The importance of the brown round table

It wasn't until last summer
that i felt the need to write down
my mother's and father's personal stories

It wasn't until last week
that i felt the value in each
individual piece

I don't feel value
in my other pieces or my work
at my office job which helps
so many people

but what is the value of a life lived
in Chicago, as a woman, as a brown woman
as a woman who labels herself
Mexican and chubby

is it only up to me to build this
value, to build it inside of me
so that others can feel then see
that i do belong here

that my words belong
on this page for you
to read

Comments

Dream #414

I was on a bus on my way to a new school, a high school on the south side of Chicago. I transferred to that school because I had moved into the area. The bus went south over a dark brick road bridge--it was dark because it was a gloomy day out--like the sky was heavy with rain. This new school was completely new--metal framework with floor-to-ceiling windows, open floors. The class body was mixed, with a majority being black and white students. I went to the second floor to wait in line at a check-in window. A very chatty boy behind me bumped into me and as I turned to look at him, we both felt an immediate attraction--we are both brown, we are both alternative. I'm reminded of my husband, I remembered I have a husband--maybe in that life or another--so I keep the boy in mind to feel less alone but ignore him as I wait in line. I'm outside in the vast woods that is the campus of the high school. There is a pond and there are green rolling hills of different sizes, all moving l...

everything, everything, In my mind

everything happens for a reason. We need to find out what that reason is. you can't fix anything until you fix what's already been broken. everything that is happening to you is all caused by things you've already done. the reason: trying to be just like him. you did what he did when we lived in the south side. your doing it because you want him to be proud of you, to love you; and in away, you also did it because he didn't love you. Because he thought you were useless. you are not. I always wondered why we are so different when we all grew up together. Maybe because the way we each perceive the world is different; the way we choose to cope is unique to that. THAT is something that is formed. We are the way we are, and the way our brain and soul perceive is the way we react in our worlds. We are each a time portal. Since we are walking it we can't really see where we are going. We need to see outside the box; in some else's shoes; from the outside in. W...

House/Home

I didn't know of any Latina writers growing up. Of the Latino writers I knew of, I knew their long pieces of work, their novels. Novels is what real writers did. Short pieces come from poets. If you want to write short pieces, you should be a poet. This is what I had learned when I was a child. When I learned about The House on Mango, I wasn't taught about the book nor about the writer, but I saved her name: Sandra Cisneros, a published writer, a published Latina writer. When I finally has the chance to get the book, I flipped through it and was immediately heartbroken--It wasn't a novel. I was still under the impression that great writers are novelists and instead of seeing the praise given to the book as a sign of great writing, I took it as a mockery. I took it as if the literary world was mocking the ability of Latina writers, as if short stories were the only thing we could do. It's complicated now for me to talk about what I felt because in truth it had nothing ...

La Pura Neta

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