Sammy Sosa, or I know they didn't mean it, or no one ever means it

11/18/09

I mean, of course, there is no breaking point
without cracks

when I was ten I had never been called
a nigger in my life;

when world opened it's mouth
it didn't have to say that word,
a word,
it breathed it
like a gas

that would seep into my eyes and ears
wisping projections
of skateboards and spiked hair
rock n roll and flame shirts

five years later
I sat on a couch
as the n to the r
slithered out of the pale mouth

of the boy who owned it
again and again
like he was regurgitating medusa

his eyes cool
his mouth set like a pitbull in a hammock

I sat
stone and sad
like he was regurgitating medusa

and suddenly I didn't really want to finish the game of halo

and I saw my mom looking at me
and I saw my grandma
and I saw my brother Paul
who in between "faggots"
would remind that "them honkeys
don't care about [me]"

there was a door behind me
and a door in front of me

figuratively

the door behind was maybe also literal
as in, I say "Fuck You." throw the controller
throw open his front screen
get on my bike and ride away
from the white burn of beverly

but what I wanted to prove
was something different than what was inherent
in that scenario

the door in front of me, the silent one, was a----'s beautiful self
was the big hugs she would give to me
that the other black boys in my class didn't get

because I wore polos not fubu
because I knew who coheed was
because I commented her xanga
because even when the aeropostale
hoodies got a little bit too triangular
I could be counted on to shut the fuck up
and laaaaugh or joooooke


like when later that summer
her fourteen year old lips slurred
"manny, I love you! you...you are a super nigger."

which is close enough of a relative to
the "coolest black person I know" title
that if they fucked the child would have three eyes

"ohh, haha, thanks aubrey. could you give the phone back to josi?"

the next day,
when my parents happened upon her AIM apology
I can't remember anything they said
in the subseqent talk they gave me

so used to immediately, completely
rendering every word blank as pavement
as they charged toward me

I leveled each and every "you need to re-assess your social life",
threw them over my head
with the force of a hopeful, stupid boy ram

and continued pin cushion.

on St Patrick's Day
I rose to shake JJ's dad's hand
he let out a chuckle like a shotgun blast
something like
"UH-OH, HIDE YOUR STUFF
MAKE SURE HE DIDNT STEAL ANYTHING"

My eyes didn't hit the ground fast enough
for me to not see his grin
his "do something, motherfucker."

so I did.
I laughed.
his hand choked mine.

when meghan's neighbor
questioned me as I left out the back door,
tone five steps away from calling the police.

every gun joke
every ape joke
every rape joke

when m--- k---- called me a stupid fucking nigger
because my digital character
shot digital bullets into
his digital character
I shut the fuck up.


Sammy Sosa would rather be a ghost than a shadow.


What we will do to feel loved.

all of us

like one day,
i'll just unhinge my jaws
and locusts will swarm from the cavity.
an infernal buzz
of all the doubt and fires you didn't know about:
the black fingers behind clipped sentences
or ones that ran onto too long-
babbling brooks of subconsciousness
trying to hide behind their own tails.

Who is Kristin Chenowech? Kristin Chenowech on "The Rosie O'Donnell Show" on 5/31/01

"'Kristin' premieres on NBC- June 5th. And it's right after 'Frazier,' right?!" "I know! I'm so happy they gave us that slot!"

"Tuesdays, right after Frazier, so that's a -great- spot!" "Yeah!" "That'll be a -great- launching pad." "I'm very excited"

"How many episodes have you shot already?" "Thirteen!" "Thirteeeen!" "Yeah!" "Do you like living out in L.A.?"

"I do, the weather's -always- beautiful" *kristin looks out into the crowd for Applause, crowd Applauses, kristin claps back*

"Woo! It's great, I got a car! Which was kiiind of a big deal!" "Yeah." "Which is one of the reasons I hope the show goes [well]"

"so I can continue to pay for the car." "Right." *murmurings of laughter from the audience* "Did you get a swanky car? What'd ya get?"

*turns to the audience* "I got a really cool car, you guys."

Kristin is an American comedy television series starring Kristin Chenoweth. The series premiered June 5, 2001, on NBC.[1]

The show was canceled after six episodes.[2]

lol

epilogue

this is the last poem in my manuscript heaventeen, greateen, fineteen: graduation. I've deleted most of the poems from this blog that will be in that book. I hope you enjoy this sample of it. the entire thing will be available to you soon, so stay with me plz. : )

---

I met Kristina
through Cydney and Kiana
I didn't really talk to either one of them
when we went to Keller
(I think Cydney came back
to visit her freshman year
for a Friday Family Fun Night
and we played volleyball
and I tried to flirt with her
and failed
[she doesn't remember this happening]

and

during morning recess
in 7th grade
I noticed that Kiana
had on a t-shirt
dressed with the logo from
the [still perfect] 2004
self-titled blink 182 album
which I loved
and she had a rep
a rep that gave me a 12 yr old boner
and so I was like "hey I love blink 18twooooo"
but she was talking to Gabe
and Gabe was hotter than me
so I failed
[she doesn't remember this happening])
but they knew how hard it could be
in high school, especially the shitshow
that was Morgan Park

so as far as they were concerned
as soon as I walked into those gates
it was all Family.

when Cydney saw me, she was surrounded in friends:
her own ever-orbiting social solar system
she shouted "emanuel!!!!" or "mannyyyy!"
(I can't remember which, either way
to my heart, it sounded like Luke shouting "I'm here to rescue you!" to Leia through a crowd of Girbaulds and 3X tees)

and she broke through the planets and space dust
and hugged me so tightly
an embrace that didn't let go for the next three years
(an embrace I miss a lot./././)
and her planets and space dust all scanned my face
registering it
picking the folder out of the black void fly riddled trash bin labeled FRESHMEN
as she told them how cool I was
and sliding it onto a shelf titled COOL FRESHMEN (...?)

and I think I may have met Kristina
the same day I met Paul and Symone
and the rest of the Blue House gang
Kiana led me around
like I was Buzz Lightyear

and I was dubbed "The Freshie"
and Paul said he just really liked my lips

and indeed later, Paul would feel my lips
(the first time, I didn't want it
and didn't tell him so he could save face
the second time, I did
but didn't tell anyone else so I could save face)

Kiana and Paul broke up (so many gay people in heteroships)
and she started dating Ryan
and Ryan would drive her around a lot
and her crew, and it was one of those situations
where he was kiiind of a huge asshole some times
but he seriously drove us around all the time
so what can you say! you know!

and sometimes it was me and Kristina in the back seat
and she had a rep
a rep that gave me a 14 year old boner

people who hadn't heard me referred to as The Freshie
would always be like "oh I thought you were older than me!"
I don't remember if Kristina was one of those people
but if she was, it would have been double funny

because she always treated me like a kid
no matter how hard I tried to prove to her that I wasn't
I'd try to find a way to make an arousing double entendre about the cinnnamon roll
one of us was tearing up as Ryan blasted
Corrosion of Conformity or something
(if you don't know who CoC are, honestly,
the name says it all)
and I'd, you know, fail

and she'd smile
she'd just always smile
and bat me away like a ball of yarn
and keep smiling

and as the years went on
I'd see her less and less
and maybe she wouldn't be smiling as much (how narratively beneficial)

which is kind of what happened
to a lot of the Blue House kids
(/a lot of the MPHS kids)

I think she did Gallery 37 in the summer
I remember there was a picture of her and Paul
on G37 Cross-Dress Day, his head thrown back his skirt high, his
fishnetted leg wrapped around
her baggy jeans and white tee

the kind of activity my friends who sorta knew Paul
would laugh at because Paul's basic instinct to us
seemed to be to just go over-the-top as fast as possible
it looked like he was moaning in the picture, go figure
and she was smiling, if I remember correctly

the last time I saw Kristina
was at the Last Real GSA meeting
(by that point
they had just devolved into
20 minute semi-structured semi-engaged conversations
ending with the far more important task of kids finding which
member(s) of the same or opposite sex
they wanted to jerk off or eat out in an empty classroom)

but We didn't know it was the last one then.

actually, the Real Last meeting
was when we all came to Mr. Fitz's room
maybe even the very next Wednesday after that
to just end up talking about Kristina's accident

and who was with her in the hospital
and what she said to them
and what they said
and who pushed who
and when she was coming back to school

At the Last Real meeting
I, the President of the GSA, was going on
about the Imus controversy
I think I was pretending to ask questions
but probably just trying find the all ways
to get people to shit on Imus and old white people
when I pointed at them
that made me sound smartest

I really don't think I had seen Kristina in weeks
but she was there a desk from the front
by the wall
by herself

and she said "No"
and I didn't understand
she said she didn't care
whether someone called her a nappy head ho or a bitch or anything

because people were -always- going to say something about what they considered you
but as long as you knew who you were
it wouldn't matter

I...I was the President
and she sonned the shit out of me
and I stammered and choked, still the child

the next time I heard from her
she'd made a facebook note
about how everything was so fucked up
and might never be right

she didn't tag me in it

I commented anyway
wrote that everything is always changing
and life will go on and anything is possible
of becoming better

if not the day before, it was the same week
she threw herself out of the moving car*
and the long process of her death began

two days before my sixteenth birthday
the weeks of rumors and bullshit
(*I honestly still don't really know what
the fuck happened)
turned out to be rumors and bullshit

and during Art, the intercom
said she'd died
and my friends sitting with me
got up and walked out of class

and one of the seniors made fun of them
as I picked up the jackets and things left at the table
and followed after

you could hear the screaming from very far away
in the office in the corner of the building
filled with children
either screaming
or not saying anything at all

We were so happy to be alive
to be together at the funeral
she loved everyone

the dozens of people I don't
see anymore

I forget about it all sometimes
then a facebook note or event
will ask for a moment of silence
on her birth or death day

Dan and I got into a photoshop war
with our myspaces
I would find embarassing things from his xanga
or his ex-girlfriends xanga
and place a giant vagina where his head should be

he would copy and paste some of my poetry from freshman year
next to a picture of black and white Conor Oberst
with a speech bubble going "Wow...that's deep"

I'd make fun of his prepubescent "kissed a boy today. woops!" entry
or list how many times Aubrey's "had sex with dan today" posts
would interchange with
"broke up with dan today" within the course of a month


So when we were all gathered together
and showing everyone how funny the picture of
"me" getting a load shot on me by a room full of guys was

Dan's comment under that one came up, and I backed away from the screen and said "ohh...ohhh shit."

and no one understood

my gigantic superimposed head
was pixels away from Paul's lipsticked lips
and the arms that weren't mine
held up his fishnetted leg
as it wrapped around the body that wasn't mine

I don't think it's really any body's anymore

there's no resolution to be found here

I look at the pictures on the We Love You, Kristina! facebook group
and am at the point now
where I am realizing
that the almonds staring back
are now younger than me
and always will be

they're a kid's.

and that might be why I wrote all of this out
because I tell people that if you just write things out
it can really help you make sense of things

but here, it's just pawing at a glass box
that's shrinking smaller and smaller

there's nothing here anymore but stories

I texted Cydney an hour ago
shortly after I started writing this
it's been a long time

Exhibits

"Exhibit C" and "Exhibit A"
originally produced by Just Blaze


When I was on the train
coming back from Morgan Park High School
my brain was weighed with
guns and chains
not the kind you see on TV
the kinds that come off and out
when fourteen year olds
is getting heated
it's been two weeks and
we ain't got no fucking IDs
lockers or textbooks
announcements on the intercom
like "this kid got this took"
right after school
right outside school
hitting it to the bus stop
looking over shoulders
cops not quite enough protection
even though the motherfucking school's
adjacent to the precinct

and I don't even live on the west side
but I
know them white families
not so subtly disappeared
when my parents and my brother
moved in about a year 'fore I was born
when the coloreds showed up
that's when them colors start showin
till the only white person on my block
was a stubborn middle ager who ain't trust us
with his grandfather's house

who on more than one occassion
came outside to threatened us
with a shotgun

meanwhile the corner stores
got neon LIQUORS popping up
right above Lottery

at a rate equal
to the amount gunshots
bustin off at open gyms

my brother losing friends
tryna find peace in religion
you can diss jehovah's witness
but they might've saved his fucking life

look into his eyes
and tell me that I'm lying

so I'm in a cafe
while this nigga Clinton
got tears welling in his vision

he a goofy
I ain't never take em serious
freshman year he used
say slick shit to my girl
when we was dating
and she a play em off
like homie was just being dopey

and it's cool I'd be joking

but this junior year
he sitting here
talking quiet as I ever heard em

talkin bout them niggas
who just killed his guy Milk
the third time I done seen
children fucking screaming
in the hallways

and he sayin he can't describe
how he feel inside
said "my chest just feel like hollow heat"
but he know he finna ride
on every motherfucker
that he see
mighta had somethin to do with it

so every time that a white kid from my dorm's
going on to me about the difference between
a nigger and nigga

for every time my brother's knee blows out
and he's laid up in the house
cuz he can't afford the hospital

for every time I'm at my desk wit a pen
but its frozen because I can't possibly
think of what to write to Randy