teamara

As in the nub of the remains of crayola crayon that’s been used to color in so many smiling cartoon suns on a piece of paper-
Her favorite color is yellow.
And I don’t mean a wimpy *** pastel yellow or sometimes a pale yellow
I mean her favorite color is bright *** yellow.
Like Pikachu yellow.
Like she’s almost nineteen but she’s still willing to play Gameboy Pokemon yellow.
There’s something innocent yet corny kind of yellow about her.
She’s beautiful like yellow jirasol petals
She’s intricate as yellow thread woven in a Rasta Dom
She’s yellow like gold and Africa
She’s sweet like pineapples and delicate like daffodils
I still don’t know why her favorite color is yellow
Maybe it has to do with her fascination of Asian men…
I mean! ...with the continent of Asia
She thinks she’s more like pink Japanese cherry blossom trees in the summer
But I know she’s truly yellow petals on Paolo Verde trees blowing in the wind spreading around Tucson
A metaphor for her love
She’s yellow like the color in the middle of my pride rainbow- She supports me
She’s yellow like the big painted sun at the hospital with a big grin
I wonder why nobody smiles at hospitals
The place where life is easily given as taken
Where we are reminded that our health is sometimes taken for granted
Other than that great big yellow sun
She is the only that radiates yellow and smiles
In waiting rooms, she seems like she’s the calmest
Even though she’s the only one going through surgery
She’s so beautiful on the inside her body can’t even take it
She doesn’t deserve scions or scalpels to even be considered touching her bronze skin
I wish instead they would strip down the color yellow from my life
And give it to her to make her smile so bright that even word “cancer” would cease to exist
But still. Even through pain and hardships
She still smiles. Not only is she yellow when she’s happy
She tends to radiate yellow even when she’s gloomy
When I’m upset, her aura has way of rubbing off on mine
And I get insight to why her favorite color is yellow
‘*** she’s the kind of yellow that represents strength
She’s yellow like tall forts made from gold bars
She’s yellow like flames that roll of her tongue when she spits fire
She’s yellow like a crayola-crayon… except she can’t be broken
From her, I’m learning
That even when you’re hurting
You can still shine bright like your favorite color.

My Sunglasses

I’ve got all of Tucson trapped behind my sunglasses
I’ve framed mountain ranges in the frames of my Raybands
I’ve got reflections of saguaro’s stranding still in front of my eyes
I have sunny days taking refuge underneath my shades
I’ve domesticated the giant star that rides blues skies into walking the edge of my brow
I use black plastic as onyx shields
So Tucson, I see you.
There’s an art revolution beating at your horizon
I’ve seen it skirting around these wastelands
They tell us we’re wasting our time
Telling the roadrunner to run back home
When its nest was here since the beginning of time
Tucson.
I’ve seen folklorico and mariachi pay tribute to your origins on the hottest of days
I’ve seen in the shadows in underground art forms
Graffetti. There’s a protest in there somewhere.
I’ve even witnessed it in pen to paper
In lips to mics. In cafés in your desert nights for your desert nighttime audiences.
Tucson, your culture and artistic value shines too bright for others to see.
Your artistic worth shines too bright for others to broadcast
They tend to only record your overdoses and murders
Seems like our televised story tellers prefer to paint us in immoral reds
The only time they pay the south side attention is when the south side is aching
It doesn’t help that schools force you to choose business
Give you chance to study law all the while cut out your art programs
Fine art is required by universities but they don’t always expect you to get that far.
Tucson’s fine art is too fine and infinite to be recognized by those undeserving
Society wants to capture our southern brethren as outlaws not poets
We’re called the misfit of the desert. As if every spray can, paint stroke, choreographed twist,
Slam poem wasn’t something to take pride in.
I’m sorry they only pay your schools attention when ambulances are parked in your driveways
And administrators get caught in doing ***** deeds.
I see your talent wasted. Your talent shown.
To remind myself of your artistic significance, I’ve framed you
On walks home I photograph your murals.
Listen to the poets in the hallways.
Observe the dancers compose and the musicians choreograph
I’ve caught your reflection in my corneas’.
I’ve dilated my pupils thoughts behind my sunglasses.
Framed your mountain ranges in my frames.
Took cover in your shades.
Trained the artistic freedom and right to walk on my brow
Tucson
I see you.

i'll tell you something: every day
people are dying. and that's just the beginning.
the death which spreads its fingers
on their lips is nothing
but a window.
once they step outside the pain,
then anything is possible. the universe
is just a big old vacuum and
no matter

what you do, you’ll never stop the
constant spark: the entirety of all
existence. forget about
your birthday cakes, your lakeside strolls,
your speeding tickets and project deadlines
-those were all just vibrations
that came out of the light.

and i’ll tell you something else: on the day
you truly die, you will plunge into
a lake of dancing triangles. and when you swim
through violent ripples melting to a bonfire
drumbeat, and you reach the rocky shore,
you will find yourself a squeaking pup
in a fuzzy wolf litter, a striped shell collecting
erosion from the golden spiral, an infant of a Lithic tribe
whose members scooped you out of the
harsh winds and left nothing
but afterbirth poured like puddles in their
foot steps along the Bering Strait.

To future conquering civilizations
in galaxies far far away . . .
don't worry about polluting the air,
our smokestacks have shot *****-bombs
into the clouds for centuries,
mixing rain drops with the
black grime of industrialization,
transforming our children's tears
into cesspools of sulfuric acid and ddt.
We've also drained the bayous and swamps
and between you and me
don't even bother landing in Africa
there isn't suitable drinking water
for miles, you see.
You can thank years of colonization for that.
In fact, you may not want to land
on Mondays, Tuesdays, or Thursdays
in LA either-
on those days the air quality index
is 175 and far too unhealthy for any
biological organism to survive.
But at least you won't die of malnutrition
you've got decisions:
McDonald's or Burger King
choose
cholesterol and diabetes are your shock troops.
Send them in immediately,
there won't be much resistance
we've got these things call lazy boys
and daytime t.v which have
enslaved the population and decreased
the distance
between fully functioning
human beings and mindless apes.
Don't worry about bringing weapons
we've got those too
we've perfected the art of blowing each other away
there's not much for you to do.
we destroy cities with fire from the sky
and our mushroom clouds rise
at least ten miles high.
And god can't see, there's too much smoke
in his eyes
and our radiated children die
with radiated sighs.
While we are on the topic
don't worry about us spreading
propaganda
we've lost the ability to communicate.
We've learned
books turn a peculiar dark yellow
when lighted and burned.
And forget erasing history,
we've done that too.
Our subjugation of native peoples
is masked as 'patriotism'
under the red, white, and blue.

But don't get me wrong,
I tell you all
of this not to dissuade,
please come and attack,
please come and invade.
Here, I'll even turn
on the lights . . .

They came
out of the sun.
They came as one,
and then burst
into a thousand
brightly
burning birds,
colliding
kaleidoscopes-
smashed up stars,
mashed up Mars-
crimson
in my eyes,
feathered
arrows
in flight,
flocking
to the flood
beneath us,
the stars fell
like trickles of blood
from the brow of the sky,


I was high.

So high.

We were both still quite sleepy.
She laid her head in my lap in
fetal position for most of the ride
and I nodded off as the thunder
rumbled, and rocked me to sleep,
my head lolling to one side.
It was miserable out.
The sky was a toxic, smoky gray,
swollen and bruised purple
like rotting flesh, and the rain,
so incessant, berated the windshield
of the cab the whole ride to the theater
and all the while after we had handed
a couple crumpled dollars to the driver
and gotten in the cue.

We had our backstage passes
tucked away into our coats,
we didn't want any of the
regulars to see. She huddled
closer to me to guard her
ashen lips from the needle ******
of the wind, that would bring a tear
to her eye when they scraped against
the tip of her nose. She was thinking,
as she fingered the strap of the shiny,
clean, new camera
she bought to photograph us doing
***** things, the lens
reflecting all of her good intentions,
warm feelings onto me.

As a vendor strode by I snagged
up two cups of coffee, and handed one to her
and then we sank back into the shivering,
shuddering mass. She took a few sips, as I drew
the flame to my cigarette, ducking behind her
and cupping the tip in order to get it lit,
I could see the steam dissipating into the cold,
wet air. She smiled with amusement and
after a few moments looked up and whispered to me
"I want him at his best. I hope he's super depressed."
I said
"Yeah",
as I exhaled the smoke and simultaneously, in one heave,
cleared my throat,
"I hope he ******* hates us."

The monotony of adolescence is a laughable oxymoron.
My mom keeps saying to me,
"Caitlin, you're in a state of flux. Just wait."
Little does she know
I'm waiting for anything
to ebb.
Flow.
Twinge.
Any lurch of impulse of life
in this constant static lullaby.

Maybe I'm just itching to slough off my skin of content
and breathe in a fresh new disposition.
Become intoxicated in the maybes,
and the possibly's.
Embracing the oh-wells
and the never-enough-times.
Eschewing the feeling of everything I've missed
by having it near.
Having him here.

Getting trapped in the crinkles of his smile
and the freckles on his shoulders
that navigate me to the spots I feel most comfy.
Losing regard for the world as I become transfixed
in us
and our patterns on his couch.

Tumble into elation.
Quirks transpire the me's and you's
into the us's and we's.

To think... I was so scared to hold his hand.
Not knowing at the time
how great his waffles would taste
after a night of holding him.

Silently and scrupulously looking at my dad for a minute, I asked,
"What is it like to get old?"
He turned his attention away from the computer screen
Met my gaze
Took a deep breath in, and began,

"You don't realize just how fast life goes by, until it's gone.
One day, you look in the mirror, and realize that twenty years have gone by.
It's a different person in the mirror than what you expected.
Some days, I look at your mother
And it feels like I've only known her for a few months.
Other days I look at her, and she's just so different from the woman I met.
We've grown and changed so much together.
I am, to this day, learning new things about her,
And all of them make me love her more.
Yeah, she can't cook for ****, and she talks in tangential circles
Which I just can't keep up with.
But since day one I was smitten with her.
And to this day I'm surprised that she actually chose
To spend the rest of her life with me.
Getting old with the right person makes getting old bearable."

I forgot what it was like
to stay up past the point of exhaustion,
just to see my phone light up
with your name on it.

It makes me feel special again.
Like we're the only ones awake
in this bustling world.

A secret kept between
me
you
and the atmosphere.

Thinking of us and the asphalt
and how amazing it felt
at 3AM.
Streetlights dancing on our skin,
tracing your ears
and shoulders
and other places I like to nuzzle.

The pavement
reading the traces of your fingertips
on my back
like braille.
Every breath vibrating in the air.

Using each other as a blanket,
wrapping my limbs around you.
Scarfing up and down the road.
Sinking into this.

A poem falls short; I'd like, instead
to draw a single line from me to you
and watch it curl into a word
so beautiful it's still unsaid –
or press paper to the window pane
so that the day might saturate
a note that brightly warms your hands,
spills birdsong from imagined trees
and buzzes like fat bumblebees,
but I am bound by language, love; I can't.

A free bird leaps on the back
Of the wind and floats downstream
Till the current ends and dips his wing
In the orange suns rays
And dares to claim the sky.

But a BIRD that stalks down his narrow cage
Can seldom see through his bars of rage
His wings are clipped and his feet are tied
So he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with a fearful trill
Of things unknown but longed for still
And his tune is heard on the distant hill for
The caged bird sings of freedom.

The free bird thinks of another breeze
And the trade winds soft through
The sighing trees
And the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright
Lawn and he names the sky his own.

But a caged BIRD stands on the grave of dreams
His shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
His wings are clipped and his feet are tied
So he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with
A fearful trill of things unknown
But longed for still and his
Tune is heard on the distant hill
For the caged bird sings of freedom.

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the ***** bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the *****, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free?  Not me?
Surely not me?  The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, *****'s, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The **** and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.