Birthright

Oh father, you bear your birthright like a cross.

Clutching onto the Cuban luxury you know you deserve,

Resenting the guise of a trip to Disney World

As your only means of escape.

Left everything, you told me, everything;

The maids, the cars, the beaches, the prestige.

Left the life of a soon to be god on Earth.

But the scar of entitlement cannot fade;

Your resentment grew, gorged, devoured,

Your compassion, your ambition, your love.

Oh father, I will not bear your birthright like a cross.

Holding onto resentment is like stabbing yourself

Over and over and over,

Crying, bleeding, hating.

But by killing yourself you cannot change fate.

But by killing yourself you cannot reverse history.

You should have loved me harder;

Sobbed happily over your newborn baby girl

Instead of leaving me and my mother in the hospital

To get some sleep and watch the Super Bowl.

Oh father, I will not bear your birthright like a cross.

A wound, a scar, a shame, your scarlet A,

It is my birthmark shaped like a paint splatter;

It is my huge chocolate eyes and olive skin;

It is the way I cannot dance;

It is the way you never taught me Spanish;

It is the way you never took me to an amusement park or Disney movie;

It is the way I cannot think of any more examples of how young girls bond with their fathers.

Because, instead, you cooked me homemade baby food

Because you wanted to,

And took me to the MoMA instead of the playground

Because you wanted to.

It is the way your depression was shoved in my face

Trying to guilt me into pitying you.

And I do.

Pity you,

This hollowed-out human that let himself

Be eaten alive by his favorite parasite: resentment.

Oh father, I will not bear my birthright like a cross.

I will send every boy I fall in love with

The Wikipedia page about my last name;

I will list Hispanic and Latina on all official documents;

I will smile when boys say they've never met a Cuban girl;

Because I am a dying breed

Conceived through political accident.

I will not resent you.

This is my birthright too.

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