And did you get whatyou wanted from this life, even so?I did.And what did you want?To call myself beloved, to feel myselfbeloved on the earth.
Category: Creative Writing
My Friend Amy (poem)
My friend AmyWears ballet slippers on the streetAdopts every child she meetsPuts salad dressing on her riceWould rather be called obnoxious than niceIs always flatBrokeSleeps like a narcoleptic catSmokesWrites poetry nobody ever seesAnd the rest you’d never believe. rik panganibanoctober 1992
Ms. Millar (a poem)
Ms. Millar After math class, you took me aside and said,“You don’t belong here.”I agreed. But how did you know? I’d always felt like the outsider –Too small, too odd, too yellow.A defective droid. You said, “You don’t belong here.You should be in advanced algebra.” I didn’t believe you.It took a couple more decadesTo see…
On Skating and Privilege and Donuts
It’s 10:30pm. My friends and I are at a 24 hour donut shop, getting donuts and coffee before heading to a skating rink for a late night skate party. An older Asian woman is behind the counter. We ask her if she has been to Roller King, the rink down the road. She admits that…
Rink – a poem
Rink (2008?) We loop round and roundTo fuzzy disco and the chatter of skatesSome somehow danceI stumble in rhythm.
Rolling (poem)
rolling rik panganiban june 1997 Strangers insist on telling me horror storiesabout broken arms, fractured skulls,knees that never healed rightwhen they see me on my rollerblades. “There’s this one fella got draggedfifty feet under a truck, skatingtoo close to traffic. Had two kids.” This is not welcome information. “You’ll never catch me deadOn those silly…
“stringing and unstringing my instrument…” (quote)
“I have spent many days stringing and unstringing my instrumentwhile the song I came to sing remains unsung.” ― Rabindranath Tagore
There is no such thing as a “safe space” (poem)
There is no such thing as a “safe space” — We exist in the real world. We all carry scars and have caused wounds. This space seeks to turn down the volume of the world outside, and amplify voices that have to fight to be heard elsewhere, This space will not be perfect. It will…
Kurt Vonnegut on Enjoyment versus Achievement
I have not been able to find the original source for this quote from author Kurt Vonnegut, I’m afraid. But it speaks volumes to me as a eternal beginner at so many things. When I was 15, I spent a month working on an archeological dig. I was talking to one of the archeologists one…
Good Bones, by Maggie Smith
Good Bones by Maggie Smith Life is short, though I keep this from my children.Life is short, and I’ve shortened minein a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,a thousand deliciously ill-advised waysI’ll keep from my children. The world is at leastfifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservativeestimate, though I keep this from my children.For every bird there…