I Am Here

The vine will wrap

its limbs and climb

the veritable concrete,

just as we resist

the burden and

convenience of

greed

through the

sheer will of

living.

I am here.

I am here.

I am here.

IG: @daydreamifications

Of the Moon

I used to love

staying up

well into the night.

It was a sanctuary

where the young

rejoiced

in the defeat

of death.

But now that

invincibility

has proven

only theory,

the night

is no longer

my haven,

no longer

where I play,

where I laugh,

where I dance.

So heavy

this burden.

The night

now symbolizes

the end

to all

the happy endings

I can’t seem

to believe in.

How I long

for the innocence

of babes

who so easily

close their eyes,

who can

so easily

rest.

I wish beauty

was not

so often

tainted

with the wisdom

of goodbye.

I wish

I could

learn how

to live

with the fear

of the end.

We cannot escape

our final breath,

but I wish

I could

<be>

like those

who do not

live

in fear

of sleep,

who can truly

live within

the unknown.

So heavy

this fear.

I am not

comforted

by the idea

of space

and stardust,

not at peace

with the idea

of heaven,

of cycles,

of seasons.

I wish

I could

be present

with the forever

that lives

in each moment.

Wish I could

live in the moment.

Why am I always

simply waiting

for my sunset?

So heavy

this burden,

this fear

of the moon.

IG: @daydreamifications

For Only God Knows What (NYPC #13)

New Year's Poetry Challenge, Prompt #13

We share our world with about 9,956 species of birds. Write a poem about birds -- their lives, their habits, the wild, the domesticated, their place in your life, what it might be like to be one, metaphors associated with birds, whatever bird-like imagining you can come up with.  

We were sitting

in the living room

when dad spotted it

through the window.

He sprung to action,

“Get my shoes!”

And we were all

in a panic

for only God knows what.

“Dá-me uma toalha!”

to mom he bellows

like his accordion.

She hands him a towel

then swings her hands

toward the ceiling,

What crazy thing now

is he up to?

For only God knows what.

He quickly limps out

the back door and

glides down the stairs

like polio was only kidding.

Mom warns us kids

to get back,

so we rush to

the window to gawk

for only God knows what.

We watched him crab walk

to what we could finally see

was a dull, green,

wild-eyed cockatoo.

Dad’s eyes were alive

but he approached with

ease before—whoosh—

that bird disappeared

for only God knows what.

He brings it inside

and furiously it beats

its wings along the rim

of our living room sky,

swooping on lampshades

larger than my entire body,

and roosting on the antennae

of that knobby old television set

for only God knows what.

For minutes that

stretched like hours,

utter chaos spanned

many tongues:

my brothers' cackle and whoop,

mother’s Portuguese slang, and

father and mine's

delight

for only God knows what.

We fed that cockatoo

until the color came back

into its cheeks

and gave it a place to nest.

Mom, who had protested,

let it perch on her head

as she set the table

or sat down for a telenovela.

In fact, mom was its

favorite, I think,

even though dad

had been its savior.

Or had he?

I often wonder if that cockatoo

was happy there on

Watkins Street,

for only God knows what

freedom can mean.

IG: @daydreamifications

Wild Woman (NYPC #17)

New Year's Poetry Challenge, Prompt #17
Attached is a photo. Write a poem.

For centuries
they have tamed us
bridled our voices
fenced our passions
They aimed to capture
Wild Woman

She awakens
takes back claim
that belongs
to no man
Wild Woman
set free

Dualism (NYPC #10)

New Year's Poetry Challenge, Prompt #10

"Check out the colors of the year from Pantone, the people who decide such things. Here are Serenity and Rose Quartz. Write a two column poem – one for each color. Your columns could play off each other or be separate, or maybe they could be a conversation. They could read vertically only, or vertically and horizontally."

On Hiking (NYPC #7)

New Year's Poetry Challenge, Prompt #7

"Trails and Paths. Think about trails and paths, real and/or imagined that you have traveled or would like to travel. Imagine those trails that loom large – the Pacific Crest Trail, the Appalachian Trail, the Camino, and imagine those that loom close and personal – a path to recovery, a path to a career goal, a path to a poem, a path toward…whatever we all take paths toward. Write a poem. If you’d like a parameter, make your poem look path-like – a few words on each line perhaps; a long, skinny poem perhaps; playing with spacing perhaps." 

Wish I could be as carefree

   as those who do not fear death

      on a ten percent grade downhill

Not me

I stand back where it is

safe

and the only

s                                             

l

o

p

e

is the frown of my

disappointment. I want to

                                y

                l              

f

but I am too afraid of falling

to try

I am

an addict

Don't know how to live

   unless I am skin-kneed

      on an uphill battle

         unless I am hiking 

            with glass slippers

         Only know how to live

      when I am healing

   I am an addict

of suffering

   Don't know to breathe

      without words

         Use them to carry me

            on the road to recovery

         I am constantly

      healing

   and haven't yet learned

that's a good thing

         

The Next Beat (NYPC #3)

New Year's Poetry Challenge, Prompt #3

"Write a poem about the future -- yours, mine, or ours. What will it be like? 

(And if you'd like a completely optional parameter, each line can be no longer than 8 syllables long.)"

In the darkness there will either

be flesh or fingernail where nail

used to be

There will be joyful survival

or lost hope where love once

used to live

The only thing for certain

is there will be consequence

on the next page

Some say it is written

Others find the breath chaotic

All we can do is keep pace

with the metronome

expecting, always expecting

the next beat

IG: @daydreamifications

For the Wolves (NYPC #4)

New Year's Poetry Challenge, Prompt #4

"Here is the painting "Moon Madness" (tempura, 1982) by Andrew Wyeth. Write a poem."

"Moon Madness" (tempura, 1982) by Andrew Wyeth.

No wolves for howling now

that is mythos anyway

We mark our territories with

wedding rings and property taxes instead

call upon our Gods under fluorescents

and leave our Mother outside

for the wolves

No wonder she is erratic

looms so close we could

scrape her like whipped cream

and paint the walls. Close enough

to kiss the Pacific.

She knocks on winter windows in vain

giving us light through reflection

But we can’t reflect for long enough

to see the light within us

She is a floating rock

but we are the mad ones

We are the ones who carry the weight

She seems to beg for

our howl

The Art of Kissing You (NYPC #5)

New Year's Poetry Challenge, Prompt #5

"Write a poem about kissing or about a kiss. No word in the poem can be more than one syllable."

You held art in your palms

made brush strokes cry

but by no means had I watched you paint

with as much grace and pain

as when you would cup my face

press me ‘tween your lust and the wall

and kiss me like an old film

You used to look at me like no one has since

like you could love the worst parts

You held art in your palms

when you drank me calm and slow

like tea, like I could heal you

yet the warmth of your breath

slid down smooth and wild as gin

I could feel your craft

through the part of your lips

felt like a prized piece on that wall

But some art

you just

throw

out

IG: @daydreamifications

Resilient (NYPC #2)

New Year's Poetry Challenge, Prompt #2

"Below is a list of items that were removed from our Northern California rivers during 2014's Great Sierra River Cleanup. Write a poem in which you include at least 7 of these items. It might be about a river clean-up or it might be about something else. (And no straight lists of  items allowed.)

a bowling ball 

a samurai sword 

a horse hitching post 

a master cylinder for a 1933 truck 

a boogie board

a bed and mattress 

a chandelier 

a statue of Ganesh, a Hindu god

a lava lamp 

a boxing glove 

a waffle iron 

50 pounds of lead bars 

a Monopoly set 

a rubber ducky dressed as a hockey player 

Source: Sierra Nevada Conservancy"

There’s a bowling ball in my third eye—blockage

Ganesh said he’d swallow it for some humanity

for compassion instead of boxing gloves

So I traded my lava lamp for world peace

buried it in my backyard so it would grow

Now it’s a lost treasure, like the last will and testament

I left under my mattress when I was ten

What had I wanted to say at ten

at ten when I wanted to die

A child playing with samurai swords instead of Monopoly

or rubber duckies dressed as hockey players

grew up to be the kind of hippie who walks

in love and contradiction

Time and time again I forget—

have to prove my resiliency

IG: @daydreamifications

Sparrow (NYPC #1)

New Year's Poetry Challenge, Prompt #1
"Write a haiku including a sparrow."

hear the winds of change

the morning song of sparrows

set our spirits free

#adventuresincoloring

Nightmare in Turlock

For the first time in a long time, I had a bona fide nightmare.

I was a guest on a late night talk show and was being asked if I would ever have sex for money, but before I could answer I “woke up.” Yes, it was a dream within a dream.

When I woke up I was in sleeping on a mattress on the floor. Can’t tell you much about the room because it was dark, but it seemed bare and unfamiliar. A holographic image of James Franco was standing over me. He had one leg on either side of me, standing on top of the bed looking straight ahead beyond me. I yelped and said, “Who the fuck are you?” and suddenly he disappeared and reappeared sitting in a lit corner of the room to my left hugging his knees to his chest.

I got up on the right-hand side of the bed and grabbed my phone, which was exactly the same one I have now (same screensaver and everything), and prepared to call 911. I even slapped myself on the face and said, “C’mon, Lizzie, wake up...” and I swear I FELT the slap. He then suddenly reappeared behind me and his nose was bloody—so much so that the streams of blood covered his entire mouth and chin—and he said, “You know who I am” while I screamed repeatedly.

I kept backing up as he continued to approach me and held my right hand up ready to punch him square in the face. Somewhere deep down though I knew he wasn’t real… That’s when I heard Ana calling, “Mommy? Mommy, are you okay?” and woke up in this reality.

I don’t particularly like James Franco. I don’t dislike him either, but I don’t understand how or why he would seep into my subconscious. Also not sure what he could symbolize. Funny thing is, he was sort of glowing throughout the whole thing, almost like he was a ghost.

I doubt I’ll be able to find a distinct interpretation of this on a dream website, but what in the holy fuck could this mean? Better question, why do humans have to attach meaning to everything? Maybe everything is “meant” to be random and crazy.

Damaged Goods

You can find me at Ross

with a mark-down sticker

on my thigh

Thrown out from my Creator

because there’s something not quite right

about me

I look well enough at first glance

but my stuffing has been poisoned

and the stitching is a little crooked

All I can do is hope that someone

looking for a bargain

will settle on me

IG: @daydreamifications

On Depression (Part One)

She does not always come tattered, smelling of gutter, pathetic and miserable,

is not always tears on a pillow, smeared mascara, and empty tubs of ice cream

like you’d expect.

Sometimes she slinks in dressed to the nines

with the click-clack of heel and a Vegas-watt smile,

shows up warm as wine when everything

is going right.

You would think her prickly, a bad rash,

a bra two sizes too small, an erection at church.

But she is often as soothing as a blanket,

effortless as a shadow.

She will suffocate you and call it hug,

take lazy and call it rest,

and set impossible standards

so that you may always know 
failure.

She does not knock politely.

She will combat boot stomp into your chest

until it is a cave where a heart used to be,

a cave you once convinced yourself a tunnel,

a thing with light, 
with an end.

She makes smiling feel like work, steals the desire to want to,

thrives even when you know better,

when you have tools,

have support.

She peeks behind the post-it notes all over the house that remind

“you are enough” and “everything will be okay.”

She will give you a phantom life,

something you only used to feel.

She will make you immune to joy and numbed with fear,

the fear that all those despicable lies you’ve told yourself are true,

(“You’re a burden, not worth remembering.

You make too many mistakes, carry too much baggage.”)

true because you can never seem to stick to anything

that’s good for you.

Sometimes she is the bang of a two-year-old drum pot band,

other times she is pin drop.

Though what she never seems to be

is needle in the haystack.

She might hide 
between the lines, beat beneath the floorboards,

hide like belly fat behind a pillow.

But she lives in the small ways you express shame

without even realizing it.

And yet you find yourself tapping the hollow of your elbow

fiending for her to stay,

because even though you know it's fucked up,

she's the closest thing to home you've got.

So you keep your home like you keep your life—an organized mess,

pile emotions into projects to take care of…one day.

keep guilt 
neat in the corner of the room with the perfectly lined up free weights

and worry you’ll never free yourself

from the weight of it.

Afraid you’ll always live on autopilot

with a fear of flying.

IG: @daydreamifications

What Being A Woman Means

Yesterday there was a woman.
(Excuse me, a lady.)
She wore pink pumps, zipped lips, and a ladle.
Smiled politely and kept her belly full of sons.
A pin-curled pincushion with steak on the table,
this woman defined becoming
a definition.

Today there is a woman.
(Excuse me, a womyn.)
She clunks about in the ashes of burnt bras
in the shoes of women past, filling and faking
and fighting.
She’s married, she’s single, she once was a man.
She is books and wine or none at all.
This woman is choosing.

Tomorrow I will be woman first.
No breed, no class, no belief comes before this.
Not person farmer, machine
for the senses, skin shade or hip bone.
I will be lullaby and rock climb,
see saw and Wall Street.
I will decide what being
a woman means.

IG @daydreamifications

I Once Was Blind . . . (A Short Open Letter to White People)

Dear fellow white people, 

From what I understand so far, one’s “blackness” is a fundamental part of one’s identity, so to say you are “colorblind” is to say you do not acknowledge an entire group of people who do not have the privilege to NOT consider race on a daily basis. How can you respect someone you don’t acknowledge, someone you don’t SEE? 

Black and brown people don’t get to be colorblind because the color of their skin influences every facet of their lives—from walking down the street to attending a university to employment to harassment/violence/death at the hands of law enforcement. Our family and/or peers as well as the media have socially conditioned us to stereotype. Until we live in a society where we can SEE people and strip away this conditioning, then maybe we can take a true step forward. Much more importantly, if those who control every single social institution suddenly stopped discriminating/purposefully hindering/attacking/killing black and brown people, then maybe we can claim racism as a thing of the past. 

The ideology of colorblindness is that we look past skin color to one’s character and, although this is true and well-intentioned, it misses the mark. We don’t need to blind ourselves to race, we need to expose ourselves to race. (Not like that, nasty.) What I’m saying is, we can only celebrate one another with eyes wide open. 

Acknowledge your privilege and learn how to use it to benefit black and brown people, study our nation’s history, and call out your white friends on their racist behavior/opinions. No matter how much you care, you will never be able to understand the black experience. Keep your ears AND EYES open in your quest to be a good ally. 

Sincerely, 

Still Learning in California

Don't Hold Your Breath

I find myself holding my breath when
I'm telling the truth
or waiting to hear it.
I brace myself for the cold smack,
the bullet between the eyes,
the belly taste in cheek from the fall.
It barrels toward me in slow motion.
Seems only safe to pause on the seam
of breath.

I find myself holding my breath when
beauty surrounds me.
Holding your child for the first time,
when the words come,
moments so tragically perfect you cradle them
as if they'll never grow old,
dancers on a subway platform twirling,
fluid and lucid.

I wish I could melt like that,
ripple and river and flow.
I am staccato, riot
breathing in pieces.
With an inhale--the crack.
With an exhale--the shatter.
I find myself holding my breath when I cannot decide
to hold on
or let go.

Pissing in the Mountains at Two O'clock in the Morning

       It’s 2am and you awaken to the realization that the piercing pain in your pelvis will easily translate into a urine-soaked sleeping bag if you don’t do something quick. So you fumble to find the flashlight you’ve left on top of the cubby next to you, but once your fingers make contact, the veil of sleep behind your eyes lifts and you gingerly place this lifeline between your teeth.

       

       You brace yourself for the stiff welcome of stinging cold as you peel the blanket on top of the sleeping bag back and emerge from your cocoon. You reach for the jacket you’ve left hanging on the edge of the bunk bed for just this occasion, and once you’ve slinked it on, you grasp the edges of the top bunk and begin the ascent down to civilization.

       

       “Next time I’ll come early,” you think as your clumsy feet struggle to find each rung “so I can snag a bottom bunk.”

       

       Finally you reach the gritty floor and very carefully slide your feet inside your tennis shoes. You don’t lace them up or anything—they are merely makeshift slippers for the night. You try to creep quietly to the door, which is really just an opening where a door would normally be covered with a sheet, but the gravel stuck beneath your shoes gives you up, and you crunch crunch crunch along until you can feel the cool mountain breeze tickling your nose.

       

       Off you go. You turn on your priceless flashlight and illuminate the pine needle path to the facilities. Not to the shed with the 10-foot (that’s only an estimation) hole in the ground, no, you’re taking the trek toward actual toilets. You nearly fall over a pinecone but regain composure as you are on an increasingly dire mission.

       

       You should feel afraid, what with the pitch black and the trees for hiding and aren’t there bears in the woods? But somehow you feel nothing but focused on your imminent relief and as pristine as the air your lungs strain to swallow.

       

       And have you ever seen so many stars?

IG: @dreamifications

MindFULLness

Buddhist monks are known for practicing walking meditation,

a state of constant mindfulness.

It is less known, but I also practice a constant state

of fear, walking anxiousness.

A child, a mother, a husband

depend on the sharpened needle

to thread arms for hugging, lips for smiling,

and a neck George casually called fat in Spanish class

for tilting back a chuckle.

She is strong.

Coffee shop nods and pillow gazes alike

ignore the blood diamonds

I’ve picked for along my thumbs.