just like heaven - hung out with some c15 folk (c15: the studio 54 of berkeley) last night, very glad to see them, cheap wine and rich conversations (from gloria anzaldua to homestarr runner.) cristina asked me why i never hung out with any of them last semester and i bit my tongue, i was too busy i guess.

we were all going crazy back then, young and melodramatic, and the things keepins us alive were those weekends in april, those weekends where night and day cupped each other so close we couldn't tell the difference anymore, lost kids with one too many wrinkles or strands of white hair, we knew we couldn't change the world but we tried anyway, we spent the night spraypainting and read poems to each other to sleep, we knew what we lived for but we never could pronounce it, we just did it. those days i don't know how we did.

now it's july, always a time of flux.


14 de julio

Today, catorce de julio,
a man kissed a woman in the rain.
On the corner of Independencia y Cinco de Mayo.
A man kissed a woman.

Because it is Friday.
Because no one has to to go work tomorrow.
Because, in direct opposition to Church and State,
a man kissed a woman
oblivious to the consequence of sorrow.

A man kisses a woman unashamed,
within a universe of two I'm certain.
Beside the sea of taxicabs on Cinco de Mayo.
In front of an open-air statue.
On an intersection busy with tourists and children.
Every day little miracles like this occur.

A man kisses a woman in the rain
and I am envious of that simple affirmation.
I who timidly took and gave--
you who never admitted a public grace.
We of the half-dark who were unbrave.

sandra cisneros