it's only a poem

this is a poem about social justice... in general
it's about the blood of indigenous people... from everywhere
it's about the wars that decimate innocent people... across the world
it is the ultimate poem that will make you cry and shout and laugh all at the same exact time

it is the miracle poem.
the poem that everyone will clap and remember and talk about after this open mic.
it is the poem made by paperboy cap tattooed too cool on stage for you poets
this poem will talk about rivers of blood like the ones that run in your veins
about how white walls is a reminder of white imperialism and how it's suffocating our souls

it will be about women... in general
it will be about the power of youth... from all urban cities
it will speak to the impact of words... on no one in particular
or everyone in particular!

this poem will rock the judges and make them lucky to be coming out tonight
even though their cool artsy poet friend dragged them to a small coffeehouse
packed with young suits by day and loud adjective heavy poets by night
when you really just wanted to watch that new movie with channing tadem

but no no, you are moved! channing tadem can't touch your heart like this.
this poem will circle verbs onto nouns and swirl around adjectives so we can make adverbs that will blow. your. mind.
it will reinspire you to write... a haiku
because when you got home your inspiration ran dry and you desperately tried to remember the lines of this poem so you can use it to write angry love poems or sad ones about your cat
you will spout the wonders of the word to all of your coworkers
and make all of your friends read your 5 page poem because if they really wanted to know you
they would read the writing your soul wrote
bam!
so deep, it sank past the titanic

this poem is about jeremy lin and how he will save all of asian america
it is about the shades of orange and yellow with a hint of green as the sun sets over a beautiful vast ocean
it will be letters to all the politicans... about all the injustices
it will be about facebook and how online flirting works
it is a poem about my father... your father... and your father... all of our our fathers
it will be a poem about a poem about a poem within a poem

then it will internally explode
and bring you another set of stanzas that you did not see coming
this poem will be televised on youtube
with 15 hits
and considered a success
this poem will sell chapbooks and cds and tours
it will make me famous!
if only on college campuses
it will be about what my favorite color would say it if it could talk
it would be about sacred places... in my bedroom
it's about that book, article, facebook comment, tweet that changed my life and now there's a poem about it

this poem is about everything... in general
and nothing... in particular
it will be about my contradictions and hypocrisy
and how my heart has broken into millions of pieces and shattered across the sahara
waiting to be picked up and glued back together

this poem is about you.
about me.
about us.
about poets who do make us laugh, cry, and shout at the same time.

it is about my gratitude for the poet world to exist so i can write this miracle poem.

and really, it's mostly about jeremy lin. better luck tomorrow kobe.

aloha oe

dear queen lili'ouklani,

i am sad for your departure in this world and even more distraught about the removal of your rule over your people. i know i've only learned about you and your family through museums and youtube videos but i can't shake this spur in my heart for the hawaiian people. your grace and compassion can be seen in your eyes that stare back at me from age old photos. it can be told in the steps you took at washington place and in the rooms of the iolani palace. it can be felt by your people as you sign violent declarations of your "tyranny" to avoid bloodshed. i feel it in the blood of my war refugee veins. the injustice that demands reparations. the heartbreak that can still be heard on the shores of hawai'i.

when was the first mistake made? was it when king kamehameha allowed white colonizers to be ali'i? was it when christian missionaries settled in and converted the monarchy? was it when it became legal for white foreigners to own land in hawai'i? was it when captain cook finally made it to the hawaiian islands and decreed it to be the sandwich islands?

when was that point in history you would have taken back? when was it that you could still save your peoples from american exceptionalism?

i know the forces of western imperialism was stronger than any current that hawai'i has every faced but could it be possible for these series of eight islands could rebuke the eventual reality of annexation?

i'm not so sure but i do know that every hawaiian heart still beats to the thunder of your ancestors.

i can only hope to be so loud.

with all my love and admiration,
yvonne tran

Colors

Another freewrite about our favorite color and what it would say if it could talk.

I don't wear you much despite my attraction to your hue. Perhaps, I can not match your intensity, just aspire to it. If you could talk, you would say that you didn't know why you were placed as Hello Kitty's original color mascot even when you knew I didn't like cats. You would tell me how confusing it felt when you first appeared on my pants in 9th grade PE. You would tell me that red are always the best candy flavors. You would tell me you always showed up with every skinned knee to remind me that I still live. You would say tomato sauce always taste better than cream. You would tell me the blood that runs in my veins are wrapped in ancestral strength and that is my inheritance. You would say my heart beats bigger than I ever realize. You would tell me that this bracelet wrapped on my left wrist is the symbol of my refuge. You would tell me you are my favorite color because you spark my passion and fuel my indignation.

But what you would secretly whisper is that you actually wish to be blue. To bring deep sea depth and calmness to my restlessness. To bring soft winds to my nomadic heart. To carve a direction back home.

Sacred Places

Now and days, most of the writing I do is from writing prompts at ReWrite meetings. Oh, how I am grateful.
The prompt was, what places do I hold sacred?

It is the place between my heart and a breath. This is where I hold the rise of my anxiety and also the place where I quell it with calmness. It is a place between my eyelids where I keep monkey thoughts in jeweled chests. It is a place where my mind meets the rustle of redwood trees. It is a place to go when there is no where else to hold these explosions. It is in the deep crevices of my heart. Under folds and through my lungs. It is a place where butterfly wings touch time to make impermanence. It is a place of grace and compassion weaved into my breaths. It is a place where I breathe in my sacred and breathe out my redemption.

Quick Haikus

Some haikus I did while I was on the plane to DC a month ago.

The stars are bitter
seeing me embrace your light
you burn right through me.

Tonight you hold me
My heart rests on your closed lips
Love, give me a breath.

I am counting stars
dancing my way back to you
Believe me, to hold my hand.

Lovely, kiss me now
I might become the ethers
in limbo, waiting.

2/30

It's hard when I don't have someone on my ass everyday to write a poem like I did last year. :(

Knock, knock
All you hear is a solid thud
as my heart has turned into cement
Blood courses through my body
I swim through it,
I see nothing but the vast redness.

As I swim further, the walls of my veins
have frozen and I feel nothing
It is strange to be inside your body
and feel nothing
A vast nothingness.

A cave resembling my empty chest cavity
echoes with memories of
lovers tagging walls
and etching their initials into the groove of my ribs
They are forever permanently stained where my heart existed

I use to believe that love will set me free
Instead freedom exists only within my heart, stained with my initials.

1/30 for 2011

Late post into the NaPoWriMo. Short one tonight. Got home late.

Every morning I wake up with a headache of you.
Showers become sifting explorations
Going under each and every memory
for a fault
a crack
a fissure
anything to indicate you would pick him
over me

but there are none. every stone is polished.
bright and deceiving.
all that is left are these bag of shiny pebbles you left me with
to remember by.
how i yearn to dump them all out.
instead, i keep my chest heavy.

Untitled

You were there again.
I woke up uneasy
Haze slowly focusing to my ceiling
I realized it was you again
The dream rushing and tackling my senses
I breathe heavier thinking about our last encounter
You were a shell of yourself
Speaking words that had to travel across oceans by the time they reached me
Stale, motionless, dry, crumbling
Creating dustclouds for me to inhale
Cracked my heart and let it fly into the wind
I had forgotten your ability to bend love and steal moments

You have learned nothing
Let your heart fester with walls and chains
building yourself into another girl's arms
Making old revelations with new kisses
Devising new ways to play cat's cradle with our memories
Hiding behind your facade of invulnerability
You are broken, babygirl
Chipped, fragmented, messy
Weaving your pain under mine

Tell me the truth
Do you still love me?
I see it between the lines of your hesitancy and bravado
Stop pretending we only existed between time
We were real
even with our heavy hearts
We tried to harness moonshines to light our path
Kept swords under our pillows to battle night demons
Built fire between 500 miles that consumed us
Loved each other so fierce that the sun was jealous of our light
Do you remember?

I have suffered breakups that defy linearity
Hearts torn and built back up to be torn again
It's not only the night demons you need to battle
Love yourself to see the ones haunting you during the day
Eating your heart, turning you into another sad heartbreak statistic

I will consume the rest of this hollowness
Rest in pieces until I am ready to forge a new self
One in which I honor us and love myself
Find strength in my pain, using it to grab constellations
that leads back to my core.

freewrite

I see you in exactly 179 minutes. If you are on time, which you are, all the time. You hated tardiness. I was always tardy. Always late. Always scared. Scared to move, unsure of what my heart is beating. I imagine awkwardness morphing into friendship banter transforming into relationship clairvoyance. Or maybe we will just sit there. Looking at each other for answers we already know, confirming our existences were not meant to be aligned.

I still miss you. That is why nervousness is running up and down my veins. I have become stronger in my will but I am still prone to missteps in my heart.

It was a fantasy. The life we were living. The hopes, the dreams, the projections, expectations, the miles between us. All of it shaped us into a hurricane that whipped our love out of us into this amorphous entity in which we have been trying to steal back from.

You threw 500 mph love shots and my plastic nets melted to catch them. I can’t love like a roar, my love’s existence flows like a river and sounds like freedom. There is no more heart when you finished carving my chest. It has internally combusted and mixed with my liver to filter out the toxic between us and reformed to something you can’t hold anymore.

I still love you but I refuse to suffer any more storms. I refuse to sit in the center and watch everything around me spin and tumble out. We have taught, learned, and loved each other and there are no more lessons to learn. School has let out due to hurricane warnings. Time to go home.

raw raw raw

you tore at my heart
until it ripped away
and exposed my rawness

you grabbed at it's messiness
and forced me to feel it
i almost died with all this emotion

and now i am left with nothing
but this wall surrounding my heart
that you once broke

i am a hollow shell
waiting to be cracked
waiting to be filled
waiting waiting waiting
to be whole

i long for your keys
to unlock this fury
of emotional constipation
to ease myself with a shovel
to dig deep deep deeper

lend me your touch again. please.