1.30 SELF WORTH

In honor of National Poetry Month and my soon-to-be publication on 'Chicago Literary Map,' I will attempt to write a poem every day for the next thirty days. My theme for the next thirty days will be one word. Chicago. Please continue to look out for my writings. Enjoy the city that I may or may not romanticize too much about.

Below is a recent writing that I wrote and auditioned with. It is my attempt to understand musicality, transitions and the ever-changing style of slam poetry. It is meant with to be read with a voice, perhaps a mic, but above all an audience, in which, we both share time and space.

***

What is self worth?
How do I measure self worth?
In inches? In miles? In cups of coffee?
This is no seasons of love!
This is Chicago!
But I was born and bred in the Hispanic slums
of the Northwestern suburb of Wheeling-
to a dark man and pale white
Boston accent woman.
What is my self worth?
Too dark for the Cookes,
too pale white for the Matas.
I didn't speak, play Frisbee, or fit in.
Hair too long
Eye brows also too dark
But teeth
Teeth bright pale white
Costing a pretty $400,000 pennies.
<at the audition I started improving at this point>
Is this my self worth?
Tally the injuries
Tally the broken hearts
Tally the broken bones
All get you ended up in the hospital
But only those that are self inflicted do people ask. . .
Have I ever really loved someone?
Because the someone I loved
committed suicide when I
was six. Picked up and checked out.
I don't know how much funerals cost at six years old, but
self worth isn't measured in pennies then.
But I count the pennies
NOW
Because
My education is the most expensive thing I own
and no one can take it away
Only I can give it away by allowing
my self worth to admit and do and say
that it's only good enough
for a minimum wage job
I am told I am generation
X,Y,OBESE,ME but I was
before the NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND era,
But I'm still not ahead.
Is this my self worth?
I am one year older than my ATC score
I am dumb as shit!
But this is MY self worth!
So when adults and children
and fucking grandmother
ask
"What are you going to do with that degree?"
I'll scream NOTHING! Because
This isn't my self worth
I want to be a clown when I grow up
I want to laugh
in every language
and sign off key
I want to guess heads instead of tails
because I'm going
Forward
and that is all
myself is worth!


-sonja lynn mata