Nothing More Exhilarating ... Than Saving Yourself

When I Was Thinking About These Women Characters, No Matter How Bad A Person I Am - A Bad Writer, My Limitations, My Sexism, You Know - The Thought Was, It Would Be Useful As A Writer To Try To Create A Template For All The Male Writers, Especially Dominican Male Writers, Especially Males Of Color, Of How A Writer Can Use Seeing To Create More Nuanced Representations Of Women.

I Can't Imagine Anybody Who Ends Up Being An Artist Who Didn't Pass Through A Time Of Geekiness.

But Back Then, In Those First Days, I Was So Alone That Every Day Was Like Eating My Own Heart.

Do You Remember? When The Fights Seemed To Go On And On, And Always Ended With Us In Bed, Tearing At Each Other Like Maybe That Could Change Everything. In A Couple Of Months You'd Be Seeing Somebody Else And I Would Too; She Was No Darker Than You But She Washed Her Panties In The Shower And Had Hair Like A Sea Of Little Punos And The First Time You Saw Us, You Turned Around And Boarded A Bus I Knew You Didn't Have To Take. When My Girl Said, Who Was That? I Said, Just Some Girl.

Sucks To Be Left Out Of Adolescence, Sort Of Like Getting Locked In The Closet On Venus When The Sun Appears For The First Time In A Hundred Years.