I am barefoot

I am barefoot

I am barefoot.

The terracotta tiles burn my feet if I stop moving so I don’t

Julio and Ramon and Juan and Freddie and Isabel are barefoot too

We run, we kick the ball, we fall, we get up, we run

I run fast, faster, fastest

Gone

I never went back

I’m wearing shoes

My belly is full and my clothes are freshly laundered

Julio and Ramon and Juan and Isabel are still barefoot in Caracas

They don’t know where Freddie went

12 long years have passed since I ran barefoot in the plaza

My blood still runs amarillo, azul, y rojo, but my skin has been painted with red, white, and blue

I can hardly remember the heat of the tiles anymore and I’m not even sure that I want to

Because if I remember those terracotta tiles, I’ll remember everything else

The barbed wire on the walls

The armed guards on the streets

The protests and the tear gas and the gun shots

Freddie’s ribs showing through the holes in his shirt

Regardless of what I want and don’t want to remember, Venezuela follows me wherever I go like the frail mother I left behind long ago,

She looks at me dolefully from beneath her wrinkled folds,

In her eyes there’s a spark of recognition so she tugs at my sleeve,

She’s begging me to help however I can,

Begging me to be there for her as her strength fails,

Begging me to remember how she once cared for me,

Begging me to repay her love in her time of need,

Begging me to call her mother again…

Julio and Ramon and Juan and Freddie and Isabel, just know you’re not alone

And to my grandmother Tita, who just last week was diagnosed with malnutrition, just know that your grandson has not become complacent since catching that last flight from the Simon Bolivar,

For though these hands cannot lift you unaided, and though this voice by itself isn’t loud enough to rally the cavalry, help is coming

Because I am not alone

Here in the land of McDonalds and Starbucks there are thousands of barefoot shoe-clad soldiers

We have not forgotten that our blood runs Amarillo, azul, y rojo

We have not forgotten how to dance the merengue

We have not forgotten that the moon is most beautiful over Maracai

We have not forgotten the taste of arepas

And we have not forgotten the feeling of terracotta tiles burning our callused toes

We have not forgotten you

I am barefoot