clearly nights and early mornings are my most difficult times.
I don't have bad dreams, rather, everything there is to worry about comes
to call. Dressed in wolves finery, yapping at my ears. In the mornings
there is intense vulnerabilty, (...like a motherless child). if there are
tears this is the time they will likely fall. sometimes they just threaten,
gathering at the corners, blurring my already questionable vision.
I don't have bad dreams, rather, everything there is to worry about comes
to call. Dressed in wolves finery, yapping at my ears. In the mornings
there is intense vulnerabilty, (...like a motherless child). if there are
tears this is the time they will likely fall. sometimes they just threaten,
gathering at the corners, blurring my already questionable vision.
later this day;
the grief is just below the surface in maria, my sister, and i.
maria is tall, curly haired, tho these days, she straightens it,
and loud. me? sorta, kinda, too, without the straightened hair.
we try our best to keep the sadness from each other.
well. i do. she seems to give over to it a bit more readily than i.
i am consistently suprised at the vigor of my feelings,
how they throw me against walls and under heavy wheels,
as if i have no...say.
maria is more honest.
its annoying, i am 51, she is 47.
haven't we had enough?
we took 2 differing roads, she: to whte folks, and metal, and meth
me: to black folks, r. & b., jazz and weed.
when you are mutts, mulattas, and it is 1967 and
you live in hayward, california
a mean lttle racist town of multicolored farmworkers,
you live in hayward, california
a mean lttle racist town of multicolored farmworkers,
and their ill-raised progeny, you can damn well choose.
our parents were MIA.
Mom was wiped out and depressed from
having 5 kids, her first husband, murdered in prison,
a drug addict and petty thief.
a drug addict and petty thief.
her 2nd husband, yet another jailbird
violent, always threatening.
violent, always threatening.
would leave her in a corner babbling to herself.
hear? in the corner.
we grew up and me, away
but it was not a flight of a liberator
rather i carried it on my back
everywhere i fled
they gathered on my back
memories are heavy and rife with texture
multicolored
eventful.
hear? in the corner.
we grew up and me, away
but it was not a flight of a liberator
rather i carried it on my back
everywhere i fled
they gathered on my back
memories are heavy and rife with texture
multicolored
eventful.
