~*

Professional Mama

Based on a true story…

This is my mother’s favorite story:

When I was five my uncle asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up…

I said, I wanna be a Mommy. He laughed at me.

 Didn’t think I understood what he was asking me but I did…

I guess most kids wanna be fireman, ballers or doctors

But I didn’t see any of them picking me up from school

or making me pot roast and pasta, so if you wanna talk about role models,

she was to me what Hallie Salasie is Rastas,

Made more change in my life than everybody and Obama,

She was my hallelujah and hosanna,

Divine enough to tuck me into dreams and pick out my jeans

And teach me to believe… in me!

without her I wouldn’t exist

So this is for my mom…

You

probably didn’t even notice, you were teaching me to protest, but you did you taught me the essence of equality, the fearlessness that’s followed me

from Palestine to Albany, with a fistful of humility,

to treat life with fragility, I am the struggle you’ve instilled in me,

the freedom music that be filling me is the lullaby you used to sing to me, that taught me nobody should have to live nightmares!

And that lesson become obsession is the root of my profession,

so tonight I’m celebrating my mother

And all mother’s whose love taught us to fight for human rights…

By living out Article 1 and welcoming us into this life

The personification of the United Nations’

Because my mother treated everybody with dignity and patience

Which is why I’m so passionate about article 2’s freedom from discrimination

You see she had love like the sun had light,

So I had article’s 25’s food and a place to stay at night, plus I was always the kid breaking up fights because her compassion taught me freedom from persecution,

She is why I don’t believe in executions, her encouragement for how I write,

was how she choose to cite article 27 that declares art a human right, thank you!

Because my job is now bringing poetry to war zones like Juarez, Haiti, Beirut and Brooklyn, where fire overflows out of prisons full of hurt-

the reason, My mom just went back to school study to social work,

Exercising her right to education My mother is my universal declaration…

I only studied politics and economics because they didn’t have a degree in motherhood,

But they should…and they should have required courses

 for everybody in the armed forces that teach

No mother’s child should be tortured, so close those secret prisons down

No mother’s child should go hungry, so we want int’l debt relief now,

we need to all be the mom dukes of the scientist making nukes to tell him, child you better put those chemicals down

that’s why I ain’t afraid to say it loud, If I gotta fight for justice like a mother, I am down

While we paying taxes that drop bombs, Its time we all start keeping it moms, and get out in the streets, like my mother would if you threatened her child’s peace…I wanna be a mother, so tell the govt. not to draft me

Cuz I got kids who are both American and Iraqi,

And any mother loves her child now matter where they born

So you can bet, I’m fighting for immigration reform, RIGHT NOW

You see this is how, I am saying thank you to my mother, I’m the child that you fostered like care in the form of wisdom shared and just being there, I’d be rich if I had a dimes from every time you told me to cut my hair, but in savings I am poor because I’ve always sent my flow to back to Ecuador, so that there could be just a little more, food on the plates where hunger often waits, and you taught be to never hesitate to give, so that is how I live, if my income can become bread, it will, even though no generosity could fill your shoes, I still will use my every step to prove you taught me well, Mom, I know its hard when I go away, and sometimes you miss your baby, and you worry about my safety.

 But remember, I only do what I do

Cuz when I grow up… I wanna be like you.