tiberiusprime

My great grandparents emigrated from Mexico in 1914 in order to flee the violence of the Mexican Revolution and the banditry of Pancho Villa and his men. Evidentally, Pancho Villa would terrorize the village and ranch the my great grandparents were from. The point is that I was born in California, as were my parents, as well as my grandparents. Ever since I can remember I have always considered myself an American. In fact, Mexico is as much a foriegn country to me as it is to any of my white homeboys. When I was a little boy, however, I encountered racism up close and personal. I wrote this poem in remembrance of that time when I was very young, while I was playing during recess at school one day. The principal of the school sent my head spinning when she blasted my innocent mind with her venom. I liken what she did to me as a type of rape - it felt like it.

On a schoolyard in 1979
laughter echoed from the blacktop off brick walls
large red rubber balls
bounced high touching a smoggy blue-gray sky
little girls with pigtails
with smiles gleaming ran past me teasing

in the fifth grade
in one exact instance as a tetherball wound round and round
and cute Suzy Jones hung on the monkey bars upside down
innocence was lost forever

She caught me alone and she raped me
right there in the school yard
during recess
as two hundred kids
played, giggled, skipped

Mrs. Walker
principal of John Muir Elementary
looming high above me in a black overcoat
her gray hair with the ashen sky blending
bent over she whispered so that no one could here
but me, a nine year old innocent
ugliness set in
and her words fucked my head
"Youre nothing but a stupid little Mexican"

Echoes of laughter
became shrill cackles
and I stood there dazed, worried, scared
as Mrs. Walker smirking wiped the blood off her dick
strolled away
left me bleeding - left me for dead
On a schoolyard in 1979