WaterHummingbirdHouse

there are the spaces where our tongues collapse on themselves

and we start to forget our jewish heritage our irish heritage

our japanese or mexican heritage and start to try and just claim american

its easier to pronounce

its easier to make excuses

its easier than to actually try to explain all the layered truths

of your barrio. all the inconsistencies. all the fallen hopes

all the places where you watch the concrete spill your cultura

all the ways it gets left behind when no one is looking

when everyone one is silencing in advertantly

we are these border immigrant migrant dream

echoing across generations of being scapegoated

of being put into concentration camps

detention centers and all the places inbetween

the border of our history

the borders of our tongues

the borders of our memory

waiting to put down the wall

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we were the ones waiting at the border

waiting for our mother to return

from the setting sun that almost took her life

from the coyote that took my sisters life

from the breath of life

we came to become

in this america

we  were the ones waiting at the border

trying to find the border patrol officer

so he could tell us where to go

to be safe again.

he asked why we came here

he told us we were not his problem

and that we should go back to where we came from

that if it was up to him. he would make sure

all these centro americans all these mexicans

would just stay over there

he told us

you are not our problem

you need to ask your government to fix your problems

but he never even bother to here

why we were here

what we were running from

because back home

nobody does anything about the problemas

nobody can stop them

nobody can make them stop killing

nobody can make them stop threatening

nobody can make my home

my home again

so i don’t think he knows what he’s talking about

or maybe he does know but he doesn’t want to admit

it

maybe he knows how bad

it is for us back home

where there is no home anymore

but he just doesn’t want to say it

because we’re not his problem.

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this border breaks us and binds us

it speaks to us in tongues

we are waiting for the salvation of where we come from

we are waiting for somebody to tear one down

or build another one up

or to rescue refugees or detain them or make them disappear

this immigration song of us

this border song of us

we are the breaking apart of this border paradigm

somewhere in there

remembering that we are this precious chaos

this precious chaos born 2016 born 1999 born 1848

born inside 1493 born inside every salem witch trial

born inside every native hung, every african slave hung

every irish and mexican hung. every japanese american interned

we are this burning tongue

waiting for the water to remind us

we will be borderless again

we will be skinless again

we wil be again

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Click on #mexicanjazz

to read poems

#mexicanjazz

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where are we coming from

this aztlan     deep inside this digital codex

deep inside the face and the mirror of what it means

to stand on this america. this turtle island lost in papers

this america. stuck with the paradigm of becoming some other

part of great again. this america was never great . this america was turtle

island before it was america. this turtle island was alway great. great turtle

swimming in the sea of a feathers serpent. mouthing the history of songs

in migrated hands and feet.

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face the dream. when you finally make it to college and realize

that nobody else in your family made it to college

but nobody in your familia has been helping you with your education

for years now.

my father had a 6th grade education

and he left me with my mother and showed up every now and again

my mother had a 3rd grade education

both from mexico. they must have fallen in love

over too many michelob draft beers down on first street

before it was

the zone of gente fication and gentrification

back when the sound on the brick walls were mostly norten~as

back before starbucks or mcdonalds were talking over

everybody’s diabetes intake

neither had enough education

to tell me what i should or shouldnt do

maybe my father was a mexican ghost

caught inside drunken landscapes

waiting to find

i couldn’t get an education with this .

how could i know what type of education was

in front of me.

but somehow i dove into this barrio college wormhole

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who cares whether your arte is mexican or mexican american

whether is speaks in spanish, english calo nahuatl or border nations

who cares where you were born on the weekends

nobody really wants to know the layers of arte that is breeding inside you

you should have seen the mess i made today. when i was hoping

to create harmony and dissonance. its the way that oceans are treated

like alien water

we must learn to become more polite

when talking in mexican

http://www.chicanocoloringbooks.com

people want to pretend that coming across the border

is just some choice to come and take advantage of the american dream

nobody wants to talk about the sacrifice

of going back. of dying. of staying here.

2

you have to cross the border

knowing that everything in your life

is going to disappear. in order to

try to find in this american mexican abyss

underneath the streets of gold. underneath

the death threats. underneath your doubt

nobody talks about what it took for you to decide

to come across this journey

nobody talks about what it looked like

coming across the border knowing that

you could be raped murdered somewhere in between

but so many want to pretend you are coming

across this red blood water. this red blood of you

you are the forgotten song. waiting to be sung

on the other side of this frontera