Split Tongue

I feel a pressure behind my jaw,

like the push and pull

of the coming fall winds stirring trouble beneath

the easy summer breeze

coating the back of throats

with the deep croak

of a long

“last night was crazy!”

And we’ve been to countless parties,

raged against the heavy-limbed, dull day to day

on the lip of a cheap tequila bottle,

as we kissed countless times with lime-tinged breath.

And the computer generated beats of an undecided heart feeling something

a little like love, a lot more like lust

plays in the background

as the nights jump and bleed into one another,

pushing aside the possibility of a deeper something

like an endless sunset.

The pressure builds behind my jaw,

forcing old words into the shape of new ones,

morphing into the unfamiliar future tense as the old

“Last night was crazy” turns to

“What about tomorrow?”

Tomorrow…

The sun will shine tomorrow

and the moon will rise too,

but what

will they gaze over?

Soon

I’ll be leaving behind all this:

the sand-brushed uneven pavement

and surprised smiles

of well-studied IV streets

that I’ve walked, paced, run across frantic

countless times

in a dilated fit of

happiness,

fear,

anger,

pain.

Sometimes it’s hard to breath

surrounded by

all the parties,

the noise from within and without,

little voices calling,

repeating the perfumed demands for an intimacy

I both wish and refuse to give

as I check my stance

-crossed arms, crossed ankles

leaning back into the fence

as I watch the crowd from a careful distance,

throwing hands and glances off me

with quick eyes and probing lines

testing intentions,

intending

to turn those shallow scans

inward

to themselves,

to gaping faults and glaring flaws

I seek to catch with sharpened claws

and widen mercilessly

until they fall into themselves.

And despite all this,

despite myself

my eyes still look

for the shadow of a man

who could love me

even as my lips freeze tightly over the words:

“I dare you.”

Living is so hard

when all you can think about

is remembering

how to breath,

how to will your heart to quiet, calm down,

stop beating out against ribs and flesh

like innocent fists against a cement wall

that you’ve built around yourself

and can’t remember how to take down.

I’m tired of being angry.

I’m tired of being scared.

I’m tired of pushing back these waves

but I keep pushing on

because they keep coming

and I can’t stop.

What about tomorrow?

Will I still be fighting tomorrow?

I’m sitting here at the coffee collaborative looking out the windows at the free swinging legs of the bikers, the zipping lines of the skaters, hearing the indie “may-be-soulful” music of the speakers above mingle with the softened because muffled sounds of Sam’s next door- the cheap, $5 neon sunglasses, the smiles, sandwiches drowned in Coors Light; faces all mixed up like rum and coke vanilla-swirled with the tip of a finger, then raised to the lips with a sour smack.

 I feel whatever it is I wanna say but can’t in the left side of my torso. It’s hard. I try to coax it open, but the steel bud won’t budge. I can’t.

 I think of something else, think of nothingness, of the colors and the lines and shapes and sounds meeting me…everything is in motion. Everything. Changes.

 What is it? Tears stinging gently at the turned down corners of eyes. What is it?

What’s the point of writing it down? Dwelling…pushing it around my plate like unwanted raw vegetables, only there’s no dog hiding beneath the table to do my dirty work. Just my own two feet, tired of chasing down the beginnings of roads that always seem to disappear just when the tracks finally pop up like daisies and the ghost of a whistle rolls by.

 Has it already scarred over?

 When I hear the words “should I give up or should I just keep chasing pavement even if it leads nowhere?” come washing over me, salty, like the tears I’m keeping locked tight in jars, I turn to the ones holding old good memories like fireflies, retired stars too weak to fly as high as they used to.

 But how can I write if I don’t live? Surviving is not living.

 I wonder how I look to you, sitting here with pen in hand, hand to chin…and I wonder- do I look like a poet to you? Do I look important to you? Do I look lost to you? Do I look like I might find myself again to you? Do I look healed, wounded, joyous, bright-eyed, scared to you? Do I look as much like a train wreck: stopped hearts, gouged eyes, trauma and fresh phobias ticking behind surviving skin- do I look as damaged as I fear I am, to you?

 I’ve learned to force smiles until they come natural like swaying hips to beats; I’ve learned to dance my way out of the straight jacket hug of self-hate, anger, blame…

 Summer in I.V. has given me relief like Novocain. But the shallow fitful sleeps have left me afraid to dream, to travel deep beneath my lungs and hold the once open bloom gently, without fingers tightened by judgment. And after laying so long unheld, untouched, unfelt it’s turned on itself, hardened.

 I’m afraid I’m turning to stone from the inside-out.

c/s

This is for all the brown brothers and sisters

caught in a place the sun can’t reach,

for 30 years

wrapped in cold steel bars,

stomach-wrenching hunger

and criminal records the DA’s office typed up in red ink,

scarlet letters chasing us back into the cage

each time the lucky few get a second chance,

like a loaded die always finding its way

to double zero.

This is for all the brown brothers and sisters

who pick up a pen and ink

in their cages

and raise their voices to the sky,

refusing the hand that tortures and denies

and looking to themselves for the will to live,

even while everyone on the outside looking in

sees a zoo,

a cacophony of inherent animalistic vice,

no humanity to be seen between the bars,

seeing only

what the State and the media want us

on the outside

to see:

a dirty, dangerous miserable thing,

rightly clipped of its wings.

This is for all the brown brothers and sisters,

who are refused their dignity

each time they are denied warm clothing,

the room to breath in deep,

the right to look up at the sky and see the sun,

the right to stretch their body out and not hit four walls,

the right to a quiet and unpained stomach.

This is for all the brown brothers and sisters

who are taking their dignity back,

who’s spirits have grown past the confines of ugly cages,

and carried them into love and hope

despite all the claims that they are not human,

they have shown themselves to have more humanity

than the zookeepers.

I know why these caged birds sing

because this free spirit has felt the vibrations

of their call for life beneath my own wings

and I cannot fly straight

when there is so much pain in another’s breath.

Can you?

Pelican Bay,

I hear you,

I see you.

This is for you.

So brand me with it,

paint my eyes 

into a jaguar’s eyes

and brand my body 

with the scars

my inner demons left behind

as I last rocked them out

with tears, clutched fists

and a look to the sky like, 

“Whatever your name is,

help me!”

even as I turned inward,

grasping my soul’s feet

with two hands

because God knows I needed to be steadied,

and you weren’t there so

I reached out and conquered it,

wove determination and hope

into the makeshift arms

of a nonexistent lover

as I exorcised these demons,

no help from anyone but me.

So brand me with it,

not my words

but the shadows of the words

I’ve never said above a whisper

because Shame

had clamped Her hand over lips,

stealing all the thunder

from a voice struggling against itself,

kept hostage by my own

judging finger.

So brand me with it.

Transform this back

into a magnificent mural 

signifying something

-a struggle,

a hope,

an anger,

an acceptance,

a “fuck you” and an “I love you”

that’ll knock you out with the truth of it

before picking you back up

like soothing aloe vera on 

scorched skin.

Take this back

and turn the flesh on itself,

revealing all the shameful,

pathetic,

lonely veins

to the world

letting them oxygenate,

finally breathing out

all the heavy impurities

and shapeshifting into the 

proud strong veins 

of a bare heart,

‘cuz I’ve never been afraid

of wearing my heart on my sleeve.

So brand me with it.

I’m not afraid to show it,

even if you’re afraid

to look.

Gimme the space

to trace back

all the finger smudged

ink stains

I’ve left behind

on pages,

from this

to the first word

I let drop clumsily from my lips,

let fall awkwardly

like alphabet soup

onto the endless, unexplored

white flesh

of a notebook

as if my pen had sneezed

because I hadn’t yet taught my words

how to let loose,

cut open rigid, penned lines of

definition,

connotation,

regurgitated

interpretation

and fly.

Gimme the space

to describe to you

childhood summers

made up of

Uncle Mario’s cook-outs,

the piles of carne asada, pollo y

carnitas

he would marinate overnight in the secret sauce he guards with his life,

he’d flip the

dangerously fatty pieces of cultura

all sorts of magazines will warn you to stay away from

-if you wanna keep a Barbie-perfect figure:

and the dripping, succulent morsels send up smoke signals

alerting one and all that there is food to gather around,

as the tables groan beneath the laughing panzas

and Lowrider Oldies volume 27 croons out from the static of the speakers,

but we’ve all heard it so often,

we take over the verses.

Gimme the space

to uncross the legs of Modesty

and bare it all

cuz I’m feelin’ like a natural woman,

refusing

any call

of bitch, slut, ho

and lettin’ it shine,

yes,

I’m going supernova,

reaching beyond

the sick padded confines of

quick, name any oppressive hierarchy

you can think of,

cuz while my body may be the site

of wars,

of ideological nuclear bombs

dropped by computer generated  cover-girls,

Arizona’s immigration laws,

and “public” university fees

higher than what I would have paid at a private university,

I am free

because my body still breaths:

feels the brush of wind

cooling cheek,

the tangy rush of a new kiss

that makes the room spin,

the exhilaration

of a day’s first exhalation

as my face turns up,

greets the sun

with it’s own smiling salutation,

swallowing whole

any frown lines

like cold left-overs from yesterday.

I’m taking the space

even as classrooms shrink up

like dried out veins

as the Public University goes terminal,

even as desks disappear from beneath

me

my heavy fall from academic grace

to the bottom of this ivory tower,

tumbling down the side of

this precarious social pyramid

eased up

by my emptied and turned out

pockets,

like parachutes

the Bank of America is painting red.

But I am free.

My pen allows me to be,

every word bouncing through me

like weightless light

exploding into wings,

carrying me into new dimensions

and opening hearts

until we are one light,

one pulse,

one word:

Free.

Do you ever look up from the pavement or that book/those notes you’re frantically scarfing down for a test and wonder what the people around you are carrying with them?

What’s behind the upturned lashes of laughing eyes, arched mouths the shape of an “n”, the carefully neutral smooth plains of a face? What stories are beneath, between and buried deep within the words we do dare to speak aloud?

Freeways trip me out- we pass by so many lives without thinking twice.

I mean, to you, I’m a flash of color, of noise, a distorted expression and then nothing. You are the same to me. We pass by entire worlds we know nothing about. We each are our own protagonists in the plays we keep tabs on in our heads. We obsess over the plot, analyzing each event or non-event carefully as we try to cut our losses. Our inner narrative voice can grow so strong and we can obsess so much that we lose track of the present moment. We lose the now.

…Sometimes, I wake up loving the world so much my chest feels full. I swear, my pulse runs deeper; honesty in all it’s manifestations touches me… These moments are rare but when they happen it’s like my life has been hooked up to a high voltage battery and shot up with enough energy to sustain a small country!

In lecture today, I learned that the Aztecs believed corn has a soul. That they even acknowledged the dignity and life of a kernel of corn is freeing. Respect for all things, kicking aside that obsessive narrator droning on hyperactively in your head, is a beautiful perspective that I’m realizing I connect with a lot. 

And slam poetry provides a powerful avenue to express that connection to everyone and everything. As Gloria Anzaldua said, I can strive to be a bridge person, healing across identities, pain, anger, resentment, fear, depression, anxiety, apathy.

Whatever I end up doing, it’s gotta grow from this philosophy.