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La Chancleta

my mother’s chancleta
wasn’t footwear -
it was folklore,
a spiritual weapon,
passed down from abuelas
who trained in the mountains
with olympic accuracy.

that chancleta knew geometry -
angles, velocity, wind resistance,
could bend around corners
like it was born with GPS,
could ricochet off walls
with holy precision.

you could sprint down the hallway
like you were running for freedom
and still -
still -
that chancleta would find you
like it remembered your sins
from last week.

my mom never yelled first.
she just lifted her arm slow,
like a priest raising the host,
and the whole apartment held its breath.

we froze,
we repented,
we reconsidered our entire lives
in the span of a heartbeat.

but once that chancleta flew?
ay bendito.
it became prophecy.

there was no ducking,
no hiding behind siblings,
no negotiating with God.
the chancleta chose its target
and justice was served
swift and bilingual.

sometimes we swear
we saw it curve midair,
swerve right,
change direction,
defy physics,
and hit you gently on the shoulder
like it was reminding you,
mira nena, behave.

but after the sting faded,
after the lecture,
after the side-eye of doom,
she’d laugh -
that deep Boricua laugh
that meant we were safe again,
that meant she loved us too much
to let the world teach us harder lessons
than she could.

now, as a mother,
i look at my own chancletas
lining the doorway,
and i swear they vibrate
with ancestral memory -
like they’re ready
if i ever need them.

but i don’t throw them.
instead, i tell the stories:
about my mother,
her perfect aim,
her fierce love disguised
as discipline.

and every time my kids laugh
at the legend of la chancleta,
i feel her hands,
her strength,
her magic -
still teaching,
still protecting,
still flying
in the stories i keep alive.

childhoodmother daughteryouthnarrative

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