Los Angeles icon Mike Sonksen, professor, poet, historian, and journalist, has inspired countless people, especially young writers who he has come across over the years teaching high school and college classes, and at open mics all over the city. Cultural Daily has been a proud partner in working with Mike to publish his curated columns …
School City I sit here looking at the bright lights of the city knowing that I don’t belong here yet a little piece of me wants to belong here I want to try to fit in but there’s no way of me fitting in anywhere that I’m not wanted it’s really hard sometimes when you know …
NEW LENS I LAY THERE NAKED BLISSFULLY IGNORANT HEARING THE HELPLESS LAUGHTER SEEING THE UNCONTROLLABLE SMILES AND THE GRINS THAT EXTENDED FROM CHEEK TO CHEEK I SAT THERE SEMI CLOTHED FEELING THE WIND CARESS MY HALF NAKED BODY SEEING EVERYONE STANDING TOGETHER AS ONE HEARING THE BIRDS AND THE CHOIR HARMONIZING ALL AT ONCE I …
Too Much of Myself response to Whitman’s “Song of Myself” I exist as I am, that is enough You will no longer reduce me to tears Because your weak ego Cannot handle my greatness. I shall cry waterfalls today And then laugh powerful soundwaves tomorrow Because I value my happiness more than my pain While …
Brown-Girl Holocaust Word on the street: Are you legal or illegal? They will look at our brown skin ask if we have papers I am a couple years younger than Ann Frank when she wrote about her life during World War II, the Holocaust In World War III, there will not be little girls’ memories …
The day he got rear ended in ’94 changed his entire life. He broke his neck and from there he slowly got sicker and sicker. When he was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver, we knew it was bad. We didn’t think it would turn out the way it did. We never thought for a moment …
It is a great pleasure to share the work of a young man who I have mentored since his Sophomore year. I am proud to see that his poems capture his serious, yet hopeful spirit. Michael Bearden has been a lead member of The Modern Poets and Composer’s Club (MPC), the Loyola High School club …
We are fully a part of our world. Who we are, why we belong, All of us, united through nature. Perceive relation & create compassion. Who we are, why we belong, how we exist, our questions Perceive relation & create compassion. Sculpting our union with our world How we exist, our questions Realization of pain …
Solitude is defined as the absence of human activity. It is also defined as a remote or uninhabited place. This is the fence between alone and lonely I struggle climbing over. I sit on top, Humpty Dumpty towards the ground. A cracked eggshell people carelessly stepped on. I was broken. Solitude became four white walls …
If I had to name a time when I felt I had grown with full certainty, it would be when my father passed away and left my mother, sister and I alone several years ago. I was just a random high school kid who hadn’t even turned sixteen yet and I was suddenly man of …
Marvin Estrada: “The Responsibilities of a Mere Mortal” Read More »
To the Weeds in My Garden I saw a girl wear a mask of my face the other day She changed almost nothing, simply shrunk the nose and called it her own I thought it was a compliment until her friends joined in but still said I couldn’t sit with them That’s when I questioned …
When I heard Rudy Francisco say “my heart still searches for you without my permission” he was speaking for me. Times like this, I don’t know how to speak for myself. As far as my heart goes, it searches for you in the desolate quiet corners sitting still, and folded over it still lingers, in …
Unspoken Truths People’s cry for help wishing someone would hear Hungry for someone to truly listen Afraid of sounding crazy Silenced by their inner-hate self love is non-existent How do you express something you’ve never felt? Relying on others for constant reassurance That they are important That they matter The voices in their heads much …
Vitiligo You’re a brown girl turning white My pigment is lost in most areas of my skin I’ve let myself be consumed by one color When in reality there are millions I find beauty in everyday I’m not a brown girl turning white I’m the red, the green with the beautiful bronze eagle killing the …
Yellow Adam lodged himself in their throats making it difficult to speak of existence as Masculinity prevented colors from projecting through my iris in this environment politicians politic on our privates but profit off their fetishization because we’re seen as “exotic” with one click away you can hear the ashes of caged birds moan freedom …
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