There is something strange about turning something deeply personal into something public.
You write it alone.
You feel it alone.
And then suddenly it belongs to a room full of people.
That is exactly what happened with my poem for the O, Miami Poetry Festival as part of the 305 Generation project.
What started as something quiet, something rooted in memory and in my abuelita, became something shared. And not just shared, felt.
I ended up placing second, which still feels surreal to say out loud. But if I am being honest, the placement is not the part that is staying with me.
It was the reaction.
It was people stopping me throughout the night, in passing, on the way to the bathroom, just to tell me what the poem meant to them.
It was hearing that the way I delivered it, the inflection, the voice, the emotion, made it land in a way they did not expect.
That is the part you cannot plan for.
As an artist, I have always loved taking something imagined and making it real. Usually that shows up in drawings, animation, and the strange little characters that live in my head. This felt different.
This was me.
No characters. No buffer. Just words and voice.
And somehow that vulnerability turned into connection.
I have been sharing small pieces of what I am working on lately, bits of animation, fragments of ideas, but this felt like a moment worth sharing in full.
So here it is.
The poem. The performance. The moment.
Thank you to everyone who listened, who felt something, who came up to me and shared a kind word. And thank you to the 305 Generation project for creating space for voices like mine.
This one meant a lot.