live in the sunlight , warm your soul
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Please help send Stockton to Brave New Voices this summer!!!
There weren’t many trees in the neighborhood I grew up in
But living in a city where you have a 1 in 70 chance of becoming a murder victim
Foliage isn’t the first thing on your mind when you wake up
it’s hard for a tree to grow through cracks in the concrete
watered with spilled blood
fertilized with dropped casings
they say if you sing to your plants they grow faster
apparently screams, sirens, and gunshots don’t ring enough melody for mother nature
last year in Stockton , California 78 people fell victim to homicide
39 of them under the age of 25
Almost all of them people of color
Every year
our murder rates rise like gun smoke
but this isn’t something we can just blow off
In 2005 Spanish designer Martin Azua introduced the Bios Urn
The first possibility for a biodegradable burial
constructed of coconut shell , compacted peat and cellulose
the Bios Urn contains the seed of a tree at its heart
it begins growing once your loved one is buried beneath the earth
Imagine the forest my city could be
I’ve always found trees haunting
Spirits coiled in trunk
Towering over their observers like monuments
These deaths could be momentous
another chance at life after death
Growing rings for every year their families have mourned
We will carve eulogies in bark like tattoos
Instead of decorating street corner shrines
We will plant gardens at their roots
Grow flowers instead of placing plastic wrapped bouquets over shrapnel
Tie ribbons on branches rather than street poles
We will breathe them in
They will give us life after their deaths
The most generous act of their heartwoods
If a tree was once your son, would you still be willing to cut it down?
The neighborhood I grew up in is now considered to be at nearly four times the national average
Risk of attempted murder
I can count the number of friends who’ve been shot or killed on both hands
Their ghosts could produce enough oxygen for a small child to survive a lifetime
If we have to keep dying why not graciously give ourselves back to the universe
Give ourselves the chance to start again
Crawl back into the womb of mother nature
And birth ourselves beautiful
From the ugly of our city can come strength in hardwood
Redwoods replacing skyscrapers
Forests lining our streets
Posted infront of porches like picket fences
Gangs of trees like southside sequoias
We’ll redefine Oak Park post-cremation
Grow out of gunsmoke and ashes like phoenixes
Rise like Ash trees
We are tired of burning
Tired of smelling like singed flesh and gun powder
Tired of watching our young people fall victim, yet no one yells timber
I feel like I’ve seen coroners on every street corner in Stockton
policemen hauling body bags like lumber jacks dragging trees to sawmills
Logging bodies into morgues whenever someone gets the axe
It’s ironic
how the murder rates rise synchronized with Stockton’s summer heat
the pistils of blooming flowers blossom with life while the pistols of young men take it away
leaving their brothers in pools of blood
sticky like sap, red like fire
why are we hiding behind triggers that don’t guarantee our safety?
it stumps me
But I know that dead kings wear the biggest crowns
I can feel the knots growing in our hearts
replacing the severed branches of our family trees
I know that planting seeds in plots instead of caskets won’t solve the problem
Of gun violence in my hometown
But maybe it could make the casualties
A little easier to look at
holy fuck you guys im freaking out. this video has almost 11 THOUSAND views. omg. you guys. :’) #humbled #preesh
follow my poetry blog. basically an iJournal. updated fairly regularly.
fourteen seems like eons ago
and the four years I spent chasing you felt like a lifetime
we were teenage angst and poem
haikus whispered under breath
you were quite the catch
with strength enough I was hoping you’d catch me
poetry and our high school…
shared via WordPress.com
fourteen seems like eons ago
and the four years I spent chasing you felt like a lifetime
we were teenage angst and poem
haikus whispered under breath
you were quite the catch
with strength enough I was hoping you’d catch me
poetry and our high school wrestling team didn’t make you a man strong enough
So I created the perfect image of us
Mentally sculpted you Adonis and Plato
Scraped away at your humanity for chiseled bronze and false hopes
I carried you like a trophy
Linked myself around your arm
I wifed you up
But playing pretend with a feeble heart and a fourteen year olds naivety
Doesn’t get you nowhere fast but scraped knee and bloody concrete
And I blamed you for not catching me
Told you I was your falling star
That you messed up
That you missed any chance with me you’d ever wanted
That “roll my neck and tell you how it really is” sass you once liked about me thrown in your face
Poems became false pretense
I convinced myself that if I wrote about it
Cried about it
Shared it with a crowd of people and told them how much of a bitch you were
I’d feel better about myself
About losing any chances I ever had of being with you
Those poems were some of the best things I’ve ever written
Still laced with that image I created of you and me
But this isn’t playtime
And I’ve grown up
I’ve slandered your name
Ran it through the dirt
Mudslinging poems like rocks in slingshot aimed and fired
Busting the windows of the home I imagined us owning one day
Knowing I damn well did this to myself
You’ve always known my self-destruction better than anyone
I don’t know how you didn’t see this coming
It took me five years to realize just how selfish I’ve been
You must have figured me out years ago
I wonder if wisdom came as easy to you as imagination to me
Living our teenage years like those split screen scenes in 500 days of summer
It was always summers that made me fall harder
Spring me into sprung
But there is no metaphor for the coldness of winters without you - I mean the idea of you
The you in my head
The mirage I created melted into sea
Crumbled into dust
Left with nothing but memories that I’m not even sure are memories or daydreams
I can’t distinguish between reality and make believe
Caught up in the web of my lies, my wishes, my daydreams
Do black widows off themselves samurai style?
Stick fang into gut
Leave me bleeding
Loosing you was a subconscious suicide attempt
This was me telling myself I wasn’t good enough
Build up a man
break him down to ruins
Make yourself feel better
Ease the beast inside the not so beauty
Show yourself that even your dream man wont want you
I am my own worst enemy and you were just a pawn in the diabolical plan plotted by my own hands
I’m sorry
I wish you could see me now
A whole year and a half after you last saw me
Grown and humble and honest and apologetic
I don’t know what I’d say if I were to see you again
But this is what I should
This is what I need to
But I’m still building my strength
I’ve learned to fall more gracefully
I don’t need anyone to catch me
Paper is concrete enough
Each strewn from the tip of her cigarette
Is another age spot on the ribs that tick mark the inner lining of her chest
Each flick of her Bic lighter is another notch in the bedpost of her life span
My grandmother
Is an OG bookworm
her knowledge spills…
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Dear God,
Don’t take this personally, but I think I may only be writing to you
Because I was assigned to write to someone who I am distant with
For some reason your name immediately popped into my mind
But I have no idea what to say to you
I have…
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I’m sick of collecting souls to write love letters to
And staring into an empty p.o box
always finding the one who got away
lost in the mail
and of always being the return address
I’m always caught loving too hard
The pressure behind my pen always visible…
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There used to be prosperity here
Rows of corn and fields of amber grain
Images I’ve only seen painted by lyrics of overly-patriotic anthems
Today, Stockton looks more like skid row than the postcard picture perfect portrait
My elementary school teachers…
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It’s another wet pillowcase smudged mascara morning
when blanketing fog and calming mist roll in from the ocean like comfort
and I can’t see the sky any longer
I spent last night drinking again.
sipping away the sorrow in my chest
Recklessly downing shots…
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