As children, we would line up shoulder to shoulder at the edge of the swimming pool trying to figure out who’d jump in first.
One of the boys would always attempt to throw the other one in. Sometimes, you ‘d hear the cold holler of the skinniest kid ,that couldn’t hold their ground, splash into the water; the laughter of the other boys slowly dissipating through the air.

Kids grow and learn fast. As we grew up “everyone got smart” and instead of one casualty we would end up with two. If someone tried to push you into the pool, you would turned around and lovingly hugged them. As you fell in, so did they.

We played that game for a very long time –and I knew how to play that game. It was the other games and the other things that slowly changed that threw me out of whack.

Like high pitched voices, acne, and *******; only the chubby boys grew *******, too. The chubby ones and I were told to wear bras. It was a joke for one of us and a requirement for the other one.
...
We would line up shoulder to shoulder, and although the boys grew so much hair , as they got older, my back was till the hairiest one. At least there was one furry constant.



© Guadalupe Salgado Partida

1.
The car speeds past the pedestrians walking across the street
When did life become unwelcomed?

The public schools around the Banc of California Stadium are low in funding. Kids in hoodies with old text books and underpaid teachers make their way through the heavy traffic on buses and in cars.

When did the prosperity of life become selective?

The grass, the trees, the flowers, bloom through the cement cracks.And an inner city scholar, bound for college likens this image to their life.

when did creating unnecessary struggles for life become useful?

2.
An older woman with a grey sweatshirt and three bags is sitting on the steps of a gym while the security guard tells her “you cannot be here” . While a few feet from her, a young man taking a lunch break finishes his sandwich.

“When did life become unwelcomed”  I hear the pigeons above her sing, as they try to perch over the clear spikes
their song nesting deep within my mind

I am alive and there is warmth inside my chest
The sun again makes its trajectory over the sky into yours
Standing at the door of dreamworld
Half anchored,  eyes closing
I begin to understand that the warmth in my chest also rises

Bubble little hope of mine
bubble strong with the scent of lavender
and bring me to the fields of purple

where I can meet myself again

Every toll has to be paid with wholeness, so I must be wholly

I placate my mind.
I locate my mind.
I disengage my mind
My mind...
...doesn’t know it’s compartments
are too dusty


I sense my toes.
I feel my toes.
I am in my body.
My body...
...doesn’t need to think;  it breathes


..……
……
……

…
…

Little birds have been chirping
So I booked a flat in walking distance
of the swallows’ room

The sky is yet to come alive,
and I plan to sketch it once I have arrived

“Icarus has a sister” they whisper

and I know caution should be had; I also know that every birds who sings under the sun offers beauty to the world

“the heat melts what is soft” they murmur

And I know it thaws, chemistry and physics are not lost on me; I also know that melting iron does not mean it isn’t strong

(Little birds have been singing, calling the children of Daedalus to melt their iron hearts and receive the seventh wave)

I want to close my eyes and inhale for the count of four;be a little vacuum suctioning air and keeping it in for two paired seconds. Then, exhaling for six.

One deep breath
and the day rises with your chest

the beaming has always been beyond the tiny entrance
of that cave, a cave you could not fathom
would be so deep and so profound

She doesn’t want to belong to her mind so often anymore,
so before bed she walks out into her garden and takes a handful of moist soil,
brings it with her to bed, and holds like a rosary.

In elementary school the kids who had  lice in their hair were sent home. During recess, you’d hear it through the small sneakered  grapevine while playing on the blacktop that “so & so go lice” –choruses of “ew” would erupt from the girls and some of the boys. In a few days the “so & sos” would return with a freshly shaved head.

As far I knew, lice were akin to fairies in their size and exclusivity. I’d never seen a louse or a fairy.
                              ...

There were many stray cats on our block.  When I was old enough to have a decent daily allowance I would save each dollar within my backpack’s side zipper bag until it had enough money to buy cat food in bulk.

I would get home three hours before my mom and pops, so I’d take my sweet time feeding the stray cats in the backyard. I got so confident that my parents would never catch me doing the deed that I bought two large silver cat bowls.
                            ...
My parents never caught me feeding the five stray cats. However, they did catch all the lice the cats left in the back yard.

I remember my mom running into the house screaming “ ¡hay pulgas!”

                              ...
On a Saturday, my parents made me help them spray the entire backyard. To teach me a lesson they said.
                                 ...
They were tiny and fast; they had that “now you see me, now you don’t” kind of speed. I wanted to catch them, but every time I tried I failed. Until I swatted at my arm, and squished one through pure luck did I know what a louse looked like.

Hay tantas cosas que el sol trae con ella,
y la luna con el

desafíos, y copas ondas de cuales beber
figuras largas y ángeles de piel morena
himnos cotidianos: la moledora moliendo tomatillos

cucharadas de juzgamiento
y jarabes de verdad purpuros y casi sabios
La sobreviviencia del alma al enfrentar
degradación
Y la cara de un perro al olfatear una rata muerta

Todo bajo el cielo, es puro y a la misma vez  teñido  

La flor es la extensión de la piedra, el viento uno más de nuestros suspiros
sea en angustia o en alivio

let that little inclination to tap your feet when the music plays
or smile back
fill ya'

let the sudden little desire to say good morning, good afternoon, or good evening
burst out of ya'

ain't no accumulation prize
for the most repressed

if you got limbs you oughta
shake them

if you got words stored in ya'
you oughta pour them out
like pennies from a jar

There is no such thing as “normal”;
When you try to create “normal”,
“Normal” chokes everyone involved.

I am ready to delve into you

To feel the edges where your words flopped over and bent into themselves

To say more than “don’t worry”
to pull up a chair and read you literature          to soothe you –coming from all over the world; wisdom cannot be monopolized
nor can love

I am ready to see the laughter bubble in you
and share in the exalted episodes of ecstasy; heaven is in the never ending now

Holy water rising from your skin
as you scrub circularly
skin cells are dethroned
–there are no rulers here...
   ...we stand here side by side

The soft sun rising
reflects from the small containers
inside the shower caddy
the many colored creams and the one deodorant you keep lopsided
seem agreeable in size
–different shapes look good together...
   ...we stand here side by side

When you look around you notice
That the warm water that rose
liquified over the walls making it seems
as if they were sweating those little droplets
that accumulated all round the bathroom
fogging the mirrors
– the same thing takes many forms...
    ...we stand here side by side

Unraveling the trangled string of a swimsuit bra takes patience. The old wire ones were too suffocating even for something as slow breathing as a breast
two nippes hanging in the cold
await the earth of cloth you are to unravel
–present and future moving closely...
   ...we stand here side by side

What do you do when too many words clutter your mouth?

When like a small child you are caught with a mouth full of cookies, unable to quickly and cleverly interject.

Sweet dear words of yours, too stuffed into the narrowness of your own mouth
and poking out from the space in between your lips.

Too many thoughts simultaneously obstructing the possibly of eloquence
no baked goods could emerge unbitten and wholesome when spit out at the same time

the more my tongue moves
the more arms I give to my words
and the more they take a hold of the twigs on the sidewalks
and the more they become life lived
oozing odes and homeric verses
suckling sunlight and holding the stanzas
from Sunstone in their palms

–precolumbian whispers
and sunsets before sumerian law  
hint at a time when poetry was one with the body
poesy inherent in all things
when no compartments could hold life and
all disciplines were limbs of the same majestic creature
sighing with relief over its infinite realm–  

and the less I need to chase words
in order to taxidermy them
and then place them into curiosity cabinets
and the fewer words you will see on the outside of  me
and the more adjectives you will see fused into my skin

the longest wavelength reflecting over my cheeks will become the longest poem I'll ever write

I am standing in the middle of the room surrounded by the ends of yarn *****. Each of them rich in hue, varying in thickness and weight.

They are beautiful to look at and worthy of being knitted as they lay circularly on the floor around me; I know I could make due with any of them. All of them would be good enough,  but then I close my eyes and picture the warmth of your smile and the natural tint of your lips coalescing with your aura –I know which thread to pull.

Eu sou uma nuvem
e eu também sou o sol

Eu sou a beleza da vida
sob a forma de uma mulher

Eu sou um pedacinho do planeta
–Outra filha da terra

Eu sou caracol
bactérias
infinitamente inseparável de nossa biografia existencial
–Pequena poeira eterna flutuando na atmosfera do tempo

Eu venho do que foi e será

I'm a cloud
and I am also the sun

I am the beauty of life
in form of a woman

I am a little piece of the planet
– another daughter of the earth

I am a snail
I am a bacterium
infinitely inseparable from our existential biography
– minuscule dust floating through the atmosphere of time

I come from what has been and will be

Soy una nube
y soy también el sol

Soy la belleza de la vida
en forma de mujer

Soy un pedacito del planeta
–otra hija de la tierra

Soy caracol
bacteria
infinitamente inseparable de nuestra biografía existencial
–pequeño polvo eterno flotando por la atmósfera del tiempo

Vengo de lo que ha sido y será

Let me tell you of how frequently I sit wishing you well. Of how many times, I calm my heart when it starts to race, too fast. Of how deeply, I wish to be by your side. I want to take walks with you during the golden hour.

When I see the sun race over my
parent’s house and set. I know daylight is on its way to greet you–and I smile at the thought.

You are like the clouds above, like the silence and the laughter
...the birth and the mysterious happenings of a destiny unfurling.
You are the recipient of the ever flowing love that brings my consciousnesses into tangible fruition.

You are a kingdom unto your own. I know, you are the ruler of yours, as I am the ruler of mine. (I do not aspire to control you.)

I am content to gaze upon you and appreciate your plenitude (everything you are),which is as natural as the sky above me.

If you wake have it be with peace and in a lot of silence that has no fence, and stretches as far as the eye can see.

I awake with a dream of you, that carries over into the next day.

I keep it warm and in my reach, so that if winter ever seems too cold the thought of your smile might warm me starting from the inside out.

<<tweet tweet tweet>> their fingers chirp like birds
graceless in their singing
and unconscious of the harm they have awakened with their narrow syrinx of thought

Reckless with their egos
and responsible for birthing a nature full of disregard towards all that lives and lies below the trees of green; an ecosystem born into an inseparable union
–a synthesis of flags, of mashes and of micro biomes teeming with life

The color of red will stand out among all the germinating leaves, as we wake up to escalations of war and the trampling of safety
those birds will continue to <<tweet tweet tweet>>

For they forget that to sit at the crown of a tree does not mean they wear a crown

Those who wear the boots down low
are those who will hike through the forest and traverse through the night below the boughs where these birds perch

It is raining   and it is Christmas in L.A
the home       of paramount pictures  and the home        of skid row

Each drop multiples         heavy
like the narratives             given
to justify                             why
some deserve to be           out on the streets

on day like this when the water pours and seeps into their tents   bridges cannot hide or cover                         our collective apathy                           (shame) as we cross  
into the next decade    “i am not to blame
if he/ she / they            don’t have a home
what a shame.”

The second time, you took out a glass cup, you took out the only glass cup left in your kitchen cabinet. For the second time, you  poured into another glass cup your hot tea and again saw the crystal crack and give way to a tiny flood. The first time should of been enough, but somehow a second time was needed to gain a proper understanding of what entails care.

Havia uma mulher que falou com La Lua. Ela ficou tão encantada com o luar que um dia ela estendeu as mãos para ela e pregou os polegares.

Ao tê-la em suas mãos, a mulher abraçou a lua perto do peito e sussurrou com carinho: "você ilumina a mais escura das minhas noites".

There was once a woman who spoke to the moon. She was so delighted with the moonlight, that one day she reached her hands towards it and sunk her thumbs into it.

While having the moon in her hands, the woman hugged it held it near her chest and whispered with affection, "you light up the darkest of my nights"

Había una mujer que le hablaba a lá Luna. Tan encantada estaba con la luz de la luna, que un día extendió sus manos hacia ella y le clavó sus pulgares.

Al tenerla en sus manos la mujer abrazo a la luna cerca de su pecho y le susurro con cariño “tu aluzas las más oscuras de mis noches”

My poems are like cargo trains. Can you tell what cart each poem comes from. Whose musk and whose motherly pen they hark back to?

In relation to what? and whose words summon courage into my belly? Do you care to know? If the answer is no, then at least answer these questions about yourself. It is no good to run on empty or to not know which cart you’re on.

Silence as you gasp and before you scream

Silence

A sigh is another place in which one can find the quiet residence of a lexicon

In complete silence women pray;
some do so in the zealous quietude of their rooms
where the silence is like a mime
sending only signs

Silence comes while the musicians wait attentively on their condutor to count them off

Silence is what we endure
when we believe we do not have a tongue


Silence

When a moment is full of beauty our mouths and minds lay cusped in that second’s ineffable existence

Silence

The great friend of fools and the great companion of the wise.

We looked at the state of our nation and there was only silence

what followed was drowned out by all the noise in a place
where there was no room for silence

Ideally, what would you like to be?  

At this point in time, I would like to be a leaf or better yet a slow moving tree
–firmly rooted and pacing through the rich moist soil.

The slate can be clean and it can always be wiped.

What you chose to write before can be a precursor to today. However, it is not contingent upon it. You can take your elbow or even the seams of your sweater and wipe away all things previously written. The ones that take up too much space. And as for the ones others have written for you–those do not necessarily have value.

Rethink. Re-write.

I carried the grocery bags to my car,
while the divinity of my spirit carried me
within its bag swinging me back and forth, through a parking lot that was no less divine than the snot running down the nose of the little boy being pushed on a cart while his mother made her way into the store.

I hear the rattling
the noise inside
and I wonder what nourishes it...
too many cold days didn't awaken it
and neither did the days when the heat's haze lay itself
pink over my face, so what makes it shake it's tambores  

give its songs volume
rank it up high enough, so that I cannot ignore it ?

when I find something that makes it louder
I turn towards its direction and I do not waver
I do not know why it calls me,
but now you know why I chase it

I wish like all children wish (like those who with prayers on the cusp of their lips
wish profoundly and sincerely) for the burden to be lifted from those they respect
and hold dear.

I wish to carry a torch of love –even through a sunless day.
So, that if they cannot see themselves clearly reflected
because there is not enough light (to illuminate their entire mirror) then, at least I can point my little fire forward
so that they can see their next step.

No veils and no guards at the door
–just me standing there, open...
transparent like a window who cannot hide the weather; all eyes can see through me.

You are in mine
too
So much so
that I quit trying to get you out
of the veins
that flow like rivers
throughout the entirety of me

my tongue feels heavy,
like to write is to drag one heavy damp
rag across a desk that's getting dusty

do I still make sense
because it surely doesn't make sense
to use a wet rag before you use a duster

Transform my heart into something beautiful
something that knows of lightness and of the daily pleasure of constant self love and appreciation

Transform my eyes, so that they can see truth even when it isn’t spoken

And change me, so that I do not accept what is as a finite option
I want to be reminded that tomorrow can change.

So transform me, I am willing to shed all the things that bring me sorrow.

I am willing to let go of all the guilt I use to keep myself down under.

change me, I am ready

Like the earth, I too am in rotation aligning with the stars above me

Dear Dark Brown Eyes,

I  am glad something brought a wave of joy over your  countenance bubbling up as laughter. You deserve the clearest balm to ease your sighs and sorrows. And the warmest of hands to hold yours when evening envelopes the mountains
And the river that divides the north and south of Seoul is frozen over

My dear brown eyes, whatever you decide is yours to decide. Who you pray to, who you love and who you’ll be as the years go by
are all YOURS,
like the chirp of a bird,
or the song of a swallow
it must feel natural to you
and only you can hear it as it perches



MINE. My song calls me to you.
To sit by your side and to meet you once the the sprouts root and grow green,
past the frozen ground onto pathways which the light of spring is to reveal

Who you’ll be then and how you’ll feel
I will respect. The vines grow in many directions in and around all posts, fences, names and memories. They can become nuisances or the fruit for fine wine.

I have these dreams
that keep me up.


There are golden pigeons that sing “come, come home” and you stand next to them.

I am scared every time I wake up that if I ever tell you, where home is you’ll laugh at me–think I am a silly girl.

The pigeons tell me to come home to you
to the land of the morning calm, across a sea from what used to be my childhood  house.

the pigeons sing loud and I wake up with their songs in my ears, and although I fear
I also dream awake, dream of a home and you standing next to golden pigeons.

Every year more and more is scraped off of me,
and for the past years when I feared the scrapping would finally reach the inside,
I would begin to shake because I wondered if that time when the scrapping reached the core I would find out I was hollow and collapse into myself.

But these very years have scraped at the needless thoughts, the needless chases and the needless feelings of inadequacy and the more they brush my surface the  shinier and more solid my core seems

I love you with the compassion, the deepness of self forgiveness, and the  jovial self belief that I love myself with.

I love you knowing you are nowhere near perfect,but knowing this about you
just sits right with me

and your will, will be yours to make
and not mine to restrict or try to change

El cuero arde
cómo arde el cartón,
como arde el presente, en los dos hemisferios

Hay lugares donde los pies protestan,
donde la impuntualidad es menos sutil  
y se disfraza con vernáculas y un buen traje  

Lugares donde hablan tu lengua
y donde hablan las mías
mientras se sirven un plato de comida antes
de despedirse y ir por su día

Donde se enfrían los pies,
y coreo un rio rojo
Donde se escurre la vida sagrada
en un palomar de discordia

2.
Ahí nadie vuela
yo quisiera decirles que de ese recinto
ninguna persona toma vuelo

Sin falta de acuerdo,
nadie vuela
y cielo azul,
azul de ahí se ve lejos

De ahí veo las manos de los viejos levantadas hacia cielo
en balanceo
y me quiero ir.

Camino hacia mi madre.
<<de aquí nadie vuela>> le susurro a ella  
 en el oído
pero ella levanta sus manos más alto
y me ignora

Me trago mi nudo de garganta,
y decido ir me,
pues de aquí no e de volar

3.
El creer es necesario-fe
cómo es necesario
el hacer-acción

Dos hemisferios, en un solo mundo
y tú plenitude de vida
acatan la flor de esperanza en mi corazón.

Se que todo vuela, cuando viene el viento del cambió.

Somedays I have no words, so I do not send correspondence, instead I send you a silent prayer.

Light and warm, so that it can rise and be carried by the wind outside
where ever your feet roam
and over whatever pillow your head rests

They pick circular crowns of flowers
recalling their loved ones’ favorite colors and their quirky inclinations to dress using a certain shade of green or purple.

Lulu died as a baby so, her mom,
my aunt Hermelinda and Lulu’s younger sister Licha add her to the list of people that need floral crowns while counting relatives on their fingers.

Generations of loved ones equate to my small statured aunt, taking multiple trips from the florists’ shop to her car.

Limbs of mine
become workers,
plowing land and discovering
how fertile a ground
And how lively a mind’s garden can be
when worked with gentle hands
through out every season
and under every phase
of the brightly lit moon