books instead. You know I was going to be a lawyer/ can you imagine me? A lawyer? I had a year left, but then even the trees began to smell like whiskey, so your mamita moved to the states and it was hard for me not to follow the only other person I had buried my heart in. The first three years were the hardest. I worked as a waitress and cried every day. You know they tell you about the cold, but never about the people. I didn’t know any of my neighbor’s names. I smiled to no one in particular. I missed Yadira, Ivonne, and Javier. Pero, que puedes hacer? you either adjust, or never stop crying/ and I did/ adjust I mean/ finished school with you attached to my hip/ became a teacher and a dean/ gave you my love of words. You know that’s where you get it from right? I can recite/ Gabriel Garcia Marquez from memory/ I teach/ The House on Mango Street to all my students. You know that line about the ghosts? and how they do not ache so much?/ Sometimes I think Sandra Cisneros was writing about me/ and I mean she could have been/ after all we share the same first name/ but I think she has your heart/ your affinity for dreams/ your lips and all their learned defiance/ and that’s fine / as long as you don’t get too malcriada/ as long as you get to where you’re going/ as long as you call me when you get there/ and give me a kiss before you leave.’

Mami Says | Rebecca Rivera

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Rebecca ve a mudarte al país donde todo el mundo se ve cómo tú y escriben historias de gente cómo tú. Ahí serías más feliz. 😊

no deseo mudarme a ningún lado. no debería tener que mudarme para ver a gente como yo y poder encontrar nuestras historias. Nuestras historias existen y hay gente que las quiere contar. Por eso estoy aquí. Y seguiré estando aquí escribiendo, gritando, y moviendo mi gente para adelante. Así seré feliz.

[rebeccariveraa]

I have no interest in voluntarily partaking in anything that does not consider me. I don’t want to read books that do not consider me. I don’t want to watch films or tv shows that do not consider me. I don’t want to listen to podcasts or go to see plays that do not consider me. 

I want only this: to see myself reflected everywhere. To look up from a book and see the faces of my aunts in strangers, then look back down and hear their booming laughter rising from the ink. I want to go to the cinema and watch my sister fall in love on-screen and not have her be wearing a skimpy red dress while doing it. I want to hear our stories on NPR. The bad and good ones, too; the stories of neighborhoods gone, but not forgotten because they are burned into the memories of our uncles, and cousins, and women who look like our mothers but aren’t. Women who sing songs in Spanish and always find a window to look out of. I want to learn of the battle cries, of the blood shed, of all the men and women with brown and glistening skin - not just of the sound of my own howl; the way it rushes to empty me of my sadness. The way it begs the moon for all our buried names.