oy vay
two things,
1.) daddy piece
it's prosey right now but you get the idea:
The room where the meetings were held reminded me of the portable classrooms at school, embedded in the yellow chipping wall paper was the stench of what seemed like decades of a stale coffee dependency, chain smoking, and sadness.
Once inside Daddy would wait for his turn and then approach the podium at the front of the room, the right side of his body slumped and leaning againt the faux wood grain, thermos of coffee in the other hand “Hello my name is Robert and I’m an alcoholic.”
“Hello Robert,” everyone in the room would respond.
Daddy would always be sure to remind me that I’m the reason he was still living, “the only child, the golden child.” From time to time as he would speak in the front of the room he would gesture towards the back room where I sat alone amongst a wall of coffee mugs and pots, donuts, and a half broken box of crayons. Everyone would turn to look at me, too see the daughter of the man who had conquered his demons to remain in his little girl’s life. Protruding yellow stained and gold embossed teeth smiled back at me, men and women, leather-clad, tattooed, unwashed, dawned thick rimmed glasses, baseball caps pulled down low, all nursed miscellaneous cracked seasonal mugs of coffee and picked at donuts from the shop downstairs as if holding onto a lost sense of hope in life. They all turned to look at me, many of whom have lost their families and children to their disease. From time to time women would stroke my hair remarking how I was about their daughter’s age, and how I remind them of the children they struggle to recall from memory.
The people at the meetings reminded me of the homeless downtown, passing beggars on the street Daddy would always remark, “Makes you wonder did they give up on life, or did life give up on them.”
2.) AB540/education it's going to be based on dialogues with my friend miguel, like sooo:
miggy - samantha aguirre
sama, thanks for your posts.
ReplyDeleteAs for AB540 - do you know about S.I.N. (Students Informing Now) and the play they organize 'Voces SIN Verguenza' which is theatre educating about AB540 students through personal stories...
here are some preliminary editing suggestions! love-noemi
ReplyDeleteSamantha’s daddy piece::
Embedded in the yellow chipping wall paper was the stench of what seemed like decades of a stale coffee dependency, chain smoking, and sadness.
Daddy would wait for his turn to approach the podium the right side of his body slumped and leaning against the faux wood grain, thermos of coffee in the other hand
“Hello my name is Robert and I’m an alcoholic.”
“Hello Robert,” everyone in the room would respond.
Daddy would always be sure to remind me that I’m the reason he was still living, “the only child, the golden child.”
Gesturing towards the back room where I sat alone amongst a wall of coffee mugs and pots, donuts, and a half broken box of crayons.
Protruding yellow stained and gold embossed teeth smiled back at me, men and women, leather-clad, tattooed, unwashed, dawned thick rimmed glasses, baseball caps pulled down low, all nursed miscellaneous cracked seasonal mugs of coffee and picked at donuts from the shop downstairs as if holding onto a lost sense of hope in life.
Everyone would turn to look at me, the daughter of the man who had conquered his demons, to remain in his little girl’s life.
From time to time women would stroke my hair remarking how I was about their daughter’s age, how I remind them of the children they have lost (from memory?)
The people at the meetings reminded me of the homeless downtown,
passing beggars on the street Daddy would always remark,
“Makes you wonder did they give up on life, or did life give up on them?”
Don't let them take away their voice,
ReplyDeleteI wont let you take away their voice,
You call them irrelevant,
but i like to think of them as pharaohs and queens to be,
you can try to convince me,
all you want,
but i see beyond your bullshyt,
No Child Left Behind Act,
your logic is stupidity,
how could your phd. in psychology,
lead you to believe he was mentally challenged?
your disability,
or lack of understanding,
put him alone in that slow class,
so now i gotta explain to my lil bro,
why he's all alone in that slow class,
while all the suburban kids,
get the GO pass,
and collect 200,
in the mist of your calculations,
you forgot to factor in economic contrast,
between the rich and the poor,
while mama and papa binge to provide for us,
by cleaning your office floors,
while you sit behind your desk and degree,
Analyzing what OUR problem is,
and why WE people aren't meeting your standards academically,
but as an expert you keep failing to notice,
the obvious correlation,
between the conditions of my lil brothers hood and his academic performance,
Your laws are set up against him,
and you take fancy in trying to convict him,
with a fate of probation,
before age 8,
you don't connect with his struggle,
so you call his ways immortal,
and imprison his mind,
until he's so institutionalized,
that he loses his pride,
and can no longer find reason to fight,
no longer can he find the reason to fight,
because his history classes for the last few years only spoke of one race,
he was intelligent enough to read between your lines,
and see that this world you created,
wasn't meant for his kind,
you don't believe in his face,
you rape him of his manhood,
with your assumptions,
and ignorance,
while he is forced to consume,
the "heroes" who shaped YOUR Americas,
My lil bro will never have a dream,
cause you only gave hive 5 seconds of Martin,
because you feared the potential of a true King,
arent anything more,
and because you refuse to stand for truth in your classroom,
he naturally falls asleep and snores,
So let me break it down to you in lame man's terms: