Love or Lust

LOVE
noun | \ lev : an intense feeling of deep affection; a great interest and pleasure in something.

LUST
noun | \ lest : very strong sexual desire.

I work with middle and high school students, and I often find myself frustrated when I hear about their heartbreaks.

Me dan ganas de caerle a chancletazos a to’.
(literal: it makes me want to hit all of them with a flip-flop.)
(contextual: I feel like snatching every one of them by the ear out of exasperation.)

I can’t help but wonder why they fall so deeply in love at such a young age. The world is just beginning for these chamaquitos.
(literal: little kids.)
(contextual: these young teens who swear they’re grown.)

Full of endless firsts! But then I remember: for them, this is the world. That hallway crush, that first text thread full of heart emojis and inside jokes, the way their hands brush by “accident” during lunch—they feel it all with an intensity adults forget. It’s not silly to them. It’s real.

Middle school love is clumsy and chaotic, but it’s also brave. They haven’t learned yet how to protect themselves from wanting too much, too fast.

And here’s where I have to admit I’m a hypocrite. I talk like I don’t get it, like I’m above it somehow, but I was one of them. Maybe worse. I had no business being that in love that young, but I was. The kind of love that kept me up at night, imagining wedding invitations instead of homework assignments. I wrote his name in bubble letters. Practiced what I’d say if we ever kissed. I was planning a future when I barely knew how to care for myself. I tell my students to take their time, but back then, I thought I already had. I was handing out my heart before I even knew how to hold it.

I used to think those early relationships were just practice for the real thing, that they didn’t matter. But now I see those feelings were real. And maybe that’s why I’m so frustrated with my students—because I understand more than I want to admit how intense those emotions feel.

When I was fourteen in DR, I was head over heels for my neighbor, Marcos. Whether it was love or lust, we were both more involved than we ever expected. At the time, it felt like we were each other’s world. But we let things unfold naturally, not thinking about the future.

Definitivamente que a esa edad las neuronas están más’ achicharra’ que el cuero de pernil.
(literal: definitely at that age the neurons are more burned than pork rind skin.)
(contextual: at that age your brain is fried—you're not thinking straight at all.)

When it ended, it ended. No melodrama. No tears. Like finishing the juicy part of a book and suddenly it’s over. It felt small in hindsight, but at the time it felt monumental.

Marcos was the baby in his family, and all his older siblings were way too invested in his personal life. They knew I was too young for him, convinced that if we fell in love, it wouldn’t turn into anything real. They made it clear that:

yo era demasiada niña para Marcos
(literal: I was too much of a girl for Marcos.)
(contextual: I was way too young and immature for him.)

y en realidad lo que él necesitaba era una mujer hecha y derecha para casarse.
(literal: and in reality what he needed was a fully formed woman to marry.)
(contextual: he needed a grown woman, not a little girl, if he wanted something serious.)

Like he was the chosen one.

His family was gorgeous, cruel, brutally honest. His father had caramel skin and striking blue eyes; his mother was fair-skinned with green eyes. Marcos had big hazel eyes that pierced you. He was quintessential Cibaeño in his swagger and thick accent.

But his voice? Lord.

He swapped l for i, and it drove me insane. He did it on purpose, too—anything to get a reaction out of me. Classic middle-school crush dynamics: half-irritation, half-chemistry.

I knew I should stay away, but I couldn’t. Even at that age, I understood the difference between attraction and compatibility—and still ignored every sign.

Pero muy poca atención le puse a to’ esa shit.
(literal: but I paid very little attention to all that shit.)
(contextual: I ignored every red flag like a dumbass.)

Marcos wasn’t fourteen. I knew he wasn’t fifteen or sixteen. But honestly, I didn’t care about his age. At that point, it didn’t matter to me. By the time I figured out he was actually eighteen, I was already in too deep. Too tangled in everything he was. He was exhausting with appeal, luring me in, annoying me just enough that somehow I’d end up in his arms. I was a fool—completely entranced by his charm and the hypnotic honey tint of his eyes.

Looking back, I know that if I had been in the US, my friends would’ve reported that relationship immediately. But in DR, the age of consent wasn’t something anyone thought about. In the same way Papi never paid attention to me, and my brother only paid attention to himself.

When we first kissed, it was horrendous. I asked to go visit my cousin Wanda, who lived down a dirt road behind Marcos’s house, so we could meet up. As I was walking with my friend Annie, we heard a: psst, psst. Not the most romantic spot for a first kiss, but it served its purpose. I was excited to see him—and he met me. The excitement and urgency to kiss was like a car crash. Our teeth clacked. He cut my lip. I made sure he knew how bad it was. Told him to calm down. After several attempts, it got better.

Actually, better than better.

Unparalleled.

What Marcos and I had was like a love affair without the lovemaking. We’d sneak around to kiss, and the adrenaline made it even more intoxicating. My body wanted Marcos.

This is that whore gene a flor de piel.
(literal: this is that whore gene on the surface of the skin.)
(contextual: this is that reckless sexual impulse rising right to the surface.)

I’d never felt what he made me feel. Never wanted something so badly. But I was so young—and such a slut in the making, at least by my own harsh internal narration. I could blame the “whore gene” in the Gómez women or accept who I was becoming.

I was ashamed of discovering life inside my body. Ashamed of feeling pleasure. Ashamed of wanting it.

If I were a boy? Everyone would’ve cheered me on.

I began having bizarre nightmares and told Marcos about them. In one, a rabid dog bit my face off, and even though many people were around, no one helped. They just watched—judging, silent, still. It frightened me awake. Dominicans always find deeper meaning in dreams, and Marcos was sure it meant something bad was coming.

One night, he snuck into my room. We lay together quietly, afraid to get caught. We kissed. And the passion wasn’t childish. This was grown folk shit.

At that age, I thought sex was something completely different. I knew a man had a penis and that penetration was part of sex. I thought the woman would feel feral and wildly moan with pleasure, and now I know better.

We were lying on our sides, tightly pressed, when I felt it—his erect penis on my pubic symphysis. It wasn’t good. I hoped it would be. But it felt more like being kicked in the pussy. Not sexual bliss. The more we kissed, the harder he pressed. I stopped kissing him and asked him to leave. He asked if he’d done something wrong.

I said no. I could’ve said the truth—that his dick didn’t feel as good as I thought it would. But that felt cruel. And besides, I was the slut who let him into my room and onto my bed. It wasn’t his fault his dick was disappointing.

Marcos must’ve sensed that my lust evaporated, because with no words, we were over.

One of his sisters, who I was close to, came by to check on me. She warned me that girls like me needed to be careful with boys like Marcos. That boys like him hunted for easy flowers to pluck and then bragged about it. She added that Marcos had told her we were on my bed kissing and that he was this close to penetrating me, but I stopped him. That he loved me and would never do something I didn’t want. She applauded me for stopping him. But in my head, I kept repeating the word:

Penetrated.

I didn’t know what it really meant. I didn’t want to look naive, so I stayed quiet. She asked again if I was okay. Told me we’d stay friends even if Marcos and I weren’t together anymore.

I didn’t even realize Marcos had told her he loved me until after she left.

I had sex all wrong. Marcos didn’t have a broken dick. But he did have a big mouth.

Less than a week later,

ya él había abierto su bocaza y le dijo a to’ lo ti’gre del barrio que yo lo dejé acostarse conmigo en mi cama.
(literal: he had already opened his big mouth and told all the guys in the neighborhood that I let him lie with me in my bed.)
(contextual: he bragged to every dude in the area that he slept with me.)

I was sitting on a rocking chair on my porch when boys from school walked by. One waved, laughing. The other yelled:

¿Cuándo me va tocai a mi acotaime contigo?
(literal: when is it my turn to lie down with you?)
(contextual: when are you going to let me sleep with you?)

I was furious. I could slut-shame myself, but no one else had that right. Marcos betrayed my trust. Not because I loved him, but because he exposed me. I saw Marcos again as an adult.

Él se enteró de que yo estaba en el país… mandó a decir por su hermana: “Dile que no se vaya sin verme.”
(literal: he found out I was in the country… sent word through his sister: “Tell her not to leave without seeing me.”)
(contextual: he heard I was visiting and insisted on seeing me before I left.)

I remembered his bad dick, his nonsense mouth, his fake philosopher vibes. I looked up and there he was — red eyes, smelling like cheap alcohol, and it was barely noon.

Ni una chispa de encanto. Nothing. The same Marcos, but less. No butterflies. No spark. Just the heavy smell of what could have been—and, thank God, never was.

Right then and there, I thanked Dios, Black Baby Jesus, Yemayá, and all my ancestors for saving me from that maldito gancho.

(literal: damn hook.)

(contextual: a terrible trap / a disastrous situation I was lucky to escape.)

-Mickey Patxot

Mickey Patxot is a Dominican-American, AfroLatina writer and Dean of Students, as well as a mother, wife, titi, sister, and friend. Born in Newark, NJ, and raised in Yonkers, NY, she writes stories grounded in culture, memory, and truth. Her work explores intergenerational trauma, identity, motherhood, and healing through a bilingual lens rooted in Dominican Spanglish and lived experience. Her essays have appeared in the Dominican Writers Association, Neon Origami, and Acentos Review. Her unpublished memoir, ¡Coñazo!: Ya Tá Bueno, Suéltalo, is a raw and reflective journey of self-discovery, resilience, and release, written with both heart and humor.