We used to be the joke of the city, even the joke of the league
And a long time passed before I bought a new jersey.
Brooklyn even imported a team from New Jersey
while Knicks fans held on for a team that was worthy
Of our unwavering faith, love, a city united,
But it was mostly heartbreak after getting excited.
8.5 million watching year after year, we were used to not getting there, but eventually some of the malaise subsided,
A spark hit Midtown this decade – the 2020s have seen a resurgence,
A bunch of misfit players found chemistry and built on it until it was unstoppable, perfect!
The Knicks looked like giants in the playoffs – even against Wemby – stomping out the competition, rendering the analytics worthless.
The city took notice, and 10 weeks later I cried
more than once after the last 2 games of the Finals,
I went to my first Knicks game at 8 years old at MSG –
Nothing short of a childhood dream, realized.
When OG tipped it in I could have made glass shatter the way I yelled,
I fell to my knees in my living room, because I couldn’t believe what I was seeing –
My loveable losing team, transforming into champions,
The comeback kings, with legendary stories to tell.
53 years and 8 days of Jose Alvarado living his best life later,
The team brought New York City together in a way only they can do,
I’m finally gonna buy a couple of new Knicks jerseys
as orange and blue skies reign over the 5 boroughs this June.
My mayor is Muslim
Being defeated is the not same as being behind
It doesn’t fucking matter if you’re down by 29
Thanks for making history – Knicks in 5. – RSM
Falling In Love With Creative Writing
It was some time in the first grade.
“I’ll Be Missing You”, “Don’t Speak,” and “Tearin’ Up My Heart” were some of the radio’s preferred songs of the day
while I was in my classroom, learning and playing.
We had an assignment to write a few sentences each on large index cards, to hang in the hallways on full display.
I didn’t quite know what “creative writing” meant back then, but I went hard at the task-
Finished early, my teacher gave me her approval, a smile, and I knew I had passed.
But then I sat down at my desk
And then thought of a few phrases better then the ones I used, I didn’t let it rest-
I started making edits for already finished work.
I smiled wider with each improvement I made to what I wrote.
My teacher noticed and said “Ruben, that’s great, but I need to review all the changes you make!”
Before I knew it I went back to her to approve three or four, or maybe more changes to my work,
almost running out of time while perfecting my craft.
Looking back, this was when the writer’s lightbulb went off in my head.
It felt like I was traversing the world and my mind at the same time. Still does.
If life is an ocean, this is the day I built my creative writing raft. – RSM
A Beastie Boys Sonnet
Doing the least but I go on stage LAST
No sleep ‘til Brooklyn I’m on my way NOW
Can’t pay a ticket but I still roll FAST
They read the car’s plates NOW, but don’t slow DOWN!
Intergalactic on repeat FLYIN’
To another PLACE deep in outer SPACE
Pass the Brass Monkey cuz I’m just TRYIN’
I said I felt ill my homeboys said GREAT
HATERS stay tryna sabotage my LIFE
Fighting for my right to party mad LATE
I can’t keep it down dude I’m filled with STRIFE
All of my neighbors are in bed by EIGHT
Posse in effect but we have bad KNEES
Maybe just sit around and smoke some WEED!
– RSM
Time Is Never Time At All
It’s a roller coaster that doesn’t care if you’re strapped in, no discretion.
Sankofa’s in a twist – got you upside down, speeding forward, but still looking back when
we lose our sense of direction.
Off the rails of this crazy train, it’s a chaotic scene to be in between the safety harness
and your seat –
“I wanna go again!” We flirt with danger on repeat,
we spend it for thrills, make sure we have the quality version for our loved ones,
Waste too much of it – or so we think, measure everything with it, use it to chart the stars, moon, sun;
It’s a dictator, an angry god, we all follow along to maintain, trying to not let it get away,
And we don’t even know if it’s a ‘real’ thing, or if it was just all made up one day.
Origins – a mystery if you keep digging, some say now it can fold or be like strings,
We all follow it blindly, until our nightly solace is disrupted by the songs our alarm clocks sing. – RSM
Ride The Waves
Anxiety washes away like waves
along the winding coastlines of SoCal during the day
No matter how many times I beat it, it returns
Just like how a fresh new crest of a wave re-emerges,
Eternally growing, moving, charging, crashing, repeating the cycle again,
when anxiety peaks I think of the sound of waves crashing
And try to think of things from a different lens. – RSM
Bad Bitch Part 3
Miss Independent, that’s what they call her
Heads turn wherever she goes, but none of them stall her
Whether she’s walking , running, driving away
She got time for no MAN at the end of the day
Marathon Bae out here lookin’ FIERCE
Out of your league, boo, you ain’t getting near
The Baddest Bitch alive just doin’ her thang
Got these fellas’ heads spinning like a boomerang
Timeless, ageless, this Queen can’t be stopped
So keep on killing it just like you thought! – RSM
Arm Rest Ash Trays
As a young child (as one does) I imagined quite a lot and explored with my mind and hands;
So oddly enough I became randomly enamored with empty ash trays in the arms of the backseats of old cars –
It was like discovering a little hidden pool or crawlspace in an otherwise bland landscape.
Beneath the fake wood as my mom drove us around in my grandfather’s 1970s landboat
I found a world of wonder in these mini metal trap doors originally meant for other people’s cigarettes.
They were clean and unused, though still a bad look for kids to play in –
They were (in my mind) little hot tubs, bunkers, a random place to put my fingers,
somewhere where I could put my toys as they came along for the ride.
I became fascinated by hidden ash trays, almost like an art form it felt like finding the smallest of elegant little spaces
that harked back to a time and space when the adults in the room were not only the only voices, but tobacco filled, gritty sounding voices that carried like the feeling of rubbing your palms against loose gravel.
While I learned the lyrics to ‘It Takes Two’ by Rob Base and DJ EZ Rock and my light up sneakers flickered brilliantly, I still yearned to know more about yesteryear,
and like a tiny early 90s archaeologist I always searched for the hidden compartments until I found them – the ever classy built-in ash tray; an unlikely calling card to my childhood.
They’re all but gone now, surviving only in especially well-preserved chariots of the mid to late 1900s, but for a time they were an iconic part of my world – a call to love the world for what it was; a place to explore. – RSM
Flying Toward The Sunrise on Christmas Morning
It’s been a while since I’ve spent Christmas in The Bronx,
but when I stroll back in and take my coat off, I feel lost within the familiar.
My oldest memories, just me and la familia –
Throwing miniature present ornaments into the tree and seeing where they land,
Decorating our tree as well as hula hoops with lights to make a wreath
to hang out on our balcony, and from the streets beneath
it made such a grand stand in the sky, burning bright for blocks, our Christmas parties were rockin’,
Sega Genesis and N64 games stuffed in our stockings,
The adults drank coquito and danced the night away –
And as the sun shines today onto my airplane’s windows, I can’t help but feel some kind of way.
As the world evolved and revolved we resolved each year
To persevere – through the dark times and the bright ones too, to spread cheer,
Whether it’s toys, new floors, or new iPods,
what’s always mattered more are memories
made, mainly a mix of family, friends, food,
laughs, and smiles on Christmas Day. – RSM
The Great Nothing
A violent storm brews on a sunny day, internally,
a disconnect between the thoughts I think and the world I see,
the great nothing attacks with calculated poignancy
and a million little no ones have their fingers pointed back towards me.
A lot of names it goes by, the DSM gives it definitions galore,
an idle mind be wildin’ out, creating fake,
demonic children running around my inner self’s candy store –
breaking down all the shelves, they’re giving the clerk hell,
until I restart my mind it all subsides, this grand swell
of my mind’s river finally dies down. Sometimes it takes a nanosecond,
other times the inner storm rages all day, and I just gotta lie down.
Nothing motivational here, just an expression of
my thoughts, breakdancing sideways, inside of a closed confessional,
chaotic combinations coming to crux with the pressure from
not the atmosphere, but reality/society/these phantom obsessions, bro. – RSM
Periwinkle Skies; A Sign
A light purple, if you will,
So trill, the hue of royalty hangs itself above the ever-moving metropolis,
it’s a shade that flirts with blue, purple, and grey – every so often, this, horizon
glows above us, quietly, yet proudly.
Not unlike the dusk that follows, it wanes into darker times, yet reminding us to be not afraid of the night. – RSM
Rubén Sebastián Muñiz | ∞ 