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

9^th 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.