Small

These things that we call our own
Are not really ours.

They are ours, for a moment, maybe more, until they're back,
Another tick on the clock
We can do all we want
But these things that we call our own
Are not really ours
And this is comforting, 
If you think about it.
These infinities,
These eternities,
Are not all ours.
They are not just ours,
Some parts,
A minute,
A moment,
80,
90, years if you're lucky, 
We are granted
These small eternities 
To claim.

Cinder Block

If you look at the tops of the domiciles it almost looks like summer, the sky is a crisp cerulean and the sun is effulgent, for a second I can consign myself to oblivion that we are barely into winter at all, for a moment I can disregard that this is just the beginning of the next three months of caliginosity.

Near the origination of things we can find what we’ve obscured, somewhere underneath last autumn’s leaves there is a diaphanous layer of gold promising something revived, something we thought was gone permanently.  

There is a cinder block wall near the fringe of town, we call it the first wall, not because it happened before everything else, but because that is where everything happened first.  Kisses, drinks, smoked cigarettes.  

On the other side of this palisade there is a marble town, empty integuments of people we used to cherish lie beneath the earth in infinite torpidity.  

Testing

We are the broken youth of tomorrow
Pieces of yesterday and today
Dynamite dancers
Misfits, cynics, arguers, talkers, manic heart breakers.
Call us the broken ones
Call it the year of the broken ones
We lay here beneath the stars,
Looking up, trying to find bits of ourselves in the universe.
We climb things,
getting higher
Checking to see if gravity can reach us up here.
We dig holes, 
going below
finding ourselves scattered among the scum of society.
Away from the reach of the light
we sit
and we realize 
The problem was never below us,
above us,
or behind us.  
It was always right here, inside of us,
hiding behind our lack of love for the world.

Poem

1//December//2015
I have seen the colors of my movie projector splashed across two entwined hands.

I have seen the way the light in the sky bounces off the clouds on late July evenings.

I have seen the way smiles fade, slowly, until their faces are back, in neutral once again.

I have heard the water pipes strike up a conversation in an overheated classroom as the sky outside pined for its other.

Two years ago I ran from something I never should have left.  
One year ago I wanted something I couldn't obtain.
This year I've made peace with my choices.

There was a day that I felt myself dissolve; there was a day when my molecules were the same as those of the ocean.

Once upon a time I stood next to a lamp post that reached for the clouds as it held itself to the earth.  It was all I could grasp.  Everything else was disintegrating.

The back of the theatre: reserved.
The sides of the hallway: illuminated.

One day not too long ago, I decided to take my fate into my own hands.

“Hello, miss, I’m calling with your flight confirmation.  Yes, tomorrow.  You want it moved to today? Let me check the schedules...I’ll call you back as soon as I know.”

There is a place between the buildings in a skyline that holds infinities,
eternities,
possibilities.
It is here that I fly,
It is here that I survive.  

“Hello, airlines again.  You’re in luck, we have one spot on tonight’s flight that just opened up.  I’ll email you your ticket and travel details.  See you at the gate.”

I have seen the private smiles,
traded across heads in between.  

Clouds fall beneath,
I levitate.  
Earth falls behind,
I am large,
yet
so

so

small.

Late PM

You gave me a poetry book filled with poems of the sea, and it is perfect, because the cover is rippled with water damage like wrinkles on a wise woman's forehead. You've told me that I am golden and I believe you, because I trust you. Your lively hair and lovely eyes beg for the truth like nothing I've ever seen before. This is layered, poetry about poetry, but it makes me laugh because no rhyme scheme or colorful collection of nouns verbs and adjectives could ever perfectly depict what I am trying to say.

Paleo

There is a separation between man and nature only because we have evolved to have built one.  Back in our original days, when we were no more than rocks and dirt and moss, everything was synced up.  We lived and thrived on the rhythms of the world.  We ate what the earth provided us with and we slept when the sun went down.  Then something changed.  We began to hold ourselves above other living creatures, we began to try and change the system of the universe.  We built cities and roads and invented electricity, we tried to out wit the sun.  We have evolved ourselves right into one big web of technology and corruption and packaged food.  Now, in our modern world, we must look backwards to the instinctual wisdom of our ancestors.  Now, in the days when paleo living is a trend diet, we must learn from what we have become and search for something more.  We must find our original rhythm again. 

I dream....

       I dream of a world where nothing is forgotten.  A world where meaning comes easily and we search for ourselves in the treetops.
       I dream of a place where things are held sacred, where things hang in balance. A place where we can look at the stars yet toy with the concept of our own mortality.  A place where our infinity is not a joke.
       I dream of a mind that looks like a city, a mind that I can get lost in.  A mind where some things don't line up and some things fall out of line.
       I dream of a house that always feels like home, a house that has no dark corners.  This house is lovely and full of plants, completely void of dust.
       I dream of a school that teaches us of life, how to save money and how to find love.  A school that shows us what's truly important, a school that teaches how to be a good friend and how to save someone.
       

Light Speed

Sometimes I see my mind as a city, the tall buildings and the unique shops, so much squished in there that it’s hard to see the edges.  There are people in the city, they strut and they walk and they bike and they drive and they go about their lives while creating something from nothing.  

Normally the people move at regular speed, going from home to work to home to play to home to sleep to repeat.  They are happy and busy and sometimes sad and occasionally wishing for more.   But then I start thinking about everything and the people start speeding up and the cars start driving faster and as I think about life and love and college applications and who likes who and who likes me and I have to turn in that essay and I have to get a job and there’s that thing on Saturday night, but oh, wait I have a volleyball tournament that day and what the hell does this Spanish word mean until everything is moving far too fast and the streets are overflowing and the arteries of the city are all clogged up and the stores are selling out faster than our Chinese connections can supply them and the sky is turning orange and the mist is blocking everything and all the things happen at light speed until suddenly, it all, just, stops.

Unanswerable

He asked me
Who I was
I said
I can't answer that
She asked me
If she would be ok
I said
Yes
He asked me
Why only now
I said
I can't answer that
She asked me
If she should do it
I said
Yes
She asked me
What was wrong
I said
I can't answer that
He asked me
If we would make it
I said
Yes

Spaces

You have made me very aware of the spaces between my fingers
They have become voids,
empty, negative spaces
Golden hour is faded around the edges
Tinged with something darker
A longing
Today I ate plums from a tree until my lips turned yellow
The juice dripped like liquid summertime
But the grass beside me was empty
Lacking you
The bird's song was in E minor,
Trying to summon what I could not feel

Bookend Town

"Viroqua is...Viroqua.  It's cute and summer-y and very green.  It is quiet and I love it, but.  It feels terribly small.  I feel stuck. I know for a fact that I am made for bigger things than this little town.  I yearn to see places I have never known, I need adventure on a grand scale.  I want things to be blown out of proportion, I want the dramatic and the crazy and the messy beautiful.  I need to experience life as it is, uncut and real and raw.  This town is a beautiful place to grow up, and maybe it's the place to grow old, but it's not made for my life in-between.  It's a bookend town, the two perfect, sweet bookends on a life."

The above paragraph is an excerpt from a letter that I sent to a friend of mine.  This part I chose is the edited and orderly version of this crazy wanderlust I have been feeling lately.  I finally took the time to sit down and put that feeling into words and this is what was born. A new term: Bookend Town.

Nicotine

You ask me
What you mean            to me

How do I riddle this?

My words are as empty and used up as the oil drums around me,
scattered like toys in a child's nursery.

Signs warn faceless men of kerosene,
Alarms,
Fire hazards.

Your eyes warn me to stay close.

City hall, pall mall, nicotine.
Your words are an unseen drug.

Penultimate

April 30th. The day before May Day.  The penultimate day of English Class.
A day of spring.  A day of laughs.  A day of spreading smiles.
I ate lasagna for breakfast, and now I'm here.  Maybe it was the lasagna that changed me.
Maybe it was laced.
Laced with a pure idea of what should be and a motivation to accomplish that.
If I could talk to flowers I would tell them, I feel it too.

I feel the sun stretching itself back into shape after a long winters nap.
I feel the winds changing,
I feel my smile spreading across my face every time I step outside into the beautiful world.
I feel my heart growing back into its idea of what is right,
I feel my mind expanding, breathing in the fresh air.
I feel something,
Something good.
Something I'm going to have to call hope.
Something new, something old, something nearly forgotten.
Spring.
Thank you for coming back.
I missed you terribly.

Unnamed

This upcoming writing is a little slam poetry that I wrote during a theme week my school held about racism.  Throughout the week we had various discussions, lectures and classes and we also produced a radio show, some theatre, visual art, and a short film.  This piece coming up is a piece I wrote and performed on the radio show we produced, which will be airing in a couple of weeks.  It would be better to receive if you could hear it, but I haven't quite figured out the video portion of this blog yet so you'll have to soak it in through your eyes instead of your ears.  I hope you like it, and if any thoughts or questions arise after reading it, please feel free to email me at withglitteringwings@gmail.com  I always love to hear the thoughts of others.  Here it is folks.  A piece of slam poetry entitled....

 "Unnamed"
        As humans we are entitled to two things.  Our opinions, and giving and receiving love.  We are born into the world with something to take and something to leave behind.  We are not here to take lives and we are not here to leave sadness.  We are here to make something beautiful, to leave something worth time.
        We are not here to impose our realities onto others.  We are not here to discriminate and we are not here to judge.  Prejudice and bigotry do exist in the world but they don't have to.  We can change that, we can make them go away.  I've heard the jokes.  I've heard the pop songs.  I've heard my share of slurs and derogatory terms.  Each time I hear one based in hate I cringe, and then I wonder.
        Where is this hate born?
        Where does it come from?
        We are system of oppression founded in hate.  We are an institution of bigotry mixed with power and that's what makes us racist.  With the way things are, you'd think that after Columbine and Sandy Hook we'd have police stationed outside every school frisking every middle aged white man for guns.
        But that's not how it is.  Because somehow we've managed to set it up just right so that every black teen strikes fear into the hearts of shopkeepers, but somehow white kids manage to steal everyday.  Somehow we have managed to set it up so that every black man gets stopped on the highway but white people go speeding by everyday.
        This is a problem we're all facing.  This is a problem we're all making.  The problem is not out there.  The problem is not far away.  It is right here in all of our minds.
        How can you justify Ferguson? How can you look into the eyes of Tony Robinson's mother and tell her it's OK that her son died?
        We say that the problem is society, but we are all society, so how do you justify that? We all have to take a hint from the king of pop and start with the man in the mirror to make that change.

Five Senses: Guatemala Style

I See
The bright lights
The sun reflecting off
Of every possible surface.
Taco carts
Bundles of wood
Eyes,
Looking up.
I see lakes of bright blue
Rivers the same.
Dogs, abandoned.
Women, adorned.
Purple, yellow, silver, blue, green,
Rainbows woven into clothes
Dreams, holding it all together.

I Smell
Corn.
Always corn,
And wood smoke.
I smell tradition worked into every tortilla.
I smell bathrooms, as I walk by.
I smell blacktop in the cities, I smell tires rubbed in.
I smell rain as it drips through the fresh leaves
They smell of summer.
The air smells
And I smell it.

I Taste
Hard work.
Dedication.
I ate a meal flavored with smiles, spiced with laughter.
The main course was a giggle and dessert was hilarity.
I never knew I could taste those things,
but I can.
Laughter is sweet,
Giggles are like meringues,
fluffy and light.
I asked for seconds,
And they obliged. 

I Touch
Feelings, hearts.
They touch me,
right in the corazon.
I touch rocks that tell stories
I feel grass that grows from sadness over a village that no longer exists.
I feel sun on my face in a way only the equator can provide.
I touch ropes—nay, vines—vines that feel like ropes.
Mud in-between my toes coolly reminds me that I am alive,
And I inhale,
Fresh jungle air.

I Hear
Sounds.
Many.
All of them?
Cars beeping,
Animals laughing,
People yelling.
Tone is everything in a language that is not your own.
Do their words curve up
Or down?
Does their voice smile,
Or frown?
You tell me,
When you listen. 

A Cross Cultural Analysis of Guatemala and the U.S (unfinished)

What’s the Difference?
A Cross Cultural Analysis of Guatemala and the U.S.A

Guatemala and the USA are two very different places.  However, they also both have similarities.  Both places have beautiful lands and lovely places.  Both places have a government, both places have people suffering.  Both Guatemala and the U.S both have rich people and poor people, both have teenagers just trying to make it and kids just trying to have a good time.

It’s the way that both countries individually handle their similarities that shows the difference between them.  What makes them different is that people of the U.S ignore me on the streets, while everyone in Guatemala says good morning.  What shows me the difference is when looking down on the city of Xela, I see many colored garments in place of the dark coats of Chicago. What highlights the difference is the fact that as a young woman in the U.S I have more options for my life than just a place in the kitchen and the role of a caregiver.

I see the difference between the two cultures when I look at the strength of the people in Guatemala.  They had to build everything they have.  They fought for it and worked for it and it’s theirs, and they plan to keep it that way.  In the U.S, I don’t see that same strength.  I see strength in most eyes, but it is a different kind.  It is the kind of strength that grows in a healthy way, over time.  The kind of strength that develops in a girl when she is told a million times by her parents, “You can do anything.”  It is the kind of strength that was allowed, accepted, grown.    

I see the difference between the cultures when I look at the sacred way tradition is held in Guatemala.  They hold onto their roots and are proud of them.  They want to be the culture who they have been for years, and with that comes a sacredness for what has already been done.  In America I see progress.  I see an upward pushing motion towards an unclear goal.  We keep moving upwards but the gap between here and the end is not closing, so where is it that we are going, exactly? In the way of America I see constant progress, and I wonder if maybe for a while we should go the Guatemalan way and just not worry about time. 

    

Home Again

        Here I am again back in the U.S.
        After being in Guatemala for almost a month it is a lot.
        It is a lot to think about the fact that I've been gone for almost a month.
It feels like more and less both at the same time and my sense of time has been changed.
        I spent a week in San Lucas staying in a hotel full of succulents and working in communities.  We built stoves and friendships, we spread cement and smiles.
       The weekend was spent in Xela (Shay-La) the second biggest city in Guatemala.  There we went Salsa dancing and sight-seeing and stayed with host families that welcomed us into their homes even though it was only for three days.  Xela was the place of hot springs and we rode in the back of a pick-up truck up the side of a mountain until we reached pools of relaxation and rejuvenation at the top.  We left there shriveled like prunes and smelling of the sun.
        The next week we spent up in the mountains, learning the language we were surrounded by.  We had class in grass huts that were built by a medicinal tea brewer named Jorge. I ate meals with an old lady covered in wrinkles and full of stories.  We bonded over pancakes with pineapple marmalade and she taught me how to make tortillas.  The week ended with graduation from the Escuela de las Montanas and a long bus ride back to Huehuetenango and then off to Chacula.
        Chacula is charming, beautiful, homey, pleasant.  It is a small village and there we stayed with host families for the week.  my family was the two parents and then three kids, a fourteen year old girl and a thirteen year old girl, and then an eight year old boy.  They were all happy children that cried when we said good bye.  The mother, Catalina, had a booming laugh and a wide smile, and she made me a hand woven bracelet that smells of woodsmoke and memories.
Did you know that memories have a smell?
         Our week in Chacula was full of adventure and laughs and beautiful places.  We hiked to a waterfall which turned out to be a moss covered wall with ice cold salvation running down it's face.  We hiked to ruins that were surrounded by green and gray and white and for two hours I drowned in stories.  We played volleyball with the locals and my team, Los Ganadores, emerged victorious from the tournament.  Our goodbye was tearful and then we drove twelve hours back to Guatemala City and slept for three or four or five hours, getting up for our first plane at 3:30 am.  We flew home through the skies and then there we were, back on American soil, my eyes happily reading all the signs that were suddenly in English again.
        The trip was so much more than just this and my stories will never be enough to do everything that happened justice, but I hope that you vicariously through me for a little while, a little while that may inspire you to one day go and see it for yourself.