Comic Books

THE

LATINA MONOLOGUES

featuring ARTNIGHTBOOKS.COM poet

ANGELA TRUDELL VASQUEZ:

A friend told me the Latino Student Union at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee was putting on a production called The Latina Monologues, and said I should send them some of my poems. They accepted several of them and I became the featured poet of the Latina Monologues! Some of the poems used were from my first book, The Force Your Face Carries, including Human Maze, Dark Man and Lessons. We Dream, a poem I wrote for the immigrants right organization Casa Latina in Seattle, Washington, and Who Am I are from my new book, Love in War Time. We got quite a bit of press, appeared on a morning talk show and now a minidocumentary is available via youtube which you can watch HERE. It debuted on Adelante on Milwaukee Public Television and was done by Independent Producer Sal Gomez.

CURSED

Beauty is power

and power is knowledge

of the force your face carries

(which eludes you)

among strangers,

spectators and

seeing-eye violators

(who don't even know you

but judge you the same)

I watch them bow

beneath your beauty,

the external force

you press upon them,

corrupting their flesh

with your physical warmth

and god-given fire,

which spreads shedding

pink charisma buds

everywhere you go

like a blanket of snow

covering the crowd

as you float past.

People want to know you

touch your body

and soil their hands

on your unblemished torso,

to become privy

to what's beneath

your clothes as if they

could steal your glow

for themselves

while you're not looking

borrowing against

the grain of your person,

the tilt of your nose

and widespread

commercial appeal.

But they wouldn't

if they only knew

the trouble

your beauty brings you

and the man you're

sworn to love until

death do you part—

or until he kills you—

because someone wants you to

display what's behind

your made up veneer,

angelic makeup exterior

and paper-thin smile,

hallowed by some,

coveted by more than one,

hollowed by years

of female competition

and men's knowing exhibition

in the back of their cars

honking on their pickup horns

while their parents are sleeping.

Poor child,

poor girl

you had a nice body too.

But you were a slut

before you knew it,

even though no one proved it,

and your peers

preferred the worst—

because everyone just knew

young

bodacious girls

were just bimbos,

put on this televised earth,

to visually please,

tease, then freeze,

"Oh no, please stop"

and jerk off their dates

over the phone.

Because big brains

don't mix with big tits,

round hips

and lush red lips

which pucker

and color

all on their own;

without lipstick

impressions or

silicon injections

for the popular

pouty look,

and because

you had a fucking brain,

because you named the source

of all your pain,

you began to stutter

and shudder every time

you looked into a mirror

until you fell into your grave

a Snow White mannequin.

May 1995

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