_Open Borders_

safe haven
broken bread
free enterprise
place to lay your head
without fear
of damnation
dream-kissed
declaration
just by being
you exist in a better place
origin
should not make you less a human race.

I do not want to see you
selling me rosas
No deseo verle…
as meaningless ‘cosas’
I remember when I saw
the beautiful Mexican girl
on the median on lincoln boulevard
I remember when I saw
the beautiful Mexican boy
at the home depot promising to work hard
unexpected
is their existence
so lackluster
is the resistance
to see them as human beings
cut from our own cloth
makes me think in our great democracy
what hell hath we wrought.

I want open borders
for the open boarders
who come here to dream
who come here for the privilege
we hold in such high esteem
that we look down
on the humanity
that cooks for us and cleans
how different from slavery
is this point of view
how heartless is our path
when we obstruct with what we say and do.

I am privileged
but I come from poor white trash
I have high dreams
funded by my wads of cash
it comes to me
like liquid essence
but I know now
it is not fuel for my presence
it may be philosophical
it may be macroeconomical
it may be biblical
but it should be typical…
to open our borders
so that we can take more in.

No deseo verte.

'I do not want to see you.'

I remembered when I was first in L.A.
Seeing the Mexican immigrants selling produce in the medians of busy, congested streets.
And I remember how it took so much out of me seeing this...
young Mexican children, teens, elderly...reduced to peddling meaningless objects
for a little money to feed them, find shelter.
I would cry.
It shattered my heart.
Every time.
I lived in L.A. for six years almost.
And I saw this over and over.
I heard the jokes about the Mexicans.
The same kind of jokes I heard about niggers and faggots,
while growing up in the South.
All of it relegated individuals, because of their origins,
because of their own God-given genesis,
to a debased human status.
I sat down wanting to be self-absorbed.
Wanting to write about my latest epiphanies into my own character.
Why I am not boy-obsessed. Why I am happy today. Why I am...
And the phrase 'I do not want to see you' cracked into my consciousness.
We don't want to see the war.
We don't want to see the insanity of the politics in our nation.
We don't want to see the degredation of cultures.
We want to be absorbed in Paris Hilton's jail couture
and Perez Hilton crass anecdotes on pop culture.
These distractions distract us from the real plagues,
the real injustices...
Maybe I live in my own head too much,
my own world.
Full of idealism, hope, overly optimistic political landscapes...
But it's better than what is around us.
If we quit tuning out the realities around us,
and accept responsibility for the world we create.

_White Scream_

"I do not have to give more
to be happy.”

scream at the top of my lungs
inside
come out
scream to the highest rungs
‘hell’ to
heaven’s pout
if there was ever light
it is in this shout


if I want to feel the urge
I can go all the way
I don’t have to debate myself
or find a god to go to pray
I don’t have to subject myself
to some partner’s guilt
I don’t have to consult a friend
to make my decision tilt
decades out, you reach that moment
where you know the way you’re built
is more than enough
to know what you like
when u like to lick spilt milk.
I cried when I was pubescent
milked poetry like an adolescence
lived a relationship
like a convalescent
I think I find that past a bit depressing
when you lack the missing pieces
for a holistic self expressing

white scream
light in me
white scream
I do not have to give more
to be happy

scream at the top of my lungs
inside
come out
scream to the highest rungs
‘hell’ to
heaven’s pout
if there was ever light
it is in this shout

_Sugar-Coated_

sugar-coated
my words
cuz you a soft boy
with a thin skin
held my ground
when u acted the fool
throwin your
temper tantrum
there is no balance
and I find it unattractive
to even pursue
so I think it’s time
I just step back
from you

no ties
no cryin
no boy
makin
me feel dyin
no honor
in playin
I got free
and I am stayin
no caged bird
singin here
single for good
makin it clear

I want to burn down
white picket fences
I want to kick down
all the pathetic bitches
when my life is tallied up
it needs to be about me
I don’t want the boys
to define my life story
sidetracked by love
I gave too much in
six months later
I make sure that chapter ends

a boy is gonna fight
for my honor
if he wants to get with me
a boy is gonna light
up my world
his purpose is to please me
I’m bored with
ghetto boys
the façade of
of a boy toy
the m’ijo and the papito
the brother and the chulito
it was a fun game
and now boys bore the hell out of me
I take it all back
I’m back on writin out my own life story

it was sugar-coated
and it tasted sweet
but it was too gross
for my to eat and eat
god knows i like it salty
and with spice
but not being true to self
is an unhealthy vice
like addiction
12 steps forward to get clean
my life
my story
it's enough i know
what this all means

_Honest Seasons_

each time the season changes
I am pulled back to a past
but like mother nature directs
not everything is created to last
as I grieve
even when the sun
is cast down on my skin
as the sky opens
and cafés beg
for me to drop in
I find solace
in my pain
in feeling the end again.

honestly
I have to be honest with me
I won’t always say
what is expected of me
I won’t always process things
logically
I will never see my world
linearly
I take the outside
and pull it inside of me
I ache for love lost
and the absence of intimacy
who I am
is defined by my sensitivity
it does not break me
in its excessive ‘generosity’

I still love
and the season has met its end
I still walk
as if my actions matter to him
I still think
and remember
as old january will soon greet
a new december
seasons change
and the past becomes more pronounced
as everything new
pushes forward to be announced.