Born out of wedlock, I am bastard-child. Like most kids, the story of my conception, slowly realized concepts of sex, and then the worst concept of my own conception took time to reveal. Took time for Ma to admit to me one night. “I had sex with him to prove to myself I could be with a man,” when she finally told me where I came from. “To change. To be straight.”
I am my mother’s self-denial. Her inescapable, unacceptable sinful self. I am the groping hands of a Cuban man in the half-light of 80’s porn. I am the pot in the air. “He popped in a tape and we smoked.” Porn and pot are my blood. Seamen from the Isle, my father to my mother, Gulf of Mexico. Something sticky and unsettling about everything in me, explained through my conception. My mother makes mistakes. Everything happens for a reason. I was born to save her, she would always say. “You saved me.”
I pulled the virgin robe over her, tied the rosary to her hands and bent her head in prayer. I forced myself like Jesus in her womb, and she had no choice but to bite her soul and bear this savior. Humbly hushed the secrets of origins and pasts, replaced with prayers. She did have sex with him to turn herself straight. I was born to turn her straight. Save her soul and silence.
“Who’s my father, Ma ? What’s his name.” But, I never remembered every time she told me. I never needed to know. Never needed him. He and where I came from was a revealing truth that would change me. Only and not only a fact. Like learning the inner workings of history and culture in my Mexi-Cathlican blood, the influences of eons on spinning earth, motivations of masses of people, religions, politics and governments intertwined economics. My father and Cuba. “I didn’t want him in your life, he wasn’t worth having in your life.” My birth certificate says “not worth it” is his name. Truth against the unknown, untold, secrets. Knowing now is all that matters. Telling and letting go. Giving and learning. Rising with our truths, where we came from, to where we are going.
The truth is I am proud of every bit of my existence. I am not ashamed of where I came from. Ma, you should never have been ashamed of yourself. But, if the Saint-Sisters and the world hadn’t condemned you, if self-hatred hadn’t driven you to his dark apartment, his Cuban arms, I wouldn’t exist. I was born not of love but self-hatred and doubt. This is the only truth. The truth of paradox and amnesia. And now I radiate and teach you self-love and certain-uncertainty, Ma, the universe. There are no if only’s. If only I wasn’t born gay, if only I wasn’t born poor, if only. There is only the truth of all these different meanings floating against each other. The collision that we are all born from, deep within our mother’s wombs. And we are alive. And this is all that matters, Ma. This. This is all we can truly know. Reaching out to hold each other’s hands. This is all we need. To know.
And your bible says, Adam ate from the tree of knowledge. Knowing is knowing you can never know. Is the ultimate fear. Is where sin comes from? What does knowing taste like? Do you taste sin's truth like a bloody palm, a blunt to your lips, his hard Cuban kiss, like breaking. Knowing like Eucharist or electric shock’s sour tongue. Pray your prayers to know. I’ll be content with books to read and write like prayers. Knowing like love. Knowing like family or friends. Knowing like secrets to find. Searching hands in the half-light of 80’s porn and pot. Searching like somewhere deep in you, Ma, searching like womb and warmth. Knowledge. I pain you truth like birth from unknowing to now. To know you, so you can know me. Just wanting your family and love to know you once. Know you true like love, like family. Like beginning. I am: was conceived answer to your prayers. I am: your knowing, I am: what will never let you know: An answer to a question: If only? We could know.
07 December 2005
17 November 2005
What Granma Says, es La Lay.
Granma’s smile. That sarcastic, bitter kind of hiss she tongues and out the corner of her eyes brushes you away saying, “Sacase a bañar.” Her joking dismissal of everything not Catholic and in Spanish. Shoots down smart-aleck, know-it-all backtalk, cool kid tongues, soaps out English bad words, and inserts Spanish ones. “Carajo, habla en español, en la escuela ingles, en la casa español.” You always cut us down with the same set of sarcasm, same sass and harsh sound, just not in English, “solo español.” To be Mexican Chicago, migrated your Mexico barrio to Logan Square, apartments along the way to the house on Artesian, and then move back to Mexico, run away from the cold. Old bones need to burry where they were seeded.
Dismissal of everything not Catholic and Spanish, but learned and keep the prayers and worships, the Word in Latin. Always still cover your head at church. You are the Eve that sold Mexico to Cortez, so cover your head. She is Indian skin and eyes of water. “Don’t drink the water.” Always, “No tomas el agua.” We learn to keep ourselves from self and earth. Industry and America taught your Mexico how to suck everything, last drop of the soil like long Indian braid hair and corn husk. Suck everything, last drop out of glass bottled Coca-Cola collections on shelves of new many tiendas taking over your smoke filled streets. Coca-Cola for water to drink in commerce, consumer society, capitalism in your third world. When does priest preach that message against that sin? Then I’ll go to church too. Dedicated walk from church to home, home to church to make community. Walking quick, cutting through the noise and smoke, keep head covered.
Abuela's breath. Air out your kitchen. Heat of your hands like tops of stoves. Cover yourself to keep warm. Wrap up tight, socks and wool skirts you made yourself. A blouse you made from a flower print fabric you made the curtains with the same. You match your kitchen. Frilly apron always first thing on after prayer. Prayer like sweater to keep you warm, keeps your arms from falling off. Sun rises with your dawn, yawn me new day bendiciones before I can leave the house. You bring in the sun push those curtains aside with psalms and platitudes. Feed the birds. Kill the chickens. Cook our favorites and love our smiles. Don’t serve me Granma. I can serve myself. Like you say, “¿No tienes manos? Haz lo tu mismo. Eres Capaz.” Yes I am. So I do. You taught me to do, so you can sit and not always serve us, me, men, daughters and grandkids. I teach myself how, to teach you to not have to.
The rough of soft skin, something like dough you’ve kneaded your arms into flabs of used to be strong, working class arms melted, cleaning bathrooms and cooking for nuns and doing their dishes, laundry, on your knees scrubbing the floors is prayer. Learn and unlearn the points of Catholicism. Brown here and brown there and still cleaning up the white people’s messes. The earth they’ve shat in the very water to drink. “No tomas el agua,” you always taught me. So I don’t. I drink horchata and boiled tap only if a have to. Coca-Cola, agua con sal, un tea con avena cuando estoy enfermo. Your brown flavored remedies, kept pressed leaves of all kind, collections of medicines in your purse, wrapped in napkins leaves and petals, magic you condemn and practice. Tissue when we sneeze, keep quiet in church, en la casa de dios. “But Granma, you can’t keep god in just one house.” Faith like knickknacks you’ve clutter collected compulsive disorder on your selves. Faith like leaves to heal everything stuffed in your purse. Teach me to appreciate thorns like you do.
Assembly line responses to the world. Rote readings to the world and ways to condemn your daughters, where did you go wrong? Self pitying, Catholic guilt Granma. Tight hold on your house like espoons made de plata. The taste stuck in my mouth. Missmatched rummage sale, found in the dumpster, back of the house alley collection of chairs in your kitchen. Assembly line day of family and candles. Tiendas and slight drop of sweat dripping down face, stuck in your eye. The kitchen is the warmest place in our house. It’s where we all go to keep warm these Chicago winters. Scarves and sweaters you pull us tight, still holding espatula, when the boiler breaks.
Tamales for Christmas and my birthday. Watch you pull the chicken from the bones, blood on frill apron. The chicken heads somewhere buried in the yard, or did it slip into the soup? The dog, named Taco, chewing a bone. A feather stick to your skirt. Poor chicken, never had a chance, and your pajaritos cantando-ing in their hand made cages, many colors and kinds of canaries, an egg in a nest, the spell of blood broth. Mix the mole. Chocolate never washed off your finger tips. Assembly line at Marshal Fields, Godiva chocolates you never tasted, never touched your tongue.
Only smell of your chocolate skin incense. Lingering spiced air at misa, your kitchen. Where you create yourself, tight yourself around rosary and beaded prayers, bead pray bead, day and shroud, cover your head and keep warm. Factory your day to keep us warm. This is your law. To keep us Catholic and speaking Spanish. Your creed like Apostles. Hot tongues, tacos de lengua. Tight our heads and hands on like dolls. Twist and snap us together just right. Practice what we preach. Actions and words. Sew up my frayed end pant legs when they get to baggy, draggin ‘n on the floor, under my shoes. Call me “cantinflas” Complain about my long hair. Dress us for misa, tell me to pull up pants, tuck in shirt, walking up cold stone steps. Pull heavy door, keep winter out the church. Dip fingers in ice holy water. Sprinkle and sign of the cross. I wonder what the water tastes like, many hands and washed away sins. What does sin taste like? Gum stuck at the bottom of the pool.
No tomas el aqua, granma. Don’t drink. Drink.
Dismissal of everything not Catholic and Spanish, but learned and keep the prayers and worships, the Word in Latin. Always still cover your head at church. You are the Eve that sold Mexico to Cortez, so cover your head. She is Indian skin and eyes of water. “Don’t drink the water.” Always, “No tomas el agua.” We learn to keep ourselves from self and earth. Industry and America taught your Mexico how to suck everything, last drop of the soil like long Indian braid hair and corn husk. Suck everything, last drop out of glass bottled Coca-Cola collections on shelves of new many tiendas taking over your smoke filled streets. Coca-Cola for water to drink in commerce, consumer society, capitalism in your third world. When does priest preach that message against that sin? Then I’ll go to church too. Dedicated walk from church to home, home to church to make community. Walking quick, cutting through the noise and smoke, keep head covered.
Abuela's breath. Air out your kitchen. Heat of your hands like tops of stoves. Cover yourself to keep warm. Wrap up tight, socks and wool skirts you made yourself. A blouse you made from a flower print fabric you made the curtains with the same. You match your kitchen. Frilly apron always first thing on after prayer. Prayer like sweater to keep you warm, keeps your arms from falling off. Sun rises with your dawn, yawn me new day bendiciones before I can leave the house. You bring in the sun push those curtains aside with psalms and platitudes. Feed the birds. Kill the chickens. Cook our favorites and love our smiles. Don’t serve me Granma. I can serve myself. Like you say, “¿No tienes manos? Haz lo tu mismo. Eres Capaz.” Yes I am. So I do. You taught me to do, so you can sit and not always serve us, me, men, daughters and grandkids. I teach myself how, to teach you to not have to.
The rough of soft skin, something like dough you’ve kneaded your arms into flabs of used to be strong, working class arms melted, cleaning bathrooms and cooking for nuns and doing their dishes, laundry, on your knees scrubbing the floors is prayer. Learn and unlearn the points of Catholicism. Brown here and brown there and still cleaning up the white people’s messes. The earth they’ve shat in the very water to drink. “No tomas el agua,” you always taught me. So I don’t. I drink horchata and boiled tap only if a have to. Coca-Cola, agua con sal, un tea con avena cuando estoy enfermo. Your brown flavored remedies, kept pressed leaves of all kind, collections of medicines in your purse, wrapped in napkins leaves and petals, magic you condemn and practice. Tissue when we sneeze, keep quiet in church, en la casa de dios. “But Granma, you can’t keep god in just one house.” Faith like knickknacks you’ve clutter collected compulsive disorder on your selves. Faith like leaves to heal everything stuffed in your purse. Teach me to appreciate thorns like you do.
Assembly line responses to the world. Rote readings to the world and ways to condemn your daughters, where did you go wrong? Self pitying, Catholic guilt Granma. Tight hold on your house like espoons made de plata. The taste stuck in my mouth. Missmatched rummage sale, found in the dumpster, back of the house alley collection of chairs in your kitchen. Assembly line day of family and candles. Tiendas and slight drop of sweat dripping down face, stuck in your eye. The kitchen is the warmest place in our house. It’s where we all go to keep warm these Chicago winters. Scarves and sweaters you pull us tight, still holding espatula, when the boiler breaks.
Tamales for Christmas and my birthday. Watch you pull the chicken from the bones, blood on frill apron. The chicken heads somewhere buried in the yard, or did it slip into the soup? The dog, named Taco, chewing a bone. A feather stick to your skirt. Poor chicken, never had a chance, and your pajaritos cantando-ing in their hand made cages, many colors and kinds of canaries, an egg in a nest, the spell of blood broth. Mix the mole. Chocolate never washed off your finger tips. Assembly line at Marshal Fields, Godiva chocolates you never tasted, never touched your tongue.
Only smell of your chocolate skin incense. Lingering spiced air at misa, your kitchen. Where you create yourself, tight yourself around rosary and beaded prayers, bead pray bead, day and shroud, cover your head and keep warm. Factory your day to keep us warm. This is your law. To keep us Catholic and speaking Spanish. Your creed like Apostles. Hot tongues, tacos de lengua. Tight our heads and hands on like dolls. Twist and snap us together just right. Practice what we preach. Actions and words. Sew up my frayed end pant legs when they get to baggy, draggin ‘n on the floor, under my shoes. Call me “cantinflas” Complain about my long hair. Dress us for misa, tell me to pull up pants, tuck in shirt, walking up cold stone steps. Pull heavy door, keep winter out the church. Dip fingers in ice holy water. Sprinkle and sign of the cross. I wonder what the water tastes like, many hands and washed away sins. What does sin taste like? Gum stuck at the bottom of the pool.
No tomas el aqua, granma. Don’t drink. Drink.
09 November 2005
Last Word Latina, II
Often confused for a white girl walking down Western. She glares at everyone, defying them, enticing them, beckoning them all to define her, confine her into one box and packager her as a gringa, as a yuppy, as the gentrifying white girl that she isn’t, coming to take away all the brown in this city and erect condos in a grave yard city of used to be culture and community. But she is not white girl 'cause she's Puerto Rican, right? But she is white girl 'cause she talks "right" and isn't curly hair and dark dark brown for you, right? But she's not white girl 'cause she grew up Chicago, Spanish, and Humboldt Park, right? But she is white girl 'cause light skin means Spanish blood and Europe and money, right? She is not white girl for you today, though you’d like to turn her into one because she listens to punk rock and indie bands. She listens to so much more, she is an island and country and world of music and words and ideas and beings that you could never comprehend. She is whatever you want to paint her light brown skin to be.
At the Puerto Rican parade she is fire red eyes burning through the chest of a drunk man in the moon light. He is pressing up on her. Telling her she has a nice ass, how’d she get “that Puerto Rican ass” and oh she’s fine. How’d she get that Puerto Rican ass? As if her ass could be the rounding off of ocean and earth, the scent of suffering and smiling, migrations and identities mixed and confused slavery, vulnerable and seductive violation, governments, religion and politics of an island so far away. And sex, all about sex and eroticizing everything about her, even her short haircut that looks like a boy’s for his fantasies. He is drunk and you can see the center of her earth steaming out her eyes, molten hot core, her being, every sense of dignity, indignity, right and righteousness erupting from her clenched teeth and eyes. She blinks a calm dismissal at him and motions to tell him off with her fist.
And now she isn’t Puerto Rican ass anymore. He looks at her light brown face and through his drunken eyes thinks she’s Asian. “What the fuck you doing here Chinita?” Dis the Puerto Rican parade not China Town. Get the fuck outa Humboldt Park.” And now her fire storm is swirling, swarming brush fire destroying Chicago for a second time. She has always had a bad temper. Tonight there was enough alcohol and empanadas stuffed in her to let out the worst in her. And she steps up to him. She becomes years of oppression, of woman not speaking against the piercing eyes of men like this. She becomes a movement, a liberation unto herself. And she raises herself off the ground. She is not a tiny girl anymore. She grows wings and horns and calls upon the spirits of ancestry, the dead of her world to eat this little man. Devour him within his own lust and ignorance. Turn him into his liquor breath vapor, to evaporate with an offering y un baño. She washes herself of his sticky words, wipes away his stench and sex. And she is stronger than he is.
We pull her away from him before this becomes something worst. We try to calm her and distract her. We pull her away from him before she erupts, implodes and we have to explain to the city that we aren’t feminist terrorist planting bombs at parades to prove a point. We aren’t always indignant and militant. We don’t hate these men or every man. And we pull her away wishing she could have hit him. Wishing we weren’t all cowards. Wishing we didn’t have to fear for her safety and ours and the possibility of inciting a race and class and sex and everything riot in the middle of a nice summer night.
We’re back at her apartment and she’s a yuppy to this confused neighborhood for you and everyone again. And we listen to Celia Cruz and and then some Sleater Kinney and eat some left over chicken wings and drink Coronas. Her fire smothered once again. We should have let her go off on him. We should have let her speak loudly that she is not an object or an ideal, she is not the embodiment of anything other than herself. Why must she be the revolution, why must she be everything that the world isn’t, all the time. Why can’t she just go to a parade, laugh and not be aware of every influence and consequence and negotiate between her class, sex and race for you.
Those words stuck in her head as we drink the rest of the night away, trying to forget ourselves and the world. “Get out of Humboldt Park.” Get out of her Puerto Rican self. Get out of the home you were raised in. Get out of your sex and skin and education. Get out of your class. Get out of your orientation. Get out of your music and books and friends. Get out of your ideas. Get out of yourself, your hair, your eyes, your ass. Get out of this world because we don’t know where to put you. What part of this city to segregate you’re kind to. What kind to?
She sleeps and has a nightmare about grass around her on fire rising up over her. And the ocean is just out of her reach. And her reflection is out of reach. And the fire smells like a drunkard, and whispers, “Get out. Get out. Get out, now.” But she can’t and she screams.
At the Puerto Rican parade she is fire red eyes burning through the chest of a drunk man in the moon light. He is pressing up on her. Telling her she has a nice ass, how’d she get “that Puerto Rican ass” and oh she’s fine. How’d she get that Puerto Rican ass? As if her ass could be the rounding off of ocean and earth, the scent of suffering and smiling, migrations and identities mixed and confused slavery, vulnerable and seductive violation, governments, religion and politics of an island so far away. And sex, all about sex and eroticizing everything about her, even her short haircut that looks like a boy’s for his fantasies. He is drunk and you can see the center of her earth steaming out her eyes, molten hot core, her being, every sense of dignity, indignity, right and righteousness erupting from her clenched teeth and eyes. She blinks a calm dismissal at him and motions to tell him off with her fist.
And now she isn’t Puerto Rican ass anymore. He looks at her light brown face and through his drunken eyes thinks she’s Asian. “What the fuck you doing here Chinita?” Dis the Puerto Rican parade not China Town. Get the fuck outa Humboldt Park.” And now her fire storm is swirling, swarming brush fire destroying Chicago for a second time. She has always had a bad temper. Tonight there was enough alcohol and empanadas stuffed in her to let out the worst in her. And she steps up to him. She becomes years of oppression, of woman not speaking against the piercing eyes of men like this. She becomes a movement, a liberation unto herself. And she raises herself off the ground. She is not a tiny girl anymore. She grows wings and horns and calls upon the spirits of ancestry, the dead of her world to eat this little man. Devour him within his own lust and ignorance. Turn him into his liquor breath vapor, to evaporate with an offering y un baño. She washes herself of his sticky words, wipes away his stench and sex. And she is stronger than he is.
We pull her away from him before this becomes something worst. We try to calm her and distract her. We pull her away from him before she erupts, implodes and we have to explain to the city that we aren’t feminist terrorist planting bombs at parades to prove a point. We aren’t always indignant and militant. We don’t hate these men or every man. And we pull her away wishing she could have hit him. Wishing we weren’t all cowards. Wishing we didn’t have to fear for her safety and ours and the possibility of inciting a race and class and sex and everything riot in the middle of a nice summer night.
We’re back at her apartment and she’s a yuppy to this confused neighborhood for you and everyone again. And we listen to Celia Cruz and and then some Sleater Kinney and eat some left over chicken wings and drink Coronas. Her fire smothered once again. We should have let her go off on him. We should have let her speak loudly that she is not an object or an ideal, she is not the embodiment of anything other than herself. Why must she be the revolution, why must she be everything that the world isn’t, all the time. Why can’t she just go to a parade, laugh and not be aware of every influence and consequence and negotiate between her class, sex and race for you.
Those words stuck in her head as we drink the rest of the night away, trying to forget ourselves and the world. “Get out of Humboldt Park.” Get out of her Puerto Rican self. Get out of the home you were raised in. Get out of your sex and skin and education. Get out of your class. Get out of your orientation. Get out of your music and books and friends. Get out of your ideas. Get out of yourself, your hair, your eyes, your ass. Get out of this world because we don’t know where to put you. What part of this city to segregate you’re kind to. What kind to?
She sleeps and has a nightmare about grass around her on fire rising up over her. And the ocean is just out of her reach. And her reflection is out of reach. And the fire smells like a drunkard, and whispers, “Get out. Get out. Get out, now.” But she can’t and she screams.
06 November 2005
Last Word Latina
Today is last word Latina who personalizes everything. Opinionated on everything, and argues about things that no one is really arguing over. When the other person isn’t arguing just saying something different or trying to lay the debate she made up to rest to continue the lecture or discussion.
Needs a pill to fix this she can’t seem to keep from ignoring. Over exhaustion and stress she piles up sleep deprivation like her dept for school and living. Whose parents disowned her for being a lesbian and deciding to go to college. And they haven’t decided which they’re more offended by. Her sex or her leaving so many sisters and dishes. For education over kitchens. And here she is so eager to invite me over to her independence and room in a coop and cook and laugh and not be reminded.
Only afraid of father and god, or god the father, or her father, god? She forgets now. It’s been so long. Took care of god by becoming an atheist. But can’t stop believing in fathers, like anthropomorphic mythological owners of everything and the future with thick belts and loud roaring snores that make the thunder she can’t sleep because of.
Quiver in Latina voice, pinches, pricks soft cracks and sings sighs. Is a moan to be a Mexican girl. And moan takes two vowels to makes its own sound. voice. sex. she writes without gender. Today was not loud in class because she wasn’t even listening when she tried to because today was so much poetry, thought out of fingers and obsessions. Desperation today wants this book she is to be written and shelved. Burned and boiled. Eaten. Shitted out and on. Story to run from blood like stabbing, eyes out ears to let go pulled and punched back in kind of book. Today is aggravating hiccup poetry and heart slow up esophagus. A cough to wheeze grind throat and air and hiss and choke over. Her eternal in-betweens. Work and trying not to faint. Keep it together.
Notebook in her chest lets the writing get thicker when it needs to be closed shut, wrapped with wires to keep it from bursting confetti of printed pages, bloated binding with words in life boat papers escaping sinking stories, coma and quote people jumping from burning binding, consonant children running from perfect lines, demonic boys as girls as boys howling out isles from first gruel communion church where she doesn't even try to compete with that word. Echo hollow church thunder tortillaed in her. Content at the end of day with microwave veggie wraps, empty thoughts and glass she stains her windows peace and power. No doubt debate pressing in her dark comforting quiet.
Needs a pill to fix this she can’t seem to keep from ignoring. Over exhaustion and stress she piles up sleep deprivation like her dept for school and living. Whose parents disowned her for being a lesbian and deciding to go to college. And they haven’t decided which they’re more offended by. Her sex or her leaving so many sisters and dishes. For education over kitchens. And here she is so eager to invite me over to her independence and room in a coop and cook and laugh and not be reminded.
Only afraid of father and god, or god the father, or her father, god? She forgets now. It’s been so long. Took care of god by becoming an atheist. But can’t stop believing in fathers, like anthropomorphic mythological owners of everything and the future with thick belts and loud roaring snores that make the thunder she can’t sleep because of.
Quiver in Latina voice, pinches, pricks soft cracks and sings sighs. Is a moan to be a Mexican girl. And moan takes two vowels to makes its own sound. voice. sex. she writes without gender. Today was not loud in class because she wasn’t even listening when she tried to because today was so much poetry, thought out of fingers and obsessions. Desperation today wants this book she is to be written and shelved. Burned and boiled. Eaten. Shitted out and on. Story to run from blood like stabbing, eyes out ears to let go pulled and punched back in kind of book. Today is aggravating hiccup poetry and heart slow up esophagus. A cough to wheeze grind throat and air and hiss and choke over. Her eternal in-betweens. Work and trying not to faint. Keep it together.
Notebook in her chest lets the writing get thicker when it needs to be closed shut, wrapped with wires to keep it from bursting confetti of printed pages, bloated binding with words in life boat papers escaping sinking stories, coma and quote people jumping from burning binding, consonant children running from perfect lines, demonic boys as girls as boys howling out isles from first gruel communion church where she doesn't even try to compete with that word. Echo hollow church thunder tortillaed in her. Content at the end of day with microwave veggie wraps, empty thoughts and glass she stains her windows peace and power. No doubt debate pressing in her dark comforting quiet.
26 October 2005
Por El Grito, Canto We Can't Hear
Canto: This is the song. for when my Latino Literature class and I dread. that moment brown teacher points to us. have to read out loud the page in front. parentheses between the words Latina/o kids (in college even) can’t read and stumble over. let fry and clank, mash up our bean rice corn teeth mouth tongues. on syllables, can’t pronounce strange long words we weren’t taught in sucky CPS. insecure about reading. and always soft voice. too fast and staring at page. for few awkward forever seconds. when don’t know the word “precarious” in poem. paralyzing pressure affects silence. when you know s/he’s perplexed. know I've skipped word and sentence doesn't make sense now. you have to start over. everyone's waiting. and I can feel the weight of moment in your heart. moment that when it happens to all of us. just skip it. skip school. skip chances. and skip our voice. truth skips us. and rights and futures skip our children. and we begin to loose our Spanish to this silence too. and we don’t even understand ourselves anymore.
Grito: Por los que no entienden, y por los que si. Por “no speake ingles” y por “for why you go to de parque.” make you switch your soul and syntax, circumstance, religions, to fit our heathen history and make you worship our feathered panthered sunned browned gods. hairy hairless tongue your way. out of this one. you can suck it. out nopales y chile thorns up top your teeth. moist and molar mole mouth until you cry. ‘cause your children are talking words you can’t comprehend. and hate and love this place you’ve been dragged to. ‘cause back home is need and you’re always giving. clutter of useless phrases you’ll have to memorize. and agonize. we’ll roast lengua de white men, conquistadores in our blood dinner. when Mexico is taken back and we force you to wash our dishes and take your minimum of minimum wage to the currency exchange. in country you can’t or wouldn’t want to claim anyways. gritando with our loud-ass rancheros down Western and Astro vans con la Virgen on spare tire. grita, the sound of success when it’s a brown girl as president. through college y el movimiento. took kids y abuelitos al capital to cry. and brown girl presidenta just gave us Mexico without a war. all because of words. were proud to fumble with.
Grito: Por los que no entienden, y por los que si. Por “no speake ingles” y por “for why you go to de parque.” make you switch your soul and syntax, circumstance, religions, to fit our heathen history and make you worship our feathered panthered sunned browned gods. hairy hairless tongue your way. out of this one. you can suck it. out nopales y chile thorns up top your teeth. moist and molar mole mouth until you cry. ‘cause your children are talking words you can’t comprehend. and hate and love this place you’ve been dragged to. ‘cause back home is need and you’re always giving. clutter of useless phrases you’ll have to memorize. and agonize. we’ll roast lengua de white men, conquistadores in our blood dinner. when Mexico is taken back and we force you to wash our dishes and take your minimum of minimum wage to the currency exchange. in country you can’t or wouldn’t want to claim anyways. gritando with our loud-ass rancheros down Western and Astro vans con la Virgen on spare tire. grita, the sound of success when it’s a brown girl as president. through college y el movimiento. took kids y abuelitos al capital to cry. and brown girl presidenta just gave us Mexico without a war. all because of words. were proud to fumble with.
25 October 2005
Ratoncita Cousin.
Ratoncita Cousin.
Adriana is a dark skin and attitude like her father girl. She is the oldest, smacking Frankie over the head but watching out for while giggling and loving little Alexis, her sweet surprise little sister. With a thick head of Puerto Rican should have been curly but is straight and black Mexican oil hair that is long and long and thick as a horsetail she wears in one tough ponytail down her back for Alexis to braid small knots in and call them pretty and for Frankie to pull and swing from her like a Tarzan tree trunk older sister.
When we played as kids, she was always the Jasmine and I was always the Aladdin. She was a beautiful child and has grown up to be a beautiful young woman. But she is the type of girl that knows she is beautiful. Popular and full of spunk and plays soccer with boys because it’s fast and fun, not for the boys that fawn over her, but notices that too so she is always laughing.
Got her period at 11 or 12. So early it scared the woman in the family, speculating and suspecting the hormones in all the 2% and American cheese she loved eating as a kid (we called her ratoncita) to be the reason for her early thrust into maturity. Something in the Indiana water turns brown girls that should have been raised in Chicago with her other brown cousins or something in brown blood that made her always older than she was.
I found her diary sitting on the sofa one day, not knowing what it was, opened it and the page said something about dry humping on her boyfriends couch. Closed it quick. Growing up fast girl. Remember she is 15 and I was just about the same age the first time I fooled around, dry anythinged with anyone. I worry that she will be like her mother, like all our mothers, and get pregnant at a young age, unmarried, surprised and alone. But then I realize that all of our mothers raised us fine. If all of our mothers hadn’t been careless, or passionate, wild and unruly young woman, none of us would have ever been born. And she is laying on the couch with a baby that is premature, small druggy-baby—tubes and incubators and blinking lights to measure the measures—her mother is babysitting and Adriana is on the couch sleeping with this warm small thing nestled on her chest.
Adriana is a dark skin and attitude like her father girl. She is the oldest, smacking Frankie over the head but watching out for while giggling and loving little Alexis, her sweet surprise little sister. With a thick head of Puerto Rican should have been curly but is straight and black Mexican oil hair that is long and long and thick as a horsetail she wears in one tough ponytail down her back for Alexis to braid small knots in and call them pretty and for Frankie to pull and swing from her like a Tarzan tree trunk older sister.
When we played as kids, she was always the Jasmine and I was always the Aladdin. She was a beautiful child and has grown up to be a beautiful young woman. But she is the type of girl that knows she is beautiful. Popular and full of spunk and plays soccer with boys because it’s fast and fun, not for the boys that fawn over her, but notices that too so she is always laughing.
Got her period at 11 or 12. So early it scared the woman in the family, speculating and suspecting the hormones in all the 2% and American cheese she loved eating as a kid (we called her ratoncita) to be the reason for her early thrust into maturity. Something in the Indiana water turns brown girls that should have been raised in Chicago with her other brown cousins or something in brown blood that made her always older than she was.
I found her diary sitting on the sofa one day, not knowing what it was, opened it and the page said something about dry humping on her boyfriends couch. Closed it quick. Growing up fast girl. Remember she is 15 and I was just about the same age the first time I fooled around, dry anythinged with anyone. I worry that she will be like her mother, like all our mothers, and get pregnant at a young age, unmarried, surprised and alone. But then I realize that all of our mothers raised us fine. If all of our mothers hadn’t been careless, or passionate, wild and unruly young woman, none of us would have ever been born. And she is laying on the couch with a baby that is premature, small druggy-baby—tubes and incubators and blinking lights to measure the measures—her mother is babysitting and Adriana is on the couch sleeping with this warm small thing nestled on her chest.
23 October 2005
Finger Out Our Demons.
my biggest lonely is a demon. makes want so many bodies. must Gabriel and smite my sex with swords. shove aside all the silly stripes and spots. sex crosses eyes. bends my knees in sultry spinning slow and up worship. his body and movement is constant and change is my new religion. truth is under microscope his eyes. love is when we've sexed the sex out of us. and still need each other. is undeniable reason for being. is only to find one. find and forget about looking for big white clouds to save us. 'cause we can save ourselves. with a little bit of love his head on my chest and the hairs. were shy to show each other. confessions and looking up at crucifix. just want to run hands down line they must have methodically chiseled that v down his white pelvis that stops where cloth you know shouldn't be there. is covering up natural and right and real and something to be proud and praise and want to pull. all of that Jesus into your Eucharist. palms open. mouth kneeling tongue. out to put teeth in wine and all prickles up leg. wrapped around this worship. on the alter sacrifice and spasm, pain and push, and pain and moan, and push and take. and this is where we come from. this is where all the demons are baked and broken.
19 October 2005
My Mother as Christ, Self-Crucifixion.
Crucifying herself with one hand free to raise me and the other driving the stakes through her palms. Where I crawled out of her embrace and where Tuesday slipped in to encourage Jesus saves and every Sunday morning together, push the iron in a little closer to the wood splinters splitting love. Two lesbians, one black the other brown, in the back of church sad singing and hoping. An agonizing confusing worship that still fills them something I can’t, won’t understand anymore. She still sends me little pamphlets about prayer and the New White Pope and the Passion of Christ and the Dangers of Evolution. Always asking if I’m praying and when I’m praying and reminders to go to church and pray. She’s more concerned with what I believe than the topics I try to talk to her about Latina writers and ethnocentric attitudes and anthropology and so many big words and big ideas. I can see her proud-of-me eyes sweeping big words aside and butting in the conversation I was only having with myself. Her eyes say, “praise God for your fortunes and bless you for the future,” and then I give up trying to talk about what matters to me with her. And we sit in the restaurant, couch, hallway, bus, forever not talking, but wanting to hear something of each other’s heartbeats. Crawl back into each other where we all came from place. Where words don’t get in the way, and there’s no need for to worship worry words here. I try to figure out why I write this endless and why this story must be. The meditations like prayers, each one too deeply personal to edit down. Write more and more, remembering specific persons, places, and experiences in this, live to make sense of her life and ours and everyone’s. This eternal constant. Whisper, “prayer praying prayer praying prayer.” I was born to save her. She was crucified to save me. She wasn’t born with this pen to drive into her palms like I do. She took the cross, forever nailed feet in place, in faith and condemnation from sour Saint sisters. Her tired worn down bone and blood dripping feet, standing security guard, worn out callus stand and sit down of church and running in circles grinding knees, heavy wood family on her bent broken back, tense neck and crown of thorns. She took the cross. So I could kneel and start new religions.
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