It's About Time
I stand in the middle of the sidewalk
so people have to walk around me
It’s about time
a brown immigrant woman
takes up too much space
I throw my head back when I laugh aloud
so people in the next aisle hear me
It’s about time
a brown immigrant woman
makes too much joyful noise
I claim all space and breath
Lola, Nanay, Tita, Ate fought and died to give me
so people have to walk around me
It’s about time
a brown immigrant woman
takes up too much space
I throw my head back when I laugh aloud
so people in the next aisle hear me
It’s about time
a brown immigrant woman
makes too much joyful noise
I claim all space and breath
Lola, Nanay, Tita, Ate fought and died to give me
Grant Me Only This
And in the morning
I want you to sing to me in Spanish
call me dulce
coo Paloma in my ear
Make the language of my colonizers
sound again like the tongue of
someone who loves me so much
he does not need to possess me
Know that I will fly to you
only if I can be
free
I want you to sing to me in Spanish
call me dulce
coo Paloma in my ear
Make the language of my colonizers
sound again like the tongue of
someone who loves me so much
he does not need to possess me
Know that I will fly to you
only if I can be
free
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Cookie Hiponia Everman wrote her first poem at 12 years old and has since filled more than 40 journals with her poems and musings. She is a writer and editor living near Seattle with her husband and two daughters. Her Hawaiian name is Mahinakama, which means "moonchild." Cookie is at work on a middle grade novel-in-verse, a semi-autobiographical story about the Pilipinx American immigrant experience that weaves in Tagalog mythology about the heavens. Find her on Twitter @cookie_everman
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