Y Volver volver
Y volver volver
VOLVER
con la opresión
otra vez.
Llegare hasta donde estés
yo se perder, yo se perder
pero jamás me venceré.
History repeats itself
spins like a 45
but then there’s the
scratching
a needle trying to stop
time.
I keep coming back
to the same place- like
literally. Like a poem
about writing- writing
itself.
I teach at Cal State
Dominguez Hills
Toro Pride Tuesdays
burgundy and gold horned
students, learners and
spiel-lers
of knowledge, ideas bouncing
off those 70s concrete
walls,
between the Japanese gardens
bonsai trees growing little
and back to CAMS, the high
school
I went to when I was just a
little
9th grade girl
from Compton, which started
to feel
little for me so I knew I
had to go.
Looking for an alternative and
CAMS high
landed on my map- my route on
this road
less taken but now I’ve
started a path.
CAMS is on the campus of
Dominguez Hills
and back in 1990 I never
fathomed
that in 2014 I’d be
back in my old English
classroom, spinning another
story as “Prof. Rodriguez
and Students Breaking
Down the Gender Binary, and
Other Ideas Crossing
Like Intersectionalities.”
History repeats itself
It’s just like heaven
reincarnated to be
hovering up above
over you, I’m so over you.
You, you my prop
I do whatever it takes
to rule over you.
Have rules over you
to strap you down
got rules on how to rule the
masses.
It’s my privilege
white, male filthy rich
giving me my privilege
why I do it to you
I stick it, twist around my
stake
you’re cooked my little
brownies
die.
Everyone claims to be on my
trail
I don’t lose track of the
ones I’ve laid.
They call it rise to power
for a reason.
Now come over here -fluff me
up,
you with your misdirected
anger
and misinformation the
economic pressure
you feel it on your lomo, that’s what the bad hombres
call it, when they put their
back into it.
And you my chickie with your
liberal views
your attraction to standing
by all voyeuristic
as the position we’ve
inherited
all the way to our veins
wrecks havoc.
Too funny to turn away?
Like how I tell it like it
is?
Get a good look in the
mirror.
See the ghosts of
oppressions past
it’s a hate that will not
concede….
Yes there may be lots of
people that hate me
but there’s that one kid who
doesn’t.
Come here and fluff me up
my desire is magnetic- like
a yuge
magnate- cause opposites
attract
Together, bonding, they
stick together
through their fear of a
brown planet.
That’s what they sound like,
like they’re
from another planet, this
isn’t a turf war
we’re not gonna be smudged out,
Here WE come, marching
through the streets
come get your smudging!
We blow a smoke screen
against your hurt,
your broken place- your
broken
place in society. You have
us
pockets of macro-classes
spinning our
lives like a saucer on a
stick
stuck in between our teeth
but we still speak out
against your lashing out
your white panic.
You didn’t break but you are
broken
and you get hurt at the
memories we conjure up
cause we do it like Ouija
speaking to our spirits
ending the vicarious pain,
memories I have of you
nightmares I call them. So I
stay woke
I’m alive
I survive
(take deep, slow, breaths) Please join me if you feel like it,
please join me so we can
feel like,
alike.
Close our eyes
lets focus on our breath,
just our breath
our breath,
our breath
breath.
I open
my eyes and I see my people
I see women who stay lit
I see Blacks who stay lit
Latinx who stay lit
Queers who stay lit
Immigrants who stay lit
Muslims who stay lit
like a bomb fire, healing
those cracks with our
breaths, we’re not done
filling in the gaps
of what you call
history, one you wish
to forget cause it hurts.
You feel unliked, not wanted?
Welcome to the nightmare.
I’ve been holding
my breath waiting for the
day that I can
finally say ‘They’re here”
“Woke white folk they are
here”
History repeats itself
and I am here today
and I know I’ll be here
again
some tomorrow that our
attraction
for each other, through our
breaths
is a magnate for positivity,
so that we can turn back some negativity
that has been spun out into our communities
our United States.
Just like Superman back in '78-
RIP Christopher
Reeve
flew around the Earth backwards,
pushing against Earth's inertia
we push back too
hopefully Our Breaths
none bigger than the other, none smaller
are pushing forward humanity, decency, love
and respect.
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