working hands.
I once admired
your working hands.
Hands rough and strong,
so streaked with dirt.
Hands that feed, that
fight, that teach.
Hands that prayed,
and they pray still.
Hands that
risk their life to
abandon a homeland,
to cross a border,
hands that left your
home a world away
to make this strange land
mine
Aching hands that,
of sun and sweat, and
prayers and dirt,
built my life
on American soil
Loud hands at work,
at family reunions, church,
at quinceañeras, barbecues.
Loud hands outside,
Silent at home.
Sunburnt
hands that rip
The bitter taste of
fatherhood from your
unwilling tongue.
I've always watched your
Working hands come
home to rest,
No strength for love,
no time for me,
only to eat,
and work,
and sleep.
I pray my soft
delicate hands
Be as strong and tough
as you,
My gentle American hands,
such tender hands, so
unlike yours.
My privileged hands,
they want for nothing.
Such sheltered hands
Uncalloused, young,
untraveled.
I pray that
my American hands
have room to hold
the love you never did,
Love meant for me, my
brother, sister, mother,
or kids.
My hands provide
for not a child unseen.
They work to care, to
mend their hearts,
To wipe the sweat upon
my brow only after I dry
their tears.
My hands
won't work to kiss the
sun, my hands will work
to make a home.
My working hands
will work
To love.
My Dad is my Mom
Dear Dad,
You're my savior, you became the mom I needed when mine left. You may not have known much, but I didn't either, and we learned together. When I needed to dress up for my recital in first grade, I wanted a high ponytail, you didn't know how to do it so it looked slick, you felt so bad. So you went on facebook and saw a dad do it with a vacuum. I couldn't stop laughing because it was so silly, but you did my hair and I loved it. When I got my period for the first time you looked up videos and asked all the women in our family how to help me. You knew I was gonna have to live and grow up without my mom, so you took on her role, you did everything a mom would do.
In most peoples life they have a mom and dad, whether they are together or not, in my lifetime I lost my mom, I didn't have one, and you stepped up. You became the mom I needed. Happy mother's day Dad, I love you.
Back and forth.
It starts with counting in threes. Three ice cubes for my coffee. Three steps behind other people. Three soft kisses.
Why do horses need horseshoes?
Open the fridge and close it again. I forgot what I was even looking for. Open it back again. Did it change at all? Close. Open again and pick something. Close.
What if I started making my own butter and bread?
Choose the same everyday shorts. Same everyday shoes. Everyday necklace. Until they get replaced by the new ones when they start falling apart. You have several pairs, but they are for special ocassions. Things need to be used for a specific purpose.
Are sharks smooth or rough skinned? Do they like to be pet?
Avoid eating with others, people who aren't safe. The sounds they make. The way they criticize what you eat. The loud clattering sounds of china and shriek.
What song would play at my funeral? I hope it's a fun one.
Touch every piece of clothing before you even consider putting it against your skin. Is it soft? Artificially so? Does it feel hot?
Put it back on the shelf, go see the pretty one you saw from the other one. No, not that one. It has the weird crease on the shoulder. Same as the sweater on the other shop. Next.
What do other people see as red?
T-rex arms are comfy. So is tapping my fingers together. Drumming on invisible heads, picturing the comfortable tap tap tap they make.
Is there a sound no one has ever made?
Look at the mirror but not at your eyes.
Is my face actually my face?
Stay up all night going through 21 different scenarios. Different songs. Different ways you could change your own life.
... Can I?
Turbo Lover, fast and loose, noble sufferings, substance, and light from stars.
Judas Priest inspired today's show, or rather informed the mood of the morning and coffee while a handful of writers waited to be read and heard, by you. One hell of a show today. Sit your asses down, grab a tall, cool beverage of choice, and go into this world of words by these stone statues of stanza and ink.
Here's a link to the show.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soR_UH--EbY
And here are the featured pieces.
https://www.theprose.com/post/815271/fast-and-loose https://www.theprose.com/post/815219/substance https://www.theprose.com/post/791497/lamentations-anew-a-poem-by-tf-burke
https://www.theprose.com/post/815261/remember-that-time-i-thought-i-was-dying https://www.theprose.com/post/815249/i-am-insatiable https://www.theprose.com/post/815229/starlight
And.
As always.
Thank you for being here.
-The Prose. team
I Am Insatiable
I want the likes, the challenge, the double shot of vodka in my lemon drop martini, on the rocks. I want to write at a bar, order and sip, write and publish, make people's jaws drop at my prose, my ability to shock and make noise in the literary world.
I just wrote a letter to someone and sealed it with a kiss, but isn't that how everything is on the internet? You put forth writing on a writing website, and people click 'like', without knowing that your saliva is all over the font, the punctuation kicking me in the gut every time someone comments.
I don't get recognized for my writing, or maybe I do. There's a condom ad where a dad is at a grocery store, and his toddler is throwing a temper tantrum, throwing all the produce on the ground, screaming and causing a scene. I wonder if my writing is used somewhere as caution, use protection, never whine and complain about your WASP life, because you have everything.
I am thirty-one. In one month, I turn thirty-two. Pretty obvious, right? Except that it’s not that easy when you’re suicidal, pushing the limits of your serotonin. When do I get famous? Probably never, and that‘s okay, that’s the logistics of both my genetic lottery and this game I play where I write out my feelings.
I am insatiable. I want to be the greatest writer ever created, until I look at the writing of Ernest Hemingway, and my dog who I named after him (we call him "Ern"), and see that his corgi legs are too small to hold the weight of my expectations about myself, that the real Ernest Hemingway is somewhere looking down, but not at me, at everyone else who wants a place in history.
This is all great, I'm sure - you'll hit the "like" button, or move on, or just forget this post ever got written. I'll drink my martini, the one I made a double, because the bartender asked, and I had nothing to lose - and now, I press "publish" and hold my breath that someone reads this and isn't lost in my line of thinking.