First generation immigrants
 

First generation immigrants
By Ijeoma Umebinyuo

Here’s to the security guards who maybe had a degree in another land. Here’s to the manicurist who had to leave her family to come here, painting the nails, scrubbing the feet of strangers. Here’s to the janitors who don’t even fucking understand English yet work hard despite it all. Here’s to the fast food workers who work hard to see their family smile. Here’s to the laundry man at the Marriott who told me with the sparkle in his eyes how he was an engineer in Peru.

Here’s to the bus driver, the Turkish Sufi who almost danced when I quoted Rumi. Here’s to the harvesters who live in fear of being deported for coming here to open the road for their future generation. Here’s to the taxi drivers from Nigeria, Ghana, Egypt and India who gossip amongst themselves.

Here is to them waking up at 4am, calling home to hear the voices of their loved ones. Here is to their children, to the children who despite it all become artists, writers, teachers, doctors, lawyers, activists and rebels. Here’s to Western Union and Money Gram. For never forgetting home.

Here’s to their children who carry the heartbeats of their motherland and even in sleep, speak with pride about their fathers.

Keep on.

" If you can't lift the alcohol into your truck, you weren't meant to drink it."

Not a deep thought but might save your life one day.

Kimila Rina - Delicate Fucking Flower
 

“but she means to have what she
has earned,
sweet sighs, safe houses,
hands she can trust.”
— Lucille Clifton, “to my friend, Jerina”

He can’t tell I grit my back teeth when he exclaims,
“An allergy to coffee? I’ve never heard of that!”, and I shrug,
as if this is the first time someone has expressed their
incredulity so profoundly, I say, “It happens”. I’m gracious,
calm, I mean if you discount the slightest shortening of my
upper lip, a bit of a curl really, I wouldn’t say a sneer. I
used to explain myself and my faulty body, swim full-tilt into
conversational nets full of marvel and pitying curiosity.
I’ve stopped. Accepted it. And maybe I sigh,
but I mean to have what I

reach for: clean safe air, lungs rounded with ease, the boring
sort of acceptance, a normalised story about my body.
I want chemical masks as quotidian accessories, like umbrellas
or hats. I want the bread-like, unexceptional family violence
that led to this, that sickened and curled me, so many
of us, up inside, like xylem slowly dying inside a turned
tree trunk, unseen but heavy with consequences, to be
recognised, protested, uprooted by outrage and
practical solutions, never-again changes, forever spurned.
We have earned

the revolution. We’ve struggled to see ourselves reflected
in the dirty surface of the mainstream; to meet our bedrock
yearning for safety, gentleness, absence of swinging fists
or planks of wood, of flying spit, sometimes laced with acrid
words; to cobble together access, sometimes cutting wood
planks for a ramp, sometimes asking friends, spouses,
strangers, to change their detergent, give up their
favourite shampoo or deodorant. As abnormal and
inconvenient as we seem, we deserve carefree carouses,
sweet sighs, safe houses,

same as you who can breathe the poison in, let it wash
through your blood, let your liver scrape it all out like a washing
machine while you talk, laugh, sleep, same as you who
can walk far, carry your groceries, can function when the music
is so loud it’s thick in the air, in our breastbones, our brains.
But our differences are rarely invited, planned for, discussed.
So I am a delicate fucking flower; you can’t drink coffee next to
me, or peel an orange, smoke, sip wine, invite me to dance parties.
But I will still surprise you: claim this body and safety and lust,
reach for hands that I can trust.

Found at The Deaf Poets Society - Issue 8
https://www.deafpoetssociety.com/kamila-rina-issue-8

You're so hard on yourself.
Take a moment.
Sit back.
Marvel at your life:

at the grief that softened you,
at the heartache that wisened you,
at the suffering that strengthened you,

Despite everything,
you still grow.
Be proud
of this.

—Anonymous

Perfect Come Back to DeAnna Lorraine
 

Didn’t she used to sell that WAP?

—Cardi B

Books Can Be Dangerous
 

Love Poem to a Butch Woman by Deborah A. Miranda

This is how it is with me:
so strong, I want to draw the egg
from your womb and nourish it in my own.
I want to mother your child made only
of us, of me, you: no borrowed seed
from any man. I want to re-fashion
the matrix of creation, make a human being
from the human love that passes between
our bodies. Sweetheart, this is how it is:
when you emerge from the bedroom
in a clean cotton shirt, sleeves pushed back
over forearms, scented with cologne
from an amber bottle—I want to open
my heart, the brightest aching slit
of my soul, receive your pearl.
I watch your hands, wait for the sign
that means you'll touch me,
open me, fill me; wait for that moment
when your desire leaps inside me.

“Lying to your listeners ceases to be a viable business model at the point where the lies start killing the listeners."

David Frum, a conservative critic of Trump’s,

“If you draw attention because you don't always act like everyone else, congratulations! You're being true to who you really are. To find true success you have to be you.”

“Find out who you are and do it on purpose.”

Big potatoes are a lot easier to peel than small ones.

You can quote me.

~~~
“When you go into court you are putting your fate into the hands of twelve people who weren’t smart enough to get out of jury duty.”

(Norm Crosby quote)

Intelligence...
 

I like how this person decribes the exact scenario pertaining to Covid-19 (if this is what Frum is speaking about). Thanks, C0LLETTE.

Quotes, Poems and Sayings...
 

Congress is going on vacation and doesn’t give AF about America
 

WARNING: OFFENSIVE LANGUAGE

https://www.theroot.com/congress-doe...ica-1845716037

More people are dying, businesses are closing, more people are losing their jobs and the people need help and relief. And here we are going on another month with nothing. Mitch McConnell and his crew are fuckwads. They always have been. There is nothing new there. But the inability to work with them is starting to make Pelosi look like she’s holding out for something that is never going to come. Pelosi believes she has leverage by blaming America’s instability on the Republican Party, but the current election proved that is a lie. She has no leverage because she’s forgotten something I learned while out on the streets: You can’t argue with a nigga that don’t give a fuck. Republicans don’t care who dies. They don’t care who is going hungry or losing their jobs, and guess what? Their homeless, hungry, constituents don’t either. At this point, a deal, any deal, needs to be made because America can’t wait until February for something to give.

—Stephen A. Crockett, Jr.

Quotes, poems and sayings
 

It's the things in common that make relationships enjoyable, but it's the little differences that make them interesting.

Todd Ruthman



The only way to make a friend is to be one.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

poems, quotes or sayings
 

The proper office of a friend is to side with you when you are in the wrong. Nearly anybody will side with you when you are right.

Mark Twain