JUAN FELIPE HERRERA
SKATE FATE
For Lawrence King
A fifteen-year-old middle school boy from Oxnard, California,
who was shot and killed by another student
for what prosecutors said was a hate crime.
A few weeks before the incident, Lawrence's classmates said
that he had publicly declared that he was gay.
Rest in Power, Lawrence.
And
For all the boys who love the color pink.
. . . LET US GO FORTH IN THE BOLD DAY, AND WRITE.
—Walt Whitman, “Proud Music of the Storm,”
from Leaves of Grass
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Epigraph
LUCKY Z’S JOURNAL
THIS MORNING
ON THE WINDY ROAD TO SCHOOL
IN THE DUSTY AFTERNOON
UNDER THE WET STARS
THIS MORNING
Acknowledgements
Copyright
About the Publisher
LUCKY Z’S JOURNAL
boom-blam that was the last thing i heard.
a so forever scream slid through me
Is this a dream Lucky i asked myself
just rolled here new foster parents new streets. new beats. new kids laughing out loud so what if i wear fruity tops skinny black pants so what if i sing to myself so what if i write in a hot-pink journal so what if i drag tons of art and poetry books. Levertov. Baudelaire. Van Gogh. Whitman. Neruda. Chagall. Passolini. hear me. Mattie Stepanek is my favorite. cuz he wrote poems sitting in his wheelchair breathing through a tube in his throat. scribbled them as fast as he could for everyone. yeah like that. that’s what it’s all about dude
i was saying this over and over to Klarissa my new cool friend before it all happened. Jason Blocker was after me. said You never gonna be in the Scene girly. and you are never gonna really ever skate. you're sooo gay! read this i told him. here. get a grip. winked at him. heh
THIS MORNING
I HEAR
MYSELF
SINGING
i hear myself singing
a clear morning a sun filled with laughter
everything that everyone is after right here
inside my song this iTune i am on this melodía i am ringing
bounce from the mirror bounce from the flower
in my foster mother’s short hair here & there or now or
some day never i say Now i hear myself
not yesterday when i was sad
alone under the shade of a broom in my hip-hop room
my father somewhere somewhere saying when you have life
well—be alive! At 2 or 7 or 6 or 11!
there is no clock when your voice rises & trembles an iris
on the fence or the dock each petal curled up
around the world each other around each color never settle
for the cold iron gray of a bullet-riddled metal pinging
open your heart that’s how i start
a clear morning a sun filled with laughter
everything that everyone is after happens now
i hear myself singing singing
ACROSS
THE STREET
AT THE
GREEN
SPEEDWAY
CAFÉ
valedictorian cannoli
wrapped so elegantly on a neon city tray
here i come come
madame hip-hop powder puff
mademoiselle éclair may i
sit at your side
on this wheely black-strap trickster chair
please please
one fiery cappuccino tease
one strawberry shortcake awake & those crunchy
wait! what is this on my iPod nano?
my grandmother Serafina’s border ballads from afar?
papa z’s desperate gypsy beats from the war?
shall we skateboard
on this delirious apple-shaped floor?
clap for a night of nutmeg
& cinnamon dancers
clap for the answers in chocolate autumn-leaf dresses
barefoot blushed cheeks hot-hot Milky-Way breath
oh the rest is on my long blackish hair—clap!
INSIDE
MY
PENCIL
BOX
number two lead
skinny gummy toothpick poles the color of tar
punky eraser with a bony shaved head
who wants to write about Manitoba Trout sooo far?
yellow beads sunflower seeds & a bee’s head without a tie
soggy crumbs taste mm-mmmm good
from last year’s pumpkin pie
ON
THE
PALM TREE STANDING
TALL
BEFORE ME
tiny rough childhoods
roots bent astray
songs of night
starry children
hidden seeds
lost embraces
scattered hearts and gone faces
one
by one
flowerings
going into
red-brown going into
fire fawn traces
breathe for us
rise for us
newborn harmonies
shimmerings
glimmerings
lingering
boy of spiked
strands & girl of roaring tides
wild fruits & dark-petaled eyes
i bow to you
ON
MY
METROCARD
jot down 5 things
that i can balance on my forearm
jot down 9 things
that when splashed together look
like the earth
jot down 17 things
that rhyme with Thyme
jot down 3 easy streets
for foster girl fights
jot down 9 words
that i know are 100% magic
jot down the word Lost
& stretch it into Most
ON THE
LAST
MIDNIGHT DRAG RACE
ON A
STREET
NAMED DESIRÉE
for your open shirt fender that flies
for fragments of bittersweet mags & tags & a sigh
for your violet-brushed eyelash & your crazy single i
that crashes when light sings alone
for your dive drive into the pale street’s gasoline moon
to burnish to flow to attract the sun
for your hand this multiplied fan
these shatters of Pluto & Venus out of orbit
for your cosmic engine sassy brain colliding
flashing conspiring messages dashing against themselves
for your siren voice your hollering
night shout fright trapped locked door
for your face where is it what was it
half this half that with this without that
for your heart all i have
this skate that churns metal flake blues & burns burns
hear
your last midnight drag race voice calling me back:
Don’t race me now don’t race me now
cuz i am gone
ON THE GIRL TREE
STRUCK BY
LIGHTNING
IN THE
MIDDLE OF NOWHERE
in black all black
without branches or
friends or fears or anything near
in brown & sepia music
in blue nest nothingness
absolute singular & cut to glass
transformed into light & sky & void
&
nbsp; realized—all
possible knowing & unknowing
motionless measureless in shards
struck spliced delivered
charred blond peel
leaf without water or substance
or blood or back to behold
Stand you
stand
I SING TO MYSELF
AT THE CURB
BEFORE I TAKE
ANOTHER STEP
why are you singing under the saucy sun
the blurry skylight of all things
why are you trembling there
with a torn foot & a messy rain jacket
why are you waving your hands grabbing stars from afar you! yes, you!
why are you breathing rough & starin’ up
& rasping your boot
why are you nervous & jazzy & crazy & brassy & quiet too
why are reading your own rhymes & spittin’ out the words no one is here!
why is it you & just the sky-eye the air the flare
of clouds & the street
why is all this concrete beat to you a galaxy to you a song to you, yes, you!
why don’t you have an answer Why you ask then you say
AT THE
GO-GO
GIFT SHOPPE
for the computer tech nerd—
licorice sticks tangled up into algebra
& a greasy skateboard losing it electric
for the seventeen & a half year old test-driving
a new speedy ride—
crazy-glue gloves from Daytona
no-stick bubble gum & no-sweat socks
for all the Iraq vets in the hospital waiting room—
fluffy free ice cream &
a Tchaikovsky sky symphony swoon
Lucky Klarissa said Maybe you should work on fitting in dude you look like a weird wild Mexican cowboy. some kinda mariachi in a painted Gaga shirt and those oh ma-gosh gnarly twig pants and funky lizard boots dude! but cowboys don’t have a red-pink faux-hawk boiling up from their cabeza right. plus a wheelchair that says Out & About. grinned back snappin’ my pencil box. breathing mellow smoothing the bumpy scar on my forehead
got a steel rod in my back. and screws all up my left leg. right leg paralyzed. it happened after my father came back from Iraq three years ago started talking to himself in his room. talkin’ in beeps. exclamations. no subjects. no objects. explosions. like he was being attacked by crazy commas from across the ocean. blasts and stuttering bullets going nowhere. until nothing but gasps. poor papa. then he left my mama. it all happened after my mother died from breast cancer a year later and after i drag-raced into the night with Sammy Valencia and Des Nguyen loaded on crystal yeah Des didn’t make it ahhh dunno. she was so cool and tuff always crackin’ up that was two years ago and two years of therapy. and cryin’ stuff into this journal. nothin’ but cryin’ dude you’d think i was Niagara Falls. yup
ON THE WINDY ROAD TO SCHOOL
UNDER THE CARNATION
CROSS THREADED
ONTO MY SCHOOL FENCE
paper carnations
on my high school fence
any town any street but not just
anyone
today the sunlight speaks
candles lit at noon
by the cafeteria she sneaks
reaches for you
a row of postcards exhale pink ink
teddy bear sleeps
love love breath breath
in & out—now i know
a paper carnation can live forever
a 12th grade name remains—
Desirée yesterday
at the assembly on Careers
your face still silky—
hold her in your hands
carry her for a moment wind
singsingsing
ROUND THE
CROSSWALK
RAILS
stroll
under the trees
they bend
they send messages in autumn
from Desirée’s red-ribboned hair
a leaf
falls
ON THE SCHOOL
SECURITY ENTRANCE
GATE SCANNER
scan my loose snarl jacket zipper
but you don’t see my gone mother angel warrior
memory picture
scan my belt chrome diamonds my death skull T of slang
fang nations
but you don’t see my shatter street drag-race howl
glass constellations
scan my wheelchair ride flyin’ fast faster than Einstein’s
gamma rays
but you don’t see my ragged race to a nowhere comin’ home place
scan me scan me scan all of me
if you can
ON AN EMPANADA
APPLE TURNOVER
BEHIND THE LUNCH LINE
you baked me
you raked me
you pinched me
you cinnamon-danced me
you oven-placed me
you flour-tossed me
then you let me cool
you tall handsome fool
ON MY CRAZZZY
COOL FRIEND
ROKERO’S LOCKER
yo’
Mop & Glow
you with that half-punky Mexicano shave kit
think you are all that
famous now huhuh
Timberlands as wide as Miami dude
& i can hear your BiGsOWaZUp
still wearin’ yo’ Columbine trench sooo fried soooo craaaaaaZeeeeee
hey
YouStinK
jeskiddin-hah
thass why i can hang wit you
youstandinup 4 me & all
timez up
are you widit
yaKnow . . . U&Me
senioryear is herelikeyeah
soooWhaaat
you gonnaDoooooooooooooo?
AT THE
CHOIR REHEARSAL
SESSION
Mr. Ezra Harrison Maxwell in his white Calvin Klein shirt
halts Florante Sarmiento’s piano cantata by Bach
pulls me over—says
listen-listen
you are a new tenor here & you have a beautiful voice but
you are only using one third of it—
1/3
of it?
HANG IT ON
ALYTTA’S EARRINGS
I SAY
cha-cha cha
cha-cha-cha oh
cha-cha me?
cha oh
cha- hello
cha-cha-cha me
cha-cha &
you?
oucha-cha-cha
ON MY POMEGRANATE-COLORED CELL:
TEXTMESSAGE #10030027655
textmetextmetextme
textmetextmetextme
textmetextmetextme
textmetextmetextme
textmetextmetextme
textmetextmetextme
textmetextmetextme
textmetextmetextme Winter & i
willtextyoutextyoutextyoutextyoutextyoutextyoutextyoutext
U
Summmer
ON A LAPTOP
SPACE BAR
(4TH PERIOD)
touch me again dude & i’ll cursor you
ON SEKOU’S HIP-HOP HAT
FLOATING UP TO THE
ELECTRIC LIGHT BLUE
toss me through the cosmic waves
toss me through the broken sky-floor
toss me until you see me no more
toss me as far as your arm can
toss me with your heart not your hand
toss me into the undiscovered delight
toss me into your velvet night
toss me without time or thought or might
toss me without getting caught
toss me with your own birth-born wealth
toss me just like that—like that
& i’ll flip back
right on your own magical f
orever self
ON
RONISHA’S CELL
(PEARL BLACK)
hey waZup wait wait ahA wait now now what wait
did you say aHa wait my cell oh well oH
aha my cell wait oK Ok ok now where was
i wait hold Up i’ll be there i am almost there
aha now wait hUh what she she she wants him?
you gender-confused? my cell’s breaking up again
& you were like DuH and she was like DuDE
whaT you want him tOo wait thatz way uncOO
whatwhat? you are Over dude what did you say
ok ok where was i don’t crY aha Yeah right like
i am like totally like wHat? dude! like hey stiLL there?
DEEP INSIDE
BRYCE’ MINIATURE
CHERRY BLACK
BACKPACK ON HER BACK
Is it a boy? ¿Será un niño?
Is it a girl? ¿Será una niña?
Is it the end of the world? ¿Será el fin fin del mundo?
AT THE
GO-GO
GIFT SHOPPE
for all security personnel—
John Lennon psychedelic motorized glasses &
marshmallow periscope baseball hats
for the new boy in a wheelchair—
roller coasters made of laughter &
an emerald green soccer field
for the career counselor meany on the 2nd floor—
an enchilada tray wrapped carefully & correctly
with cuckoo confetti & firecracker snot-balls inside
gotta new thing can’t describe it. i fly around Pacifico school putting out my poems wherever i go yeah it’s like that now. seriously. can still skate around but on two pizza-sized wheels ha. crazy huh. like i am totally into spittin’ it all out yeah. that’s what i was saying to Klarissa Green and her teddy bear when Jason popped the door
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