“Now It’s My Turn”
They twisted the story
until the scream became
a museum piece.
Until the bones
were labeled
and sold.
They knew.
They always knew.
They knew what they did
to my great-grandparents,
when they took the fields
and renamed them.
When they took the language
and folded it into silence.
They tortured
my relatives,
my parents —
with exile, with papers,
with polite rejection
and maps drawn
by strangers.
And now,
it’s my turn.
Not with chains —
but with questions,
with jobs I’ll never get,
with voices that say:
“Why can’t you move on?”
Or some Spaniards calling me a “bitch”.
I carry their pain
in my DNA,
but also in the way
doors close
when I speak.
I walk in rooms
already judged.
I speak in tongues
they tried to erase.
And still,
I do not break.
This is the curse
they handed down —
but it’s also
the proof I survived.
Let them look away.
I will not.
It’s my turn now.
And I
remember
everything.