Tag: poem

Lost/Free

Marlena Sauceda

I’m stuck in this
side hustle
make content
meal prep
romanticize your life
hamster wheel,
and I wonder
why I keep getting
tension headaches.

I try to drown it out
with NPR and
podcasts and
nonfiction audiobooks,
but sometimes
the truth
is too heavy.

What is it like?
To not be
in fight or flight?
To be able to rest
in the quiet of your mind?
To feel safe,
safe enough to digest.
I wonder,
have I ever
really slept?

I was so close
to finding myself,
to meeting the version
of me
who would exist
in an alternate universe 
where capitalism did not,
where humanity
was truly free.
The glimpse alone
is enough to make me know,
I can’t let that version of me
go.

I’m trying to interpret
the angel numbers,
trying to read
the universe’s signs,
but I’ve forgotten how
to look for them
without too much
screen time.

So what do I do?
Do I say
fuck it all,
leave the city,
quit my job?
Live like a monk
so I can be
what I want?

Or do I girl boss,
get a raise,
buy some stock,
start a business,
and hope that
by the end of it all
I still have it in me
to be
what I want?

//

I hope one day
these years
are remembered
as a dark time
where we lost ourselves.
I hope one day
we relearn to live
in the light,
to cherish the earth.
I hope one day
our children
might be free –
free enough
to be.

Sometimes, we forget

Marlena Sauceda

Sometimes we forget
what it means to be human –
that others are human.
Sometimes we forget
that our mother is a person
with hopes, dreams, fears.
Sometimes we forget
that our father is a person
with plans, feelings, insecurities.
Sometimes we forget
that our siblings, friends, peers
are people
with expectations, preferences, assumptions.
Sometimes we forget
that our partners are people
with needs, desires, secrets.
Sometimes we forget
that we are people
with all of those things and more.

These systems have us so occupied
with survival
that we forget what it means to live.
So occupied with doing
that we forget what it means to be.
We pass the time day after day
completing routines,
doing what we have been told
we have to.
And sometimes, we forget
what we have.

A wide rainbow over clusters of trees and the roofs of buildings

My neighborhood

Marlena Sauceda

I like to imagine my neighborhood,
without all the buildings…
no humming A/C units,
no roaring engines, no concrete,
no planes passing overhead…

Just the trees,
the cacti, the soil,
hard and sandy, baking under the sun.
When I look around
I see lots of shady spots
offered by old, friendly tees,
and there’s a river, not far –
you can tell by the way,
as you look to the north,
the trees grow taller,
closer together.

The trees, the cacti,
offer a place to rest for birds,
and the bushes that surround their trunks,
provide cover for many critters.
The bees feast on cactus and
palo verde blossoms,
while lizards scitter across rocks,
and rabbits tear through the
hard earth, seeking refuge from
the birds, and the sun.

I imagine the wind blowing, warm,
shaking the leaves of the
eucalyptus tree,
starting a symphony of
whispering branches,
birds calling for their lovers,
the far off hoot of an owl…

I imagine, after it rains,
when the heavy sheets of water pass,
the scents of steaming creosote
and freshly disturbed earth
fill every inch of air,
and the sky rings with
the chirps of crickets.

I imagine the Earth
restored.
Humanity existing in harmony,
with the trees, the soil, the rivers,
the critters, the sun,
the wind and rain…

I like to imagine my neighborhood.
It is a beautiful place to call home.

A message from the sun

Marlena Sauceda

Look to me, my children.
I am your light, your source of life,
I am your truest friend.

To you it appears as though
I rise and set,
but I am always here,
always watching,
always shining my light.

For brief moments,
many of you become lost to me,
as your mother turns away on her axis.
Yet even then my companion, the moon,
reflects my light back to you.

Look to me, my children,
as your ancestors did before you.
You carry their wisdom in your veins,
and you know.
You know what I am here to tell you.

My children may call me sun,
but never forget that I am a star –
born to burn my brightest and fullest,
until I simply cannot burn anymore.

As were you.

You were never meant
to spend the day
hidden away,
laboring.
You were born to shine,
to burn and be your brightest and fullest.
You were born to love,
to grow, to feel joy,
to feel my light on your skin,
as you care for your mother,
as you build your home.

You were born to be
a light.
You each carry a piece of me inside of you,
and it comes to life when you feel
love, joy, elation.
You must listen to that feeling,
for it is me speaking to you.
It is me telling you,
‘Yes, child. This is why you are here.’
You must absorb my energy,
and pour it back out
into the world,
into your communities,
into your mother.

I am your truest friend,
I see you for all that you are,
and only that.
You, you, my child, are only here briefly,
yet your light – my light inside of you –
shines on.
So spend your time burning as
bright and full
as you possibly can.
Until you simply cannot burn anymore.

Waiting/Great Expectations

Marlena Sauceda

Sometimes I feel like I’m waiting
for the magnetic field
to flip,
and throw the world into chaos.
I’ll live out my life
off the land.
I’ll survive as long as I can.
Then I won’t have to meet
anyone’s great expectations,
and especially not my own.

My mom wants me
to get my doctorate,
but I have a quite a long
way to go.
My dad wants me
to be a sports journalist,
but I learned too much about the media
to want any part in it.
My grandpa wanted me
to be a lawyer,
but I believe more in the laws of nature
than the laws of man.
My teacher wanted me
to be president,
but I believe you can find no justice
in an unjust system.

I want me to change the world,
to rid it of all injustice, of manufactured poverty,
of racism, colonialism, capitalism.
As if there’s some switch out there,
that I could flip.
As if it’s only a matter of finding it.
But I am afraid.
I am afraid that speaking truth to power in this world,
tends to shorten your lifespan.
And I am tired.
In my bones, I carry the weariness of generations
fighting just to survive.

It would be nice to just live.
To have a home, a family,
comfort and abundance.

Sometimes it feels impossible
to do both –
and so I wait.