LOVE this!!!!! It has the look of a retro cassette tape…you can write down all the titles for that special someone and it’s a USB!!!! So Cute! I wish someone would make me one of these for my birthday.
Here’s where you can get it:
http://www.amazon.com/Mix-Tape-64MB-Memory-Stick/dp/B000ZZI9HQ
(“Lavoe” By JeanZapata–www.deviantart.com)
I never really got it…
I mean, there I was…
This little Puerto Rican girl from the
Sometimes, my older brothers went with Dad
To his gigs…
Oozing Latin Jazz rhythms,
Vibrating bomba y plena,
Beating guanguanco…
Reminiscent of old traditions and faiths…
And I…I was at home,
Playing alone,
While Mami cooked, talking on the phone…
Salsa playing in the background.
So, I never really got it.
I hit seven years old
And watched rolled trees go up in smoke
For the first time,
And old arroz thrown out the back window
For the pigeons,
Until Mami saw rats in our building’s backyard…
Still playing salsa in the background
And I still didn’t get it…
Couldn’t speak Spanish like Mami, Dad, or Tita…
But could roll my r’s perfectly…
Arroz, Perro, Carro…
And remembered every “marícon” and “puta” on the block,
Bought
And tamarindo piraguas on
While salsa played in the background.
Yet I never really got it.
Learned how to dance salsa
But not how to turn…
Learned how to make rice by sight and shadows
And beans by sounds…
To NEVER use store-bought sofrito…
And ONLY use Café Bustelo or Pilón…
And never that Taster’s Choice porqueria…
Learned how to iron by watching Mami
While Dad waited in boxers,
Tapping conga rhythms on his knees
To the salsa in the background…
But I never really got it.
So, there I was, eleven years old,
With my white FAVYA skippies on…
You know, the ones with the rhinestones in the front
That always popped out?
Sitting there,
Asking why we only make pasteles for the holidays…
“‘Cuz they’re a pain in the ass to make,” Mami says
As salsa plays in the background.
By the time I hit eighteen,
I was the proudest non-Spanish speakin’ Rican
Any marícon or puta would ever run into…
Never missed the parade…ever
Read every
Even though I didn’t match
The straight-haired, wide-faced
South American girls they used as models
And my ass NEVER looked like Jennifer’s…
Knew all about Taínos, Albízu Campos, Operation Bootstrap,
Hector Lavoe, the Young Lords…
And asthmatic kids in Hunts Point
Who grew up to be caciques of their hoods.
I tolerated bachata and reggaetón,
Ignored all the “¡Ay Mamis!” and “¡Preciosas!” in the street,
Grew to obsess over freestyle music
Wished I had my own “Clave Rocks” and “Boriqua Posse,”
Read “When I Was Puerto Rican” a total of 15 times,
“Down These Mean Streets” a total of 25…
Dreamt of performing at the Nuyorican,
Piñero’s ghost cheering me on…
Said “¡Bendición!” and “¡Ay Bendito!”,
And “¡Ay Diós Mio!” with the best of them…
And could only clean the house
With salsa playing in the background.
Cab ride home one night,
The Dominican driver…
Turns and asks in Spanish
“Where do you want to go?”
“
I reply in English…
“Where are you from?” in Spanish…
“Puerto Rico, but I was born in the
“¡Ay! What a disgrace…you’re not really Puerto Rican…
If you can’t speak Spanish!”
In English, as if I hadn’t understood his ass before.
I felt the red anger rush to my temples
And hot raw tears spring to my eyes…
Wanted to cry…wanted to tell him…
If I wasn’t what I am, then what am I?
And then…
I heard the salsa in the background…
“¡Yó…soy el cantanté!”
And with those first words,
All of the beauty in me was realized…
Because like salsa…
Undeniably ever-present in my memories…
I was undeniably Puerto Rican
Non-Spanish speakin’…
Arroz con gandules making…
Puerto Rican, Nuyorican…
Dancing to the salsa in the back ground.
I never really got it…
Until it was given to me.
(Taken from www.deviantart.com “Heroin” by ~eikoweb)
Written: January 2001
Caught in the tumbleweeds of the
Little Lila screamed her passions to the world that shut her out…
Her life started fresh and clean, what purity was all about….
But her Mami smoked her senses gone, used the high to erase Lila…
Ignoring her cries…
No one saw the hidden pain in the depths of her eyes…
Little Lila starts to cry…
Mami leaves her on the stoop one morning…
And never shows up…leaving Lila alone again…
Giving in to her sin…
Left her to struggle against the hurt within…
Left her deserted…alone in…
The corrupted innocence of inner-city bullshit…
But, Little Lila stood up and kept alive…
She was only five…
Foster homes and shelters later, Lila was twelve…
Put her anger aside, her resentment on a shelf…
Twelve years old…
And loud and bold….
Didn’t ever do as she was told…
Grinding at parties…
Rooftop fucking and staircase sucking….
Doing her dirt in the dirtiest of places…
Never remembered the names, she barely remembered faces…
Little Lila growing up too fast…
Didn’t think she had a future, so she tried to erase the past…
Just rolling her Ls…Little Lila had the ill stories to tell…
Of her crazy little escapades…
Disappearing every night in a dude’s Escalade…
But Little Lila ignored like her Mami and gave in to the world…
Long curly hair and brown eyes, a pretty young girl…
Beautiful like una
Little Lila soon fell in love,
With a smoked out thug…
With lovely green eyes…
Little Lila’s thug…
So sure and so smug…
She loved him, ‘cuz he was HER man…
Bought her that X-and-O necklace from Clari’s joyeria…Damn!!!
Gleaming and gold, hot shit…
Everybody sweat her shit solid…
But what she had in appeal, she lacked in knowledge…
‘Cuz the more she gave in, the more he took away…
Beat her senseless to a bloody pulp one day…
But Little Lila stood up and kept up her head…
Her sweet sixteen was in a hospital bed…
She was only seventeen when the emptiness
Of vacant dust and shattered six packs swallowed her…
The love was gone, the pain had hollowed her…
This was her home now…she pawned the necklace to get a hit…
‘Cuz she needed it…
He said he loved her… he didn’t mean it…
Her fix was important, man…more important understand…
Than the baby the green eyed motherfucker left inside her…
It died in her…
And the five year old Lila cried in her…
The need grew for more…Little Lila was twenty four…
Standing on corners, giving of herself for it…
Her breasts, her body, her soul, her legs, her lips…
Giving it up to find control…
In the dope that took hold…
Little Lila became a broken shell….
No more of her crazy little stories to tell…
Little Lila…
Beautiful like una
Una rosa…
Feeding off of the poison in the root, the foundation…
A wilted flower in a viral nation…
Used and excused…the screams bruised…
Blue and black…
Black and blue…
Not loud anymore…she died at twenty four…
Wasted with neglect, beautiful like una
There is no black and white.
I dream in color…
Turquoise, deep sea blue, aqua green,
El vestido de Yemaya…
Bodies of water…
Slashed, ripped by the blood red
Of bronze-skinned dying,
Of brown-skinned trying,
Of white-skinned lying…
I dream in color…
Young Lord rainbows
Lift tropic green palms to blue skies…
And cry…
And cry…
I dream in color…
Concrete gray and tar black,
Powder white and pungent green
Purple haze…
Rolled into tobacco brown dreams,
that go up in smoke.
Gold and platinum chains that hang from brown necks,
Still holding us down.
I dream in mango orange hues,
Banana yellow, guava pink, the Golden Arches…
I dream in Super-Duper Hi-Fi Technicolor…
On 116th and 1st Av…
Coral pink flamingo bright airbrush on Kingsbridge
Timberland wheat on feet
And gold bamboo hang from brown ears…
Hiding earth skin tones and straightening kinks
For a world that only sees
Cash green and oil black…
And sells our sons to death
Wrapped in military camouflage khaki…
With promises of picket fence white
Ensnaring them with grass green dreams,
Visions of candy apple red cars
And sunlight bright futures…
Yet keep them in the gray depths of the dark
With mythical weapons of mass destruction.
I dream in colors…
Crisp white tees and blunt brown lips
That speak of never visiting the island they claim…
And still their brown fists clenching
Against checked boxes of “OTHER”
Marked red like blood…
Cacique proud…
Washing against white sand shores
As blond sky-eyed steel blue
Tell them “You are not you.”
I dream in colors…
Summer Squash outlines
Youth’s cries to be seen
In a metal gray mountain of burnt black red bricks
And shit brown subways…
Dressed in denim blue…
They break, pop, and lock on cardboard brown…
They paint over white washed walls
To let everyone know…
WE ARE STILL HERE!!!
They dream in colors…
I dream in color…
There is no black and white.
(“Day and Night” by ~Fotolympus-Taken from www.deviantart.com)
Written: May 2005
And didn’t question my motives or intentions?
When was the last time you looked at me…
And didn’t see your “property”?
Remember instead what you saw in me
The first time we made love…
And tears came to both our eyes.
Remember instead the taste of lavender
On your lips as we kissed…
Remember instead what you saw…
The night you read my soul aloud…
Rainbow colors flashing…
And blood rushing…
To cheeks,
Shy and sweet…
You wiped tears off my face and smiled…
And I knew then that dusk had fallen…
And the full moon shone brilliantly
In the smile you held in your eyes…
Because the colors of me had spoken to you…
And showed you things you’d never seen.
So, when was the last time…
We asked questions…
And didn’t demand answers?
The last time our hands touched…
Without crushing suspicions…
Of who-was-that and what-you-did and where-you-went?
Remember instead the heat of our touch…
The strength of my smile…
How the sweat of our love making
Dripped across our naked backs…
And pooled in the depths of our palms.
I cried too much
For lost full moons…
Hidden by the lust of the sun….
Intense, overwhelming…
I lost the silver lining in my clouds…
And swept up the raindrops like shattered glass.
I hid the key to myself
Under black holes and thick scars of stolen stars…
And pressed my dreams like wildflowers
Between the pages of a book…
I left myself there.
And it was you who gave me back my full moon…
And I gave you my heart.
So, why can’t you remember…
The free spirit dancing in the winds
And laughing amongst the trees?
The innocent poet who gazes to the sky in search of inspiration?
The raw goddess inside the shell-shocked mortal?
I see you…still…
I know my flaws…
I know my faults…
I know my imperfections….
And I guess the sweet beginnings are over…
And there’s no creamy center after the candy coating…
There’s nuts and bolts and screws…
And full moons…
And stars and suns…
And planets circling us…
As we slow dance like we used to…
Complexities…
The intricate details of what we are…
And soon to be…
But you need faith in me.
The memory
Instead of a love once new and now realized…
I gave you what you gave to me…
So, when was the last time…
You took what I had to offer with no judgment?
The last time you saw honesty in my heart
And not the lies they wanted you to believe?
Remember instead the tired feet that stopped walking
The day you stood in front of me
And stopped me from running away.
I remember that…
The balance of what I am to you…
And what you are to me…
Mi tormenta mas grande…
Y mis aguas serena…
The night…
And the day…
La tierra…
Y el mar…
The clouds…
And the stars…
El sol…
Y la luna.
Without one there is no beginning to the other.
Written: May 13, 2005
You say that you’ll love me for my words alone…
But my words are only mirrored from life and what I’ve known…
For my words are from feeling,
So revealing…
Of a heart that pumps blood to my veins…
From the mind, core, and soul that rush to bring thoughts to my brain…
Which allows my hands to hold pens, caress pages, to type and to write…
Which clench to tight fists so that I can continue to fight…
And in this fight, I’ll hurt and bleed blood…
I’ll scream and I’ll cry and my tears will flood…
And the battle will be written down for all to see…
So if you say you’ll love me for my words, you have to love all of me.
I wonder what Mikey’d say to a poet…
Who’s intials spell out the one thing
That no one can ever overdose on…
Wonder what he’d say to a poet…
Who thinks that Nuyoricans…
Are still Puerto Ricans…
Would he roll his eyes and laugh…
Chuckling at the naïveté of youth…
Because the truth is…
That what we consider each other to be…
Matters not in a society that still looks at all of us…
As spics and niggers…
Wonder if he’d take the L in my pocket as a token of my admiration…
And spark up.
Wonder if he’d write a poem in front of me…
On scraps of napkins and strips of brown paper bags…
Creating ghetto masterpieces…
On the backs of old C-Town receipts…
Wonder if he’d need to write it down at all.
Would he smile at my feeble attempts to spark fires in the masses?
Pat me on the head…
As he be-bopped to the stage…
To bleed metaphors and stories onto the audiences?
La Bodega sold dreams… And loose cigarettes for 50¢…
Coño meng… 50¢?
Things sure fucking changed…
The game…
The game…of cat and mouse…
Dig this, Mikey….
Can you believe the buildings they burned…
Are now being flooded with milk?
And our people are forced…
To pave the street with gold for copper pennies?
Dig how the NYPD is still the biggest gang in the city
And rent for a studio apartment in El Barrio is over 1-fucking-grand…
And what’s worse, bro?
We’re still watching our children die right here at home…
From dirty syringes, cocked nine millimeters…
And a monster that sleeps in the blood…
The news shows little of the war over there…
And nothing of the war in the hood…
I think he’d laugh…
And I’d watch the corners of his eyes wrinkle…
Watch him nod to a beat that only he can hear…
Clave… ta-ta-ta…ta-ta…
Rolling his joint in old lottery tickets…
With ink philosophies scribbled over the useless numbers…
Wasted dollars…he’ll call ‘em…
Hey, you never know…
What you could’ve used that dollar for…
Instead of a lottery ticket…
And his lips would spread as he laughed…
Teeth showing…
And he’d swallow air…
swallow me…
With his laughter…
Did you think it was gonna change? he’d say…
I wonder if he’d show me the streets from his fire escape…
And tell me Poets don’t change the world…
We SHOW the world…
to those who can’t see it.
And I’d tell him how South Bronx kids wheeze through life…
And he’d breathe in deeply for all those who’ve died…
Who’ve cried…
And turn to face me…
Eyes full of pride…
Wonder if he’d close his eyes…
Cover mine with the palm of his hand…
And ask if I can still see…
Then place a pen in my hand and say…
Bleed on paper, mamita… ¡Vaya!
Written May 2006
Yo soy una mujer
Descendant of the Earth,
Daughter of caciques,
Sister to the sea,
Mother to the nations,
Alumna de Anais.
I breathe life anew…
Pearls of wisdom drip from my crown of curls
And onto concrete…
I fear nothing but my own definition…
For that is endless…
I am…
The gold-paved streets they came for…
I am the water He walked on…
That cleansed His feet.
The love child of the stars and the moon…
Galaxies are captured in my eyes…
Universally known that it is me that makes the planets revolve…
I am the fist they held high…
The solidarity…
I am the sweet,
The sour,
The strong…
Taste me…
Tengo el miel de Ochún
In every crevice and curve…
I seduce the masses with subtlety
And smile as they crave for more…
I am the life they left behind…
The memory they cling to…
I am the new life they faced…
The small things they held on to…
I am the product of freestyle and double dutch…
Seasoned with salsa and boogaloo…
Mambo… bomba y plena…
I lift the voices of the downtrodden and the undocumented…
As I iron clothes and cook sancocho for dinner…
I discipline with cocotazos y pow-pows…
Make sure the rent is paid and still have time to…
Support my man spiritually and emotionally…
I am his wildest dreams come true
And his worst fears come to light…
Because I am his mirror image… his rib…
I am his wife…
I hold dreams in the palm of my hand like copper pennies…
So insignificantly necessary…
An often ignored necessity…
I am the scent of sofrito y cuchifrito…
Café con leche y arroz con dulce…
I walk with drums at my feet and guitars in my hair…
I play dominoes with old souls
And viejitos in front of corner bodegas…
In every borough…they know my name…
Sprung from the sterilized wombs of our women…
And the raped lands of Borinquen y Vieques
Atzlan, Africa…and
I am the liberation,
The cure to asthma…
The secret in the skies…
The golden phoenix rising from the ashes of
The South Bronx, Brooklyn, El Barrio…the
Ladies and Gentlemen, the
And Vieques is cooking…
In the filth of Navy leftovers…
But I… I fight alongside them all…
Take the brunt of it all…
The weight of it…
Carry it on shoulders weary from work…
And I continue to feed the nations with the milk of my ancestors…
And we rise… together….
The truth beneath the lies…
The laughter between the cries…
I hold hands as mothers cry for sons lost to streets…
Once paved with gold….
Now slick with the blood of lost soldiers…
Hustlers that are just survivors…
Children playing on corrupt concrete…
I stand by my man…by my son…
In courts that punish him…
Then cut him off when he escapes the cage…
Leaving him with nothing but the brand of CRIMINAL.
I tell you all, it’s subliminal…
So, I spread the message as a mother should…
Laughing at doubt…
I cry with bliss…
I dance with Ochún…
And howl with Oyá…
I embrace Yemayá…
And sing with La Virgen…
No mystery escapes me…
La Revolución…empesó…
So, I give birth to kings and queens…
And nurture lives… and through thought…
I make boys into men…
I turn girls into women…
Because it starts with them…
I teach, I love, I breathe…
El Yunque’s sweet breath…
Kin to the Aztecs and Mayan pyramids….
I fight wars alongside
Archangels and the homeless…
Prophets and pharaohs…
The deaf and the blind…
My fingertips hold the power of millions of orchestras…
Igniting creative thought…
I push the fight in wheezing
So they can learn to finally…
BREATHE.
Yo soy una mujer
Descendant of the Earth…
Daughter of caciques…
Sister to the sea…
Mother to the nations…
Alumna de Anais…
I protect the dreams of the future and hold the hopes of the past…
My blood, thick with the pains of my people….
I am present…. NOW!!!!
Una mujer
So wipe your feet when you step in my world…
