Why do you wish for sweet tomorrows when right now is passed away into yesterday. Today’s news is recycled thrown like periodicos de ayer, a spun record round like discoball sparkling. Celebrations of degradation reputation must come through resume of greatness. So tired of fake shit nowadays hard to find anything sacred. You hide hurt like out in the open. Levitations of elevations for momentary gain leaves tear trails where memories remain. Salutations for everyone slain, parts of yourself wither quicker than rose petals in sun. You used to run with your hair whipping in the acidic breeze like waves on moontide. Now you slide into sessions confidence a lonely weapon against turbulent terrorism. Profession of love a possession constantly seeking perfection – but all the above added up means you still broke. Still hope for future visions of riches leftover with only revenge in vicious frigid dishes.

You step off the curb and it feels like you dropped into the neverending hole in the neverending story. Foreigners surround you and calibrate the kink in each one of your curls. They offer to give you a makeover that is 120 percent guaranteed to make you love yourself. You respectfully decline but not before carefully considering their option, after all your self esteem is in short supply. Thus the demand on your depression has been at record levels causing your mental markets to vacillate between bear and bull when the whole time, it has felt like an African lion, well respected in person, but disrespected and endangered when it’s back was turned.

Next snapshot is a barbed wire fenced in concert of your least favorite reggaeton artists, Mack y Donna, cantando their latest exito, “Damelo Duro.” The strobelights and smoke machines have both blinded and suffocated you and between blinks you see images of masters whipping their slaves with Hype Williams cinematography as the victims mouth Duro along to the beat. Your screams of horror are misconstrued as cheers of support when the manager leans over and whisper screams into your ear, I know you feeling this hot shit right?

You do a lambada Macarena on the Mun2 dancing contest. The crowd goes wild praising your artistic genius one second then decrying your offensive rhythm throwing D batteries at you. The scene shifts you are the crossover movie star of the blockbuster Ole Toro! An aristocratic Mexican trapped by bullfighters forced to fight his way out the barrio Gladiator style swashbuckling battling the commie pigs. You are appalled at your own success but not enough to dissuade you from signing on for merchandising and sequels for the next ten years. This has lead to your endorsement and by default, becoming the Latino Spokesman for Bush the 42^nd reelection in 3009. Performing this crucial Uncle Tom role ensures the future domination of your family’s family’s families for millennia to come.

Smiling bittersweet, you grin and whisper, you live and learn. This exact saying was what guided your mother during her romantic genocide with your father. You consider the irony in the situation especially since you have painted misogyny by the numbers in your own relationship soon destined to flourish under all this ancestral weight. You chuckle at all the broken hearts in the world and cry at how shattered your own is. Those tears drop like acid in your palms softly stinging your skin.

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I am loved

I am appreciated

I am special

If to nobody else

But myself

I am the sun’s reflection

My smile is equal

A million moons dancing

Mambo in sync

This will be no gas

Self love sometimes is suspect

But I need to protect

My sanity from evil

Which has a symbiotic

Relationship with my downfall

I am strong though skinny

I am smart not conceited

I will rise I am not defeated

Maybe bruised but not destroyed

Keep living every moment possible

Cuz death I can’t avoid

But this is not for that

This will be inner warmth

No need for cornerstore specials

No matter where we are

How low or high they will still try

To catch you

I am safe but watched

I am movin but sometimes stop

I will keep going til I reach the top

This can not be taken away

This will be around for many days

This will be the faith in the messages

Momma prays

That in those wicked streets

Her boys will be more than OK

I am loved

I am important

I matter

I have been baptized in the tears

My ancestors have cried

There is a reason why we are here

& I have survived

Obviously I just need more time

To figure that out

Til then within moments of self doubt

I shall dedicate love songs to myself

And dance slow strobelight fantasies

To seduce me into my own social security

My reflection reminds me

Rainbows running down

Rundown streets

Right next to the Bronx River

I am Boricua

I am American whether I want to believe it

I will claim my right to be Nuyorican

Or whatever else I feel like calling myself

At that particular moment in time

Cuz I know they will try to define me to me

But I can’t let them

My mind tries to be free

Like inmates breaking out prison

I spit this poem

To myself hands over ears

So my inner voice would listen

Sometimes the screaming is so loud

Sometimes I can never feel proud

Sometimes feels like there will be

No more tiempo to get things straight

And I’ll be that dude

Like see what had happened was at the gate

The decider will add up the times I said love

And how many times I said hate

If I demonstrate how I deviate

It will hopefully illustrate how I illuminate

How I motivate to eliminate the hate (hurt)

From this heart which hopes

That I will get to Heaven on the long local

Rather than to Hell on the fast express

I am sure

I am confident

I will be successful

To my own standards of excellence

Exhaled effort

Inhaled incredible energy

I am amazed

I am inspired

I am renewed

Hugs to myself

Is the remedy

For revolution

copyright 2008 anthony morales