touting my talent and possibilities. Some compliments I’d really rather not have had. Boy who I had a crush on:

FAITH(O.S) Fuck. shit. I can’t handle it, it bursts out of me like the wind. When did I lose my virginity? I always say 12, and think that in my head which of course was far too young. But then I wonder about the first time a penis entered my vagina (looking over the notes clinically)

If wishes were dreams, I would hand you a sack, stuffed to the seams

You say left, no right I say right, wait left Forces of reckoned fates Sweep us out from under And back to each other The wave keeps us going along Waiting for a sign No undertow Riptide free right here

It’s the empty lots I remember most. I would drive by these wordless gaping holes that a little thing like riots could produce. Littered with advertisements for BRAIDING: $20/hr! Call NOW and signs touting the return of Christ, these lots stood for years before the stores that they once held came gingerly back. I wasn’t in town for the riots; instead I was nestled in the sleeping community of San Luis Obispo, CA. And yet the fear even struck there, 200 miles away from the epicenter of chaos and destruction. Police cars trolled through the quiet streets, stopping anyone who was suspiciously loitering or “causing trouble”. Fortunately for the majority of S.L.O-Town’s population, they only stopped colored peoples. You see, San Luis Obispo is one of those places you can still leave the door unlocked at night and wake up to find all your stereo equipment still happily shining in its exploitive plastic packaging. The children of SLO anxiously await the results of their S.A.T.’s, and then celebrate with a tab of acid. White kids accidentally come to school with guns and threaten teachers, but only when kids of color are discovered with weapons are they expelled. Homophobia, Sexism, and Racism reign as the founding fathers ghettoize even elementary students. Most of the elementatry schools make do with nothing, while Teach School is set aside for the “cream of the crop”, which translates loosely to the richest, whitest kids in the city. Teach has field trip to all over the state, while the other schools have nothing. Special funding they say, others say segregation. S.L.O.’s got this whole village of the damned vibe, and for the most part no one seems to mind. A town of contradiction, it seems to thrive on chaos and function as a hell mouth for some of the most artificial peons the world has ever produced. So the denizens of San Luis Obispo, weren’t too surprised that Los Angeles would riot over something so silly as a trial of 4 white officers beating a black man. They of course agreed that it seemed that the videotape showed it all. However, many pointed to the fact that Rodney King was high on PCP, this statement along with theories on Los Angeles gangs prompted some to shrug off the riots with a, “Thank God we’re 200 miles away!”. Many others in this city waited anxiously, worried perhaps that they would finally reap the whirlwind of the many years of oppressive devices many minorities in the central coast of California had endured. Illegal Immigrants working for under a dollar an hour, discriminative hiring practices against African Americans, the list could go on and on. In the entire school district of San Luis Obispo, there was not one black teacher and there had never been one. Guess what? Still aren’t any! Of course it is a small community, there’s only about 400 teachers in the district, but the school board consistently blamed lack of diversity on lack of applicants. They didn’t see why it should be the school board’s responsibility to outreach to colored teachers and administrators. They pointed to the increase of minority staff as a stepping-stone to a more multi-cultural world, “staff” meaning janitorial and secretarial of course. Indeed, the humor of the stupidly callous and bizarrely unaware community is what helped me to somewhat “enjoy the slo life”, like the town’s motto suggested.

You believe all the fears have been conquered All the issues dealt with

The piece of me that’s missing Listen I couldn’t hear it before

FAITH One you get to know me I’m basically mad. I mean like right now in my head there’s a table with little people sitting around waiting for lunch.

to which I reply I don’t talk like white people neither I’ve got words and ways of saying them

True love is just another fairytale that mothers tell their daughters to get them in bed each night. “One day you’ll fall in love with the right man, and you’ll get married and have children” she would say. Making sure that I knew that the man would be “a good Christian man”. It wouldn’t matter to my mother what race he was, since she herself had married a white man. I wondered how that would work out, since ever night I dreamed of luscious women who surrounded me with titillating chests and slits warm with love. Still, I tried to belong in the dream of a man who would sweep me off my feet and cover me with beautiful kisses the kind of which would wake even the dead. When I was fourteen I began to have annual dream in which my beloved and I would find each other. Once a year I traveled to places I’d never been, frolicked and fucked, only to wake up only with the promise of my future. Who was that person who came to my dreams? Faceless, I knew him by touch alone. Yes, that was the most surprising bit, that he was not a she. Probable effect of being socialized in a homophobic society, I convinced myself.