The Colony is Dead

Time is running, running, running
Time’s done run out
-The Last Poets

Death announces itself with an unmistakable certainty.  Any doubt in our minds speaks more to our denial, does nothing to shake its inevitability.  Recent events, beyond the atrocious realities of Puerto Rico’s history as a possession of the US, have revealed the absurd escalation of an impossible situation.  But as everything comes to a head, building pressure to the point of combustion, again, it speaks to the chaos that ensues when death comes knocking, but few are bold enough to answer the door.

Every material thing expires at some point or another.  It fades, unravels, rots, decomposes, rusts, disintegrates. It stops working.  The inherent wisdom of our spirits alerts us to this death. But of course, we wouldn’t be human if we didn’t hang on, dragged across the floor by the leg of a toxic lover leaving.  Some of us just don’t know when or how to let go.

The universe has spoken. Stars, swelling surfs and hurricanes have aligned to boldly proclaim that the colony of Puerto Rico has long died.  Still, its pro-statehood governor carries around with its carcass, both reeking of decay.  The colonial carcass drops the hair and teeth of its decomposing self every stop along their journey.

The colony was formerly on life support with enough real estate, restaurants, casinos and electric lights to mask its reality. It was kept breathing by a machine so that when the lights went out, it would signal the end.  The lights have been out for 7 months.

Statehood isn’t a solution nor is it a resuscitation.  Statehood is the zombification of the corpse for spiritual exploitation. It is the living doll pricked by imperialist pins to carry out unthinkable, soul-selling services at the master’s request.

The colony is so dead, its drowned-self balloons with the gas byproducts of its own decomposition.  They weigh it down with chains and bricks, but every few days its swollen self rises back to the surface, demands to be fished out, given a proper burial.

We are spiritually wired to resist death every step of the way.  It is the instinct that ensures our survival, the instinct tasked with ensuring our longevity for the purpose of fulfilling our mission here.  And when we go at our own time, there is no miracle or prayer to bring breath back into our bodies.  We are called to other missions elsewhere.  The temporary space ships of our human bodies are set to self-destruct.

There lies the secret, of spirit, of transcendence.  Of embracing and embodying our own greatness versus begging for acceptance from our oppressors.  There is nothing we are owed or have to beg for from anyone.  There is only that which we can grant ourselves. There will be no vote, nor war to secure this liberation.  There will be no choice.  It has already been made. The colony is dead!

Embrace your liberation.  Claim it for yourselves.  No one will grant it.  It is not an object to be given.  Stand in your liberation with feet planted firmly on enchanted, liberated earth.  The empire has fallen. The world has watched its daily unraveling on the evening news. It still kills young men because of the color of their skin. It criminalizes those who protect the sanctity of water.  Its children’s schools rendered unsafe; it bombs the homes of babies already bombed by war and won’t give them a refuge; it aims at reconstructing walls humanity has fought to deconstruct. It rips the displaced from their homeland only to evict them onto cold concrete streets.   Another Babylon has commenced its fall.

Let go of the matrix of a political construct peeled back by hurricane winds like corrugated zinc off wooden roofs; washed out to sea by swelling surf.  Reclaim your land and reset your roots deep in it to withstand impending winds, water and fire as the colony is set to self-destruct in 10…9…8…7…6…5….

Dedicated to David Sanes Rodríguez, another Puerto Rican lost to colonialism (April 19, 1999, Vieques, Puerto Rico)