I Am Danny Herrera

We all remember the class clown. The excitement as the period begins, because we can't wait to see what he'll do today. We are all putty in his hands, and a simple raise of his eyebrows will have us squirming in our seats and soar sides from the heartiest laughter we've had all day. "I can't believe he just said that" is escaping our lips so often it should have frequent flyer miles. Sometimes the class clown seems like the sole reason that we stay sane. My class clown is Danny Herrera, but really, this is for all of them:

I am Danny Herrera.
I am the one who says "no" to detention.
I am the kid your friends are talking about.
Yes, I am that kid with the hipster glasses.
I am the butt of the jokes, but I'm also the one dishing them out.
I am the curator of laughter.
I am the king's finest court jester.
I am the onion ring that slipped into your carton of fries.
I am the one who walks away from almost certain demise
Without looking back.
I am the flamingo in a flock of pigeons, and the tuna slip-streaming against the current.
I am as cool as my loafers, cuffed jeans, collared shirt and bobbing head suggests.

You all know me.
You all know what I let you see.

But outside of this classroom
Where everything goes
And Danny Herrera knows just how to pinch all of our rosy round cheeks into smiles
He's really just a mystery.

No one knows where The Wild Thing goes.
And no one bothers to ask
Because we know he would tell us if we did
And we can't risk knocking our two-in-one class clown and class fool
Off of the pedestal where we placed him
With a strong hit of reality.

So we contain him in our own little Neverland
Where he will always be our Peter Pan
To supply us with all the shenanigans and make-believes we desperately need
Because it's the last period of the day
And after all our honors and APs
Nothing's better than a little taste of joy
No one's going to look behind the curtain with the chance to discover
That our Peter Pan is really just a Lost Boy.

No, he is Danny Herrera.
He is the guy with the head-back, booming, ridiculous laugh
He is the wind in our sail, the pep in our step, the cat-nip behind the crazy
He is the guy everyone is looking for, but will never find
He is the last masterpiece left uncovered by da Vinci

He has charm so contagious, they had to create a vaccine for it
He has been asked by alien abductors to probe them
His legend precedes him the way lightening precedes thunder
If he forgets to put postage on a letter, it will still get there
If it is raining, it's because he is thinking of something sad
His blood smells like cologne
His hands feel like rich brown suede

He is the most interesting man in the world.
And we will stay thirsty.

~Kat

Spread the Love

Ah! El mes de amor ha llegado! The month of love has arrived! So to kick off this month of x's and o's, I'm going to talk about love! I have yet to celebrate a Valentine's Day with a significant other, but I find that with each coming Valentine's Day, I know a little bit more about love than the last time I was there. Mostly, it's the realization that I still have no idea what "love" is. Then it actually makes me grateful that I'm alone on Valentine's Day, because I am obviously not ready for it yet.

But one of the things that I have come to know about love, is that it is vital. Like butter. Butter makes everything better. Sometimes it's a little unhealthy in some doses, but as long as your not eating it by the butter ball, you're okay in my book. Same thing with love. Love makes anything better. You could be taking the SAT, in your 4th hour of the test, one more essay to go, but if you are in love with the person in front you, even then I bet you would have a smile on your face. Because the back of his/her head is delicious. Like butter.

What I know this Valentine's Day that I didn't know last year, is that also like butter, love is always best when it is spread. Whether that be spread over wheat or rye, spread to a friend, family, or a lover, spreading the love is what it's all about. And it's so easy. Just tell them. Even if you think they already know, or you think you tell them enough, you never know. I wouldn't take the risk of going another day without telling them. It could mean the world.

Ask yourself this: what's the point of loving someone, if you keep that yourself? None at all. And there's so many ways to tell someone you love them: "I love you", "te quiero", "you're the butter to my biscuit." Or simply telling someone you're grateful for them. Think of where you are right now. Who helped you get there?

I have a lot of wonderful friends that helped me get to where I am now, and a lot of them are of the male gender. This one is for them. For all the nice guys:

This is for all the nice guys out there
Being used as a life size teddy bear
Because you can't help but care
For her, you're just a friend.

When you know there could be more there
But she won't bother to look
Because that might mean the end
Of a friendship that took years to cook
And once it's eaten, there's nothing to mend.

But how is that fair?
We've heard it time and time again
"I think we should just stay friends"
And for what?
To comment on your hair?

This is for all the nice guys out there
Who will sit through a chick flick til the end
Tell us we're pretty
Even thought they know we're just fishing for a compliment.

Listen to all our crap about our boyfriend
Who you can't stand
But you'll support us anyway
Because unlike him, you're a man.

Who will wait for us
While we try on clothes
And tell us we're beautiful
Without dressing like hoes.

This is for all the nice guys out there
Stumbling around in a world
Where nice guys too often finish last.

This is for all the nice guys out there
Who need to hear
That without you
We would be going downhill, fast.

And we need you
Because we are scared of falling on our ass
And to please stick around
Until we realize
That as long as we're falling with you
And we are love bound
There will never be any chance
Of you letting us hit the ground.

Alex, Jon, Philip, Kaleb, Austyn, Aaron, Toby, Eddy, and for who I originally wrote it for, Christian, thank you, you're all great, and I love you guys.
~Kat

Black and Blue.

This is my response to the book "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison. Probably one of the most intense books I've ever read. So of course I immediately related it to one of the most intense art forms I've ever seen: Spoken Word.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTZrPVqR0D8

please watch the video before you continue reading the post. Don't be left in the dark.

Pecola Breadlove. Daniel Beaty.
A daughter. A son.
Fiction. Real.
His father left.
Her father came.
Neither left the same,
Forced to change
With one man to blame.

One raised himself up
Into a man
Proclaiming "I can.
I can knock knock down the doors of racism
When they are slammed.
Shut his eyes and proclaim
"We are our fathers' sons and daughters, but we will not be damned.
We can."

The other knock knocked down
To never smile, her lips forever turned the other way around
But never mind the frown
Because she'll never be beautiful
Not even blue eyes could erase
The face only a daddy will love
Not just because it was brown,
But, God, she was ugly.

To those looking from the other side
The other side of store counters
And white picket fences

They wouldn't see a fatherless little boy.
A raped little girl.
No name to match the face.
Not Pecola. Not Daniel.
The only thing they had in common,
The only thing that mattered,
What defined them as a human-being,
The only thing that they were seeing,

Was brown.

~Kat

Poopy Poetry

An inspiration of mine and fellow poet once said, "Poetry is like poop. Once it's there, it has to come out."

Just let that metaphor sink in.

It's funny how true that is. Sometimes it comes easy, and just flows out of you. Sometimes it takes a little longer, and you have to come back to it again and again, in the meantime walking around with a waddle, because it sucks having to hold it in. But either way, once it's there, it always comes out.

My sister once when she was a toddler refused to poop. She held it all in for a good week. I guess that's the only way a toddler could be rebellious and get attention at the same time. So my sister wouldn't poop, and my mom took her to Urgent Care, to see if they could force it out of her.

This last summer I felt like my sister. Except I couldn't write. It was painful and if I could have gone to writer's block rehab I would have:

me: Hi, my name's Katherine.

circle of anonymous poets: *monotone* Hi, Katherine.

me: It has been 6 weeks since my last poem.

But instead, I had to self-prescribe Sarah Kay, Rudy Francisco, and Jack Frost to see if they could be my much needed laxative and get something in me moving. Not a lot did. I wrote two poems all summer. But one of those poems ended up being one of my favorites. It's short and sweet, and always gives a good chuckle.

Enjoy :) this is "A Poetic Piece of Crap":

~Kat

Knock Knock

Opportunities. They don't come around very often. So when one does come knocking, I don't ever want to send it away. This blog I've realized is a huge opportunity for me. An opportunity for me to be honest, and a place where I don't need to hold anything back. I can be silly and write a Declaration of Knickers if I want to. I can be serious and share something that's really on my mind. But for my posts to be really worth anything, they have to be honest. And to be honest, sometimes you have to be vulnerable.

This realization was all spurred by a movie clip I was shown at my beloved youth group last night. It was from Even Almighty, the movie with Steve Carell playing the "New York Noah" and with Morgan Freeman, of course, as God. So in the movie, Steve is told by Morgan Freeman that he has to build an ark, and he starts growing a beard spontaneously and has animals following him around. He starts building the ark and everyone thinks he's crazy, and his wife thinks he's crazy,so she leaves him temporarily with their boys for him to "sort things out". Then this conversation happens between Morgan Freeman disguised as a charismatic server at a restaurant and the wife. Morgan is being comforting and tells her this:

"If someone prays to God for hope, does He give them hope, or the opportunity to be hopeful? If someone prays for courage, does he give them courage, or the opportunity to be courageous? If someone prays for their family to be closer together (the wife prayed for this at the beginning of the movie) does he shoot down warm fuzzy feelings, or give the opportunity for them to be there for one another?"

It's true. We can't expect things to fall into our laps. We need to take advantage of the opportunities given to us. I've been praying for ways to step out in my faith this year, ways I can let God take more of a precedence in my life, and here I am given opportunity after opportunity, but I am not taking them all. I've been too scared.

But no longer. I want to take this opportunity to be real. Because I realized I haven't really made it known that I am Catholic. I have been kinda suppressing it, because I've been too scared to show it. But being Catholic is a huge part of my life, and how I've grown to become the person I am today. If I can't be real with this part of my life, than I can't be my real self.

So I'm coming out. This is My Honest Poem:

So I have a confession
My closest friends know it
My parents too, but they aren't all for it
If you know me, maybe you could guess it
But I think it's about time I said it
Because I'm tired of feeling like I have to suppress it
Cuz God forbid somebody feel uncomfortable or offended
But I... I am Catholic.

And not just "I go to church some days
Christmas and Easter, but that's it."
No, I am as devoted as an NFL fan
I show up every Sunday
Cheering on my number one man
No, not LT or Rivers
But JC, my Savior.

I am that Catholic
That has a cross on my heart
At the end of a chain.

I am that Catholic
That believes in silver linings and fate
And will put a ring on my finger
Because I believe true love will wait.

But I am not that Catholic
With her nose to the air
I am just that Catholic
That wants to be free to say grace before lunch
In the name of the Father, and in the Son
Without feeling scared.

I don't want people to judge me
Or treat me differently
I'm the same person I was before
Only a little more relieved
And a bit more freed
Because now I don't need to hide
The biggest part of being me.


Praise God, be kind,
~Kat

Raw and Retching

This is how I welcomed in the new year. About 7 pm on New Year's Eve night I started feeling a little queezy, and a half hour after sensing the first signs I said hello to my dinner. Again. I'll spare you the gory details, because trust me there are plenty, but what I'm trying to justify is why God thought it would be a good idea to give me a 24 hour stomach flu in the first 24 hours of the new year.

I'm generally an optimistic person, so I'm hoping this means 2013 can only get better from here. I don't see how it could get much worse without anything really tragic happening, knock on wood. So this is my justification: this flu was my body's way of literally getting rid of all the bad from 2012. And I was more than happy to flush it all away.

So with that spirit in mind, I'd like to welcome in the New Year with my newest poem. This is the last remnant of the last year that I still need to get rid of, the last of the "2012-funk". This one is titled "Merry Christmas, babe, I bought you a watch":

Merry Christmas, babe
I bought you a watch
Because your old one wasn't really working out
And I know you want to keep it
And figure out a way to make it work again
But that would just take too many hours
And minutes
And seconds
That you can no longer count
Because you need a new watch

So let me be the little birdie to tell you
to part from the past
and try something new

Something new that can count every moment
That you're thinking about someone
Other than me

Something new with and LED light
that works
So when you finally get the nerve to take her out for a night
You can see how much time you have left
to enjoy her

Something new with a stopwatch
So you know how fast you're going
And maybe you should slow down
And when your time runs out
Don't worry, it's waterproof
For when you breakup with your next girlfriend
In the rain, too.

A little birdie told me that sometimes
You need something new
I just never thought that little birdie
Would be you

But I still have this watch
Sitting in the back of my closet
In pretty paper and a bow
And I never got a chance to give it to you
Because you decided to let me go
Two weeks before Christmas

But don't worry, you'll get it soon
Cuz you desperately need to work on your timing
So you don't break up with your next girl
On your 6 month anniversary
When instead of ending
You should be dining

So I bought you this watch
And I'll give it to you
Leave all this behind me

Because I may have bought you a watch
But you bought me time
Because now I don't need to waste
Any of mine
Thinking about you.

~Kat

My First.

This is my first in a lot of things. My first post, the first poem I'd ever written for myself, written about the first boy. I wrote this a long time ago, about two years, and my writing today and my problems today are very different. But I think it's good to look back at your firsts. Sometimes you need a reminder of where you came from to appreciate where you are. So this is my first, and it went untitled:

Not everyone is what they seem
And I'm definitely no angel in disguise.
But I am human, and I do have a heart
And that's what makes this so hard.

I'm tired of all this drama
I want it all to go away
But I know it's not that simple
Because it's you

Because it's you, I can't just say
"Leave me alone"
Because it's you, I can't walk away
Without looking back.

You haunt me.
Your name stops me cold.
Your face makes me turn away in shame.
I run into a trap of my own guilt.

And then I hate myself,
For hurting you
For making it worse
For not having the courage

Because of those three days,
Because of those three words I said
I'm stuck

And when I do get the courage,
And you read these words
I will walk away

Only to turn back and make sure you're okay.

~Kat