Category Archives: Uncategorized
Hay na kus at the 2019 Babaylan Conference
I had the honor of presenting at the conference with my beautiful bff, visual artist exrraordinaire and community activist Melanya Liwanag Aguila, and we enjoined participants to write to find home/to be home/to make home. Most of them took the … Continue reading
A Name Like the Desert
This beautiful young woman walked into my classroom, one day and 30 minutes late. She had pursed lips, dreamy eyes, glistening curly hair tied tightly in a long ponytail, and a pair of starkly white earbuds. She had a name … Continue reading
Visiting Carole
I was not expecting to see lake Michigan so blue between tall scrapers casting hooded shadows at 5:04 on St. Patrick’s day You, crumpled in despair between wrinkly pallid sheets, fatigued, turning on your side, a chore; talking, all the … Continue reading
The finality of farewells
Home again in the same year. I’m not sure why, really. I tell everyone it’s to be with family. First time spending Christmas without Mom. Truth is I just want to be close to where she used to be. This … Continue reading
Assessment Plan/Rhetorics/poem-in-progress
This is not your hand; This bloated fish in my latex-gloved hand, hematomaed like the drowned corpse I saw when I wrote about night hawks who forage after 12 for decaying remains, blood-debt killings, a small ice pick stuck to … Continue reading
Do-it-with-joy
The other day, my husband made me think. He was joking around as usual, but maybe there’s some truth to it. He said he is going to accompany our daughter to her cheerleading event not because it’s an obligation but because he … Continue reading
Are you awake?
Just finished bingeing on Westworld by Michael Crichton. It makes me think about the idea of consciousness as something we develop as we mature. It’s waking up and staying awake, looking at ourselves in the mirror and understanding where we … Continue reading
Denial is not a river in Egypt
Today, November 9, 2016, a quintessential asshole became the president of the United States. I mean, seriously, is there any other word more apropos to describe this man who thinks that kissing women and grabbing their private parts without their … Continue reading
Pain
I’ve been weaning myself off of Hydrocodon, a powerful narcotic that relieves one’s body of pain. The doctor said to take it every four hours after the surgery and “as needed.” You realize its power only after it wears off, and … Continue reading
Night of the Living Moms
Parenting, joyful as it is, can be an exhausting, and at times, a zombifying enterprise– particularly when you’re a mother who insists on having an identity beyond mom, mama, nanay, madre, who feels the need to create art, build your … Continue reading
