language.

"You mean, you don't speak Puerto Rican?"

I shook my head. "There's no such thing as speaking Puerto Rican. It's Spanish." At 7 years old, I was a smartass. I was also tired of being socially isolated and experienced a lot of anger.

"Okay, Spanish. You're Puerto Rican, and don't speak Spanish?"

I had my hands behind my back and I was leaning up against the school building at recess. I had just gotten my first pair of glasses, so I wasn't allowed to play at recess because my parents couldn't afford to get another pair if they broke. I was terrified at the visual of having to tape up broken glasses; as if I didn't have enough reasons to get picked on.

I scuffed the tip of my sneaker into the ground. I kept my eyes down. "No, I speak English because we're in America."

The curly haired Puerto Rican laughed with her friend. She turned to her friend and said something in Spanish. They looked at me, laughed, and skipped away.

I sighed. I looked up at the sky and prayed for recess to go by faster. I took comfort in my academics because I never disappointed myself.

My first language was Spanish. My parents told me that when I took the test to get into Pre-K, they were told my English inadequate. They put everything they had into teaching me English. Although I don't remember any of this, I assume that at some level I understood the urgency for me to focus on learning English and that speaking Spanish was holding me back to some degree. Something has stuck with me that made me hostile to learning Spanish for a long time.

I was never Puerto Rican enough for Puerto Ricans and never Americanized enough for whites. Any friends I made were usually mixed and as unsure of their place as I was. I was never cool. The closest thing I had to a label might have been "geek", but even that barely fit me because that would assume I was into my school work and scared to stand up for myself. Only a few people had tried to bully me and I stood my ground with all of them.

Being a circle trying to fit a square peg is lonely as fuck.

By the time I was in high school, the only group I fit into was made of individuals who didn't quite fit in anywhere else.

There was that, at least.