Quiero ser tuya. Only yours. Only you.
Quiero amarte. Aarte. Amarrarte.
Sandra Cisneros from “You Bring Out the Mexican in Me”
America this is quite serious.
America this is the impression I get from looking in the television set.
America is this correct?
I'd better get right down to the job.
It's true I don't want to join the Army or turn lathes in precision parts
factories, I'm nearsighted and psychopathic anyway.
America I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.
Allen Ginsberg, from “America”
You know what the opposite of Latin Night at the Queer Club is? Another Day in Straight White America. ...You didn’t come here to be a martyr, you came to live, papi. To live, mamacita. To live, hijos. To live, mariposas.
I love you. I love you,
but I’m turning to my verses
and my heart is closing
like a fist.
Frank O’ Hara from “Mayakovsky”
The morning[s] after.
Somerville, Winter 2016
whoismitski-deactivated20190304
People of color who are seen as more threatening to the status of many music spaces need to be represented more. It is not that there is a dearth of musicians of color; there is a dearth of relationships between white people booking shows and people of color. When artists who are not white men do assert ourselves, we are punished for our ‘attitude,’ our ‘demeanor,’ and respectability politics make it that much harder to get the wage we deserve for our work.
I could floss. I could pill the cat. I could try to get angry. I could write a poem about what an idiot you are for dumping me. Fool. Ingrate. Lover. You. I hope you are happy you killed love, happy with the knife you used. I hope you whisper that knife pet names. I hope you and the knife ride into the sunset together. I hope your high horse dies because while riding, your knife accidentally pierces it through the heart. I hope it stares at you with its dying eyes. I hope you meet a new girl, one with eyes like a dying horse. I hope you are happy. I hope that when you try to carve your initials into her thigh, you are suddenly dyslexic. I hope the trees laugh at you, and it sounds like dying horses. I hope when you try to carve into that girl, she says Stop. Don't. I Don't Love You. I hope the girl is a knife. I hope you go looking for another girl. I hope there is a girl shortage. I hope you cant find a girl for miles, which you walk on sore feet since you killed your horse. I hope you are lonely. I hope you cry. I hope you cry my name as your knife starts looking good to you. I hope you lick its tip and cut your tongue. I hope the knife gets excited. I hope the knife wants to kiss your neck. Your belly. Lower. I hope you kiss it back. I hope it kisses like you horse. I hope it cuts through you like that girl. I hope the taste of blood makes you think of me, wonder if I could ever forgive you, as I pill the cat. I floss. I try and get angry. I write a poem. I fail, midnight and alone. I write. I write your knife and name it after me.
Daphne Gottlieb “high horse” (from Fifteen Ways to Stay Alive)
I do not want much of a present, anyway, this year.//After all I am alive only by accident.//I would have killed myself gladly that time any possible way.
from “A Birthday Present”
HBD, Sylvia Plath.
so if you need to be mean be mean to me I can take it and put it inside of me
if your hands need to break more than trinkets in your room
you can lean on my arm as you break my heart
Source: Spotify
Offer the wolves your arm only from the elbow down. Leave tourniquet space. Do not offer them your calves. Do not offer them your side. Do not let them near your femoral artery, your jugular. Give them only your arm.
Daphne Gottlieb (from: “Fifteen Ways to Stay Alive”)
'Guessing your feelings is like charming a cobra with a stethoscope' another boyfriend told me once. Meaning what? Meaning a few things, I think-- that pain turned me venomous, that diagnosing me required a specialized kind of enchantment, that I flaunted feelings and withheld their origins at once.
Leslie Jamison (from “The Empathy Exams”)