new pedestals

don't even know where to begin, old friend
i've written so much for other people these last few years
i forgot about us
this exercise of expelling the raw
the candid

the moment

in this moment
i am
a mother
and the demons of a yesteryear are quieter these days
actually, plenty of them have dispersed
replaced themselves by new life experiences
to be honest, there's just simply not enough time in the day
to nurse on pedestals every little insecurity that ever was
ever hurt feeling
as you get older, become a parent,
you learn to get the fuck over it

think that might sum up these last few years in a nut shell.

i've been getting the fuck over it.
by going through it.

and some demons, they still live
some times seep into my dreams
seep into reality
but i just acknowledge them.
say hello old foe.
and let them pass.
being a mother
and soon a mother of two,
i really have no time
to dance with demons and poeticize their existence.

motherhood.
parenthood.

that's a poem for another day.

#3 40

I was asked to write a little something about my brother

Brother bear #3 as I commonly refer to him as

Or Dante Pante

But most of you know him as Rufio or Prince Zuko

Or maybe as a poet

a community leader

One of the founders of DPL or more recently WeOwnThe8th

If you’re old school you may have even called him Titus back in the day

This is just a little sister’s opinion

But to know a person

To really know a person

You’ve gotta know where they’re from

Which is funny because as some of you may know

He has a poem called “where are you from”

And in it he discusses the neighborhood he grew up in

A Filipino kid getting caught in the crossfire of lurking police and protective gangsters

I won’t give away the ending, but I will say, he talks about being human at the end of it

The value of what it means to be a human being

I couldn’t begin to talk about Dante without mentioning his brother Derek

The eldest, his kuya, who made him an uncle at 14

Preparing him for his own hand at fatherhood someday

Or the endless well of respect he has for his other brother Darion

Or the love he holds for his brother Dion

I guess you could say my brothers are best friends

If you know my brother, then you must have followed him down a dream or two

Like his dream to bring faces like ours to the forefront on screen, in music, on stages

Like the dream our mother had of putting a bunch of Asian kids in the entertainment industry in the 80’s

Or the dream our grandfathers’ had to uproot their entire families and move half way across the world to a foreign land

Guess you could say, we’re a family of dreamers

And dreams coming true

And in a rare occasion

If you’re at the right place at the right time

You might see my father in him

As emotion swells up in his eyes

Sometimes for a big moment

And sometimes for the smallest of fondest memories

We’re sentimental like that

We would gather

Much like this room now

under one roof

The bascos, the abastas, the willis’, the jaromays, the mckenzies

Cousins and aunts and uncles and neighborhood cousins and aunts and uncles

And sing songs

Tell stories

This was his first training in storytelling

This was his first training in working a crowd

Because you’ve gotta be loud

And you’ve gotta be charismatic and quick

To thrive in the tribe

His first dance studio was in a living room

Watching my parent’s cha cha to sabor a mi

While Auntie Eleanor strummed the 6-string

And then later the streets of San Francisco with his brothers

Under the name Street Freaks

Have you seen him on a dance floor?

It’s like watching music come to life

Even growing up where we grew up

He always had a taste for the finer things in life

And wasn’t shy to earn

The best ride

The best speakers

The newest technology

But he’s also one of the first to volunteer to sleep on the ground

When we’re short of beds

He is humble

When you’re living with 20+ in a house with 1 bathroom

You learn generosity and how to share pretty quick

But it also forces you to work harder

To find your individuality

My brother is singular

Growing up where we grew up

In a family that didn’t meet the neighborhood mold

It also made you work harder to get out

And he did

And he brought his tribe along with him

And though protective like the gangsters we grew up along side,

Like our Grandma B, his door is always open

And you may not know it

But just like our Grandma Abasta

He’s been praying for the betterment of ‘us’

What good are we human beings

If we do not represent our tribe well

This is just a little sister’s opinion

-- but that is what my brother does

He re-presents us well

So cheers

To one of the riskiest dreamers

One of our top storytellers

Cheers to the legacy he came from

The one he is creating

And the one he is continuing