where am i going
by Yazud Brito-Milian
for my papi & my brothers
where are we? a bleeding border. a ghost ancestor mopping it up.
another on lookout watching the sun. a stolen gavel mashes soft fruit
to the music. they whisper some dreams stay dreams. they call the sonidera
and ask her to make a sonido for sadness. where are we going?
a country where my momma’s wounds can’t enter. land with water food
peace of mind. sometimes silence is its own music like 2007
when abuelito passed and love grew thicker. a land where not everything
costs a whole body. a land where music gets so loud it harbors grief.
the tejas sun left burn marks on my face after stealing my brothers
as the moon bore witness. in blue-red light, our blood glows black. procedural
safeguards collapse inward and so, send me back to my kin’s killers, my burning
country, ma, are we there yet? where the sun is the same sun. where i sleep, earbuds
spilling out pop songs. exposed wire at my neck, you sing soft
no country can hold us, no country can hold us.
where are we? a bleeding border. a ghost ancestor mopping it up.
another on lookout watching the sun. a stolen gavel mashes soft fruit
to the music. they whisper some dreams stay dreams. they call the sonidera
and ask her to make a sonido for sadness. where are we going?
a country where my momma’s wounds can’t enter. land with water food
peace of mind. sometimes silence is its own music like 2007
when abuelito passed and love grew thicker. a land where not everything
costs a whole body. a land where music gets so loud it harbors grief.
the tejas sun left burn marks on my face after stealing my brothers
as the moon bore witness. in blue-red light, our blood glows black. procedural
safeguards collapse inward and so, send me back to my kin’s killers, my burning
country, ma, are we there yet? where the sun is the same sun. where i sleep, earbuds
spilling out pop songs. exposed wire at my neck, you sing soft
no country can hold us, no country can hold us.
Yazud E. Brito-Milian (they/them) is a Chicane poet, abolitionist organizer, and legal aid worker. Born in Winston-Salem, NC, and currently based in Chicago, IL, they are actively working on their first chapbook, "crossfade." Yazud is the recipient of the University of Chicago’s New Voice in Poetry Award (2023), selected by Wendy Xu. Their work can be found in publications such as Voicemail Poems, The Poetry Project, and Blacklight Magazine. You can connect with Yazud on Instagram at @yasudbloom.