The last time I was at Ocean Beach was four months ago, and I remember walking/processing/dissecting with P.B. on the sidewalk. I shivered in the winter breeze because I left the house too quickly (and because I am never without a coat/jacket/sweater). My mind was a whirlwind of explanations and expectations, mingled with rationalizations of what came to be and of what I had to do. I pulled up to the parking lot, in between vans of families unloading picnic baskets and blankets, next to sedans with surfboard racks and of bodies slipping into wetsuits. There was a calmness in the air coupled with anticipation; I breathed in deeply and opened the door.
2/20
In Work In Progress on February 22, 2012 at 10:06 am3am
In Poetry on February 15, 2012 at 4:30 pmThe word “hydrating” screams out
so pull out a 3×5, damp and folded neatly.
Eyelids are first, contours of thick and black
brown, bleary eyes half-open, smoking.
Left cheek, patches of brown transferring
a swipe on the other, down to the curvilinear.
Rituals are rudimentary, visceral layers
when recollections aren’t necessary
thumping and whirring and pounding and black.
Ing Ima Ku
In Work In Progress on February 14, 2012 at 10:10 pmMy nonchalance for this game
led to twenty minutes in the garage
where remnants of seven years were stacked
in office boxes, in plastic containers, in gray bins
as you sat hunched over
staring at nothing
weeping at everything.
It was displaced frustration,
misplaced anger at the system
that had you screaming for colors not your own
coarse voices, toiling in the night
calloused
collapsed
and then by day
are endless cheers, hungry for assimilation
and validation and recreation
of identities
with three words I broke
a spirit
caught in the casualties of downtrodden dreams
and a spirit
caught in a false, imposing reality.
I tried to lie and tell you it was something else
but my Kapampangan is perfect
and you knew what I meant.
