educated by white hands and distance, that’s where solutions fast— deplete. (gorge on the famine) you’re supposed to be this thin. where are the poems dripping from your decree, degree? I don’t know anything. I come from plátanos and volcanoes— cliché, immigrants always have these things to fall back on, these things to say, but there she is, my inner child talking shit again— my doctorate is facilitated in the oven, my PhD in the back of abandoned hospitals, my masters, at the liquor store where they never asked for my ID. my bachelor’s evident by the four hands rubbing my thighs in unison— I was an orchestra, you realize? I was music, and musicians are so plentiful— all I had to do was hummmm. my associate’s is associated with double-fisting two jobs while intoxicated— that’s how the bells ring, that’s how I cash my bonus check after listening to thirty seconds of “WE WILL, WE WILL ROCK YOU.” yes, I will. yes, I’ll take your money and your freedom— and then quit as soon as the money gets good, as soon as I feel I’ve smoked enough cigarettes and sucked enough dick to make me a graduate of sponsorship, currency, subsidy. autonomy.
Ingrid Calderon a poet, intuitive tarot reader, collagist, and the author of several poetry books. She lives in Los Angeles, CA with her husband, painter John Davey Collins.