Copyright © 2024 by Abalone Mountain Press
All rights reserved. Printed on Akimel O’odham lands
Published by Abalone Mountain Press www.abalonemountainpress.com
CAT EYES
I was half asleep and applying eyeliner when my mom drove over a pothole.
~AHH!”~
“Sorry babe!”
I looked at my compact mirror with puffy eyes and regret for trying to put on makeup at the last minute. Instead of a cat eye it looked more like a crinkle cut french fry. I was not a cute enough punk chick to pull off an avant garde look (think Christiane F.) and I had no makeup remover gadgets. So, I had to wait until I was dropped off at school to fix my makeup along with the other Navajo girls getting ready for school before the first period bell rang.
My mother was the sort of rez mom that always wore makeup as long as I could remember. She had the sharpie eyebrows, caked on foundation and merlot lip liner that gave her a stoic demeanor but she was soft as the sand dunes in the Shonto canyons where my grandma lives, two and a half hours away.
This mango colored box of steel and plastic known as the “family van” slowly maneuvered its way through the residential streets to my high school. My mom was listening to her Christian family radio station, today they were talking about how Bush was currently saving the world from terrorism. I held my breath each time Bush said the words, “terrorism” and “all muslims.” With each long exhale I tried not to blurt out “bullshit.” But I don’t cuss in front of my mom. I may be an angry, naughty brown girl but I still don’t have the cajones to speak my rebellion (or truth) to my mother. Maybe one day I will have the guts to mutter “bullshoot” under my breath. Maybe one day, I will speak my mind with confidence. However, today is not that day.
I see most white girls scream at their moms and tell them they are bitches, hoes and tricks but I don’t know, with brown girls, if we did that, we may not be able to walk the next day. Plus our moms are
low key our heroes no matter how much we want to be accepted by our so-called peers.
“I will see you after school, do you have your lunch money?” “Yes.”
“Okay, have a good day at school, love you.”
I am in my fourth year at Chromer High School. We are the Panthers, “raarw.” To say I hate high school is an understatement. To say I hate life is an understatement. To say I hate this town is like saying I hate drinking vinegar. The burning sensation in the throat is more intense than the actual linguistics of sounding out the word “hate” or writing a poem about it. It just is. And I just am. Existing in these pines with no heart but dreams. If one screams in the forest, what do the trees think?
Oh yeah, I’m a poet, kind of. But I don’t show my poems to anyone. They are my secret. I get delight in putting my secrets onto paper.
I have written some poetry about school but they are all pretty terrible. No one knows I write poetry except my notebook and even that I don’t carry with me. It is hidden in my bedroom along with all of my feelings.
To survive high school is to show no emotion. To live as weird, awkward, native girl in small town is to show apathy, otherwise it’s open season for us nerdy, insecure, punk native girls. They will take what little happiness I may offer and stomp it to bits. Why do I have to smile at people when they don’t smile at me? And most importantly, why do I have to pretend to like someone when in reality I find them repulsive as a Hootie and the Blowfish song.
I would rather have the hunks, hot chicks, popular kids and everyone else believe I look mean and unapproachable than to actually be part of teenage small town life that consists of trying to get laid, be friends with the popular kids and pretend like I’m funny.
My sister Sandy thinks I’m funny, I don’t know why. I guess because our family has a dark sense of humor. It must be all of those Kids in the halls VHS tapes my mom recorded from Comedy Central years ago. She knows I don’t give a shit, most times when I say something funny. I always forget about it but of course, Sandy will come storming in the living room with a big smile on her face and remind me of something I said or did years ago.
“Hey! Cathy! Remember that time you punched Jon in the face when we playing playstation bcause he kept calling you Shi boo boo!?!?”
The dreaded nickname my dad used to call me as a child. Anything with a Shi he would put something cutesy and sentimental after it, Shi boo boo, Shi heart, he even called me Shi bread once, what that means, I don’t know.
If there is anything to living in a small town as a brown weirdo, the faker you are the more popular you will become.
I’m my own person, I have three whole friends. But our manifesto is don’t be an imposter. And if there is anything I have learn from meeting these three wonderful weirdo’s is that they are “realer than real deal, hoyfield.” ***
I enter the east side of the school where the students get dropped off. The popular kids hang at the north end of the school which is nice because they don’t have to ruin the beginning of my day. Most of all I hate seeing the popular emo boys, Dante, Diablo, Dawn and Darell. Stupid names huh? But I guess it suits them, they are like demons of the music and not in a good way. Not like how The Misfits or the Nekromantix are. They are demons like how Taking Back Sunday and good Charlotte are.
“Ohhhhhh how punk!”
They would say to me when I would walk by or if they were driving by in their new Toyota corolla blasting Saves the day.
“Emo! Emo! Emo!” Is my only comeback. I have no car. ***
I enter Ms. Bloomfield’s AP English class. I blush a little and look straight down. Noah sits directly behind me. I always feel super insecure about this. I don’t know what the back of my neck looks like, does he look at it?! Does he see my baby hair fraying out from my ponytail? Sometimes I freak out and wonder if I have dandruff and if I do, is the dandruff falling on my shoulder onto my dark shirt?!
Who know’s, there may be coconut flake sized dandruff falling out of my hair onto his desk. I must remind myself to ask my mom to buy some extra strength head and shoulders and a lint roller.
Noah is this dreamy, artsy kid that is a skater. He has these beautiful blue eyes that looks so solemn and smart. He also has this beach blond hair that looks so soft and I’m pretty sure it probably smells good. He’s super skinny but what I think I like most about him is that he is smart and dreamy.
Of course I try not to turn my head and talk to him because what the hell would I do after that? Say something funny? Or smoothly converse about the books in our class?
I don’t understand any of the books in the class plus I’m only funny to a handful of people. What makes me think a babe like Noah would ever listen to me?
When I think of Noah, I feel like a Cure song (most notably Disintegration) I feel the guitar jangles throughout my skin vibrating and pushing its way up and down my stomach. I feel the piano jumble in my feet. Then I hear Robert Smith’s throaty despaired lyrics of “I miss the kiss of treachery
The shameless kiss of vanity
The soft and the black and the velvety
Up tight against the side of me.”
It’s the desperation in his voice that makes me understand my own
desperation to be seen and loved.
Plus, his parents are both lawyers and he lives in the rich neighborhood behind the Sprouts grocery store. Even if I were the one lucky Navajo girl to date a dreamy white boy like Noah, I would be out of place in his world.
My cousin sister, Shondra once tried to set me up with her boyfriend’s friend. His name was Doug and he was friend’s with my cousin’s boyfriend, Billy. I was sitting in the backseat of her dodge neon when she told me his name and we were on our way to their BBQ.
When we arrived, Shondra’s boyfriend was doing push ups in the kitchen. All I could hear when we walked toward the tiny kitchen was,
“12! 13! 14! 15!”
Then Billy bounced up with light buoyancy as if he were a pumice stone plopping up from underwater. This was a lot to see considering Billy weighed a good three hundred or so pounds. He looked like a big strawberry screaming in his bright red Arizona Cardinals jersey.
He must have good knees. I thought.
“Hey! Baby!” Said Billy as he laid a bud light kiss on her lips. It was aggressive yet tender and his cheeks billowed like two beach balls ready to float into the sky when he saw her. She smiled back tenderly with a cold bud light can sweating in her hand.
“This is my cousin sister, Cathy.”
“Ayeeee!!! Cathy with the Cat eyes! MLLAHHH!!!”
He took my hand, squeezed and shook my hand real hard.
“Ow,” I said with my pale twig like arms.
I stood there and sort of smiled….or tried to.
“She’s just fragile!” Billy grunted.
I immediately felt uncomfortable.
“Yeah! Doug is in the back trying to light the grill. Turns out we
had to wait for the charcoal and the lighting fluid and a lighter.”
Shondra just rolled her eyes
“Anywayzzzzz, Billy told Doug about you and he said you sounded like a cool chick. Now here we are,” she winked at me and sipped her beer.
“OK….umm…. Can I have some of these chips?” I say as I point to a bowl of potato chips.
“Go for it! We also got hot Cheetos and taquis that need to be broken into, ayeee!” Billy said. “Give us a a few minutes and we’ll have some burgers and hot dogs read- “
THEN, out of nowhere a person in a raiders jersey the same size as Billy bursts through the kitchen sliding door.
“WOOOO!!!! Yeaaaaaaah!”
Raiders is unfazed he just busted through a sliding glass door. He wobbled a bit then lifted his steels reserve. I still have the red plastic bowl of chips in my hand.
“Cathy! Are you ok! Put the chips down, glass may have fell in it.” My cousin says, auntie-like.
I throw the chips in the garbage.
“Oh by the way that’s Doug,” Shondra says.
Outside, I talk to Shondra. It is nice and cool and the pine tress lightly sway with the wind. I can smell the color of the green waving at me. I don’t want to wave or talk about the trees right now.
“Why did you try to set me up with Kool Aid Man!?”
“Kool Aid Man?!” Shondra asks, “OH! Kool Aid because he busts through doors, hahah, that’s a good one Cathy.”
“Shondra!!!!”
“Ok, I’m sorry. You never talk about boys and you seem really shy when they talk to you. So I thought setting you up with Doug might work because he’s you know sort of out there. Plus if you get to know him, he’s funny. You should see his Myspace posts on Billy’s walls, huhuh”
“Sort of out there? What do you mean? Like weird? Is this because you think I’m weird?”
“Oh my god Cathy! I don’t know, you know, you like your weird stinky white boy music with all those long guitar noises. Doug likes metal, I figured you two would get along.”
“Shondra, I don’t like metal. I like the Pixies, Dinosaur jr. Fugazi, The Jesus and Mary Chain, that’s not the same at Cannibal Corpse.”
“Aren’t they all white?”
“Yes, but...”
“Ok, settled, you both like weirdo white guy music”
Shondra then blows a big sheer pink bubble out of her mouth then snaps almost as loud as Raiders crashing through the glass kitchen door.
“I don’t know Shondra.”
“Come on Cathy, have a few beers and chill”
“Fine.”
The rest of the night, Billy goes in and out of his blackout. At first he was laughing about his glass door being shattered. He gave Doug a high five about how crazy he was to burst through the door. Then he would snap out of it and yell
“Fucking Doug! You better clean this shit up!”
After an hour of Billy getting upset, Doug promised to fix his window and get a tarp to cover the cove that leads into Billy’s kitchen.
An hour later Doug arrives with what looks like a rain cover for a tent. ****
But life could be worse, I could have been born a native man, with so much strife and too much to lose in one hand. And life makes us release that one hand and we lose everything.
I haven’t lost everything because unlike a man, I am a woman and I have nothing.
I am nothing until a gaze from the eye of guy strides straight unto my cheekbones. I will look up with scarcity and not know what
to do. I do not know what to do with such a gaze because I do not desire this.
Seventh grade is when I realized I do not have the body of woman. My father did not directly say this to my face but implied it with cases of slim fast and diet pills. I could always be more beautiful. I am not a doll.
However, my mother always made me homemade cinnamon rolls with the most delicate made frosted icing. Her tomato soup gave me a certain gaze toward her which was love and affection. She was all I wanted to be. A soft soul who gave me everything I needed, love.
She thought, I was too thin. I needed more food, you’re too skinny, she would say.
For the next twenty years, I still did not understand when I was too much or too little. I was never in Hozho because I was always being pulled between opposite ends between everyone’s mouths but my own.
One day, I will be enough.
When I speak about it now I put things ... to you
Maybe I've been dismayed
Maybe that's the truth
We're like the roses
There is no misery
In the time we grew wild
When I look out the door I know what it's there for To leave or to come back
Safe in the morning
Safe me ...
Roaming too late Suddenly I fall dear
In the time we grew wild -Hope Sandoval and the warm inventions
3 grrrls from N. Country Part I
after Bob Dylan’s Girl from North Country
If you’re travelin to North Country dread Where the winds hit heavy on the Red
I wonder if they remember me at all Many times, I’ve often thought
In the dawn of my morning
In the sleepy sun of my evening eye
It all becomes clichéd memoir and scribbled journal entries
A doused liver dances in midnight mixes
Eyes swell Into a sweaty toe of a hindrance
Glory, guts, and punk three Diné girls singing the anti-american dream
into Mother Mountain’s lighting ear she hears our spirits in this back-country sky
Our torpid spirits teether bottle caps & laugh into violent liquid
Death is at every corner but we don’t know it so, we listen to music about it
Silent woes hide in the sands of internal suffocation Gives way to choked seeds
How silly to be an age of any kind
Mind mumps
Viral thoughts of the minds past
If you’re travelin to North Country dread
Where the winds hit heavy on the Red
If you go when the snowflakes fall When the sky deepens, and the snow is tall Please see for me, they are wearing a coat so warm To keep them from the deathly wind
I wonder if they remember me at all Many times, I’ve often thought
Remember me for they were once true loves of mine
3 grrrls from N. Country Part III
Some of us wanted to die some of us didn’t think we were worthy of a single kiss, a hand to hold
Some of us were ready to tear our pants off in the glory of the anti-american dream
Either way, we all wanted love in those dirty, puke covered coves
A brown girl to woman even if she is far before her years
Our cheeks hold up these sacred mountains even if we are misfits crying to clouds, to release us from this small-town hell
Release us from this little well of wishing Release us from this school
Where three girls from the North Country would meet next to my locker next Mr. Blackgoat’s Navajo classroom where we failed our tongues
Release me from this memory of how life was Nizhónígo Iiná with Three Girls from the North Country
Release me from this life of mourn of Three Girls from the North Country
Release me from knowing our wild ways
Tell me not to miss this.
Sometimes we need to bleed to heal
My spirit almost bled out at 15
Three years before
Time prescribed me clinically depressed
Colonization called me off track
Listless Languid Lost
At sixteen my Diné language teacher
Used to ask about my spirit
While I sat in hallways with purple hair
And crimson lined eyes
At eighteen my father
Lectured me about God
When I did not know how to get out of bed
Some days it was the hangovers curtailing my stoical maladies
Some days it was the broken spirit trying to piece herself back together
At twenty-two every Saturday my spirit would go on vacation
my self-medication nights
Beer, belches and bawls
I thought a good drunk cry was my medication
Let the body release what I don’t know how to control
I don’t know what I’m crying for
But maybe the body remembers, I thought
I always wondered how I got my spirit back
When I go home
I have survivors guilt
This was me
I recognize with bottles in their hands
This was me
Pleading for someone to listen
This was me
Wishing for the world
In a world where are there are too many hands
Fingers and bone
Wanting the world
Then I remember I left
I traveled I sought medicines
In form of prescribed pill
I sought plants and people
I fought bigots I would have been too chickenshit to stand up to
In my small town
I read book about pieces of me
I sat in ceremony I took classes on compassion I embarrassed myself on drunken nights I stopped drinking the night I lied to him I learned to plant the broken parts of me
And I found him in my garden
We pulled the weeds and watered the scorched sand The coolness of the water quenched the spirit in me
It told me not to be afraid
Do not bleed out
Because the wound of your garden
Has always known to be gentle
Gashes need a gentle hand
Just like the genial of the world
They are the water~
How does brown girl?
How does brown girl save herself? Through books? Makeup?
How does brown girl empower herself? By master-bating? Educating?
How does brown girl free herself? With a CIB? Invoicing her brown labor?
How does brown girl love herself? By taking herself to art galleries? By honeymoons in planes?
How does brown girl love in her body? By crying at her father’s undying feet? By letting her sleep overtime?
How does brown girl travel through this world? With a suitcase full of words and woes
I’m fighting something without a fighter fist
