“English is a language of leaving a lexicon of who invaded and what they left behind.” 

—Carlos Bulosan 

Fragment 1 

To balance the world. How the sunrise I pray to is the same as my ancestors saw. The sunset off the river my hometown has grown warmer. I sing poetry - Better!  

Fragment 2 

Write to resist. Peanut butter blossoms across my tongue. Loud florescence. I am vibrating from my nostrils to the skin under my toenails. A Sonoran Desert. Desert wind sounds inside us. Sumud. Sumud. Sumud. I am a guavalover. 

Fragment 3 

Joyeria, my loving armor. My butterfly and native plant garden spiced bushes and yarrow. My words. My body. My language. Severed and back. And then when there is nothing left – Stone. 

Fragment 4 

Write in-between. Write on edge. Write in ambiguous zones. That poetry is prayer without the need for colonial evangelism.  

Fragment 5 

Visibility. Solidarity. Geopoetics. Language Back. Taking up space. Uncovering the true history. Learning the world outside of the schoolroom. 

Fragment 6 

Grief is memory trying to hold on to a geology of joy and honesty. A portal to a world of nostalgia. Like the Indians in Peter Pan / Tigerlily. Like cryptids monsters and ghosts. Big and small and smaller. Too hungry for Peace. Laughing when memory slipped out of reach. 

Fragment 7 

So good to be in the company of writers and makers. A long history of women leaders. The stars shine brightest in darkness. Where place is a state of mind when the ground fades.  

Fragment 8 

On turtle shells of broken emerald isle, someone wearing magnolia perfume. Prayers to the east + remembered relatives. Life is so, so good. Wonder(ful). As a green lemon rises. 

Fragment 9 

Cute can be power 

Full of this Sho-Pai Fucker 

Teaching Native Lit 

“I prefer an ordinary life as long as “Extra” is the prefix” 

-Unknown 

Fragment 10: A Scooter of Happiness