Mala maña: Look

It matters what you call a thing
– Solmaz Sharif

14
Alejandra asked everyone
to call her Alex.
Eso es una vaina
Americana Tía said.

15
Alex refused to wear a
dress to her quinceañera.
Esa es la moda de hoy
Tía said.

16
Alex returned from el
salón with a skin fade.
El pelo le crece de
nuevo Tía said.

17
Alex was rumored to
have tongue kissed
Wendy. Eso es una
mentira Tía said.

18
Alex taped her breasts
down under a sports
bra. Porque son
grande Tía said.

19
Alex yelled, “LOOK AT ME!
I’M YOUR
SON!” Eso es una
mala maña Tía said.

Mira, eso se te quita.

Real Talk

I warned you.
When you were busy playing
wifey, made mothering your excuse for
abandoning poems to past tenses,
I pulled that last suckling kid from
your tit, made the recovery
from his birth a chaos, each slow healing
perineum stitch, a reminder –
That ass is mine.

You tried to appease me.
Stuttered verses on post-its you never kept,
scribbled half-ass journal entries, spit
the occasional haiku. You are a starved mouth
asking permission. I am a thunderous dream
severing your eardrum –
Don't sleep on me.

When you settled like dust on knick knacks,
cowered behind to- do lists and unpaid bills,
renamed me hobby, side piece, the pass time
of three day weekends, distraction from a “real job”
wasn't I the one who thread my fingers around your
neck? Pulled at what you called a voice –
Made you widen and want more.

But you kept playing me.
Ignored my calls until I sent death
‘cause she got a way of sweet talking
you into making time. Pulled you by the hair,
whispered: Here’s some rope, Pull up or Hang
yourself. You are scared to bleed, fear the
glorious rupture, afraid to throw your ache at the
world. I am poised to shatter, to bleed
a shimmering riot, to prove there is still life pulsing
in your mouth, in each selfish moment. You are
muddled and mangled, slumped shoulders of
complacency, caged canon of sensible shoes
and sweater sets. I am a wide hipped woman,
a reckoning of spandex and stilettos, wet, wanted
glorious penned perversion, free versed,
and demanding, always asking –
Why you wanna be a basic bitch?

Peggy Robles-Alvarado is a Dominican and Puerto Rican Pushcart Prize nominee, 2020 Atticus Review Poetry Contest winner, and a BRIO award winner with fellowships from CantoMundo, Desert Nights Rising Stars, The Frost Place, and VONA. With degrees in education and an MFA in Performance Studies this former teen mother, and initiated priestess in Lukumi and Palo celebrates womanhood and honors cultural rituals. She’s a three-time International Latino Book Award winner who authored Conversations With My Skin (2011), and Homage To The Warrior Women (2012). Through Robleswrites Productions, she created The Abuela Stories Project (2016) and Mujeres, The Magic, The Movement, and The Muse (2017). Her work has been featured on HBO Habla Women, Lincoln Center, and her poetry appears in several anthologies including The Breakbeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNext (2020), and What Saves Us: Poems of Empathy and Outrage in the Age of Trump (2019). For more visit Robleswrites.com.