I Act Most Like Myself... When I'm

[immigrating] Didn't Burn Out My Desire To Travel, Though That Can Happen. There's Nothing Like Immigration To Make You Want To Just Stay Put. But What I Think Of As Home Is This Life Between Santo Domingo And The Parts Of New Jersey And New York City That Were My Childhood, So In My Mind It's Like Home Is All Those Things Combined.

Nilda Is Watching The Ground As Though She's Afraid She Might Fall. My Heart Is Beating And I Think, We Could Do Anything. We Could Marry. We Could Drive Off To The West Coast. We Could Start Over. It's All Possible But Neither Of Us Speaks For A Long Time And The Moment Closes And We're Back In The World We've Always Known.

Even If You Didn't Come From Another Country, The Idea Of How Do You Make A Home Somewhere New Is Common To Anyone Who's Either Going To College, Shifting Towns.

Now People Like Susan Sarandon Are Noticing That People Of Color Live This Way?! This Is The Way I've Always Lived! What's Happened Is That It Has Now Reached A Level Of National Discourse Where It's On The Table. But They've Never Minded That We Were Treated Like This Off-stage.

You Whispered My Full Name And We Fell Asleep In Each Other's Arms And I Remember How The Next Morning You Were Gone, Completely Gone, And Nothing In My Bed Or The House Could Have Proven Otherwise.