The English swept in, louder, heavier, the language of homework, of teachers correcting, of fitting in at any cost. I tucked Spanish away, like seashells forgotten in a drawer, until silence replaced their sound. But the island calls me back. In the taste of mangú, In bachata pulsing from my cousin’s phone, In the salty wind of Santo Domingo streets, Spanish rises again. Shy at first, Stumbling from my lips, but alive, Like roots pushing through cracked cement. I am learning to hold both; the tongue I lost, the one I cannot lose. Between them, I grow half in shadow, half in sun, Yet wholly myself. 49
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