Self Portrait As Outerspace by Kristen Ikeda Yoza

I am the darkness

I scream into the void

Hear me. Hear me. Hear me. Hear me. Hear me.

But no one does, not even the stars

I'm not Mexican enough because I didn’t speak Spanish,

Not Japanese because I wasn’t born there,

Not enough for my dad, probably too much for my mom.

It doesn’t matter what is in my heart or blood.

Like the dove that wonders why it can’t fly to the moon

I wonder why I am not enough,

Not good enough, not small enough, maybe because I am not a boy?

Posting your NEW family erases me little by little

My inner child screams like a banshee

As you casually brush that ever gaping black hole of emotion

I try to parent her, soothe her, the way she never was

But I don't have the energy to hold her

She blazes like the sun in her anger and I can only stand in wonder at her power

So from time to time I allow her her moment to lash out

I (and she) will never be truly happy for him. With his new family and new life

We still exist, floating in the darkness, maybe a dead star to you Dad

But our matter remains, it does exist, you can’t undo that

Floating endlessly inside the void

You created

*The italicized line is from “Things Haunt” by Joshua Jennifer Espinoza

No Mountain Climbers Thank You by Kristen Ikeda Yoza

Recently I read somewhere that

The mountains I moved I was meant to climb

I wish someone would have told me that

As a child I saw no way but to push

Push through the poverty

Push my emotions down

Push through my trauma

A single parented child growing up in Oxnard

So I set my shoulder against the heavy load

I drove my body hard into the mountains before me

And they began to move ever. so. slightly.

Is this mountain made of cold hard rock

Sharp and jagged and painful to touch,

No It’s made of identity, yours and mine and everyones

Race, genders, ethnicity, religion, nationality, sexual orientation

Being a brown girl that can’t speak Spanish with a German last name

Not following the Christians or Catholics or feeling American

Instead of rising above the labels

I slowly forced them out of my way with my own body

I don’t need them

As a 20 something I saw no way but to push

Push past the racism, sexisim, ismisms

But they are never completely pushed aside

Even now there are always rocks jutting out to trip over

People blocking the path like a mudslide

I could choose to climb over, I could

But I choose to trudge through

Now an adult I see no way but to push and change,

Change is hard

It takes practice

And I have been practicing for a long time