Christian Hanz Lozada’s (he/him) near-accolades include two Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominations, runner up in the table//FEAST Blossom Contest for BIPOC writers. He wrote the poetry collection He’s a Color, Until He’s Not. His poetry has been published worldwide, including in Bamboo Ridge, Cordite Poetry Review, and Emerson Review. Christian has featured at the Autry Museum and Beyond Baroque. He lives in San Pedro, CA and uses his MFA to teach his neighbors and their kids at Los Angeles Harbor College.
Flip
With quick fingertips, flip, my cousins and I turned tortillas, warmed on the stove at the highest heat possible until, flip, that moment before the burn and the flame because youth knows nothing about degrees. Flip. Each delayed flip was an attempt to take all the heat, flip, grow from it like a test. That’s how they did it, flip, our aunties, mothers, and grandmothers. Flip and ignore the fire as if pain was unimportant. Time cools all burns even if the heat stays high, flip, and I’ve flipped the script at this computer, my fingertips uncalloused and soft but less feeling and sure. They seem to split and scar nonsensically in a stiff breeze. Flip, I have become what those aunties and mothers wanted, flip, but unable to hold onto the important with this padded grip. In the practice to become our idols, flip, we forget about wisdom and miss the exchange between one thing and another is the place for friction and heat, flip, or maybe it’s the home of growth and loss.
blending is a survival mechanism
the kids practice short hill bombs on our steep street their scooter’s wheels clack and thump over sidewalk cracks acceleration comes quick / starting at my driveway the boy repeats oh shit / oh shit / oh shit every pass as his parents grill on their balcony— ear-shot but stoned / and I try to work with a window open and wish for time to old-man-with-lawn or the opportunity to teach these kids how to get away with something on the sly like forbidden words / the dangerous / respecting the game