I am Maxjaneth's son, Gabriel.

even when the future ahead disappears in politics.

I am the boy from the Andean skies of Venezuela,

where morning rain would dance in joy,

and sweet coffee with freshly baked bread started every day in warmth.

My name carries a history of exile and endurance,

born from a family forced to flee the grip of fascism and communism.

My childhood was spent imagining a bright future while seeing the destruction of my country,

tucked within a close-knit world of hardworking hearts.

Odysseus’s Ithaca may be a myth to some,

but I have known two homes:

one wrapped in mountain fog, the other in Englewood's four seasons.

Here I found new voices, new languages, a new home.

My friends became guides, our chaos into memory,

and I grew in the gardens of opportunity my family watered.

Calypso has not detained me,

Nor have the divine tempests of envy, pride, or fate drowned my flame,

but I was held captive by silence, voiceless in a foreign tongue,

with dreams far louder than the words I could yet speak.

Still, I stood up, over and over.