If you were here I’d be home now - mural by Stephen Powers aka ESPO
I try to lick the sun off my face
rolling by SPO’s ESPO of
Meet me on 52nd If Only For 50 seconds
I’m drippy like the 50 ft. alphabet soup
rainbow spilling
If You Were Here
I’d Be Home By Now
So Hold On Tight…
I’m curvy by the high school
Anarchy A in the middle of its fresh F-G
pop me a wheelie into a red light at
For What I Want I Can Wait
I’ll Wait 4800 Years If I Have To
down
Chestnut I go solo
the way I used to with you
and the ESPOs
Exterior Surface Painting Outreach
our favorite graffiti cuz it screams
SEE ME LIKE I SEE YOU
Beautiful
more than I was here,
this is me, in the city, of I’s here and I’s there
and I was there at the hospital that day
The U.S. government required me to be Femalé
like the way you’d say tamale or poppin’ Molly but with a ‘fe’
no accent mark no eñe to show you how to say-
NO ENGLISH NO NAME/
NO INGLES NO HOMBRE
shoulda been by the
NO SHIRT /NO SHOES /NO SERVICE
SIN CAMISA /O ZAPATOS /NO HAY SERVICIO
sign in BIG BOLD-ASS LETTERS
like the ones I wear fringed in pain on my shoulder blades ‘n chest
where I’m patched up,
3 friends who had my back ride airbrush RIP-ing
I moved you to the
center
we ride zig-zag East bound ‘n my American flag shirt flaps around
my Spalding b-ball leans against my stomach
so it doesn’t fall as I glide
bitter that you used to laugh at the thought of us
lookin’ knocked up
when we said nothing would ever survive inside
us
well,
whatever lives inside me now is starving
to the top of the bridge pleading no accident
the hardest part is when I hear sirens
the clicking of my gears ticking
of a mic I chant we gon’ be alright into is disintegrating
throat closing can’t hear anything but ocean-waves now
the rhythm of washing rocks
to ride uphill to on this robin’s’ egg blue bridge ignoring you-
Friend
and your wet icy hands on my back
leaving streak marks
Friend
jumped
from
here
I put the flyers over there on the green post
MISSING
by the VINE tag I wish caught you like a bungee
clickityTickityspikkity ocean waves cars blaze wind toward me
I am ClickityTickity ocean slosh is this ocean? is this pebble?
no River river of reality hard grey
rocks
and rust
Friend found in Delaware River
River waves, baseball diamond gleaming on the other side in sight almost over
I’m over shooting free throws to feel free
swallowing wind to fill me
dancing around the pretty little city where you chose
me ‘n bitty tits and fully hips
rebel grrrl queen of as far as I could see
I’m scrying into the fire to find future but
the past is somewhere I’m not past and this routine
without you can’t last I sit ‘n wonder why you couldn’t
sidelined waiting alone but with the rock by my side
cuz I got next
they’ll call me up- Femalé like tamale 4life
my toe tag name you used to call it
I’m dead serious when they ask and I say
we gon’ be alright
no need to fish me out brown tinged
blue wet in a net
on someone’s barge in the green Walmart* water
waiting to be ID’d no need
Soy Femalé
Lauren Holguin is a Chinanx educator, assistant editor, and multi-genre writer of stories from Los Angeles, CA. She serves as an English curriculum writer for KIPP New Jersey and Miami Schools, and holds the assistant poetry editor position for Barrelhouse magazine. She has a Master’s in Education and certification in Special Education. She currently resides in Philadelphia, and teaches fourth graders with learning disabilities in Camden, NJ. Her work has been featured in the Philadelphia Contemporary and recorded through Kelly Writers’ House.