yawn

Cover your mouth when
you yawn
my momma scolds
me, recounting the time she was
a young girl, riding a bicycle down
the green slope. She too
stretched opened her mouth,
crinkled her nose and watered her eyes,
and it was too late
for both of them
my mother and the
fly.
I'm not sure what the hill
has to do with
anything - maybe it follows the
plot of the story with
the resolution.

I still yawn with my mouth open most
of the time, waiting for
that fly or other winged insect
to invade my airspace,
colonize my insides, and make
me ill. Make me want to throw
up so that I am no longer
bored, yawning.

poem for this moment

I forget that this keyboard has no
attachment. It hangs freely as I cautiously try to
adjust it so that it comes closer and
leans into my palms, buttressing them with its
anti-microbial chemicals.

It doesn't hurt to think about it in that
way. But it is this stress that I feel when I
think about the unorganized inbox I have left and
the messages left over from months
ago. It goes without saying, I have anxiety over
electronic bits and fragments and occasional sentences that
don't really exist. That is, I
worry about imaginary words I wish someone would
actually take the time out to
say.

Say, texting sure has become the belle of
the ball. And they say people don't
read anymore. Bologna. Or is
it baloney? They say it but really they
text it because they say
it's faster. I think so too, but we
lose something when we don't hear each
other's voices anymore.

What will we do when we our blind to
our deafness? The moment begins
now.

first spoken word piece

"Viet pride", we hear them say
as we ride, on through the bay
South Bay, Los Angeles
knowing we can't handle this
laughing at them, so scandalous
My friends and I, hide behind our
perfect English accents, ashamed
of our mamas burning incense.
Intense smoke, we choke with our American
lungs, far flung from the home land,
can't land on this
here melting pot, melting pot into our
brownies, drowning
in this ocean too
shallow, wondering
how long we can go
before we run out of
oxygen,
till we can
wear our real faces
again
and not say my name is
[expletive deleted]
but [correctly spelled expletive deleted]
But it's more
than just a name when...
all it does is stand on pieces of
paper, could vanish like vapor,
Or betray everything we've fought for, tread for
bled for, are dead for
But it's a start,
got heart like a whale,
big as a bus
we're doing this for us.
Forests like trees, I say
my please and thank yous
but for who, to who, to whom
do we address with such respect, expect they'll
understand that yes, it is
personal,
worst of all, our
parents are barricaded,
not allowed to wade in our pools of language
these tools of language tearing down our
house

I wrote this for the Manifest event that Nikki started up for reach!. I heard a lot of good stuff that night and decided maybe I should try it because it seems really fun and expressive.