Paradigm Shift!

Image Credit: Maga Lintzin

It’s a new paradigm!

Chicana and Chicano studies started

it when they gave me the path

to this expressive arts track

and here I lay tracks

as a means to keep

track

of my ideas

emotions

feelings

self

Chicana subjectivity

cracked- decoded.

I stand so firm

in my Chicana standpoint

that my hips are tight.

Can’t be afraid of the future

don’t shy away from the past

that will get me there

can’t lose sight of myself.

I’m the mother of the Teortilla!

Centeotl god of maíz listened

to my payers blessing me

with a cosecha to share

this wicked wiki

a paradigm shift.

Just wrap your mind around it

like a rubber band around your wrist

you pull N snap it each bad thought

you get, like

“Ew, this is bad.”

“Her shits not theory!”

You deny me the connectivity

of this literary device to lecture?

Here I conjecture

no longer looking at my fractured parts

in the mirror

Baby, Bhabha

wishing, desiring to be whole

but my face is a kaleidoscope

multi-interpretations

changing the medium

changing the delivery.

It’s all theory!

Revisionist poetry

to tell my story

politicizing the personal

like scholactivism

you can take the scholar out

of the barrio but you can’t take

the barrio out of the scholar.