Oh my God, that was really beautiful.
Thank you.
[INAUDIBLE]
It's been-- thank you for having me.
It's a huge honor to be here.
Thank you Tyler, I thank you Hannah, thank you Aisha,
thank you Julie.
Everyone at the Poetry Center Library.
It is my dream to live next to the library
and so this has been a great three weeks.
All those books and all this time.
Yeah, I was really moved when Natalie Diaz picked my work
because she's a bad ass.
And that was enough.
And so I'm so glad to be here.
So joining me today will be our two to [? Sonian ?] poets,
and so about in a couple of poems I'll call them up
and we'll get to hear their work and.
I thought of that the first couple of days I was here.
I thought, well, it'd be great for--
I've done a lot of readings, but what else
can happen at this one?
And I know that there's a lot of amazing talent
here as there are in all communities.
And so I just wanted to make sure that we remember it,
our homegrown talent.
And supported it so I'm so glad that Eric and AJ are here.
And also very quickly.
So with this pinata, just your instructions.
So there's a piece of paper at your chair,
and we're going to smash this pinata at the end
of the reading outside.
It represents patriarchy.
We're going to smash patriarchy later.
Yeah, it's going to be great.
Everybody gets to take a whack.
There'll be songs.
You may write whatever you would like,
whatever intention or wish you have
for the world for yourself, for children, for your children,
for poetry, for the safety of all of us,
and we'll collect those outside.
Everyone will get to grab those.
And there's chips inside too.
So all kinds.
All kinds.
Cheetos and chips.
Yes.
But I want to dedicate this reading or my reading to all
of those people, trans, cis, people
who have been murdered by the police, and just a couple
of days in a neighborhood near where I live in Los Angeles,
Jesse Romero was murdered.
He was 14.
And so we have a play coming up at Borderlands Theater,
"Nogales," about such a young man who was
murdered by the border patrol.
And so this is for--
the work I offer is for having an imagination that
creates a place where that doesn't happen.
So this is new.
This is "Marlowe Park."
I wrote this here.
Susie stopped being my best friend
once she got bangs and a hickey.
Because I've heard her say it, I can hear her thinking.
Oh, what a wetter.
Are all your outfits from the swap meet?
Some kids in line still have moca's in their eyes.
Susie walks to the park in her white jeans, all alone.
Ama walks me to Marlowe Park where kids
ride the bus to sixth grade.
Susie's my enemy, so she's got bangs and a hickey.
Ama sucks her teeth and I know it's over.
She says, [NON-ENGLISH].
Are you looking at my daughter like that?
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] This is rhetorical.
But Susie, goes, [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] Oh,
send the line.
Some have ponytails gelled back so
clean you can see your reflection.
Instead of my usual face, my reflection is
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] My smashed antenna peek out from under
the bottom of Susie's Nike.
My face burns from her hot looks.
My guts spread over the chevron plastic grooves of her sneaker
the only thing Ama says, [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] and spits
on the floor near her feet.
Every laugh punctures air out of my lungs.
She's hot shit.
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] I can't compete.
My clothes from the swap meet are thick, sticky,
as black sidewalk gum.
The bus takes forever to come, and I am decomposing.
All I want to know is, don't I have something you want?
[APPLAUSE]