TROYOSAKI

Poetry

In the past, I’ve been apprehensive about posting my written poetry and having people read my personal stories stripped of performance and slam.  However, after coming home from New York and listening to poets and teams share their experiences of vulnerability and triumph I’ve been inspired to start posting more of my pieces.  CUPSI (College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational) 2013 had its ups and downs but I’m thankful for the courageous poets I was able to listen to, meet, and share the stage with.  With that said, the poetry is on deck!

Slaughterhouse

Friday night parties
and Old English bottles
bathe boys in power
butchers

We wear patriarchy
as conquest
and privilege
like an apron

so as to never stain ourselves
with the blood of women

It is the destruction
in our words
we have been taught
since birth

From our voice boxes
spilling the chorus
of sexist hip-hop tracks
into our anthems

Laughing to the rhythm
of reference
in how much
head we receive
when we freestyle

To me and my friends
who’s only way to speak about girls
is through the size
of their breasts

verbally undressing
the fullness
of their frames

It is in the way
we crave them
disposable

When we talk to women
we become slaughterhouses
they are meat
to be mutilated
by our kitchen knife hands
hips hacked
to pieces

We constrain girls’ legs
like young cattle
keep them limber
they do not need to walk
to taste good
we just want them
on their knees

We hang women’s spirits
on hooks
in freezers
where they swing
from side to side
so they can never
move forward

We replace respect
with pet names

Bitch
Hoe
Baby

Gutting their figures
with guillotine vocal chords

It is our language
that gnaws
on bones
breaking us off
every time we batter
their bodies
with shattering slang

our words
leave them broken
hollow
crawling for any scrap
of dignity
we haven’t sawed off
with jagged teeth

No wonder
girls learn
to swallow
so young

It’s hard
to teach boys
to become good men
when we applaud
half naked bodies
with orgasms
salivating for the split
of open legs

There are times
I forget
where I come from
that every woman
I degrade
is someone’s daughter

Women are not meat
processed
or ready for purchase

This world
is not an industry
to be owned

I’m sorry
for every serrated sentence
I have ever carved
into your skin

crumbling your spirits
with my own insecurities
never owning up
to any of my mistakes
or holding other men
responsible for theirs

I’ll wipe the blood
from these blades
and hang up these words
for good

25th Annual ASC Talent Show

So much thanks to everyone who supported Nicole Masangkay and I at the 25th Annual Asian Student Commission Talent Show and helped us win $500 for the Filipino American Student Association. I was so moved by all the love and felt hella lucky to be able to share the stage with all of the incredible performers. Shout out to Fasa Sa UW for letting us rep! Thank you!

Joy

Joy is learning to be the only burning candle in the room. I’m learning to burn my own joy. Let my laughter be the crackle of a lit match in a city of bones swallowed by power outage. - Gibson Collins and Troy Osaki (Inspired by Alysia Harris)

Questions I Ask Myself When Someone Dies

Do you hold onto your last breath like lake water inside a mason jar?  Your mouth a reservoir barricading fright beneath your throat.  Or do your lungs release air from your chest like freshwater parting your lips?  Do you taste cold currents when you die?  Is death a rush?  Or do you lay still like untouched waters?

Questions about Death

When you passed away the stars dangled like a ceiling of chandeliers. I wonder, did your skeleton blush in embarrassment not knowing how to slow dance without any sort of spinal chord to hold onto? Is death a ballroom you were nervous to prepare for?