POETRY
We,
are joined by a common urge to relay messages: biologically, physically, verbally, digitally...dare I say telepathically.
I dedicate this to the necessity of public offerings.
I learn through flexing between entropy and discipline.
I find that there is a large crowd of permanent students among me as well.
As I continue speaking to you, I am speaking to myself, almost always.
More and many to come in the spirit of service.
When Announcing Your Name
Please speak with conviction
fall in love
with each syllable said
with the tone your voice carries
and the base it drops
Say it like your mom and her mother do
I didn't pronounce it like my mom
I pronounced it like the teachers who never tried more
I want to teach the young Yahaira within me to say her name
To show up for her intentions and never act without them
To realize eating, sleeping, and moving as intuitive
To move in peace
Recognize the intersections between self love and holistic health
Those are everyday commitments too
Do not to take anyone's advice too harshly
Do not deliver advice too harshly
Religion
Claiming my God Black
One which spreads wide across
Omniscient,
Of sixth sensient streams
genderless, formless,
bound to no planet
nor mass of land
The energy wave that spins my earth
And any all more
And any all less
Higher me
Shapeshifting
God as my personalized consciousness
a deity of reflection
Spans of mass I have imagined
In this fleshly me made perfect
And my spirit feels God Grander
God the spirit of your God plus mine
And any all
from any time
Combined by the mind to Co create
We are chewing and producing
Some crave indigestible product
Mindful Breathing
The time I taught myself to breath
Did I ever do it before?
All prior hardships...
never burdened my lungs
When I began to dream by day
the day began to feel like many days
More meaning and purpose full
When sifting reality, my frequency is determined by my will to discern
If I hold on -- inhale
If I let go -- exhale
In this exercise that belongs to you and I, we are sharpened
to watch twice as hard
to listen double the message
to speak a whole with half of the words
Documentation
Down the spiral wooden stairs
In the basement of the Rivera residence
Exists a mark where I am 3 years old
This montage of memories won't remind you of puerto rico
Or the 80s
Or even the early 2000s
Though those times are flashed in the capture of the piece.
It connects my heart to remember that Mami Mama once turned 40
The same age her nieta, my mom,
thrives
While I look at pictures of Mami, the oldest in her crew of cousins
I think of how I fill that role too
My generation added Tarr, Lopez, Ramirez and Florez
Each image layed together glues our hearts home every reunion
I pray to save images as memories ‘for I go