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Dr. Melinda González, a native of Newark, New Jersey with ancestral home in Moca, Puerto Rico, is an Afro-Indigenous scholar-activist-poet of Puerto Rican descent. She has performed poetry internationally under the name Poeta Guerrera. Melinda is from Newark, NJ and Moca, PR. Her poetry ranges in style and depth. At moments it rages in political fire – angry at the injustices that plague the world. Other pieces are deep and personal – commenting on a painful childhood that has fueled her love for artistic expression. Having always searched for a deeper meaning and understanding to life, Melinda’s personal experiences in different religions has impacted her work. Her poetry captures her journey through life’s difficult emotions. She has been published in several literary journals and self-published two poetry books – Ramas y Raices (Branches & Roots) and ReConstruct.
©2021 West Trade Review
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Melinda González
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Agua es Vida / #waterislife
Bebe.
Nena, bebe agua.
The words so easily, casually roll off my mother's tongue.
Drink. Drink water, girl.
I go to oblige, but when the sink opens,
it's the color of bronze, chunks of rusted metals threatening to sneak by, covered in --
these things I try to forget, like the bottles of opioids we flushed down the toilet, and now,
the water is hardly safe for flushing down excrement with it, and I,
I wake up in a cold sweat on many nights envisioning the equator all made of water bottles, plastic in my chest, marinating in my guts, a sort of cyborg I've become, and then,
Nena bebe. Bebe agua.
Water drink, drink water because all the things that ain't it are gonna kill you, girl. Bebe.
My mother brags about looking so young because she hydrates,
Sun-kissed skin drenched in water, but,
I wake up in a cold sweat when I remember,
Swans a swimming in crude oil, white feathers blackened by debris.
Bebe. Nena bebe agua,
but my throat closes up with the words.
A Nestle tycoon aims to own the water in Bolivia, a war breaks,
An oil tycoon threatens the sacred lands of Standing Rock, a war breaks,
A political tycoon does nothing about the infested waters in Flint or Newark, and still,
Nena bebe. Bebe agua.
Replenish with this thing you're 78 percent of,
I awake but asleep.
An ocean full of it, my guts, too, all plastic.
Nena bebe. Bebe agua, but even that is poison now, too.
Image by Stormseeker on Unsplash
