My Name is Esperanza

My name is Esperanza—
like despair,
like sighing,
regrets,
tears,
and birds trapped in cages.
In my cage, I forget how to sing.

My name is Esperanza—
like waiting rooms
and sitting on the platform,
waiting for a train
that never comes.
Like looking out the window
For the man with the keys
to my cage, who never frees me.

My name is Esperanza—
Like a wind inside my chest
That speaks to me in fiery languages,
That speaks to me like a voice from within
My own bones,
A voice within my wise blood.

Esperanza.

My heart is a red balloon,
Cut,
Floating.
It wants to be higher than the air.
My heart flutters like wings.

I gather myself up like the dawn.
In the sun, I burn off like mist.
And in the dark,
When the stars pulse
Like a million hearts,
I gather myself up again—
The girl of mist,
Of snow.
I have thirty names, one hundred.
I whisper my names to myself in the darkness,
And I do not forget them.

My name is Esperanza—
Like the first light of morning,
Like an open door,
Like a cunning bird that has picked
The lock with its beak
And now stretches its wings for the first time.

Esperanza—
Like the sight of my shadow
Stretched across the road
In front of my eyes,
The sun rising at my back,
The private world of the neighborhood
Behind me,
And the real world unfolding
In front of me
Like a handful of jewels.