Spud

He was a potato
spotted spud
straight out of the bag
raw
and heavy like kitchen baseball
unpeeled
and from the ground
normal
with all-American roots
like spaghetti curled around forks
on mom's homecooked Saturdays
a backyard
Babe Ruth potato
so right-brained
it's left
when I can't comprehend
how he sees colors sometimes
because he comes from crooked treehouses
and thanksgiving football
he comes from
jeans and t-shirts
and fingers rapidly alternating between x and y
to shoot spaceships
he is raw rooted potato
where everyone knows what they're getting
while he's holding the hips
something fresh
oven hot
sour cream and chives
cheese melting
golden sunrise
Paula Deen butter for days
rich with freedom and taste
I was a baked potato
from wheelchair childhoods
to canvas splattered Saturdays
roots created in royal purple
veins with treble and bass
roughing it up in aorta bedrooms
I am the buildingside paintings
of little girl letting go of red heart balloon
I am the loaded baked potato
too rich
next to others like me
because all I need is the norm
the brown paper bag boy
who comes to lunch with PB & J
next to my Bento Box
He's the calculus
to my yoga
the Chuck Norris to my Madonna
Because New York needs Broadway
like it needs Wall Street
like hands need holding
like opposites attracting makes cliches
easy
because we could be french fries
in pigeon bird beaks
we could be baked chips and curly fries
I'll be the barbeque to your pringles
and the gravy to your mash
because you look so good
you could be a salad
handcrafted for wedding receptions
through family recipe
I would gladly call you my sweet potato
despite your lack of orange
because I'm Au Gratin for you
wrapped up in foil fairytales
because I'm steaming under eccentricities
and sometimes, I just need
 a plain
potato. 

Call Me T-Swift

They call me the Taylor Swift of slam poetry

Like they know of every inkling in my writing

That I manufacture made-up manuscripts

Written for me by someone else

Because to them each word is a catchy line from the underworld that is pop radio

They begin to shed tears as it infects the veins in their hands

Turning bloodlines to map patterns

With blood racing with the roof down belting out Our Song

Until their fingers grip pens like a constant snap

Making rough love with old notebook paper

That still has its edges

And they find themselves trying to write like me

Steal the synergy

Of my cute and free soliloquoy

About the boys who’ve wronged me

They’re only pissed because it’s so damn catchy

Clinging to the hemangeomas of their peeling poems

Because I seem too mainstream

Too big of a dream

An underlying scheme

Because they try to find something fake about me

But themselves is the only fake they see

Everything big and fake like the 80’s

You can hide behind your Dolly Parton’s ladies

But I am as real as teardrops on my guitar

I am as real as a Red kind of love

I am as real as a state of grace

I am as real as three chords and the truth

World changing

So call me Taylor Swift

Don’t care if you think that shit fits

Cause much like your muffin top jeans

I am overflowing

With success you’ve never met

And all you’re ever gonna be is mean

So we are never getting back together like ever

Hide behind your coat, I’ll brave the stormy weather

Because I could go bowling for broken hearts

And strike

Because I knew he was trouble

He said forever and always

He was treacherous

And he turned my world sideways

It’s not wrong to write about love

Over and over again

When your heart’s still getting new stitches

Embracing what it sees in mirror each day

Someone else needs to know that I feel that way

Don’t let yourself hate

Just because everyone relates to a broken heart

Even you

So mad props T-swift

No matter how many guys you’ve been with

You always get back up

Show the world your scars like tattoos

And you’re not so bad off

Kissed a Kennedy and John Mayer

Wrote a song about ‘em later

Each time a heart breaks

I’ll use the Taylor Swift intake

Take memories to notebook lines

Make him he wish he didn’t screw up this time

Because when he hears this rhyme

He’ll know his name was on my mind

and he’ll watch me making my own life

 wish he’d been a love song instead

I’ll always write what’s in my head

Because I’m real like a broken heart

And you’re real like lies about how you don’t know every part

Because you sing along whether you want to or not

Because you know what it’s like when love’s got you strung up and shot

So call me T-swift

I’ll write your heartbreak

And let you hate on me

For saying what you can’t say***

Pan

I am the shadow girl

My selfless years have just begun

As I wrapped selfishness in juvenile signatures

And tucked picture books underneath me

Reminiscing in the tootsie pop lunchbox days

And lacing up ribbons on dancing shoes

Remembering

The lost boys always manage to find me

and love me like the mother they never had

In neverland

They worship me for mere cookies and milk

And I tell them they were owed this

They became lost with mama’s shouts down the hall

And plaid robe mornings

Where tears drew up panels of gone daddies

They became lost when the broken world

Cast off together and traded for separate

And untied constellations that connected wishes left on stars

And my heart beats for giving

When all they need is to be found

As they teach me comic books and taco bell

Church camp chants

At a middle school dance

We hold hands

Reminiscing what they thought was love

When they didn’t know what mutual meant

And girls left kisses on their doorstep

And hearts at home

Because they didn’t know the gravity of deep dreams

Of a young boy

And they thought eyes were backwards telescopes

And big things were small

And I love

Stitching their broken hearts

And standing where new beginnings start

Hours of grand theft auto and youtube karaoke

Dancing dorm room production numbers

Past quiet hours

Laughing and crying

And showing them that I never had to give birth

To be a mother

I am the shadow girl

Loving lost boys

Like brothers

And still searching for the most lost of them all

Because he never grew up

Or answered any of my phone calls

I believed in his flight since we were kids

When no one else did

I’ve always been his

I am Wendy

Searching broken tree-houses and basement boxes

Because Peter Pan

Is the only man who can fly me to

The second star to the right

Because he never grew up

He just disappeared

And I know he’s there

With my heart on his sleeve

He had the heart to leave

And I continually search shadows

Because without him I become the lost girl

And I love the lost boys

Being the mom they never had

But I’m a half-ass mom without a dad

And pan stole my heart

When he told me to believe

As he sprinkled out stars like maps

For tomorrows and yesterdays

We were born to sway clouds

And defy plans

Prayers to father time

To make adventures

Like rocketship raucous

His eyes are an atlas

Of worlds I’ve never traveled

And I’ve loved him from afar

As I kept wishing on his star

That he’d come back

And we could be a fisher price family

Kids playing grown ups

Wearing shoes too big for us

Just to walk like someone else

Because we are serendipitous wishes

And chances chosen by children

Free and brave

Watercolor emotions

On canvases of pictures I painted of him without looking

And I’ll paint them with a pinky promise

To stay lost until he finds me

Because our pact is one I can’t explain

As I build soup can telephones

For us to stay in touch

And fishing poles to cast

When we sit on cushions of the crescent moon

And remember forevers

When we were young***

He will answer...

For the victims of the Connecticut school shooting. All of my heart and prayers. 

Dear Santa

A common conversation starter

Around December

As carols are sung

And little angels scribe dreams

On lined paper

To someone they’ll never admit

They put right next to God

As they address heartfelt wishes

But we live in world

That intercepts Santa

By mixing up Christmas with the dates of Manson murders

Because the sicknesses

Have only become mental

Killing the world

 the black plague of imaginations

We are plagued

With those who believe

That our children deserve to see

Deathbeds before bunk beds

We are plagued

With fathers who believe that bullets

Are the only way to get to a child’s heart

We are plagued

With unanswered Santa letters

Or were they letters to God?

Because the purity of heart and mind

The innocence is being eaten alive

By insanity

Instilled in adult psyche

We have laid to rest Roosevelts and Kennedys

Voices that could’ve colored black and white

We have laid to rest common ground

Because with each lost dimple and dance on tiptoes

We have laid to rest life

Mothers who will never dress daughters

Daughters who will never steal lipstick from mothers

Fathers who will never play pigskin in the park

And sons who will throw to themselves

As more puzzle pieces disappear

Till the big picture is full of holes

And adults don’t write Christmas letters

Because all they can think to do is argue

Over the root of the situation

The left

And the right

Is it really worth the fight?

Because when it comes down to it

The only thing we’ve gained

Is loss

Children who will never floss

The two front teeth they wanted

As they watch a red Christmas

Instead of the white they’ve dreamed

Because Red is the only color that can comprehend to be seen

As their families decorate trees an empty green

Kicking themselves for kisses

They didn’t give on Friday morning

And never knowing Christmas spirit again

Because it will only be an

Anniversary

A Red Christmas

Cruel reality

And those little angels

Will meet the man they’ve been writing letters to

Long before they were meant to

And he will answer.

Lovelines

an original song

I wanna walk on your tightrope
without bringing your down
I wanna jump all the stories
without seeing the ground
and I could be your shadow
you'd never know I'm there
but I want you to want me
to be more than your air
'Cause I wanna be in every pocket, every dime store locket
of your mind
'cause I wanna be
the girl who keeps you taking your time
'cause I wanna be
yours and mine
not just a state of mind
I wanna color inside your lovelines
I can see it in you
your tragic tendencies
baby, you don't know me
I've sailed ever sea
though your heart may be freezing
chattering teeth
I'll be right beside you
with heart handled heat
'Cause I wanna be in every pocket, every dime store locket
of your mind
I wanna be
the girl who keeps you taking your time
I wanna be
yours and mine
not just a state of mind
I wanna color inside your lovelines
and I've never known love like candied apples or carnivals in fall
I've never known love like holding hands
or anything at all
I've only known love like
empty promises
and unanswered calls
hurting through it all
But you already are in every pocket, every dime store locket of my mind
you are the boy
who keeps me taking my time
you are every single state of mind
you are the color inside my lovelines
you are the color inside my lovelines*

For real this time.

I am lingering on a kiss

In an attempt to seem less teenage

Because in moments like this

My old soul and my young heart

Get tangled

Tripping each other

Coinciding power lines and lightning strikes

And I have lost service

Because with every daydream

I am rendered disconnected

Because my eyes paint themselves glassy

Unopened windows

Where anyone who might peer in

Can see a frenzy of feeling

Played in concertos

Of Chicago street choruses and

the faint swing of the zipper on your leather jacket

as it accompanies each move you make

because your hands began to paint me

extremeties covered in compliments I swore I’d never hear

as you hand crafted each description of me

and spelled it out letter by letter

My heart had its first birthday

As it began to grow with each new hope

That we could entwine fingers

like stitches

keeping everything together

and I was over joyed in that brief second

when we laughed because

you finally got to bite my bottom lip

like you’d dreamed about over morning coffee

and in that moment I realized

that your eyes were glazed like mine

I looked into windows

That were tinted the same shade

And I had to contain the fireworks

To make them a small burst

Because my soul and my heart had argued

Until the moment you kissed me

And reckless abandon

Had a nice ring to it

Your arms

Had space just for me

And your eyes

Could only take polaroids of my posture

Stars spoke sonnets in my ear

and your fingers drew constellations between shoulder blades

I lost and found myself 

in one brief existence of forever

as time proved its brevity

and I found myself writing love poetry

for real this time

because in a situation like this

I could over-metaphor a kiss

or I could simply state this

I found home in your smile

and peace when we were chest to chest

you held me like a rag doll you'd kept since you were a child

precious

for the first time in my life

 And I never wanted to leave**

What's In a Name?

My name is Gabriela Esperanza Yolanda Guajardo

Syllables proudly scrawled on scholarship applications

As my parents claimed they did it on purpose

Because they knew that someday I’d need to be Hispanic and poor

So that colleges would knock down my door

Claiming to help the quote-unquote “underprivileged youth”

Expecting to interview a girl with drawn on eyebrows and a bedazzled tooth

The best place to use the word uncouth

Because yes

Latina blood runs through my veins thick like fresh tomato chunked salsa

I am spicy like the jalapenos that stains nose hairs

Because potency is something I’ll never be bad at

I can remember Christmas tamales and Linda Ronstadt records

As I’d pretend I was full enough to cry to the moon the way she did

I was a Selena kid, what can I say?

I’d do the washing machine like my hips were made for the spin

And sing “Ay ay ay Como me duele”

Repeating lines like rosary prayers I never learned

Busty-caca-delamente! It’s a bra!

I suck at buying pants

Because much like Jennifer Lopez in Selena

This ass isn’t fake

People often mistake me

For a Kardashian from behind

My curves leave them blind

Because they can’t find an answer

Because my paperwork claims that I

Am a Spanish Queen of the desert

Wearing red and waving fans

Dancing flamenco like I was born in solea

Being raised on beans and tortillas

And born with two tongues

All the while

I am a redheaded white girl

I love Taylor Swift and chai tea

I read Ginsberg and write poetry

I wear converse shoes

And have barely built up enough a tolerance for green chile

I can’t dance

And beans are still a very musical fruit to me

I am latina but it’s not all I can be

Because I believe that my culture

Is me

A culture of my own

GiGi

I didn’t change my name because I was ashamed

Because I wear Angel of Hope like a creed

Tattooed on my heart

I changed my name because in those four letters

I am art

I am the best picture in the year 1958

I am whoever I create

Gabriela as my soul

GiGi as my fate

I am disappointed

In my lack of culture

As teachers call roll and expect me to answer in Spanish

Looking like ghosts when I raise my hand and claim my name

Wearing regular clothes and pink berets

I am no different

Yet I am glared at by bandana brothers

Who are sure I don’t deserve to wield heritage when I know nothing about it

Yet they were not there

On Saturday mornings

When the smell of oil and potatoes hit the pan

And my Granny

Would throw hot dogs in

Saying that this is what a real Mexicano eats

Because they were not there

When I explained to fourth grade friends

About Ninas and Ninos

And Uncle Nono

And how long it took me to keep them all straight

Because although I am not a Garcia or a Martinez

As common as Smith

I know this

My heart is Burquena at least

Though I laugh at Lynette

I know that I’ve called every soda Coke at one point and time

I know I always have a Burque state of mind

Because I may not go to every Lobos game or sing the national anthem for isotopes fame

But I am Gabriela Esperanza Yolanda Guajardo

And a person is not a name**