You keep waiting for the heaviness to leave you. You keep waiting for the moment you never think about the ex again. It doesn't come.

We can speculate. Last time I checked, the future doesn't take my advice.

For a long time, I let my mother say what she wanted about me, and what was worse, for a long time I believed her.

Tell her that you love her hair, that you love her skin, her lips, because, in truth, you love them more than you love your own.

You said i could call you when i wanted but that you wouldn’t call me. you have to decide where and when, you said. if you leave it up to me i’ll want to see you every day. At least you were honest, which is more than i can say for me.

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.

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.