We are glad to finally provide a new BW blog post! We had a busy 2011 with two Summer programs running (Santa Ana, CA and Austin, TX) but we are still trying hard to keep up with our website and upcoming books! Next update will include a re-vamped website and information on our upcoming publications of Barrio Writers 2nd and 3rd Editions! We are very proud to publish Daniel's following piece, enjoy and please give us your feedback!
 |
| Daniel Farias, Summer 2009 & 2010 Barrio Writer |
Daniel Farias was born on January 23, 1993 to Mexican immigrant parents. He graduated from Rancho Alamitos High School in 2011 and currently goes to Fullerton College. He’s older than he once was and younger than he’ll be and that’s not unusual. At the moment he’s lost, but in a couple of years he hopes he’ll have the joy to read this and laugh, not out of self-deprecation, but just to see how far he’s come along.
Streetlight Villain
Step on to the orange path start your stroll your eyes our drawn down you think of what was you grab the roots and you trace yourself to your notch on the trunk
You are now at what is before you are cookie cutter houses with sloping roofs and lanterns in their driveways in each one of them a neon bible a box of farces to make your eyes milky and to roast your senses
Ahead is an elementary school on the wall of the cafeteria there is stale, stark uniformity engulfing the school you don’t like it
You look up at what can be there are few stars and among them gargantuan figures watchtowers and mountains and every other step these figures are interrupted by none other than the pervasive streetlights
What makes these things glow they hurt your eyes can’t take too much of it so you look past it at the stars and the figures larger than life
Your face is strained your vision is squinted and there’s a grimace on your mouth you try to look into what’s in front of you and past what’s above you it’s embattling and it takes its toll and it claims a casualty not you thankfully but the streetlight it goes out
You curtail your steps your eyes perk wide open and you lift your hands absurdly and with the greatest conviction and the greatest sense of victory you yell out triumphantly “You went out just for me”
Then the déjà vu hits you don’t remember where it’s from maybe it was a foreboding dream or an ominous hallucination but it was clear
Four streetlights and one bad bad being shattering all of them as he went on towards you you felt the adrenaline surge and your heart beat increase and when he or she got to the fourth there was darkness and nothing more
You can’t explain it it’s hard difficult but you feel it you have now been christened you are like him or her congratulations you are a streetlight villain
Not an unfortunate thug with unfortunate intentions but a ramblin’ shamblin’ man looking for that lost highway
You take after the weeds that bounce on the gritty grains of sand from the ole lands of the boundless and the bounties of lonesomeness where it was accepted and romanticized and reigned supreme
There’s depth to you you value your bottomless pit you suck everything inside and it never really leaves does it it haunts you and people can see it they don’t cross the street in the dark to avoid you because of your hulking figure no they do it because you speak in riddles, stutters, gibberish, garbles, and literary devices
Your hands are still spread out foolishly you can see now see the stars and they’re beautiful “We need to go out there” you say you point “You want your energy there it is”
And you decree “I’ll take everyone, anyone willing to come we’ll cruise around the stars, play chicken with black holes look for homeostasis organization metabolism growth adaptation response to stimuli and reproduction and we’ll venture create and expand I’ll take them all I’ll take them all around the fucking universe”
So streetlight villains move it forward the mountains have crumbled to the see but there’s a man who may have proved this is the land of the free theses events define you and you must learn from them
You may smoke the crackpot from pipe dream but you’re working on it the goal is to make the grand realistic but you got to get a move on you can’t spend your time tracing the drinking gorge you got to give them a reason you got to give a reason for those streetlights to go out
There is a siren that sounds when the sun goes down and twilight turns the clouds a shade of peach and Venus sparkles just above the horizon like any other star so close so close yet so far out of reach
It all calls for you beckons you to come hither out of your shell to bear witness to the heavenly panorama it leads you out by the hand like an infant and you see Venus in all its glory the brightest mote in a spectrum of violets and blues
The sight of the planet makes you giddy the butterflies flee from your mouth and float off into the vast expanse their color the same as the clouds and immediately you remember them and their presence overshadows that of the celestial body
The great canvas in the sky is only temporary though the clouds lose their hue the blood leaves their cheeks and they turn mortal gray the light recedes over the horizon and the world grows dark
But vision and security is quickly spared the iron stocks that jut from the concrete they glow dutifully the night itself has ushered in the reign of the streetlights
The phoenix or Jesus Christ dies over the horizon the streetlights spread asunder their stark, stale uniformity upon the walks and roads and a path is lit for you
It is recommended you do not take it but its there for your convenience you cannot resist it there is something about the void that makes the blood boil in you cheeks and your fingers tingle
You do not know what fiends are out there and what schemes they are concocting in the shadows and the nooks at that moment a fifty-six year old howl echoes through the night the abyss stares back but what exactly is the abyss disregard it buy the ticket take the ride why not wander
It all calls for you beckons you to come hither out of your shell to bear witness to the heavenly panorama it leads you out by the hand like an infant and you see Venus in all its glory the brightest mote in a spectrum of violets and blues
The sight of the planet makes you giddy the butterflies flee from your mouth and float off into the vast expanse their color the same as the clouds and immediately you remember them and their presence overshadows that of the celestial body
The great canvas in the sky is only temporary though the clouds lose their hue the blood leaves their cheeks and they turn mortal gray the light recedes over the horizon and the world grows dark
But vision and security is quickly spared the iron stocks that jut from the concrete they glow dutifully the night itself has ushered in the reign of the streetlights
The phoenix or Jesus Christ dies over the horizon the streetlights spread asunder their stark, stale uniformity upon the walks and roads and a path is lit for you
It is recommended you do not take it but its there for your convenience you cannot resist it there is something about the void that makes the blood boil in you cheeks and your fingers tingle
You do not know what fiends are out there and what schemes they are concocting in the shadows and the nooks at that moment a fifty-six year old howl echoes through the night the abyss stares back but what exactly is the abyss disregard it buy the ticket take the ride why not wander
Step on to the orange path start your stroll your eyes our drawn down you think of what was you grab the roots and you trace yourself to your notch on the trunk
You are now at what is before you are cookie cutter houses with sloping roofs and lanterns in their driveways in each one of them a neon bible a box of farces to make your eyes milky and to roast your senses
Ahead is an elementary school on the wall of the cafeteria there is stale, stark uniformity engulfing the school you don’t like it
You look up at what can be there are few stars and among them gargantuan figures watchtowers and mountains and every other step these figures are interrupted by none other than the pervasive streetlights
What makes these things glow they hurt your eyes can’t take too much of it so you look past it at the stars and the figures larger than life
Your face is strained your vision is squinted and there’s a grimace on your mouth you try to look into what’s in front of you and past what’s above you it’s embattling and it takes its toll and it claims a casualty not you thankfully but the streetlight it goes out
You curtail your steps your eyes perk wide open and you lift your hands absurdly and with the greatest conviction and the greatest sense of victory you yell out triumphantly “You went out just for me”
Then the déjà vu hits you don’t remember where it’s from maybe it was a foreboding dream or an ominous hallucination but it was clear
Four streetlights and one bad bad being shattering all of them as he went on towards you you felt the adrenaline surge and your heart beat increase and when he or she got to the fourth there was darkness and nothing more
You can’t explain it it’s hard difficult but you feel it you have now been christened you are like him or her congratulations you are a streetlight villain
Not an unfortunate thug with unfortunate intentions but a ramblin’ shamblin’ man looking for that lost highway
You take after the weeds that bounce on the gritty grains of sand from the ole lands of the boundless and the bounties of lonesomeness where it was accepted and romanticized and reigned supreme
There’s depth to you you value your bottomless pit you suck everything inside and it never really leaves does it it haunts you and people can see it they don’t cross the street in the dark to avoid you because of your hulking figure no they do it because you speak in riddles, stutters, gibberish, garbles, and literary devices
Your hands are still spread out foolishly you can see now see the stars and they’re beautiful “We need to go out there” you say you point “You want your energy there it is”
And you decree “I’ll take everyone, anyone willing to come we’ll cruise around the stars, play chicken with black holes look for homeostasis organization metabolism growth adaptation response to stimuli and reproduction and we’ll venture create and expand I’ll take them all I’ll take them all around the fucking universe”
So streetlight villains move it forward the mountains have crumbled to the see but there’s a man who may have proved this is the land of the free theses events define you and you must learn from them
You may smoke the crackpot from pipe dream but you’re working on it the goal is to make the grand realistic but you got to get a move on you can’t spend your time tracing the drinking gorge you got to give them a reason you got to give a reason for those streetlights to go out