Cool. I’ll bite.
You know that bam sound some label makers do? So... yeah.
Bam. Bam. Bam.
They're on my forehead piling up, one over the other, like bricks on a wall. Your label maker makes my face swell up and you look at me like jelly beans in an ash tray waiting to be picked out by color.
I’m green. I’m the Mexican shorty with a chicana accent. I’m brown, but you call me green, because she says I'm not Mexican enough for some of the other Brown jelly beans, and the blue jelly beans think I'm purple, so let's just call me green.
Bam. Bam. Bam.
Your label maker is obstructing my view of that beautiful flag, a flag that I appreciate, but don't, according to people with the other labels that don't fit perfectly underneath my label of politics. My politics are a label, or two, or three piling up the bricks on my forehead like jelly beans in that ash tray on that coffee table for coffee drinkers.
Bam. Coffee drinker. I also drink alcohol, but I'm not an alcoholic, which is what and alcoholic would say. I eat when I want to stop myself from crying, and that never works, so I peel off that label and place it under the alcoholic label, right before I start complaining in Spanish like the Mexican that I am, the Green Mexican addicted to food and alcohol when everything piles up like jelly beans melted over bricks on my back, causing me to slouch over and contemplate my wasted shoes.
Bam. Bam. Bam.
Label my shoes as the bargain that they were and the sale they were in. I'll hold my chin up to this label, since I don't care much for fancy clothing, big name brands, or labeling my wardrobe so society thinks I'm trendy enough. I wear my shoes to walk across the parking lot to the door at that bar where strangers interact and never need my number, because all we're there for is to drink, talk, check out the bartender, and continue being strangers, strangers that appreciate community.
Bam.
I’m a stranger. A poor, lower class citizen, with wasted shoes, sitting at the bar sipping my stout and laughing at my own jokes, and my politics. I’m a stranger, because you don't know me and I don't know you, and all we know are these fucking labels plastered all over our face, making it swell up like my feet after a long day at work, because I'm fat, poor, restless, and addicted to bars.
Bam. Bam. Bam.
Today I stay home sober, because today I'm a mother and I wear that label well, like a suit and tie, the way I would if I was a man and I'd marry your daughter on Halloween night. I’m the boring friend on these days with my children, and I help with homework, cook their meals, cry in the bathroom so they can't hear it, pretend to understand the video game, and listen to my son when he curls up next to me in bed saying, Mom, let's talk. Damn right, I'm a mother, and that is my whole universe half the week, because he gets them the other half of the week. I don't care for my other labels, but you see, they're still all over of me.
Bam. Bam. Bam.
I’m a woman today, because I feel like a woman and you see me as a woman, and I have woman genitalia. I'm a woman and wear lipstick on Fridays, sometimes, and wear heels on Tuesdays, except for Tuesdays when people say I'm not a normal woman, but this human that's neither man nor woman, and wants to wear that suit and tie if it were halloween night and I was going to marry someone's daughter. Label that, label maker. Please do, as my identity in your point of view flows between the sheets of the days that mark the calendar since I can remember, since I wanted to tear the skin off my back asking the god to fix it for me, because I'm not this nor that, even though I'm this. I’m this. This.
Bam.
I’m also egalitarian, and that doesn't make me anti-feminist or anti-men. I’m egalitarian, because I love all your stupid labels, your genius labels, your piled up jelly beans all over your mattress. I think yours are just as interesting as mine, and just as deserving as mine, and anyone who'll try to peel off your labels can come and face me, because I'll stand up for you even when you hate these labels on my face, even when you won't look into my eyes, because you're too damn busy reading that label that says I'm just a heretic atheist with no book and no cure.
Bam.
I’m destined to hell. I’m destined to eternal damnation.
Bam. I’m promiscuous, because I believe in sex.
Bam. I'm a rebel, because I protest to your ropes tied around my ankles telling me I can't walk into that place, because it's new to me, and the people in it are not wearing my labels, and my anxiety rules over me sometimes telling me I can't breathe. It tells me that all you can see are these swollen labels across my face making me seem ignorant, small, slow, annoying, fat, short, mis fit, forgettable, swollen, bulky arms, nasty skin, dry hair, chubby hands, gross thighs, limited vocabulary, unprofessional poet, not good enough, not smart enough, not potent enough, not labeled enough for you.
Bam.
I’m insecure.
Bam.
I’m unfair.
Bam.
I’m beautiful. I’m beautiful. I love greatly and generously. I share myself with those who want me to. I stretch myself and yes, that stretches my skin like my wasted shoes, but I mean it. I want it. I’m passionate. I’m invincible. I’m a label on your forehead.
Bam. Bam. Bam.
Label me, pick out the pieces of me that make you come back for more. I’m all the colors in that ashtray. I'll wear all my labels proudly. Yes, I'm ridiculous and yes, I'm the one that sits at the corner watching your stories unfold your beautiful labels like murals on a wall. I’m the one that arrives alone, sits alone, gives you company and peels off your labels, like taking down that brick wall, and lay them out for you to build your own masterpiece of beautiful stone labeled after your ridiculous art that I can't help but relate to me, to them, to all the other labels plastered around these murals called humans that we don't know, because we're strangers.
Bam.
My labels are my stretch marks. They're my story. They're my clothing. These labels are not my enemy, they're my skin. They're my limbs. You're just a stranger. Let's not be strangers. Peel the labels off your face. Place them around your chest. Look at me.
Chikiwowow!
You know that bam sound some label makers do? So... yeah.
Bam. Bam. Bam.
They're on my forehead piling up, one over the other, like bricks on a wall. Your label maker makes my face swell up and you look at me like jelly beans in an ash tray waiting to be picked out by color.
I’m green. I’m the Mexican shorty with a chicana accent. I’m brown, but you call me green, because she says I'm not Mexican enough for some of the other Brown jelly beans, and the blue jelly beans think I'm purple, so let's just call me green.
Bam. Bam. Bam.
Your label maker is obstructing my view of that beautiful flag, a flag that I appreciate, but don't, according to people with the other labels that don't fit perfectly underneath my label of politics. My politics are a label, or two, or three piling up the bricks on my forehead like jelly beans in that ash tray on that coffee table for coffee drinkers.
Bam. Coffee drinker. I also drink alcohol, but I'm not an alcoholic, which is what and alcoholic would say. I eat when I want to stop myself from crying, and that never works, so I peel off that label and place it under the alcoholic label, right before I start complaining in Spanish like the Mexican that I am, the Green Mexican addicted to food and alcohol when everything piles up like jelly beans melted over bricks on my back, causing me to slouch over and contemplate my wasted shoes.
Bam. Bam. Bam.
Label my shoes as the bargain that they were and the sale they were in. I'll hold my chin up to this label, since I don't care much for fancy clothing, big name brands, or labeling my wardrobe so society thinks I'm trendy enough. I wear my shoes to walk across the parking lot to the door at that bar where strangers interact and never need my number, because all we're there for is to drink, talk, check out the bartender, and continue being strangers, strangers that appreciate community.
Bam.
I’m a stranger. A poor, lower class citizen, with wasted shoes, sitting at the bar sipping my stout and laughing at my own jokes, and my politics. I’m a stranger, because you don't know me and I don't know you, and all we know are these fucking labels plastered all over our face, making it swell up like my feet after a long day at work, because I'm fat, poor, restless, and addicted to bars.
Bam. Bam. Bam.
Today I stay home sober, because today I'm a mother and I wear that label well, like a suit and tie, the way I would if I was a man and I'd marry your daughter on Halloween night. I’m the boring friend on these days with my children, and I help with homework, cook their meals, cry in the bathroom so they can't hear it, pretend to understand the video game, and listen to my son when he curls up next to me in bed saying, Mom, let's talk. Damn right, I'm a mother, and that is my whole universe half the week, because he gets them the other half of the week. I don't care for my other labels, but you see, they're still all over of me.
Bam. Bam. Bam.
I’m a woman today, because I feel like a woman and you see me as a woman, and I have woman genitalia. I'm a woman and wear lipstick on Fridays, sometimes, and wear heels on Tuesdays, except for Tuesdays when people say I'm not a normal woman, but this human that's neither man nor woman, and wants to wear that suit and tie if it were halloween night and I was going to marry someone's daughter. Label that, label maker. Please do, as my identity in your point of view flows between the sheets of the days that mark the calendar since I can remember, since I wanted to tear the skin off my back asking the god to fix it for me, because I'm not this nor that, even though I'm this. I’m this. This.
Bam.
I’m also egalitarian, and that doesn't make me anti-feminist or anti-men. I’m egalitarian, because I love all your stupid labels, your genius labels, your piled up jelly beans all over your mattress. I think yours are just as interesting as mine, and just as deserving as mine, and anyone who'll try to peel off your labels can come and face me, because I'll stand up for you even when you hate these labels on my face, even when you won't look into my eyes, because you're too damn busy reading that label that says I'm just a heretic atheist with no book and no cure.
Bam.
I’m destined to hell. I’m destined to eternal damnation.
Bam. I’m promiscuous, because I believe in sex.
Bam. I'm a rebel, because I protest to your ropes tied around my ankles telling me I can't walk into that place, because it's new to me, and the people in it are not wearing my labels, and my anxiety rules over me sometimes telling me I can't breathe. It tells me that all you can see are these swollen labels across my face making me seem ignorant, small, slow, annoying, fat, short, mis fit, forgettable, swollen, bulky arms, nasty skin, dry hair, chubby hands, gross thighs, limited vocabulary, unprofessional poet, not good enough, not smart enough, not potent enough, not labeled enough for you.
Bam.
I’m insecure.
Bam.
I’m unfair.
Bam.
I’m beautiful. I’m beautiful. I love greatly and generously. I share myself with those who want me to. I stretch myself and yes, that stretches my skin like my wasted shoes, but I mean it. I want it. I’m passionate. I’m invincible. I’m a label on your forehead.
Bam. Bam. Bam.
Label me, pick out the pieces of me that make you come back for more. I’m all the colors in that ashtray. I'll wear all my labels proudly. Yes, I'm ridiculous and yes, I'm the one that sits at the corner watching your stories unfold your beautiful labels like murals on a wall. I’m the one that arrives alone, sits alone, gives you company and peels off your labels, like taking down that brick wall, and lay them out for you to build your own masterpiece of beautiful stone labeled after your ridiculous art that I can't help but relate to me, to them, to all the other labels plastered around these murals called humans that we don't know, because we're strangers.
Bam.
My labels are my stretch marks. They're my story. They're my clothing. These labels are not my enemy, they're my skin. They're my limbs. You're just a stranger. Let's not be strangers. Peel the labels off your face. Place them around your chest. Look at me.
Chikiwowow!
"Hipster is what happens when young hot people do what old ladies do." -Exian
