No thanks, I'm full...of it.

FUCK leather!!
Lately these days
long hours
late nights
shoulders knotted
eyes encircled with shade
head aches
pain,
what a nuisance-
leaving me
sin ganas to eat it.
LEATHER
For sure can’t wear it.
Not buying a quarter pound
not paying $200 for grey
leather Highway patrol pants.
Ditching the leather wear
that makes me hard,
wet like the moisture trapped
between my skin and “my skin”.
The truth
my finances have made shit hard
on me.

Every other day
getting mad mail
getting mad at my mail
shouting a big
FUCK YOU
to the system
of fixed interests
and out of order priorities
I mean principles.
Where are my principles?
Mailed off with 0% interest
just like that! (finger snap)
Sin querer quriendo
I gave it to me hard…again.
But nobody forces
Who forces? What?
My pen on that paper
that credit card in the slot
running it up and down
handling it like a handle
my name on everybody’s
lips.
Handle
slot machine with lesser returns
retail therapy minus the returns,
keep it-
keep it all.
What APR?
What a gamble.
Cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching
CHA-CHING
Buying “bling”
getting legit-
It aint easy!
Fuck, my priorities
they gotta swing back
Montezuma’s revenge!
Back to the right side.
So fuck that hide!
Fuck it
BDSM
sin el leather
still denial
no release.

Denying myself
the goods
don’t need release.
Temporary loss, lapse of reality
every time I indulge in the pleasure
consumption.
Consumption-sumption where’s your gumption?
Consumption-sumption where’s your gumption?
Where’s your gumption?

Fuck, donde se me fueron los cojones?!
Como maricones,
I am scared of my ovaries.
There I said it guys
I said it gays
Looking at you right in the eyes!
Looking at you right dead in your
“I” (plural)
HIV is laden with misogyny
from the beginning
when they couldn’t
wouldn’t mouth the word
HIV equaled a gay man’s disease.
Gay men taking it up the ass = weak
Equals vulnerable
=
Me
woman.
Let’s look at it right there.
My transgender sisters lost in the muddle
puddle of men having sex with men
wanting to be counted for the women
the transgender WOMAN that you are.
Welcome to the invisibilizing world
that is being a woman
try to get them to really see a woman.
Now, transgender woman?
That is way beyond their imaginations
Way, way yonder, farther than this inflation has reached.
The numbers don’t lie
But labels do.

I don’t have
a poem of hunger
haven’t been hungry for a while.
Been stuffed
stuffing myself with other fillers
Carbs
shoving it back to the creditors
Don’t want to consume.

Consumption
sickness.
Symptoms include
insomnia
awake like “black Friday”
remedy 42 inches of plasma
hung over my theater center
leaving me hung over
with x-rays.
Leaving me full of it
low levels full.
I am full of it.
Masking my discomforts
with comforts…
steady job=
health insurance =
401K =
403 (B)=
sick and vacation days =
Ugh, security!
Security, strived for and received.
Getting my dividends
But not satisfaction
GUARANTEED!
Not satisfied, satisfied
still not satisfied.
Always the dwindling middle class
that’s a sign of no class,
we don’t talk
money in our house.
Wasn’t raised to,
“mums the word”
huh mom?
No one is supposed to know
how poor we were.
Stick that neck out!
Hold that head high
heavy with pride
all that sweat
slides down your back
broken on double shifts.
I don’t want to work
like a mule
dreams smuggled
across the border
chasing a dream
across the border.
American Dream.
Been told all my life
not American
Dream!
Not Mexican
Dream!
Not Chicana.
Dream control
You call it lucid dreaming
I call it life
manipulating my dreams.

Been manipulating
for fifteen years
my longest commitment
but why always half committed?
Look at me always spilling
My businesses
Get outta my businessss
Gonna make myself a businesss
Profit from my business
it’s for me
Just a simple pleasure
to HOWL
again and again
thank you stars
for listening
to me HoWL
always up like a night owl
long hours
late nights
shoulders knotted
eyes encircled with shade
head aches.
Pain,
keep me lucid
don’t want to loose
it, no, no
push it hard
natural birth
it was natural
earned it at birth?
Earn it
My labor of love
a living
writing to live
for a
living.
Keep reminding my self
LIVE IT
like skin
Fuck…leather!