Saturday, April 25

Gloria Anzaldua Talks To Me

 

Is that why I am having a flowofwords block,

Why only too concrete, very wrong words are coming?

 

Because I have the privileges, but not much to lose,

I am not exactly a white woman.

 

I want to to be the real hermana she writes to, the

one she visualizes under the sun,

Naked, with a typewriter on her knee

A daydream of a woman 

who never

has the time for more than

her imagination 

in five minute snaps.

 

Is it wrong to throw away the ability to transcend dangers

try out a new way to rise above, to pretend I need to,

like I have not been surviving easily, not ever thinking that 

this or that,

 living

 could be hard.

 

But to try and try and try,

to repeat the same jump

through the same hoop

to the same blank audience.

But that happens anyway

with my American Voice

The one taught in school

the one who never speaks first not even when alone and ready

 

As only the wrong

hard, restrictive words come,

The ones that can not say what my body is thinking

I am alive to myself and 

I am putting together

Portfolios of order,

 of crossed out thoughts

A few to a page,

The work

fighting,

forming my soul.

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