the return

Still catch­ing up with the ex­pe­ri­ence out in Borikén, but I can tell you as clear as the wa­ter I swam in this morn­ing … main­land Amer­i­cans are not saviors. 

I am no hero. I have been blessed in a way that will take years to ful­ly re­al­ize and man­i­fest while in Borikén. By the peo­ple. By the land. By the wa­ters. By the en­er­gy. And by the love. I swam in warm ocean wa­ters for the first time and let go of tears my an­ces­tors didn’t know how to cry. 

I didn’t speak the lan­guage but every­one found ways to com­mu­ni­cate heart to heart be­yond words. I got to see the ef­fects of my an­ces­tors’ greed and re­ceived op­por­tu­ni­ties to be­gin heal­ing. I learned far more than I taught. I was giv­en so much more than I could ever give. I ate the best food I’ve ever had straight from the land with peo­ple it felt like I have known my whole life the mo­ment I met them. 

I felt an ex­cite­ment and love for mu­sic in a way I haven’t since I first heard Hip Hop lis­ten­ing to live Ple­na out­side a hos­tel named af­ter a grandmother’s love. I am still over­whelmed with hon­or to come not as a tourist but as fam­i­ly. I wit­nessed re­silience in ways I have nev­er seen. 

I wit­nessed the true de­f­i­n­i­tion of com­mu­ni­ty on the is­land. I re­mem­bered how mag­ic I am and how pow­er­ful we can be col­lec­tive­ly. And now I’m head­ed home … to try and make it feel a lit­tle more like the home that I got to ex­pe­ri­ence the last two weeks. 

For­ev­er grate­ful Borikén. For­ev­er grate­ful Sol Col­lec­tive. Hel­la hel­la love. 

#De­fend­PR
#Sol­Life
#Glob­al­Lo­cal
 
 

—an­dru defeye

Flom­mist An­dru De­f­eye is the Guer­ril­la Poet Lau­re­ate of Sacra­men­to. Copy­right © 2018 An­dru Defeye.

MOR D’ARTÍCULOS  MOR FLOMM !

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bro­ken in­de­pen­dent at heart, cu­ri­ous by nature mac, artist, mu­si­cian, human pa­hang, malaysia da­guerre whole­some storytime mam­postería de la suerte #sol­life in com­erío, puer­to rico