Sunflowers Inspire (to breath into something)

Exhale
You have not known love
until you are sitting on the floor
of an empty dorm, thinking
about his breathing rate,
wondering if the corner of his ear
faces the quarter blown moon
and if the pillow that touches his face
is warm with his heat.

Then all you want
is to be the air that he inhales
and keep him alive
only with you inside
(for some weird reason an exhale
will end his life). You start
from his brain, knitting memories
of laughter and hidden gazes;
you want to remain there
but you glide to his heart
to turn it over and then knock
his rib cage down: the room you
occupy there, is much larger.

Poetry for the Illiterate

Danger: look,
the blind ass 
still walks, 
it follows the giants.

War: hide,
married men cheat
on their mistresses, 
lose their tongues. 

Tender: consider,
kings and queens rule 
with power from slaves.

Burry: fire,
waste a barrel 
of clean water 
on the dirty ocean.

The Friendly Couple

"Pay the bills or wash the dishes for the rest of the year"
I look past my chair at the table, the finely folded papers
almost bending to greet each other, 
ConEd, Car Insurance, Life Insurance, 
Phone, gas, mortgage, tuition, loans
the ringing of the word pay seeps through my ear drums
to oil my rusted mouth
I begin to stammer, 
"I, I do not feel appreciated 
in this homely box we call a house
I do not want to wash away my youth 
with hard water and soap good enough for ducks
Can you please wash the dishes and pay the bills?
I will be the woman of the house
clean after your mess and mess with you clean." 

A Poem on Immigration

Untitled 

Mother's pregnant
Mother's immigrant

When mother gives birth on U.S. soil
Mother gives birth to citizen

When citizen child grows
To be eighteen
She can make mother citizen

But mother came before citizen
Immigrant came before child. 

When Poetry Complicates You

In an attempt to write a poem about a dear friend, I wrote a very deep and rather disturbing poem about a fawn that loses his father immediately after birth. Because the title of the poem was faith, I thought I could get away with it, but I realized there was so much surrounding the events of that loss and the idea of faith seemed incongruent. Most times, my work does this to me. I am beaten down to a pulp and arrested to tell the truth. If ever there is a time I want to hold back, a cuss word, death, murder, rape, it strangles me and says "you must get it out and tell the story."

Another friend complained to me that one must control his or her muse :You cannot allow them to go to places that are too violent, too rough; you must not be shaken by that demon of writing that makes you so psychotic because it only wants to tell a story of for example mothers who sell their children for wealth.

What ails me as a writer is not the fear of speaking my mind or writing my deepest feelings but making sure people do not label me by what I write. My sister always says my stories/poems are from my unconscious or even from experiences in our family. I tell her yes, but not entirely. I create my own world and use the power of words to allow the characters to make the right decisions.

Maybe, my dependency on writing is my need to have power in a world even though it might be imaginary. When I write, I want my words to take people out of their happy place into their philosophical phase. If they ever looked into a mirror and thought "I am beautiful," after reading my work they should think "it is only a reflection."

If I Knew the Name of my Muse

      You often hear "life is short" :I am here to drum in further. I am in such awe that I just graduated in 2014 and now I find myself undeniably in the coldness of January 2016. I often tell my sister that when I look at the mirror, I still see myself as a child, my big eyes and my chubby cheeks. Even now, I find it difficult to believe that I have responsibilities, such as paying rent and phone bills. There is possibly some excitement in working hard to gather money only to give it away in exchange of something else... I will not delve into politics today.  
      My goal this year as a blogger is to put out as many stories, poems, essays, pictures and art work that reflects my interests and opinions as frequently as possible. I write often but spend so much time editing or making sure the piece is "ready" that it seems I only have moments with my muse. One can only become better as the years progress, or not, so I will be posting much more on this blog. I also want to start a project where I use artwork as inspiration to my pieces, a series of Ekphrases.
         
Some more exciting news...I'm trying to do a little bit more of spoken word which means finding interesting memorization techniques and also sharing my work.(I think I should post videos of my process.) I might start a youtube channel to post such videos or simply post them on this blog. I am so excited about the places my poetry will take me this year. I will be sure to keep everyone updated!
     


Finally, I hope everyone has a splendid beginning to the year. We have to keep positive minds and energies throughout the journey, until we make it to the end!