They said the yola was so small,
you had to hold your breath
and each other,
whenever the waves
came crashing.
That the wind
kept blowing the boat
the opposite direction
and the salt water,
teased their thirst.
That the hunger
was so severe,
they survived off of breast milk
and if you couldn’t handle the journey,
then you couldn’t survive in the states.
But that’s unfair
because the entire time
nature kept trying.
It kept stalling.
It kept saying,
come back,
come back,
come back.
Koylan Massiell Gomez is a poet and writer born in the Dominican Republic and raised in Corona Queens. Her love for the written word was discovered at the age of 10 when she yearned to find a better way to navigate life’s emotions and experiences. Every summer Koylan traveled from New York to the Dominican Republic where she was exposed to her Caribbean culture, music, and language. These yearly experiences are infused in her writing which explores her
Dominicanyol upbringing and represents her dual identity as a young Dominican immigrant. Koylan’s work embodies the controversial conversations on love, spirituality, being a minority, generational trauma, and the process of healing. Every poem and story that she writes plays a role in healing ancestral pain and bringing us closer to the discovery of the self. Koylan went on to graduate from Hunter College with a major in Creative Writing. Today Koylan is the proud
mom of two beautiful school-aged children and resides in New York City.
