Stillmatic

by Anacaona Rocio Milagro

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about

Stillmatic is the 2nd piece of a three-part ‘poetic-triptych’ written by poet Anacaona Rocio Milagro, produced by Substantial, with Lizzie Blue on the piano, and cover art by Kenny Rivero. Titled after and honoring the 20 year anniversary of Nas’s album Stillmatic, the poet speaks of her favorite day: when her big brother, all the way from Washington Heights, deep in street life, stepped out and somehow found her in the Bronx during her undisclosed religious initiation ceremony just so they could listen to the entire Nas album together in his car the day it dropped—this is how he loves. They "Nodded their heads until their thorn crowns spun off… into glowing disks." The ‘poetic-triptych’s’ first piece is titled When You Were Red and describes losing a brother to street life, to then find him again in this piece Stillmatic, only to lose him again in the final piece titled Delirium (coming soon). Twenty years later, and it’s still the poet's favorite day.

Anacaona Rocio Milagro is a poet born and raised in New York City, Washington Heights. Writing poetry since the age of four and performing throughout her adolescence, she went on to hit the national stage with the Nuyorican Poets Café Slam team winning 2nd place in the National Poetry Slam Championship. She later earned an MFA in Poetry at NYU’s Low Residency program in Paris, an MPH at Columbia University, and a BA in Social Anthropology and Journalism/Creative Writing with a minor in Art from Baruch College/CUNY BA. Her Nine Eleven Poem has been added to the Smithsonian Museum’s 9/11 archives. Her poetry has been published in The BreakBeat Poets Latinext Anthology, Narrative Magazine, LittHub, and Raising Mothers, to name a few. Her father is from the Dominican Republic and her mother is from St. Thomas, The U.S. Virgin Islands. She is the single mother of two, Nirvana Sky and Zion.

lyrics

I was in the Bronx sacrificing doves.
Baba would swiftly rip their heads off
like Challah bread on Yom Kippur.
By the mural of Fat Joe and Big Pun
where I came to pay blood in exchange for safety
his safety my legendary brother Elegua.

All the way from Washington Heights, right off the Deegan
He found me.
As if the 160,000 miles of streets never distanced us

I still don’t know how but he found me

He hurried me inside his Range Rover, already high
off the nitrous oxide pumping out the speakers.
Listen, he said. It dropped today.
He needed to be the |one| to deliver it to me, needed to bear
witness, to be church for my monosyllabic prayer: Nas

This is how he loves, my legendary brother Elegua.

His search for |me| rippled the gray out the block, out the clouds
out the clock. His ultraviolet light resurrected my childhood
suicides that I’d done to subside. Giddy little dead girls ascended
out the dungeons of my mouth and joined us

I rolled his blunt. He never let me smoke: For your own good.
He’d turn the speakers up/ paused/ rewind lines / we zoned out.
Listened through sunset and nightfall to ethereal prophecy.
Nodded our heads until our thorn-crowns spun off
into glowing disks

I didn't know it then that this day would be my favorite
a holy day all was forgiven

with the smell of dead pigeons still fresh on my fingers

Ashe