Remembering Silly Me: Uno

When I was in 7th grade, I received anonymous threats in my locker. I never really knew who left them, but I always had my suspicions. Upon retrospect, the notes were actually really lame, but when you're 12 years old and someone wants you dead, it kind of gets to you. They also left graphic manifestations of their ill wishes in the form of stick figures with X's over their eyes and little pools of blood under their stick arms. I didn't say anything immediately, but after the third note or so I felt I had to tell the teacher. She suggested I wrote the following message on the chalkboard for all to read: "How can I help you if I don't know who you are?" My classmates didn't know what that was all about, so they all thought I was a douche. On the plus side, I never got threatened again.

One Art

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster,

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three beloved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

-- Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) a disaster.

By Elizabeth Bishop

A.M.

La saña despierta.
Burbujea en el café
a las siete de la mierda.
Casi ocho,
de camino al infierno.
[Cómo duelen los ojos
entre el sol y el sueño].
Seguimos pa'lante:
bo-QUE-te, bo-QUE-te, ¡PARA!
El alma por poco escapa.
Bocina, ¿pa' qué te quiero?
[Le tengo un nuevo aprecio].
Ya tan cerca y tan lejos,
amarilla y acelero.
Piso el suelo:
¡Gloria en el Cielo!
Llego a tiempo
y solo hay tres.

(Inspirado en hechos y sentimientos de la vida real; adornado con dramatismo y lenguaje hiperbólico).