Pepper Houses
This is a response to "The House on Mango Street" for a literature class I'm currently taking. We were asked to write our own version: The House on ______ Street. This is what I came up with. (Note: this is meant to be "spoken" rather than read)
Pepper Houses
The pyramid shapes in the smokey distance--not smoke, sand
Not settled, hovering in the air.
And the Nile river, you just want to jump in cause
the heat is so unbearable here.
You know, it rains once a year, and when it does people crowd in the streets to witness it like
some miracle.
I miss the rain here, I miss home.
Still heat when I'm in Mexcio.
The damn parrot can't say my name so
I swim and swim until I get wrinkled and lonely,
but my dad says I'm like a mermaid so I'm happy.
Enchiladas with green salsa
The maid and her daughter here they are
but not me.
I live here but,
I'm not home.
Then tile in Texas,
the dog's nails make little noises like clicking,
like impatience.
Or treehouses, telling stories
Tea parties in this house
thats temporary,
that isn't my home.
But I like swimming in the front yard when it floods
I hide under the dark water and no one can find me there.
They're all like pepper--all the same.
Not a whole memory,
pepper memories, pepper houses
Or sesame...
Like Lebanon
The honking on the streets of Beirut,
people everywhere,
you can smell things here
and feel them
Like the Mediterranean,
Or the cool marble floor of the Veranda
and the moon that seems so close,
like it wants to talk back to me
but it can't
because I have to leave soon,
I have to go home.
Now Max.
Black beard, black eyes,
like a calm ocean
That i can swim in
the long lashes that flutter against my cheek
and I feel it
I know it now,
that i'm home.
Pepper Houses
The pyramid shapes in the smokey distance--not smoke, sand
Not settled, hovering in the air.
And the Nile river, you just want to jump in cause
the heat is so unbearable here.
You know, it rains once a year, and when it does people crowd in the streets to witness it like
some miracle.
I miss the rain here, I miss home.
Still heat when I'm in Mexcio.
The damn parrot can't say my name so
I swim and swim until I get wrinkled and lonely,
but my dad says I'm like a mermaid so I'm happy.
Enchiladas with green salsa
The maid and her daughter here they are
but not me.
I live here but,
I'm not home.
Then tile in Texas,
the dog's nails make little noises like clicking,
like impatience.
Or treehouses, telling stories
Tea parties in this house
thats temporary,
that isn't my home.
But I like swimming in the front yard when it floods
I hide under the dark water and no one can find me there.
They're all like pepper--all the same.
Not a whole memory,
pepper memories, pepper houses
Or sesame...
Like Lebanon
The honking on the streets of Beirut,
people everywhere,
you can smell things here
and feel them
Like the Mediterranean,
Or the cool marble floor of the Veranda
and the moon that seems so close,
like it wants to talk back to me
but it can't
because I have to leave soon,
I have to go home.
Now Max.
Black beard, black eyes,
like a calm ocean
That i can swim in
the long lashes that flutter against my cheek
and I feel it
I know it now,
that i'm home.