Familiar Dystopia, circa 2002.

I got my grubby hands back on this bit of prose I wrote in 2001-2002 in this women's workshop held at Highways Performance Space led by the matchless Sharon Bridgforth. I feel like sharing. This was one of my first meditations on space when I lived at 2715 Bellevue Avenue and commuted to Northridge for school and Santa Monica for work often taking the bus and probably feeling self-righteous for it. Back then I had a lot of community organizers in my life so the feeling was often co-opted back and forth. That's how we do.

Anyway, space will always be present in any work that I do. Check it.

Familiar Dystopia

Sometimes los angeles is a large belly turning and everyone trapped inside is trying to hop on to sidewalks and duck under trees, avoiding falling gases and acids. Survival is trend, but it hurts to get caught on the verge of digestion. On this bus, in my car, in your car, in this building, at this bar, the days and lives of this city intersect without ever touching, speaking, looking into each other's eyes. And despite the sprawl, there are too many places in this city where my shoulders and knees brush up against someone else's against their will. And my exhale means it's your turn to breathe now. There are too many instances that I feel compelled to honk at the Jaguars ahead of me, but I fear coming face to face with my own powerlessness. And still on buses, I manage to pass judgment to the cars I look down on whose windows are shut as a familiar cloud of pot smoke lingers around passenger face and hands. Other times I measure my level of safety walking down Sunset in Echo Park according to how many brown and black faces outnumber the white ones. L.A. has it all. I would write a poem about it, but the movie trucks across the street from MacArthur Park obscure my view of the evening skyline. Mine are one pair of witness eyes. Immigrant trannies, las mas chuliadas de esta ciudad, claim bar stools and dance floors and accept watered down cocktails from their neighbors’ husbands. And you only have 10 seconds to cross the street because here the SUV is king and pedestrian is just another Armenian last name.

I am bound to this city, but don't call it loyalty. A nation all its own, but I am no nationalist. I don't do Dodger Blue today. Or wave a Laker flag. My flag is the white of surrender to the soul-numbing freeways. But at least on the 101 South coming home from the Valley I can practice my singing to Freddie Mercury or Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam. My body never knew such pleasure, my heart never knew such pain and you, you leave me so confused. L.A., are you the bedridden parent I'm forced by tradition to care for? L.A. foremothers and kingpins, kingmakers and drag queens keep their children, like enemies, close by and clip their wings in the name of guidance. Crumbs. I'm just looking for a few crumbs. Still, that's cool, because I'm a socialist revolutionary starfucker and the breadline is just another addition to my commie fetish list.

But I get happy. I still get happy. My days are made when I hear the persistence of Spanish in the formerly Latino quarters of Café Tropical, 7 Mares and the Silver Lake lounge. When young rockeros stop to talk about the dead Salvadoran revolutionary poet on my t-shirt, I say - "Take that, gentrification!" I live to eavesdrop on the dirty jokes and late night workshift horror stories that only the finest Michoacan native son can tell. In my 'hood, bald-headed daddies and tight miniskirted mamis hold their children proudly like schoolbooks against their chest, while I'm left to learn real life in classrooms, and I get labeled the future? And then I am humbled and lower my head. Alvarado and Beverly, 7th and Hoover, Santa Monica and Western. My eyes silently whispering thank you. These are the women who've known me in unconquered languages, transmitting strength, endurance and desire through their breast milk. Damn, you are SO tough. Crossing NAFTA-stamped terrain, stepping through barbed wire and beneath gatekeeper's radar, with baby on your back. Your love must be dark and deep, rich and haunting, pure and bitter-tasting like the scent of dried jamaica flowers. You are so tough. And then there are the ones who are so tough, they call it God's will when they leave their babies behind.

Like my mother, whose journey north was a fortunate trek from San Salvador, on plane she was blessed as she drew the right holy card, the most coveted document she had that visa and doors opened. She was a fortunate one indeed. To leave behind weak economy, battered household, homicidal husband and big-eyed boy, precious firstborn son. Big brother. Long eyelashes and smooth copper skin. Trauma. No child should have firsthand knowledge of such absence. Working and providing from very far away. Landing on Coronado Avenue. 10 people one room. Abuelita y tias seran mis mamas. Six years. A long time to take care of someone else's blond children at $20 a week. Stress. Jaime, mi hijo. What must you think of me now?