Day 3: Breaking the fast

We take this silence to be self evident
That the body will speak for itself when it must
In the moments between
We will pretend there is no trauma choking voice down
It is choice
An echoed reverb

I have allowed this vocal chord of mine to simmer
For more than a year
Soak itself in the acid tingling at the back of my throat
Until speech was a forgotten protest
An action requiring more passion than I possess

There is a breaking required in the ending of silence
It is the crackle found in the abandoned chords
It is a sting I know too well
The fear of it
Will help keep the quiet
Keep the calm
Scare my body back into its curl
Have me refusing the pen

Terrified of what pain
This uncovering might bring

2: This Mourning

This morning i wake up stale
skin feeling shades darker than its ever been
i must stand
because i am able
i must stand
unlearn this paralysis
unlearn this still quiet body forced upon me
unlearn the fear
the hate

this morning i wake
because i am able
because i must
because there is no choice
with a brown beating heart
there is no choice
but to live
but to wake
we have not the privilege to be still

Day 1: we begin

Day 1 starts with tears and a complete loss of faith. 

this aint a florida thing

this aint a prosecutor thing

this aint a gun regulation, thing

this is an american thing

the devaluing of black bodies to the point of extinction

we don't need another court to tell us 

its legal to shoot and kill and unarmed black kid

we got the bodies as reminders

the grief still fresh on our skin 

Sean Bell, Oscar Grant, Travon Martin

we did not expect the courts to do you justice

only wished that somehow

someday

our sons would learn to outrun their bullets

Day 23: Joanna

i never watched a house burn to ground
but iʻve felt it
crumble
watch the fire thief a family of place
a father of family
watched daylight fail
iʻve never watched a house burn to the ground
but i know what it feels like to burn
know what stench fires ghost leaves behind
know the way ash never leaves
only moves
chases you
makes sure you remember
what no longer is
and what will never be
because everything was eaten by heat
and the quiet crackle
the quick strike
of a match against
sandpaper skin

day 22: Pae ka leo o ke kai (a revision from yesterday poem)

During my quest for the kāne

i send songs into the ʻāīna before me

scripture composed to the rhythm of your pahu

i imagine the hua spurting roots and rising as kumu lehua

the men and women hear me coming 

prepare puaʻa, kalo, luʻau  

all for for me to feast

i eat the tender leaves and continue

eager 

like the ocean tide

to return to your shore

the moʻo 

insist on making an impression

fling their tongues in my directions

flail their bodies as to hint at my destruction

but i have proven

that all those who test will fall defeated

I have finally arrived to find the kapu man dead

i send my voice first 

it lands on the ears of friendly hosts

they claim i am the diety of their dance

the akua they marvel to for this movement 

and yet, 

they are ignorant to the source of this mele

they forget you

do not see the shadows your palms left 

pressed against my hips

don't  feel the cool brush of wind to the sweat collected between our skin

they know nothing of the way you fed me your body

how i drank of you until every step 

every twist was an instinct to praise you 

every kāhea

a song strung from the shift your kino pressed into papa

how you became a kumu only by allowing your body to be laʻau lehua planted in earth

so that you may dance every time the nānāhuki wind blows

they are stranger to you

and our song

and i wonder 

how they might call themselves dancers

and not know your name

not have felt the pressure of your poho to their hips

the wisher of your voice saying, "pēlā" again their chests

the sting left behind by your kiss

they know not how all of this became the dance i would compose to the rhythm of your breath

only that i have been singing the same song ever since

they call me their akua

their kumu

and all i can do is wonder 

as a haumana of your haʻa

as a student of this bend at the knees praise 

if i have spent enough time in your arms 

in the center of your swaying scripture

if i have made a home permanent enough in your body

to bring justice to this ʻami

of this bend and hinge of the hips

i do not know

so I send my voice to you over the ocean

praying for reply

Pae ka leo o ke kai

the voice of the sea sings

Ha‘a ka wahine

the female bends

‘Ami i kai o Nānāhuki

she turns the sea of nānāhuki

reminding me

i have much still to learn of your body

day 21: the hula deity

while i seek him

lohiau

kāne with the kapu kino

i send songs into the ʻāīna before me

scripture composed to the rhythm of your pahu

the men and women hear me coming 

tprepare puaʻa, kalo, luʻau for me to feast

i eat the tender leaves and continue

eager to return to you

the moʻo 

insist on making an impression

fling their tongues in my directions

flail their bodies as to hint at my destruction

but all those who test will fall defeated

I have finally arrived to find the kapu man dead

i send my voice first 

it lands on the ears of friendly hosts

they claim i am the diety of their dance

the akua they marvel to for this movement 

and yet 

they forget you

they do not see the showdown your palms left 

pressed against my hips

nor do they feel the cool brush of wind to the sweat collected between our skins

the are stranger to you

and i wonder 

how they might call themselves dancers

and not know your name

not have felt the press of your pooh to their hips

they call me their akua

their kumu

and all i can do is wonder 

if i have spent enough time in your arms 

in the center of your swaying scripture

to be worthy of this praise 

Day 19: time

its amazing to me
how much time
a girl in love
can need

Day 17: Goodnight, good body,

you are skin and nails
i am chockboard and water
we love loud
scratch like salt
cool like snow
we will
bend
bend
bend
until we are backwards
refuse to break
insist on sticking
not even the sun will drive us away

but your edges against my back
make me damn to soften the scratch
no sandpaper skin
tonight
just
nails sliding off black sky
just skin
sliding into black night
just two bodies
blackened by time

Day 16: Goodbye

goodbye
good bye
go
go
go

bye

Day 15: ʻĀpuakea, Kailuas Finest (free write)

"Words are spoken by the rain on hala"

water waking on the silk of skin

call her

ʻĀpuakea

kailuas finest

lett her fall from the sky 

unto you

sparkle your skin in sheer sleet from the gods

she will move proudly along

until you wade into her

imagine her body falling over a one you love

how this mist might expand your lehua

imagine the two of them

caught in embrace

how far the love you have might stretch

how strong the two might grow

how many theyd be invincible

to fire 

Day 14: There is only make

"Nothing is a mistake. There's no win an no fail. There's only make." - Sister Corita

why are we so afraid

to step out from under the shade of expectation

and practice

and almost perfect

in order to do something

almost miraculous

where did this idea of mistake and failure come from

and how has it gotten caught up so deep in our skin

paralises

is just a forgotten promise

to try

to dismiss fear

and build

to forget failure

and make

something new

different

and almost miraculous 

Day 13: in progress

the day i saw you burning

i happened upon two lehua trees

in the center, a stream, Hoakalei

i plucked the misty eyed flowers to string myself a part of you to wear

Day 12:

iʻve sipped the silence from your skin
the bitter taste of it
had me crying til morning
you awoke
another lie whispered past lips
another moment when truth wont fit
and im just waiting for a part of your strength to break
shatter at the center
so all the small ugly words can fall through
and i can know for sure
the kind of fool i must be
to have allowed
a woman
so far under my skin
that iʻve forgotten
how to stand up straight without her

Day 11: especially now

we are unlikely
improbable
nearly impossible
we are two edges of the universe
not meant to touch
and yet
here i am
holding you
pressed against my chest
here i am loving you
to supernova and back
here i am
promising
not to let go
no matter how impossible
here i am
yours
always
and especially
now

Day 10: My inauguration speech

There are still holes in our bodies

Caverns created by your discoveries

Wounds never cared for enough to scar

From your bombs

This is not a time for speech writing

Not a time for clever metaphor

And inspiration

This is a time to picture the bodies you unfurled into the abyss

The ones who skin was already blacked before you charred them

I don’t want to hear a gay Mexican on stage

Talk about the light we can all see in mornings mirrors

Don’t want to talk about the way morning breaks over horizon the a promise for progress

Or any of that shit

No

Mr. president

This is not a moment to revel in our excellence

In a minute to remember or

Disgustingly human

An hour to shatter the glass ceiling of appearances

You

Black man

Born of woman

Born of salt

And sand

Born of imperialism

Born of bombs

And chains

And ropes

And scars

Born of roots

How could you forget?

The holes your country dug into my body

How could you disregard

The sands that spit you out whole to this world

How could you achieve so much

And remember so little

I know our black is not the same

But our scars

Are so similar

You

Have just allowed them to paint over your skin

Make you presentable

Make you represent

Something you were never an image of

And yet,

I still feel hopeful

Every time

Its your face

Delivering the state of the union

And yet

I still wait

For you to say something

That really matters

We are all waiting to be recognized

Having casted our ballot for the only body that resembled our struggle

But every time you speak

It becomes so clear to me

That you have no intention

To recognize the way

Your office

Has beaten us

Has broken us

Has made us victim

Has buried us all

Alive 

Day 9: A seed that insists to flower

When attempting to lull a foreign body 

let no seed be left unturned

scatter language over his skin

to nurture a forest of growth he has forgotten

let every song that resists to be put to tongue

come to life in the shake of hips

conjure wahine Hōpoe

sweet lehua nectar that insists on being remembered

As you pass through, in danger

Make wind of metaphor to brush chill against the nape of his neck

Let him not forget the sharp sting of ʻŪkiu rain 

how it would turn to sweat

make sure the seeds will stick

This is the way your voice will be given permanence

How you will be allowed safety in your crossing

That you may return to her

So sing your way through valley and cliffs edge

Bring vision to places you’ve come to in darkness

That your kaona may be memorialized in stone and premonition

insure that women will repeat the words you have written

that you will be remembered

as the wahine

who left Hōpoe’s lehua grove

but never forgot the taste

of sweet nectar on your tongue

a seed that insist to flower

Day 8: Horror of translation

i have know the game of being stripped to the core
how the naming of me by those who cannot decipher this tongue
will amputate every limb of my body
these are not moments i wish to pass on to my descendants
the accepting of violent translations
and a world thrust upon them in different dialect
how they will never be welcomed
in their entirety
someone will always demand that they be severed or made small to fit into the back of their throat
someone will always misunderstand their skin tone
someone will always violate them
with the scratch of repeating consonants

someday
i might find them
lighting their body
to be small
and will lose myself in their lessness
someday i might have to remember my own skin
shrinking around my bones
shattering the strongest part of me
until i was putty to be molded by their narration
someday
if i have children i might have to remember
the horror of translation

Day 7: poems that dont matter

passive aggrieve me
wants to write a poem saying
youʻre priorities royally suck
but im not passive aggressive
so i wont write it
here
wont post it
here
ill just pretend i dont notice
pretend i dont care

Day 6: a little courage

i saw small words
to myself
during the shade of night
the cold that comes before dusk
i wake saying small things
little words that help me continue
today i was without
today
cold only bought silence
the sleek of quiet sidewalks

so i hold the sounds in
not wishing to misspeak
wait for a girl to cross my path
knowing there have been words missing
she will do her best saying,

"Sometimes,
living in a big city
you just need a little courage"

Day 5: WInter

bodies frozen to concrete
huddles looking for warmth
a shadow, maybe to hold
even a smile might do
but the sun dont shine these days
aint nobody got nothing to smile about
every
body
is cold
everybody
is cold

Day 4: Body's Decay

when thinking about disaster

and the bodies left behind

or the ones choosing to stay

the ones 

who the earth was made for

who wait to see earth end

and waters triumph

when speaking of disaster 

as a child might

as you watch the water rise

when speaking of such

remember

paralysis

of any form is rarely a choice

when speaking of disaster

and the bodies 

screaming from roof tops

cursing god

and looking for a new savior

when speaking of those

not burnt by suns glare

skin as thick as molasses  

remember the way 

their bodies were chained to place

and movement is only meant for the privileged

relief

don't come easy to ocean choked concrete

when speaking of disaster

think of a bodyʻs atrophy

mutations in the muscle

making movement impossible

think of the ones who couldn't get away

whether they tried

or who believe in staying til earths end

and not running 

coward like

to dry land

when speaking of disaster

of katrina

Sandy

and indonesia

think of the body

remember its decay

not unlike its city 

Day 3: Remember Hōpoe, who glides

When confronted by the beauty of Punahoa,

seek her body.

An ʻiwa on the crest of oceans mountains

who teases clouds from the waters brush.

Seek her. Body

bending into waveʻs crash,

teasing clouds. From the waters brush

watch her dance upon silver skin.

Bending into waves, crash

memory to minds summoning.

Watch her, dancing upon silver skin

Remember Hōpoe, who glides of golden plains.

When confronted by the beauty of Punahoa

upon woman training tides

an ʻiwa on the crest of oceans mountains

Remember Hōpoe, who glides.

Day 2: Birth

My mother tells be I was born

during her doctors 45 minute lunch break

That I slid out of her

Like the world had been calling for too long

My body

Unwilling to be held within her safest embrace any longer

She said

They named me

A song

That would fear nothing but the end of its voice

Nothing but silence

And the absence of language

And breath

That would fear

Only its nothingness

She said

I was born

In 45 minutes

And became

Fully person

woman and hers

I remember birth differently

I remember the 5 year old version of myself being told and believing the story of my own desecration

How my penis

Had been severed by a team of doctors

That my mother

So disgusted by the coming of me

Strong and male like

Took a knife to my body

To have me made whole

I remember feeling missing

And the phantom itch of a appendage

Iʻd never explored

How the story

And believing it

Made me paper like

An origami sculpture

Waiting to become masterpiece

At someone else’s hand

And imagination

I remember my first period

At 16 and how it was the first true indication that the story

I couldn’t shake from skull

Was nothing more than imagination

And sculpture

That I was woman and

Would die this way

Having never fully known the itch of manhood

The way I imagined

 And this is why I remember birth differently

As less of the sliding from my mother body

Less of being of woman

And of her

And more of the 24 hours spent contorted on a garage couch

The sting of become a image of my own creation

I remember birth

As giving my body to canvas

As the minutes

All 1440 of them turned

Spent becoming a masterpiece

How owning my body

Was turning my skin into vision

And becoming woman meant

Refusing the restrictions of traditions that would refuse me this honor

Of this mark

Of being able to hold story in ink

On skin

Birth was the hour I spent weeping in from of my bathroom mirror naked

the morning I awake to find my tattoo completed

no longer a work of art

but a work of body

and wholly mine

in both imagination and form

birth

was tracing the phases of moon on my pelvis

and remembering that womanhood is not the absence of a phantom itch

it’s the fullness of expression and the courage to have all dreams actualized

birth

was the moment I realized that my body

was full expression and a courageous dream realized

birth was 24 hours

spanning in 22 years

a woman’s body

becoming

her own

Day 1: Memory

i remember this feeling
the way air starts to take shape
the way
distance
starts to feel
more and more like
space
and far far far away
the way your body
is less and less of memory
more fable
and tale
things iʻve read of before
but cant quite put to tongue

i remember the way it all
can fall to the floor and shatter
how fragile this kind of love can be
and how this
if memory serves
any indication
will be the first of many
poems written to mornings awoken
uncertain

i know these feelings
and the song absence sings

i know your body
and the way it releases me
how the days will pile without our voices bouncing off of each other
how we are made
a symphony of silence
a john cage parade of nothing

tomorrow might be better
but it will not eclipse
the feeling of being struck
by our imperfection
and the way memory seems to pose itself
a warning
a guide against repeat offenses
tomorrow i might not want to crawl into my skin and cry myself back into ocean
but that will not remove
the memory of tonight
and my shell
far too tight for my body to hide
it will not reclaim the memory
of my bones curling into themselves
of my heart
playing small
in fear
of you

If you are going to call yourself a writer - a reminder to myself

if you are going to dare call your self a writer
an artist
a woman who pulls words from the vein of body
then words better come
better pray
it rains you some
metaphor
that they crash down
in thunder
strike the ground
hot enough to turn the crumbling earth
into iridescent foundation
something solid
for life to be held
even the smallest of it

if you gonna call yourself a writer
better not wait for writing to happen
better happen yourself into writing
better force yourself awake
each evening
force the finding of words
better tie cords into your edges of your wrist
better pull til worst fall free
better take care as they tumble
down before your eyes
down from your blood
down
down
down
better pay close attention
better not expect any pay or attention
aint gon get any
anyway
better keep on that writing
better keep on that focus
better keep on
better write
write, write
if you are gonna call yourself a writer
you better
write

What missing you means

i leave the bathroom door unlocked when i shower
take my time
wash my hair
once
twice
stop at three times
i wait
wondering if waiting will bring your return

i curl my body into the corner of my bed
press my skin agaisnt the cold of the wall
let the only heat come from my breath bouncing off my pillow
i let my body remember the space you occupied when you were here
refuse to let it dissipate

i eat lots of ice cream
and cry into my pillow
play the weepies and sing along until
my sobs drown out any sound resembling music

i am overly dramatic
write metaphors to compare my longing for you to some kind of serious trauma
it is not
we are perfectly safe in this distance
and one of us always returns
we will be okay

but it doesnt mean i do not find myself empty
having forgotten how to survive alone
it doesnt mean i will lock my bathroom door
anytime soon
or that i will take advantage of a full empty bed
no
there is no trauma
but i will miss you terribly
like there is
for every minute
of every day
until you return
to my arms
and ill show you
how iʻve saved your space

I avoid this city

i avoid this city
tred lightly on the cracks of its concrete
not wanting to leave a mark
not wanting to be remembered
to give any part of myself away
i have worked far to hard for every inch of this body
i shake myself hoping not to carry the dust of this shattering glass ceiling home
no

i desire very little of it all
spend so much of my time
unwilling in the face of change
maybe growth too
definitely of anything resembling service to this city
i am a caged and hardened skin of a woman

and iʻve seen what a place this loud and fast can do
seen the way it has warped the bodies and minds of my own people
how they are often made stronger and better for it
how being stronger to them
means forgetting and failing to return
i am not interested in that kind of strength
i did not come here to be changed
i do not intend to become desired enough that i am asked to stay
i did not affix my name to that kind of contract

no
i am selfish in my pursuit
coming only to take
and observe
and i find it hard to be ashamed
after so many years
of trying to make the tracks of foreign interest disappear from the sands i call home
i find it so hard to feel selfish
when looking to the past for an excuse my for action
i find it so hard, sometimes
and im glad
because anything easier might
encourage me to stay

Kin of Cloud

She will not have seen my body burned

Fire trusted onto every inch of melting skin

How my Fingertips slipped like salty sweat to the floor

Parts of me continuing to burst

The heat of blood expanding through newly shrunk and smoked body

Shriveled and condensed over again

She will not see me watching

Only imagine

Someone sky like

Kin of cloud

Gazing down at her hands clasped

Tight

I will watch her hardened woman

Pew like

Erect

altar of a body

Overlying her self in water falling through

She will not see me watching

Admire the way her body conforms to mourning

As if in specialty

How I will worry it will remember this contortion in muscle

Maybe she might find herself alone in what was once our bed

Erect and statue like again

giving her water to the gods in offering

eyes not knowing how to shut

Afraid of the fire my body found behind the darkness

she will not see me watching

from behind my own eyes

Photographed and still

how even beyond the skin and bones left

closed

and casketed

there is a contorting game I will play

to fit myself

into every photograph that remains

to watch her

to pray in whatever light that may remain

how my body will be folded and harden too

I will have no water left to offer

But try

For her

To leave some sort of physical sign that I haven’t quite left

That she should not remove the trinkets and parts of my memory that have found a miracle way to stay

I try to tell her that I am here

By using my photograph stare

try dive into her body

And allow her hands to open

Eyes to close

Try to show her there are many ways to mourn

Not all ending in the drain

Of all that you are left

After everyone else who had loved me is gone

She will stay

Continue the pouring out

And I will dream of a way

To shatter this photograph

And join her

My arms stretched around her body

Spine erect

Alter like

Stiff as a pew

But as soft as our morning prayers

I will imagine my body

Returning everything shes offered

Wrapped around her skin

Protecting her

From the fire

Theif

there is a child in me
severed in half
a body blasted open by a fracturing slug to the chest

also a mother
someday to be
who will fear to do anything other than hold her daughter close
who will wonder if birth is irresponsible
if there will be no welcome for the fragile innocence of childhood

there is a sister
still learning to do justice by the name
not equipped with the thickness of skin to stop crying long enough to understand why this happened
her hands unable to lay still
searching for the soft skin of her younger siblings
the ones she knows are 6000 miles south west of these blasting bullets
of the shattering glass of winters quest promise
and yet
she will watch every minute of footage
every fucking second
searching for the eyes of a 9 year old girl
who reminds you of home - of a child she once held close to her chest
she will wonder if this is the penance you will constantly have to pay for allowing her heart to love

and beneath all of this...
there is a woman
i am trying to be
trying to hold all these pieces together
long enough to write it out
to gather all the shattered bits close enough to see an image
close enough to make sense of it all

but no
there is no sense
just a child, a mother, a sister and me
reading the news
watching the line of children skatter
watching their eyes turn dark
knowing they will never be the same
like i will never be the same
that something was stolen today
from us all

Letter to myself (for Colloquium)

I know girls like you

The kind to run when seeing stacks of words on top of each other

I know the way it makes every part of your body stutter, shake and shatter

How the insecurity you think you’ve locked under your skin

Comes flying past the surface

I know how the repeating consonants remind you of bars

And walls

Scratch against the back of your throat

Like dry chalk

How you will cramp and cram your tongue into itself

Just to make the sounds seem like they fit falling through your lips

I know how you will write

Write

Write

And not know why

Not understand the ocean of water falling out

Because you will refuse

To let a single word under light

Because you are second language

Second chance

You are back of the classroom

Without a hand

You are broken body

And beated tongue

You are poems

On poems

On poems

Because the thought of punctuation makes you want to crawl inside of yourself

Makes you remember

You dumb

You worthless child

With words no worth

Illiterate

They say

Illiterate you believe

Because your vocabulary don’t stretch far enough to understand

The way the attempt at that insult is laughable

No one understands

Not even yourself

Cant even communicate right

Got twice the number of words 4 times the feelings circling in your mind

Don’t make no sense

The ease of the other kids language

Only have one world they need to find fitting into their mouth

You

Clawing at broken century tongue

And colonial empire

It is a miracle you haven’t torn yourself completely to pieces just yet

So many things you don’t know

Cant understand

Can barely see from inside

That cage they built with the rules of their words

Make you believe they own your tongue

And all the fire your saliva spits

They don’t know how you’ve severed all their language in half to make it stable

To make it mean

How bright that light of you shines

Who would have thought your future would be in words

Not you,

I know

And because you were the last to learn of your brilliance

It will be your job to remember

The fractures of beginning

The way you built your own fortress from nothing

Took those words they called broken

And misused

And lined the whitest of Houses with your dirty brown speech

Don’t let their walls, cages, rules and commas name you anything other than genius

Than strong

Than beauty

Because you are transformation embodied

Evolution acquired

You are two worlds

In one throat

The closest thing to coexisting

That survives

You are Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio

A chant sung to the heavens

You are made of words

Built of language

And the last thing you should be afraid of

Is yourself