Category: Uncategorized
Protected: O
Protected: L
The Ants Were Here First
The ants were here first
The spiders were her first
The flies, unfortunately, where here first
The mosquitos can go to hell
The trees were here first
(The sharks before them)
The wisdom of their roots slowly breaking up concrete that “civilization” tried to restrain them
Believing, in such a short time (in only 80 generations), that we could corral nature
Our whims, our beliefs, our values were stronger than roots breaking concrete
We who do not even remember, not even around to do so, the movement of land, breaking apart before even the roots existed
Cleaning Day (6/366)
It’s just dishes. It’s just floors. It’s just dusting. It’s just laundry. It’s just vacuuming. It’s just mopping. It’s just switching laundry. It’s just picking up. It’s just cleaning the desk. It’s just mail. It’s just folding. It’s just dishes. It’s just wiping down the bathrooms. It’s just cleaning tubs. It’s just making knee pads from towels. It’s just vinegar and short shoulders straining. It’s just scrubbing toilets. It’s just picking up. It’s just sitting down. It’s just watching shows you don’t even like. It’s just dishes, again. It’s just Saturday. It’s just your only day off. It’s just work tomorrow.
Seven Weeks (5/366)
I knew we would fall in love the moment I shook his hand. I convinced him to join me. He was reluctant. He went quiet during my spring break, my stomach shrinking away from the inevitable. He broke it off the day after I was sleeping in his shirt. I screamed and rocked and cried and he stared as this confirmed his feelings. I couldn’t taste my Nana’s cooking for a week, my tongue dying in solidarity with my gut. Once I was his age, I couldn’t blame him, but I could still hate him for making home food bland.
Boomerang Universe (4/366)
I remember this. I remember saying good-bye to my children, although this time around I am meeting them for the first time. They have teary smiles as they try to hide their sadness from me, but now I can interpret them as tears of joy.
The universe is bowing back to its beginning. Time does not care if it goes forwards or backwards. It does not care when I meet my parents again in this life in 30 years, and lose my children in 50. Paradoxically, it is kind enough to remind me of the terrible fullness of life.
Ghost Realms (3/366)
I don’t listen to ghost stories. I believe in them too much. I think it’s better to leave them alone. I lived in a room where a girl died, no one remembers how, nor how true it is. I not-lit a bundle of rosemary in my smokeless room, telling her that I wouldn’t mess with her realm if she didn’t mess with mine. We all know I would have lost, but I thought I might as well respect her realm. She did end up respecting mine, although some things happened that she couldn’t help. See: the nights I woke “myself.”
Brown Body Love
April 13, 2016
She didn’t like my brown body
She actually liked other white girls who like country music
She didn’t like my brown body rants
She didn’t like my impractical double major
She didn’t like my practical brown political anger
She didn’t like to listen to me
Except when I moaned
She didn’t like going home smelling like me
She didn’t like sleeping in my bed
But she liked sleeping in my room
She didn’t like the clutter in my room
But refused to help the clutter in her mind
She didn’t like my brown body hair that I refused to shave
She didn’t like that I eventually put my friends before her
But at that point I had decided that
My friends like me
I like me
I love my brown body
I realized that I did not need another body to make my own feel good
I had to show my brown body radical self love
That she wouldn’t like nor understand
So white woman non-feminist lover
I had to stop loving on you
So I could start loving on me
Is This What It Comes To?
Is this what it comes to?
A minimum-wage job
that barely lets me pay my
too-high rent
Struggling to find a story
beneath my skin
No audience to write to
just an itch in the middle
of my back that i have
not satisfied
Everyone else has found
a great story
Yet I cannot bring myself
to admit that
i might have one too
There is no other woman
inside me
ready to sprout fully grown
from my headaches
Colochos de Flores 