I'm a strong kid full of nothing, and from nothing
do I ask a blessing and kneel down to and pray.
Nothing.
Nothing do I pray to.
Hope nothing forgives my wrongs.
And nothing, especially nothing helps when I
come to take vengeance on you.
Because at 14 years old, beneath a moon
above the sportscasters booth at the outdoors boxing
coliseum, after all the crowds go home and the rings
are moved, I come out shadow boxing invisible opponents.
Raise my hand as a champion to the moon.
All of a sudden, I joined the homeboys against a rival gang
when I hear that [WHISTLE].
I skipped the bleachers over the handrails out of breath.
Hold court in the field with pipes and chains,
knuckles and guns.
In the game, every kid has to hold a five ace winning heart.
Five ace.
Or die with a poker player's bluffing hand.
Because you understand death ain't nothing but an eight ball
roll in the break.
It's that simple.
And at 16, I'm a brown fight and get down impromptu warrior.
Lip pursed, ooh, and a fever to defy.
Clicking tap shoes on the sidewalk, and wherever I go,
it's a chi chi chi chi chi chi chi cano.
Heel to toe and chin to chest.
Chi chi chi chi chi chi chi cano.
T-shirt rolled to the bare midriff.
Pomade hair back, low hugging hip kaks,
inked across the right hand, bandana top button
on the Pendleton.
Lean and mean, haunting you with gangster signs on the corner.
You know why?
Because I learned my history around water bucket talk
in the field, listening to mule tongue growers
mutter holy why as they barbed wire at our lands off.
Clacking my hoe in the grower's dirt against bones of my people
murdered here.
And under a branding hot noon I cut the lettuce
for the bronc buckle, soft palm landowners.
Their steer horned Cadillac radios
tuned to religious broadcasts blaring godliness
that they have.
As they loom over me, hey God hates you, Spic.
You understand that?
That's why you're out here working
for me because God hates you.
You're dirt, boy.
You're dirt.
You come across the border and even the dirt grows weeds.
But you?
You ain't nothing but dirt that grows nothing but more dirt.
And suddenly beat purple at nine.
Wood paddle.
Whizzing bullet stings against me.
And in the shower I touch the washcloth
to the bruises and the welts on my thigh and my leg
and my back, and I wince under the nozzle cursing my life.
My heart is like a severed head of an outlaw pickled
in a jar of liquor just to numb the hurt.
Purging the shame for being born.
Purging the shame for being me.
I ODed.
I stabbed.
I got stabbed.
I got shot.
Wanting to believe that I was bad because it was better
than dirt.
It was better than falling into darkness
where nothing existed but more darkness, more despair.
And I wanted to exist even, even, even as no good dirt.
And at 19, trying to rebuild my life, I got the urge, got high.
Put the pistol to my head and played roulette.
My blood shot drunkard's eyes seething rage.
My guardian angel didn't want me dead.
I came home one night after doing
drugs for days, pulled in, saw the dirt yard with my daughters
laughter, her tricycle treads scribbling in the dust.
You're always gone.
And a whiskey and drugs, you're never
here to help me play or grow.
I walk in the house.
No heat.
No light.
No food.
My woman in bed.
My baby's crying.
Chisels on the headstone of my bones.
Her need for a father.
Wobbled to a stop when I pick her from the crib,
and I inhale her milky aroma.
I start patting and kissing her.
I start walking her back and forth
in the living room, warming her in my skin, drug addict heat.
Breathing warmth on her, holding her
to my chest humming the song that my grandmother sung to me,
[SINGING] Bendito, bendito, bendito sea Dios.
Los angeles cantan y daban a Dios.
Blessed, blessed is the Lord.
The angels sing and give to the Lord.
And just then, her tiny hand flexed.
A wing unwrinkling from cocoon for flight.
And I realized I'm two men with one life.
I love her.
I care about her.
I want to live at home and be a family man,
and I want to grow old with this woman.
But the warrior bears is throwing her teeth at me.
And at domesticity.
Slurs and disgust at the dreamer's naivete.
And wants to brawl and afraid of dying young in the street.
But tonight my infant is me.
And I'm her.
And I'm so scared.
I see myself as I was born.
I wasn't born an addict.
I was born innocent and perfect with the whole life
ahead of me.
And I'm so scared.
I see she can become me.
No good.
And I hum, Lord, I hum.
Holding her tight.
Melted into one hug.
Humming.
'Til dawn thaws frost on the window casements.
And thinking how to give my family a better life,
I hand my baby to my wife, and I go walk in the ditch banks.
Surprised to see the pebbles last night's rain uncovered.
I see blues and greens, reds, whites, yellows.
I want my tears to reveal what's covered in me like that.
But I can't cry.
I pick up a stone, and I throw it in the irrigation water.
And I see where it gasps.
I see my child's awestruck mouth glistening for breath, saying,
papa give me a chance.
Glimmering ripples calling me, papa, be a father.
And I stand there realizing I got to start today.
Where the stone hit is the center of the ripples.
Where the stone hit is the center that caused the action.
Where the stone hit is the beginning.
It's where I'm standing now this morning.
It's the center.
I'm the stone that I held in my hand as a kid and I threw.
And Lord, have mercy, how far I threw it as a boy.
And so at 21, I got on my knees, and I
prayed, Lord, my lightning self carved from throwing away
woodpile days.
Please, Lord, carve a faith.
Cut deep to the knot core of my heart
and give me one of them limb top buoyancies.
Give me one of them top of the branch awakening realizations,
and when it storms and it blows, Lord,
let me cling to the branch with the realization
that I'm a good man.
That I'm a good human being.
Healing the emotional earthquakes in myself Lord,
let the wind blow.