This burning house

I have never seen something burning up close. 

The other day however, while I was making food for some good friends, I burned myself. It wasn't too bad,

but as the days went by a part of my skin charred and wrinkled. The more time passed the stranger it looked, soon it began to peel, and I realized that my skin was literally shedding off the burned parts. And although luckily for me the old skin will be replaced by a new layer underneath, the same can't be said for very much else. Think of paper or matches... or houses. All things that cannot be revived.

Sadly, my house is not the first to be set ablaze. 

Sandra Cisneros, one of my favorite writers, said this about her house in south side Chicago "the house we live in is on fire and the people we love are burning". I too feel the burning sting of the flames every time I read about the plans for my street. I feel my lungs tighten as the smoke slowly suffocates me, every time I overhear the conversations about making room for improvements in my neighborhood, but improvements that won't be for me or the houses like mine. 

And I can't help but think…

What will become of my house once it's all burned out? What will be left? 

I wonder if we will walk through the rubbish like children searching for at least one thing, anything, still familiar. Asking ourselves was anything saved from the fire? And will it even matter if there was? 

And it's true my house has wooden creaky floors that to you sound like noise but to me sound like the strums of guitarras and the drumming of tamboras that my mom danced to on Saturdays. My house is filled with voices that to you sound like jibberish, but are really the language of wisdom, passed down jokes and love. It has an old kitchen that to you requires serious renovations but if you only knew all the illnesses sancochos and tès from that kitchen have cured.

If after you've displaced an entire culture and removed every inch of what it was, will you simply build a new house and move on? Maybe you will. But not without knowing the stories of my house first.  After you've heard and felt the stories of my home then if you still feel free to continue to watch it burn that's on you, but I assure you watching a house burn is probably much harder to do if something in the house was yours too. It’s possible that my stories and those of my house won’t mean anything to you because it’s possible that maybe all you’ve ever known is how to light the match or maybe worse still…maybe your whole existence has been built on watching things burn because they are not yours. 

But all firefighters know you can rebuild and remake, but the things lost in the fire can never be replaced. 

My name is Roberta Cruz.

I am an educator by profession and a writer by passion. I have been writing short stories and poems since I was in the 7th grade. However, it is only recently that I've begun to consider myself a writer .  I write because I don't want to forget, I write because my latinidad compels me to share the stories so that others won't forget either. I was born in the US but claim only Dominican as my identity. I live with my husband and my very cute and clever 5 year old

Instagram: bertaa_cruz_