I usually get sad instead of angry, but every once,
I get really pissed off.
And the loss of language,
or being told-- it's like Juan Felipe Herrera said,
being told what language we have access to
or how we should shape our language can be devastating,
and sometimes it's our teachers that tell us to do that.
And sometimes it's the Buddha, the teacher,
that we have to kill.
This is called "Imperialism."
The lady's British accent was fake.
Years later, it still infuriates.
Her Cambridge estate had China, flush toilets, English lessons.
In exchange for chores, she taught
me to speak in full sentences.
Cured me of my accent.
A colored girls dream.
Room and board.
She taught me to say what I mean, though
to this day she refuses to hear what I mean.
But she'd been around the world.
Photographing revolutions, toasting to Daniel Ortega.
She knew what was best for a Spic like me.
Nightly, I recited Chaucer by her Greek column and the Peach
Tree.
Miss, you tapped the porcelain teapot.
Time for your nicotine fix.
Poof smoke away from my face but we're
in the same windowless room.
All I wanted was the vote.
The right to remain silent.
Now you call me ungrateful.
Me, writing a new Constitution, full of truth and bad grammar.
Trouble.
Trouble educating coloreds.
Those years I picked your tobacco
and you botched my lungs.
You taught me to spell trigger.
Now I've got your gun.
Run, Jane, run.
Run, run.
Lady, dear lady, the empire is done.