reading

Advance Praise for

“A story that will slam the power of poetry and love back into your heart.”

—LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON, author of National Book Award finalists Speak and Chains

“Elizabeth Acevedo crackles with energy and snaps with authenticity and voice. Every poem in this stunningly addictive and deliciously rhythmic verse novel begs to be read aloud. Xiomara is a protagonist who readers will cheer for at every turn. As X might say, Acevedo’s got bars. Don’t pass this one by.”

—JUSTINA IRELAND, author of Dread Nation

“I devoured this magnificent work of art. Elizabeth Acevedo gets everything right, bringing the magic of the verse novel to stunning new heights. A glorious achievement. This is a story about what it means to be a writer and how to survive when it feels like the whole world’s turned against you. Required reading for everybody alive today.”

—DANIEL JOSÉ OLDER, author of the Shadowshaper Cypher series

“Though vivid with detail about family, love, and culture, The Poet X is more of an exploration of when the poet becomes the poem. Xiomara teeters between verbosity and restraint, shape and form, rewriting and sharing. Most important, the poet (and poem) searches for the freedom to stand on her own. Acevedo delivers an incredibly potent debut.”

—JASON REYNOLDS, author of National Book Award finalist Ghost

“In The Poet X, Acevedo skillfully sculpts powerful, self-contained poems into a masterpiece of a story, and has amplified the voices of girls en el barrio who are equal parts goddess, saint, warrior, and hero.”

—IBI ZOBOI, author of American Street

First published in USA 2018 by HarperCollins Children’s Books

First published in Great Britain 2018

by Egmont UK Limited

The Yellow Building, 1 Nicholas Road, London W11 4AN

Published by arrangement with HarperCollins Children’s Books, a division of HarperCollins Publishers, New York, New York, USA

First e-book edition 2018

ISBN 978 1 4052 9146 0

Ebook ISBN 978 1 7803 1844 8

www.egmont.co.uk

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Stay safe online. Any website addresses listed in this book are correct at the time of going to print. However, Egmont is not responsible for content hosted by third parties. Please be aware that online content can be subject to change and websites can contain content that is unsuitable for children. We advise that all children are supervised when using the internet.

To Katherine Bolaños and my former students

at Buck Lodge Middle School 2010–2012,

and all the little sisters yearning to see themselves:

this is for you

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

PART 1: In the Beginning Was the Word

Stoop-Sitting

Unhide-able

Mira, Muchacha

Names

The First Words

Mami Works

Confirmation Class

God

“Mami,” I Say to Her on the Walk Home

When You’re Born to Old Parents

When You’re Born to Old Parents, Continued

When You’re Born to Old Parents, Continued Again

The Last Word on Being Born to Old Parents

Rumor Has It,

First Confirmation Class

Father Sean

Haiku

Boys

Caridad and I Shouldn’t Be Friends

Questions I Have

Night before First Day of School

H.S.

Ms. Galiano

Rough Draft of Assignment 1—Write about the most impactful day of your life.

Final Draft of Assignment 1 (What I Actually Turn In)

The Routine

Altar Boy

Twin’s Name

More about Twin

It’s Only the First Week of Tenth Grade

How I Feel about Attention

Games

After

Okay?

On Sunday

During Communion

Church Mass

Not Even Close to Haikus

Holy Water

People Say

On Papi

All Over a Damn Wafer

The Flyer

After the Buzz Dies Down

Aman

Whispering with Caridad Later That Day

What Twin Be Knowing

Sharing

Questions for Ms. Galiano

Spoken Word

Wait—

Holding a Poem in the Body

J. Cole vs. Kendrick Lamar

Asylum

What I Tell Aman:

Dreaming of Him Tonight

The Thing about Dreams

Date

Mami’s Dating Rules

Clarification on Dating Rules

Feeling Myself

PART II: And the Word Was Made Flesh

Smoke Parks

I Decided a Long Time Ago

Why Twin Is a Terrible Twin

Why Twin Is a Terrible Twin, for Real

Why Twin Is a Terrible Twin (Last and Most Important Reason)

But Why Twin Is Still the Only Boy I’ll Ever Love

Communication

About A

Catching Feelings

Notes with Aman

What I Didn’t Say to Caridad in Confirmation Class

Lectures

Ms. Galiano’s Sticky Note on Top of Assignment 1

Sometimes Someone Says Something

Listening

Mother Business

And Then He Does

Warmth

The Next Couple of Weeks

Eve,

“I Think the Story of Genesis Is Mad Stupid”

As We Are Packing to Leave

Father Sean

Answers

Rough Draft Assignment 2—Last Paragraphs of My Biography

Final Draft of Assignment 2 (What I Actually Turn In)

Hands

Fingers

Talking Church

Swoon

Telephone

Over Breakfast

Angry Cat, Happy X

About Being in Like

Music

Ring the Alarm

The Day

Wants

At My Train Stop

What I Don’t Tell Aman

Kiss Stamps

The Last Fifteen-Year-Old

Concerns

What Twin Knows

Hanging Over My Head

Friday

Black & Blue

Tight

Excuses

Costume Ready

Reuben’s House Party

One Dance

Stoop-Sitting . . . with Aman

Convos with Caridad

Braiding

Fights

Scrapping

What We Don’t Say

Gay

Feeling Off When Twin Is Mad

Rough Draft of Assignment 3—Describe someone you consider misunderstood by society.

Final Draft of Assignment 3 (What I Actually Turn In)

Announcements

Ice-Skating

Until

Love

Around and Around We Go

After Skating

This Body on Fire

The Shit & the Fan

Miracles

Fear

Ants

I Am No Ant

Diplomas

Cuero

Mami Says,

Repetition

Things You Think While You’re Kneeling on Rice That Have Nothing to Do with Repentance:

Another Thing You Think While You’re Kneeling on Rice That Has Nothing to Do with Repentance:

The Last Thing You Think While You’re Kneeling on Rice That Has Nothing to Do with Repentance:

Leaving

What Do You Need from Me?

Consequences

Late That Night

In Front of My Locker

PART III: The Voice of One Crying in the Wilderness

Silent World

Heavy

My Confession

Father Sean Says,

Prayers

How I Can Tell

Before We Walk in the House

My Heart Is a Hand

A Poem Mami Will Never Read

In Translation

Heartbreak

Reminders

Writing

What I’d Like to Tell Aman When He Sends Another Apology Message:

Favors

Pulled Back

On Thanksgiving

Haiku: The Best Part About Thanksgiving Was When Mami:

Rough Draft of Assignment 4—When was the last time you felt free?

Final Draft of Assignment 4 (What I Actually Turn In)

Gone

Zeros

Possibilities

Can’t Tell Me Nothing

Isabelle

First Poetry Club Meeting

Nerves

When I’m Done

Compliments

Caridad Is Standing Outside the Church

Hope Is a Thing with Wings

Here

Haikus

Offering

Holding Twin

Cody

Problems

Dominican Spanish Lesson:

Permission

Open Mic Night

Signed Up

The Mic Is Open

Invitation

All the Way Hype

At Lunch on Monday

At Poetry Club

Every Day after English Class

Christmas Eve

It’s a Rosary

Longest Week

The Waiting Game

Birthdays

The Good

The Bad

The Ugly

Let Me Explain

If Your Hand Causes You to Sin

Verses

Burn

Where There Is Smoke

Things You Think About in the Split Second Your Notebook Is Burning

Other Things You Think About in the Split Second Your Notebook Is Burning

My Mother Tries to Grab Me

Returning

On the Walk to the Train

The Ride

No Turning Back

Taking Care

In Aman’s Arms

And I Also Know

Tangled

The Next Move

There Are Words

Facing It

“You Don’t Have to Do Anything You Don’t Want to Do.”

What I Say to Ms. Galiano After She Passes Me a Kleenex

Going Home

Aman, Twin, and Caridad

Divine Intervention

Homecoming

My Mother and I

Stronger

Slam Prep

Ms. Galiano Explains the Five Rules of Slam:

Xiomara’s Secret Rules of Slam:

The Poetry Club’s Real Rules of Slam:

Poetic Justice

The Afternoon of the Slam

At the New York Citywide Slam

Celebrate with Me

Assignment 5—First and Final Draft

Acknowledgments

PART I

In the Beginning Was the Word

Friday, August 24

Stoop-Sitting

The summer is made for stoop-sitting

and since it’s the last week before school starts,

Harlem is opening its eyes to September.

I scope out this block I’ve always called home.

Watch the old church ladies, chancletas flapping

against the pavement, their mouths letting loose a train

of island Spanish as they spread he said, she said.

Peep Papote from down the block

as he opens the fire hydrant

so the little kids have a sprinkler to run through.

Listen to honking cabs with bachata blaring

from their open windows

compete with basketballs echoing from the Little Park.

Laugh at the viejos—my father not included—

finishing their dominoes tournament with hard slaps

and yells of “Capicu!”

Shake my head as even the drug dealers posted up

near the building smile more in the summer, their hard scowls

softening into glue-eyed stares in the direction

of the girls in summer dresses and short shorts:

“Ayo, Xiomara, you need to start wearing dresses like that!”

“Shit, you’d be wifed up before going back to school.”

“Especially knowing you church girls are all freaks.”

But I ignore their taunts, enjoy this last bit of freedom,

and wait for the long shadows to tell me

when Mami is almost home from work,

when it’s time to sneak upstairs.

Unhide-able

I am unhide-able.

Taller than even my father, with what Mami has always said

was “a little too much body for such a young girl.”

I am the baby fat that settled into D-cups and swinging hips

so that the boys who called me a whale in middle school

now ask me to send them pictures of myself in a thong.

The other girls call me conceited. Ho. Thot. Fast.

When your body takes up more room than your voice

you are always the target of well-aimed rumors,

which is why I let my knuckles talk for me.

Which is why I learned to shrug when my name was replaced by insults.

I’ve forced my skin just as thick as I am.

Mira, Muchacha

Is Mami’s favorite way to start a sentence

and I know I’ve already done something wrong

when she hits me with: “Look, girl . . .”

This time it’s “Mira, muchacha, Marina from across the street

told me you were on the stoop again talking to los vendedores.”

Like usual, I bite my tongue and don’t correct her,

because I hadn’t been talking to the drug dealers;

they’d been talking to me. But she says she doesn’t

want any conversation between me and those boys,

or any boys at all, and she better not hear about me hanging out

like a wet shirt on a clothesline just waiting to be worn

or she would go ahead and be the one to wring my neck.

“Oíste?” she asks, but walks away before I can answer.

Sometimes I want to tell her, the only person in this house

who isn’t heard is me.

Names

I’m the only one in the family

without a biblical name.

Shit, Xiomara isn’t even Dominican.

I know, because I Googled it.

It means: One who is ready for war.

And truth be told, that description is about right

because I even tried to come into the world

in a fighting stance: feet first.

Had to be cut out of Mami

after she’d given birth

to my twin brother, Xavier, just fine.

And my name labors out of some people’s mouths

in that same awkward and painful way.

Until I have to slowly say:

See-oh-MAH-ruh.

I’ve learned not to flinch the first day of school

as teachers get stuck stupid trying to figure it out.

Mami says she thought it was a saint’s name.

Gave me this gift of battle and now curses

how well I live up to it.

My parents probably wanted a girl who would sit in the pews

wearing pretty florals and a soft smile.

They got combat boots and a mouth silent

until it’s sharp as an island machete.

The First Words

Pero, tú no eres fácil

is a phrase I’ve heard my whole life.

When I come home with my knuckles scraped up:

Pero, tú no eres fácil.

When I don’t wash the dishes quickly enough,

or when I forget to scrub the tub:

Pero, tú no eres fácil.

Sometimes it’s a good thing,

when I do well on an exam or the rare time I get an award:

Pero, tú no eres fácil.

When my mother’s pregnancy was difficult,

and it was all because of me,

because I was turned around

and they thought that I would die

or worse,

that I would kill her,

so they held a prayer circle at church

and even Father Sean showed up at the emergency room,

Father Sean, who held my mother’s hand

as she labored me into the world,

and Papi paced behind the doctor,

who said this was the most difficult birth she’d been a part of

but instead of dying I came out wailing,

waving my tiny fists,

and the first thing Papi said,

the first words I ever heard,

“Pero, tú no eres fácil.”

You sure ain’t an easy one.

Mami Works

Cleaning an office building in Queens.

Rides two trains in the early morning

so she can arrive at the office by eight.

She works at sweeping, and mopping,

emptying trash bins, and being invisible.

Her hands never stop moving, she says.

Her fingers rubbing the material of plastic gloves

like the pages of her well-worn Bible.

Mami rides the train in the afternoon,

another hour and some change to get to Harlem.

She says she spends her time reading verses,

getting ready for the evening Mass,

and I know she ain’t lying, but if it were me

I’d prop my head against the metal train wall,

hold my purse tight in my lap, close my eyes

against the rocking, and try my best to dream.

Tuesday, August 28

Confirmation Class

Mami has wanted me to take the sacrament

of confirmation for three years now.

The first year, in eighth grade, the class got full

before we could sign up, and even with all her heavenly pull

Mami couldn’t get a spot for Twin and me.

Father Sean told her it’d be fine if we waited.

Last year, Caridad, my best friend, extended her trip in D.R.

right when we were supposed to begin the classes,

so I asked if I could wait another year.

Mami didn’t like it, but since she’s friends with Caridad’s mother

Twin went ahead and did the class without me.

This year, Mami has filled out the forms,

signed me up, and marched me to church

before I can tell her that Jesus feels like a friend

I’ve had my whole childhood

who has suddenly become brand-new;

who invites himself over too often, who texts me too much.

A friend I just don’t think I need anymore.

(I know, I know . . . even writing that is blasphemous.)

But I don’t know how to tell Mami that this year,

it’s not about feeling unready,

it’s about knowing that this doubt has already been confirmed.

God

It’s not any one thing

that makes me wonder

about the capital G.O.D.

About a holy trinity

that don’t include the mother.

It’s all the things.

Just seems as I got older

I began to really see

the way that church

treats a girl like me differently.

Sometimes it feels

all I’m worth is under my skirt

and not between my ears.

Sometimes I feel

that turning the other cheek

could get someone like my brother killed.

Sometimes I feel

my life would be easier

if I didn’t feel like such a debt

to a God

that don’t really seem

to be out here checking for me.

“Mami,” I Say to Her on the Walk Home

The words sit in my belly,

and I use my nerves

like a pulley to lift

them out of my mouth.

“Mami, what if I don’t

do confirmation?

What if I waited a bit for—”

But she cuts me off,

her index finger a hard exclamation point

in front of my face.

“Mira, muchacha,”

she starts, “I will

feed and clothe no heathens.”

She tells me I owe it to

God and myself to devote.

She tells me this country is too soft

and gives kids too many choices.

She tells me if I don’t confirm here

she will send me to D.R.,

where the priests and nuns know

how to elicit true piety.

I look at her scarred knuckles.

I know exactly how she was taught

faith.

When You’re Born to Old Parents

Who’d given up hope for children

and then are suddenly gifted with twins,

you will be hailed a miracle.

An answered prayer.

A symbol of God’s love.

The neighbors will make the sign of the cross

when they see you,

thankful you were not a tumor

in your mother’s belly

like the whole barrio feared.

When You’re Born to Old Parents, Continued

Your father will never touch rum again.

He will stop hanging out at the bodega

where the old men go to flirt.

He will no longer play music

that inspires swishing or thrusting.

You will not grow up listening

to the slow pull of an accordion

or rake of the güira.

Your father will become “un hombre serio.”

Merengue might be your people’s music

but Papi will reject anything

that might sing him toward temptation.

When You’re Born to Old Parents, Continued Again

Your mother will engrave

your name on a bracelet,

the words Mi Hija on the other side.

This will be your favorite gift.

This will become a despised shackle.

Your mother will take to church

like a dove thrust into the sky.

She was faithful before, but now

she will go to Mass every single day.

You will be forced to go with her

until your knees learn the splinters of pews,

the mustiness of incense,

the way a priest’s robe tries to shush silent

all the echoing doubts

ringing in your heart.

The Last Word on Being Born to Old Parents

You will learn to hate it.

No one, not even your twin brother,

will understand the burden

you feel because of your birth;

your mother has sight for nothing

but you two and God;

your father seems to be serving

a penance, an oath of solitary silence.

Their gazes and words

are heavy with all the things

they want you to be.

It is ungrateful to feel like a burden.

It is ungrateful to resent my own birth.

I know that Twin and I are miracles.

Aren’t we reminded every single day?

Rumor Has It,

Mami was a comparona:

stuck-up, they said, head high in the air,

hair that flipped so hard

that shit was doing somersaults.

Mami was born en La Capital,

in a barrio of thirst buckets

who wrote odes to her legs,

but the only man Mami wanted

was nailed to a cross.

Since she was a little girl

Mami wanted to wear a habit,

wanted prayer and the closest

thing to an automatic heaven admission

she could get.

Rumor has it, Mami was forced to marry Papi;

nominated by her family

so she could travel to the States.

It was supposed to be a business deal,

but thirty years later, here they still are.

And I don’t think Mami’s ever forgiven Papi

for making her cheat on Jesus.

Or all the other things he did.

Tuesday, September 4

First Confirmation Class

And I already want to pop the other kids right in the face.

They stare at me like they don’t got the good sense—

or manners—I’m sure their moms gave them.

I clip my tongue between my teeth

and don’t say nothing, don’t curse them out.