The Heartbeat of City College
THE HEARTBEAT OF CITY COLLEGE
after Malinda Seneviratne’s “The Heartbeat of My Country”
The heartbeat of City College pounds the pavement
from Balboa Park BART station uphill to the Science Building
then down to the MUB and later
up the circle to the library before it closes at 2:45 on Friday afternoon.
The heartbeat of City College is the eighteen-year old
who always felt hated by school,
who comes to class on the first day,
with a swagger that betrays fear,
but he sees himself in the faces of his classmates
and comes back the next day and the next.
The heartbeat of City College
is the thirty-year old who works at a nightclub until
three in the morning and then makes it to math class
at nine.
The heartbeat of City College
is the immigrant grandma who takes non-credit English classes
at Chinatown Campus
and everyday tells you something new,
How are you, I am fine.
I tell you story…
Then she passes her citizenship test
and votes for the next mayor and the next president.
The heartbeat of City College
is solving for x and y and mapping points on a graph
long after you’d shut down the numbers inside you
because you thought you couldn’t do math.
The heartbeat of City college
is the high school graduate who took six AP classes
and got admitted to UC Davis but then his father
had a heart attack so he comes here instead,
so he can be home with his family every evening.
The heartbeat of City College
is the 50-year old carpenter who fell from a ladder
and needs a new career, who comes to English class
and reads an entire book for the very first time
and pours out his passion in a research paper
about gentrification.
The heartbeat of City College radiates
energy over Twin Peaks,
northwest to Pacific Heights,
southeast to the Bayview, outwards to Ocean Beach,
and inwards to Mission Bay.
The heartbeat of City College
is a daily journey from Antioch
because the city rents are too high
but you need to be here because you’re from here.
You need to feel the city pulse
and see the rainbow of brown faces
in your classrooms and hear the symphony
of global accents and dialects,
the echo of the neighborhood that once was.
And you know you are lucky,
because one classmate lives in a car,
and another slept on a campus bench last night,
but still they come to class, because it
makes them feel hopeful, alive, and smart.
The heartbeat of City College
is the refugee from Yemen whose high school transcript
along with her school was blown up in the proxy war,
who rides MUNI every day through
the stares and glares at the scarf on her head,
as she checks her phone for news from home,
and she walks into the classroom because
her education is all she has.
The heartbeat of City College
is the woman living with chronic illness
who drives out to Fort Mason Campus
to dig her hands into wet clay,
molding it into beautiful things.
The heartbeat of City College
is the mother from the Pit River Reservation
who tells her people’s origin story
in English class and writes an essay comparing
it to the Epic of Gilgamesh.
The heartbeat of City College
is the retired engineer
who always wanted to paint,
who comes to study oil painting, watercolors,
then art history, then Spanish because
her grandson is learning Spanish in kindergarten.
The heartbeat of City College
is the artist who had a stroke
who boards the bus with his adaptive scooter
and rides to John Adams Campus
where he trains his right hand to paint again,
and with his hand, colors emerge from
the grey fog inside his mind .
The heartbeat of City College
is the janitor who cleans the classrooms
after the last night class,
who is a student too, and
arranges his work hours
so he can attend English class in the day.
The heartbeat of City College
lands heavy and broken
after a massacre at a school, a prayer hall, a shopping center,
and we all want to hide away,
but we come to class anyway
because we know we will look into
each other’s faces and find someone
who looks back at us and knows our pain.
The heartbeat of City College
is the dentist who retired early
because the job was killing him,
who learns to love flowers, and arranges them in displays
for a reception at the fancy private school
his daughter attends,
where he tells everyone how the flowers and City College have saved his life.
The heartbeat of City College
is the single mother who left an abusive man,
who creates a soft space for her children,
who seeks out a caregiver, goes to work,
then says yes to herself every day
when she enters the classroom.
The heartbeat of City College
are the stories that come together
in the classrooms and hallways,
stories of border crossings, hate crimes, police brutality, sexual assault,
loved ones murdered, legacies of generational trauma,
and we listen,
and we don’t flinch
because in each story we hear our own voice.
The heartbeat of City College
is repeating a class and repeating it again
and feeling discouraged and wanting to quit,
and you sit with a tutor in the lab and
try one problem again and again,
and then you get it. Algebra starts to make sense,
and it’s actually a little bit fun.
The heartbeat of City College is strong
when people tell you that you are not Stanford,
why should we listen to you?
And you say we are here,
and we’ve lived things, and we know things,
and we can read and write and analyze,
so listen!
The heartbeat of City College
is the overeducated professor,
who was offered a university job in Kansas,
but wants to live here,
who talks like a peer-reviewed journal
but learns to listen to the languages in his classroom,
and changes the way he talks
to make physics playful again.
The heartbeat of City College
is the professor who took ten years to get her masters degree
though illness, parenting, and work,
and finally gets the job she loves, even if it’s part time.
Spends day and night thinking, worrying, planning,
only for the job to be taken away.
And still she comes back
because she refuses to work at a job she doesn’t love.
The heartbeat of City College
is a fusion of food cultures at Chef’s Table
spicy hot, salty sweet—
hailing from five continents.
Elegant tables masking the joyful sweaty chaos
of the kitchen.
The heartbeat of City College
is the Rams Market food pantry
to feed our bodies, brains, and souls,
because we know we can’t
change the world on an empty stomach.
The heartbeat of City College
is the transgender student from Sweden
who also has autism,
who stands up at the Board of Trustees meeting
and tells them to keep the diversity classes
and not put them online,
that in these classes
we find community and become strong
in an era of hate.
The heartbeat of City College
is the Latina student who joins Vasa
and learns to dance Oceana dances,
feels the fluidity in her body,
connecting one community to another.
The heartbeat of City College
is Sanctuary,
affirming our right to exist in our pronouns,
our clothes, our faith, our languages,
our names pronounced correctly,
our skin, our hair,
and all the history coursing through our veins.
The heartbeat of City College is
commencement in the stadium,
all flowers and balloons,
and cries of joy from the villages that raised you
resonating upwards into the sky.
The heartbeat of City College is a living breathing thing,
a soft thing with feathers,
fierce at its core,
shining with a light so bright
it blinds us of everything else.
It cannot be defined, stenciled, and colored within the lines.
It cannot be put in a box, covered in shiny paper and tied with a ribbon.
It cannot be bargained over and sold to the highest bidder.
The heartbeat of City College
is unruly like this poem
it will not sit down and do as it’s told.
It is impatient and full of ideas flying in all directions.
The heartbeat of City College
is ready
to shake things up
with hands, hearts, words,
numbers, investigation,
and imagination.
The heartbeat of City College
is you, is me, is us,
and it is our best hope
for a new day.
Forum Magazine 