I’m on the train where I usually write every morning during my hour-long commute to and from work.

Season one of Leela is complete.

I filed the copyright yesterday.

Beta Readers are getting the episodes.

Plane tickets have been purchased.

Hotels have been booked in both Miami and Key West.

I’m heading into my last week of work at the small/growing restaurant company that I’ve helped build as a Senior Manager.

Five months of runway.

Five months to take this beautiful story that I have given the best of me and share her with the world.

(Yes even the story itself is a ‘her’ to me😉)

Five months to somehow figure out how to query, market, and sell.

My stomach is in knots.

But I’m not a wreck.

In a way I’ve prepared for this my whole life.

Teaching, coaching, negotiating.

Building business strategies, establishing relationships with vendors, writing training programs.

Traveling the country opening locations, creating project management systems, bringing other people’s visions to life.

Shooting training Tik Tocks and designing silly memes to relate ideas.

Creating life changing opportunities for so many wonderful people and investing into them—as a leader, a mentor, and an unofficial and unpaid therapist.

Charming the fuck out of strangers and turning them into friends.

All while protecting the spark of creativity and the dreams in my heart that only seemed to get further away the more successful I got and the more established my life became.

I wasn’t born for this.

I have no connections.

No following.

I didn’t even go to college.

No one in my family did.

But I’ll tell you what I have done.

I have spent every waking moment pushing myself to the absolute limits of my abilities for my entire life.

Studying. Reading. Plotting.

Sharpening the gifts and talents that were bestowed upon me.

Struggling against gravity.

Defying low expectations and predestination.

Honing myself into a weapon.

And now my gut tells me it was for a time like this.

Fear is nothing new to me.

Self-doubt is practically my roommate.

But I’ve got five months.

And one story.

A story about a woman that is everything I am and everything I want to be.

A story that I have woken up at 4:30am to write every morning for the past six months.

A story that has inspired me, thrilled me, and brought me to tears.

A story that started as a single picture.

A single prompt.

And now is seventeen episodes and fifty-eight thousand words—with four more seasons mapped out and ready.

Promoting myself has never come easy to me.

It’s not natural.

I’m pretty bad at it.

I’d rather shine the spotlight on the people I love.

But this one feels different.

This isn’t about me.

This is about her.

And I’d set the world on fire to bring her attention.

Because I think she deserves to be seen.

And her story deserves to be heard.

She trusted me to bring her into the world.

And I intend to do just that.

Five months.

Abuela give me the strength, the hope, the goodwill, the luck, and the support.

This may sound dramatic and grandiose—that’s because it is and that’s exactly what I need right now.

Fuck this patient graceful lady shit.

You can do this Elara!

People are going to see her, they are going to see themselves in her, they are going to love her, and they are going to jump at the opportunity to introduce her to all of their friends.

After episode one they’ll be intrigued

After episode two they’ll realize that they’re getting more than they bargained for

At episode three, they’ll be rooting for her

As episode four ends they’ll realize that it was never about her.

During episode five in a quiet church they’ll see her disguised as someone who belongs and they’ll fall in love.

In episode six they’ll tell everyone they know.

In seven they’ll understand where the damage came from.

In eight they’ll see a frog become a man.

In nine they’ll witness two giants meet connecting over loneliness of pursuing greatness.

In ten they’ll look up videos on how to make Espumita.

In eleven they’ll google the word Búsqueda and whether or not Leela made the whole thing up.

In twelve they’ll flood your inbox to let you know what it did to them.

In thirteen they’ll already know what Búsqueda means and a sombrero will make them cry.

In fourteen they’ll pray their favorite couple doesn’t fall apart.

In fifteen they’ll wonder how Lucy always knows exactly what to say.

And in the finale they’ll feel it all.

Everything.

And it will mean something because all of it means something.

As they read the final line they’ll understand that it’s all only beginning.

And As they wait for season two—they’ll share, start discussions, and create theories about little boys and professors, and what really happened in Vegas.

They’ll reach out to you saying the nicest things and thank you for bringing her into the world.

Even though her story is not for little girls, lots of brown little girls that have now become adult women will see themselves represented in a way that feels profound.

People disconnected from their roots will learn about fashion, food, music, and culture.

And lots of people will plan trips to Miami.

By season two—you’ll get to share the execution with partners.

Graphic artists, editors, photographers, fashion designers, the owners of small businesses…

Your platform becomes their platform and you do everything you can to celebrate their work.

By season three, you’re asked to stop posting on Substack because a famous Latina actress read the story and decided that she has to play Leela in a prestige television series.

Then a coalition forms and the doors are kicked wide open.

You have one condition—producer credit and co-showrunner involvement.

Our lady needs to be guarded.

And you see to that.

You meet Rosalia and Salma Hayek—she even agrees to play Lucy.

Benito even writes a song called Leelita.

Beyond that it’s hard to see…

Emmys?

A spinoff series?

Certainly new projects!

From the future I can tell you that it’s all very exciting, you bring joy into a lot of places, and I’m proud of you for staying grounded and remembering where you came from.

Five months and one day Elara.

And who knows what happens after that?

Even if no one else does—I believe in you.

And for good reason.

You never give up and you always find a way.

Feel free to read this again and again anytime you find yourself stuck.

Because you are writer, and writers fucking write.

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But I think that many people are missing how wonderfully beautiful and defiant his performance really was.

Let me explain…

In December of 2025 I visited NYC and made sure to stop by El Museo del Barrio in Spanish Harlem—a museum dedicated to the art and culture of the Caribbean Latin people.

I was literally bouncing up and down with anticipation on the way.

Beyond excited to learn and experience things I never knew about my people, my culture, our artistic tradition, and our history.

(Now let me make it clear that I’m not taking shots at either the museum or the artists highlighted there—that’s not my heart, nor is it my intention.)

Candidly, I left sad and heartbroken because where I was expecting to discover an expression of the proud history of my people—I found exhibit after exhibit dedicated to the memorialization of exploitation, injustice, and trauma.

Now listen—I’m not trying to burn the book of history, nor am I trying to ignore the lessons of the past.

But the story of my people is not the story of darkness.

It is the story of a light that could not be suppressed or extinguished.

It is the story of passion and survival.

It is the story of the history of humanity and the people in whom all of it came together.

Of African rhythms, flamenco, jazz, and funk.

Of salsa, tango, and rumba.

Of mofongo, arroz con gandules, tostones, and bacalaítos.

I choose to celebrate our rhythms, our poetry, our dances, our traditions, our warmth, our resilience, our diversity, our defiance, our passion, our romance—for our blood is the place where slave, oppressor, and indigenous meet together as one.

Our very existence a testament that differences can become love.

Benito could have told the story of the oppressor.

But instead he chose to tell the most defiant story of all—the story of us.

And Dios te Bendiga Benito, I love you for that.

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It poured from the overflow of what her poem inspired and as the minutes passed, my fingers carried me away.

As I finished it I couldn’t help but feel like I wanted to share it on my page—not because anything I wrote is in anyway an improvement on what she accomplished—but because I believe that the things that take your breath away deserve to be shared.

Here is her post…

I strongly encourage you to read, support and subscribe)

Dusk Daughter

The Last Brick Falls

I shall never write about this again.The door stood wide, as doors do when they trust, when they believe in the goodness of hands that knock, when they mistake hunger for love. I was all open spaces then, all unguarded rooms where anger lived clean and honest, where hurt spoke its own name without shame, without the need for transla…

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a year ago · 10 likes · 10 comments · Dusk Daughter

The Last Brick Falls: Review

(A Love Letter to a Legend)

The Last Brick Falls is a masterpiece 💛

Just have to say it. When I say that you are a giant in my eyes—you have to know why!

Allow me to break it down Elara style :)

Out of the gate, the first stanza is absolutely perfect.

I’m sucked in like Matthew McConaughey in Interstellar!

“The door stood wide, as doors do when they trust.” 🫠🫠🫠

WTF.

Now, I’m a city girl—my Abuela not only ALWAYS locked her doors, she put one of those contraptions on the steering wheel of her car every time she parked it to make sure no one stole it—but I’ve always heard the stories of people in small towns who leave their doors unlocked and envied that way of life. The nostalgia of times that were simpler and safer.

Instantly we are calibrated. I know where you are, and I know where we are going.

One line, ten words. Poetic, profound, and insanely efficient!

The next five stanzas are not particularly unique in perspective or spirit. The world is filled with women telling this story. Living this experience. Weaving it into their poetry, journals, and prose.

But damnit—you just do it so much better than we do.

You are one of us, but even when you are one of us, you are the best of us…

“the same hands that offer shelter

can press down,

press in,

press until breath becomes permission,

until voice becomes echo,

until self becomes reflection”

No really, let me nerd out just on wordplay for a sec…

“Press down, Press in, press until—permission”

Stop playing like we wouldn’t notice you just slipping in the fine touches like it’s no big deal.

And who could blame us for not noticing when one level down, hidden beneath the wordplay, are these delicious, make my soul melt metaphors.

Until breath becomes permission? Until voice becomes echo? Until self becomes reflection?

Are you fucking kidding me?

It’s like taking a song that every artist and their mother has sung and recording it in a way that makes it feel like you’re hearing it for the first time.

The depth. The rhythm. The sentiment. The craft.

Almost no one can do that, Emm.

Honestly.

Stanzas six and seven are when we discover that—no, you really are not like us. You are built different. You are the Kendrick Lamar of this writing shit (if you don’t know what that’s about, it’s an American thing😉).

Why do I say that?

Because you turn the revelation of darkness into LIGHT and drop my favorite line in the poem:

“even the smallest lie

becomes the crack

through which light enters”

The truth is setting her free, yes, of course—but the lie is the gift through which it arrives!

“the angel light of recognition

splits the constructed darkness,

illuminates the real world

gleaming in its honest surfaces,

shocking in its clarity.”

FUCK!!!

Let’s put aside the rhyme scheme and pattern.

Recognition is the angel splitting the darkness.

But what are the words “angel light of” rearranged?

Angel of light.

And yes, Abuela also happened to drag her granddaughter to church with her on Sundays as often as she could, so Elara knows who appears as an “angel of light” but turns out to be the biblical version of Voldemort.

And in this moment—recognizing that the light is really darkness—the veil is lifted.

Now, we could end here.

We have more than enough.

To try to add a hopeful spin at this point is where wonderful pieces become inspirational sermons or cheesy anthems intended to save heartbroken girls—think of the song ‘Roar’ by everyone’s favorite space traveler.

(I mean even the goddess Adele didn’t attempt such a thing in Set Fire to the Rain)

But this is where your wisdom and perspective take up the challenge and polish the impossible.

The fight for freedom isn’t reactive.

It isn’t filled with posturing or earmarked by the defiant urge to dye our hair red and eat our opponents.

It’s a return…

“The masonry crumbled,

brick by brick,

lie by lie,

until all that remained

was the original architecture

of who I was

before the renovation,

before the reduction,

before the careful whittling away

of edges that made me

myself.”

And what is the original architecture?

It’s the same brilliant but vulnerable girl whose longing for wholeness made the original mason’s eyes dance with visions, ideas, and possibilities for what she could become.

Where so many of us would be compelled to react and rebuild a new self—just as much compelled by the mason as the one we just disassembled—you refuse.

Instead of rejecting the original design as dumb and naive—erasing the value that it held from the beginning.

You teach us to recognize our value—to see ourselves as opportunities and possibilities.

You challenge us to create what we want, what we see when we imagine what we want to be—a house free from the influence of any mason, active or reactive.

“I am walking away

from the house you built

around my bones,

walking toward the horizon

where my own hands

will build what they choose,

where my own voice

will speak what it knows,

where my own life

will unfold according

to its own true blueprint.”

The walls aren’t our protection.

Suspicion and Bitterness aren’t our protection.

Intention is.

Developers on the prowl kick themselves when they walk past a prime piece of real estate that is already under construction.

There is no space for their plans, designs, permits, and schemes.

Someone has already recognized its value and approached it with a loving vision of what it could be.

So they move along in search of their next opportunity.

And this is freedom.

It’s a masterpiece, Emm—and you fucking DID that!

Ugh. And thank you for becoming not just the writer, but the person capable of bringing it to us. 💛

And yeah, why would you ever write about this again? What need could there possibly be for that?

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I know she is ruthless, because she ripped me apart.

When she rescued me, I discovered her mercy.

...it was only after all this that I saw her beauty.

From her defiance, I learned that she has no rival.

When she destroyed me, I learned that pain is not final.

In her mercy, I learned compassion.

And in her beauty, I discovered my own.

...only after all this did I understand what it means to be alive.

This is my resume...my romance.

It is how I can stare through your eyes, speak directly to your heart & say...

“Don't be afraid.”

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If I’m being honest, the most devastating trauma I’ve suffered hasn’t come from what’s been done to me—

It’s come from what I’ve done to others.

People say, don’t play the victim.

But my victim card’s been revoked—permanently.

I’ve hurt people I swore to love.

And what’s worse? I thought I was doing it with good intentions.

I thought I was choosing myself.

Great sentiment.

Shitty execution.

And honestly—despite the Nagasaki I left behind—it was probably what I needed.

And that’s the saddest part.

Why couldn’t I have needed less?

Why couldn’t I have counted the cost?

I made it out of the mine.

Out of the dark.

And the sunlight that should have shunned me.

Touched me again.

Most people complain about not getting what they deserve.

I’m just grateful.

Grateful that from grace, a love was born.

A freedom to forgive.

A freedom to live.

I can’t go back.

But I can understand.

I’ll never be the victim.

I’ll always be the villain.

But a villain who loves—

A villain who listens—

A villain who helps someone else escape the gallows of self-loathing, hatred, and loneliness—

Is better than a villain damned.

If hell awaits me—

If karma is waiting to pounce—

Let it catch me gently holding the heart of someone else, whispering to it like it’s still human.

Like humans are still children.

Like children are still worth saving.

If I can’t make it to heaven, let me be heaven.

Especially for those who least expect it.

Buy me a Coffee 💛

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