Our California:

Poems from San Francisco County

California Dreaming

By Anika Basudkar (8th Grade)

I step outside,
To find snow and rain,
All the colors vanish,
Leaving it white and plane,


I want to
Live,
I want to Laugh,
I want to be free,


Instead, I’m packed up,
In this cold winter storm,
In a city, I must not truly know,
For I just got here,
For I got hit with the winter's glow,


Instead, I’m guilty,
For I had to flee,
I had to flee from California's glee,


Oh California dreaming,
I’m dreaming every day,
Dreaming of the warm summer sun,
Dreaming of joy without rain,


Oh California dreaming,
I’m dreaming every day,
Dreaming of the outside world, not in black and white,
Dreaming of the perfect sway, like seagulls on their way,


Oh California dreaming,
I’m dreaming every day,
Dreaming of the beach and the water's shore,
And not the cold snow,
Dreaming of the warm winter sun,
Not Lake Tahoe,


Oh California dreaming,
I’m dreaming every day,
Dreaming of the six-lane highway,
Dreaming of a community that once was mine,
Dreaming of the life I gave up on that time,


I’m guilty,
For I had to flee,
I had to flee from California's glee,


Oh California dreaming,


I’m dreaming every day,


Dreaming of the long car rides,
Dreaming of SanDiego and the dolphins beat,
All the way to San Francisco and its Lombard Street,
Dreaming of the Golden Gate Bridge,
Rusted, but brings back great memories,


I’ve been California dreaming for a long time,
I thought California would be mine,
And time flys,
Although I need to learn to adapt this time,
Now, I need to learn how to make Pennsylvania mine.

Che

By Anna Nguyen

Vietnamese che ba mau on the seat of my mom’s Rav 4
The sun flickers in through the car windows
Sweet red beans on her shirt and seatbelt

Coconut milk laughter drips
past the mamey agua frescas at the Vallarta Supermarket
past the Noguchi Gardens where I broke a boy’s heart,
and the Disneyland fireworks from Aunt Diana’s house.

My Orange County is Little Saigon.
Beautiful women with long black hair and
Intergenerational trauma
Wrinkled men gambling outside the coffee shop
Cigarette smoke and the Vietnam War embedded into their clothing.

Seafood Cove #2 for every holiday
Chinese clams
with mint leaf sauce over rice,
House special fish filet
eaten family style
Ladle the sauce over your rice, but
don’t eat too much rice.
It makes you fat.

The amount of rice left in your bowl
is the amount of pock marks on your future husband.
Finish your com tom thit nuong.
Clean bowls
Bowl cuts

The perpetual heat of Southern California
clings to my grandfather’s back.
The Orange County Library shirt plastered to his chest from the sweat
Cigarette rampage in Cantonese through the cluttered house about stolen brick a brack

The barks of the scruffy neighborhood dogs
melt into the summer dry heat
The Santa Anas
threaten brush fires on the Silverleaf.

Untitled

By Amaya Tawasha Diwan (High School Freshman)

My San Francisco knows no joy
Whispering, melancholy fog evokes elusive tears from struggling eyes
The harsh kiss of the wind roughly entangles its fingers in unsuspecting hair
Damp rubber soles slap cracked pavement in the muddy haze of fluorescent light
While weeping homeless people clutch trash bags as police herd them towards elsewhere
Music pulses through the isolating headphones crammed in ears meant to breathe
My San Francisco knows no seasons
An icy March precedes April’s gentle tears
The hot October air compresses lungs like a firm embrace from a distant family member
“I haven’t seen you since you were five! You’ve grown so much!”
My San Francisco knows no age
Old women pushed down stairs on buses
Homeless children huddled outside of a Safeway in the dark
Their rounded, aching eyes sweep passing grocery bags while faceless strangers deny them dimes
My San Francisco knows no silence
A raging night club across the street thunders with EDM and sways with rhythmless bodies
Slurred voices outside the window wail “I love you” and puke on trees dogs are yanked from the next morning
The clatter of litter and needles fumbled by drug addicts in the playground
Returned to the past to search for an answer to their current existence
Finding nothing but the mere quarrels of children over technicalities of hide-and-seek
Suspicious flocks of parents shepherding their children to the car
My San Francisco has no heart
Easily found ten year olds clutch vapes in graffitied stalls puffing away on drugs passed down from wanna-be teenage gangsters
Black and brown skin so colored by prejudice the ink is gone
Heavy hips hold the burden of catcalls and hypersexualization
In a society that prizes vulgarity
My San Francisco is filled with lost things
Spools of silver thread
Loved, decrepit childhood momentums
Seventy five year old tarnished keys
Broken souls who ride the M train at one in the morning
“Castro Station.”
“Forest Hill Station.”
On
And on
And on.