Tuesday, November 20, 2012

All in the Timing

A poem for the cast of the freshmen showcase. You guys rock. 

It's all in the timing
a foreign concept
bereft. unkempt
until I realize that I haven't stopped
since Coyocan in August
Because I am a creature of no change
I am a bell ringer
changing futures
and asking for the opposite
because I am constantly repeating myself
typing with my toes
shitting on Malboros
because I haven't figured it out yet
that life is not a sure thing
and I won't know the day I die
though I won't cry
I will live for 2 am Entenmann's crumb cake
I will live for someplace
I will live for loving someone once
and never forgetting
because you live every day
with an axe in your head
clouding your mind
so you can't think to stop
the nasturtiums are very beautiful today
the paradise is just a classic away
and even though you might miss
Casablanca and a desk and books
it'll be because you never looked
because life is about
fre faling & fynding iff heven waitz
Geronimo
or you'll be late for fate
because everybody has to be someplace
De anda
De palma
on the door handle
to the rest of our lives
whether you're buying bread
or you're a political figure's wife
life is timing
timing is life
and heven waitz
so just take your time*

Sunday, November 11, 2012

the children raise the village.



I am worried about my little sister
With each miniature push-up bra
I see her tuck into her mahogany drawers
I am worried
With each brush stroke
That shadows eyes
And hides lips from their innocence
I am worried
With each facebook comment
From eighth grade hormones
Boys playing out her picture
Like filthy magazines
They stole from dad and hid under their boxspring
I am worried
For the world she will grow up in
They say it takes a village to raise a child
But now our children raise our villages
As they pick them up
From underneath
As they’ve rooted anguish deep
And suddenly tables are turned
As brother and sister sit at the head
And mom and dad fight over green beans
The children cry out
As their parents tune out
And their only solution is
To let their friends outsource love like it’s a drug
Selling a hug for a blowjob behind the portables after school
Because this is what love means to them
Because attention is a hot commodity
So they sell it like smuggled imports
Staining white fabric and hoping that they
Can fix futures with Clorox bleach pens
But they’re too young to know that it doesn’t work that way
That if you do something because it feels good
Then end up raising a child while you are still a child
The children raise the village
That if you do something because it feels good
And you end up with elephant imagery
As a large trunk pumps your stomach
Because your time on earth just went backwards
The children raise the village
That if you do something because it feels good
And put down that little girl by telling her she’s ugly
By telling her to go die
As she sits lonely at lunch time in libraries
The children raise the village
Because the village gives up
Because the village is corrupt with self-taught hatred
We will not stand for anxiety
That our children will create suicidal holocausts
Because we must dig them out from the wet ground
Like malformed seeds
We must tend to the garden and stamp out weeds
We must water the children with love that feeds
We must begin to raise the children again
Before they raise us.

I. Regular.



I have always been a side street away from normal
But I never knew it as a condition
Until the day the doctor’s clipboard
Labeled me like a prescription I didn’t ask for
Plastic bracelets slapped on wrists too many times to count
Reminding me of my own name in case I forget
In one of those small moments where my internal rhythm is absent
Because this seemed like a sentence to life on death row
Because it started with ‘no more caffeinated drinks or sleeping late’
And ended with bloody self portraits while just trying to get ready for school
My heart is romantic without being logical
Skips steps one through five
And goes to straight to six to get my fix of emotional ecstasy
Because it believes in romantic comedies
And Gyllenhall fantasies
And skips one beat
My heart is an army general
Ordering drum lines to play empty cadences
Because I feign for peace leaf victory
But skip the battle
If the other man knocked me down I’d stay on the ground
Because my heart is peaceful sound
And skips two beats
My heart is suicidal each time it cuts me from the inside
Because it won’t let me be normal for two seconds
And it fulfills the duties on its job application
By reminding me of feelings wasted
Each time it skips a beat
Irregular
i.                     Regular.
Ireg. Ular.
Me .
I live in this obscenity
With a heart that takes control of me
Until I finally found the beauty
My heart is a notebook filled with unlined paper
 and my blood beats through each line; an aortic rhythm.
 I am poet. Check my cardiology.
Because in each kilamanjaro line
You’ll only find
That I exist on irregular beats
That my flow comes from inside of me
Inward cardiology
That without irregularity
My rhymes would be common time
Because I possess a poet’s heartbeat
And beauty comes from
I.                    Regularity.

Queen.



I am the queen of the friend zone
I am Watts from Some Kind of Wonderful
I am Goofy to Mickey and Minnie Mouse
I am Duckie Dale to Andie Walsh
(that’s from Pretty in Pink, by the way, and if you haven’t seen it you’re a certifiable shithead)
And I only know that reference because
I spend my weekends on dates
With Jake Ryan, Lloyd Dobbler, and Ferris Bueller
I am the kind of girl who’s a great listener
But not in the Labrador dog kind of way
I’ll memorize everything about you
From your traumatic 5th grade hair cutting incident
To the pattern of your lucky boxers
And at the end of the conversation
I’ll go in for a big hug and
You’ll punch me in the arm
And say
Thanks friend, you’re so great friend, I’m so glad I have I have friend like you, friend
And then I’ll jump on my bed re-enacting Taylor Swift’s music video for you belong with me
I’ll watch Titanic in 3D
I’ll have a threesome with Ben & Jerry
And then I’ll go back again tomorrow
Even though
You’ve highlighted my name
In my neon yellow shame
As “the friend”
Because you have defined me just like Lizzie McGuire defined Gordo
You have defined me like a cat in a dog show
Because to you I am
The girl who pays for your food, tells you you’re rude
Practically dresses you and acts like a dude
And yet you strategically pigeon hole
And look right past me toward a false goal
You can kick that soccer ball but honey
You’re kicking it to the wrong team
Because she is way out of your league
And so am I
Even though you see me as a bro
I don’t want to fart with you, ok?
That’s never been fun to me
I hate playing Halo
Because I have to concentrate
And sometimes I feel like
You’re the one who menstruates
Because your male-pattern mood swings
Drive me up the wall
Because I could name each girl by complaint
I’ve heard it all
Because you don’t even see how much I tolerate
Each time you verbally masturbate
By saying the same thing over and over and over again
Because it makes YOU feel good
Newsflash! The rest of us just think you’re disgusting
Because you refuse to let it go
And look at what’s right in front of you
I may not be boobless blondie
But try, for once, to see what I can be
Because I have been loyal to you when you weren’t to me
If you read off my resume
You’d find a perfect compliment to your theory
And I as I run into your arms
While it rains
Under a sunset
In Puerto Rico
On a Wednesday
With the wind in our hair
And you’re a little taller than me
And your facial hair’s growing out
And you look a little more like Johnny Depp than usual
You’ll pick me up
And kiss me and we’ll run away happily
Despite the fact that
None of this can happen because before we even touch
A force field would knock me to the ground
Because I am locked out
By the friend zone
So I’ll be here on my own
And hope that you find some other pals to cry to
As for me, I’ve got a hot date with Anthony Michael Hall and a cannoli
And I’ll rule proudly from my throne
As you whine and you drone
And I’ll continue to spend Friday nights alone because honestly
I don’t know why I wanted to be with you in the first place.  

world, interrupted.



I will never understand
Why I have to worry from miles away
That my little brothers aren’t safe
That my parents might fade away
Like they’ve been left out in the sun too long
Because the world doesn’t wade in darkness
It jumps straight in
Owning up to sin
It sharpens its pins
Like pencils
Until we’ve all got lead poisoning
From all of the overly erased plans we’ve read
And the No. 2 point blank shit we’re fed
I will never understand
Why I answered the phone to a frantic mother
Informing me that my sister’s middle school
Was swarmed by police cars
Reds and blues
Because three young men were planning a mass murder for the Halloween dance
Just by chance
My mother went to pick up her daughter early
Because her instincts were somewhere between full and empty
And the officers pushed her away with no information
Because let’s face it
All they want is some action
even if it means lost futures and bloody basketball courts
 I will never understand
Why 2 weeks later
I picked up the phone to the same frantic mother
Saying that my family had spent the afternoon in a hostile situation
In communication with the police station
When they were supposed to be at the dollar movies
But that everything was ok
Because they
An average family of five minus me
Were just driving down Menaul
Just headed to the mall
For some weekend nonsense
When a man began to make his steering wheel do a dance of death
Each gyration tumbled lanes
Selfish
Because he didn’t care that no one else could hear the music
And as my mom called in a harmless report
They pulled up their station wagon next to his
In a red light exchange
And then turned heads
For a red light exchange
As the man held up a gun
With the barrel staring down my mother
Only the glass tinted windows separating them from each other
Did he know that she has three kids
And a daughter away at school
That our family might be one of the only ones left
Not succumb to divorce statistics or dysfunctionalism
Did he know that his gun staring at my mother
Was the nastiest look he could’ve given
To someone hundreds of miles away
Because he
A selfish asshole
Could’ve ended her life today
He could’ve taken everything from my family
Those three young boys
Could’ve killed my little girl
Because they were too cowardly to ask her to the fucking dance instead
There would’ve been baby doll futures with bullets in their heads
I will never understand
Why we live interrupted
Because no one in this goddamn world can finish their fucking sentence
The only way we can function is by interjecting, interrupting
And ending abruptly
The only way we can survive is to make sure someone else is half alive
Though we know nothing about them
I refuse to let my generation
Continue in the quest to obliterate fullness
I will never understand
Why the world lives in fragments.

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

The Race.



Race: 1. A competition between runners, horses, vehicles, boats, etc., to see which is the fastest in covering a set course.
2. Each of the major divisions of humankind, having distinct physical characteristics.
I hate races
I am tired of running
I have hated it since the days of laps around the sixth grade track
Because in the end it only leaves me
Breathless
Because I wish to keep my opinions to myself
Even though you trash talk like it’s for your own health
I digress
While you rest on an issue related argument to define you
One issue
While I would rather walk the track
Because if you win the race it will be because you took a shortcut through the mud
 And slung some on the way
I hate races
Because we feel like we must assimilate mathematics
In our schematics
That division must always be a common denominator
While common ground and love always cancel out
We’d rather live in doubt of who we are
Because of what someone else says about how we are painted
About how the color of our skin makes us overrated
Or outdated
Or hated
Because whenever there’s a race involved
Someone always has to win
Bathing in their sin
Scathing in their skin
Because they’d rather win
Than play by the golden rule
Because the things that separate us are the things that degrade us
We could be the nation we’ve always wanted to be
if we’d just take a minute to listen
There’s nothing explicit about believing in something
 I cast my vote
I played my game
I placed my bet
I showed my shame
And yet I’m damn glad it’s over
Because I’m ready to wash my hands
Need some orbit for the dirty mouths
need someone to understand
that a political opinion
is not all I possess
but I know what I believe in
and I know progress
I’m proud of what I chose
Of my politic prose
And as for those who’ve got a problem
Keep your complaints in comfort
Because my ears are sacred
Against American hatred.