Category: Uncategorized

in the absence of
my itch of permanence
somewhere unfamiliar
i am met with an airport
terminal and a one-way
ticket back to half
of myself.

there’s nowhere to
hide here. i am faced
with gossamer
childhood memories
sticky hands
fountains and
my newfound sense
of belonging. there
is marble plating
glassing over my
living room.
there are flowers
dancing, intertwined
into my fingertips.

the taste of earth and
salt has never been more
familiar, and the black
etch of name calls me
by the name guilty.
maybe one day i
will learn to choose
between myself and
an ideal, a passing cloud
that paints over what will
come to pass.

my voice says change,
but the echo replies again?
mirror-bending, warping
into curls and brown eyes
into silver and syringes
into hospital wings and
appointments
into ashes.

A smiling mask muffles the shrieks
of an infant whose soft flesh combusts
and melts amid flames spiraling upward
as parents, ingenuous if anxious,
truckle and grovel before the gruntled godling
Molekh, mollified by their oblation.

The idolatrizing throng ogles
warm embers, seeking redemption
within the ashes of a skeletonized
corpse whose bones, brittle and scorched,
heap at the feet of the statue.

Sundown witnesses the customary orgy
wherein heathens conceived during orgies past
forsake restraint in favor of abandon,
indulging whims and enmeshing limbs
with the scantily clad and close at hand,
till each breechcloth is discarded
and pervious genitals enjoy their fill.

Only now might there be profuse rains
and much yield from fields
carpeting the valleys of Canaan
or crowning terraced hilltops
across its central hill country.

Parched and famished, desert dwellers
give of themselves liberally, appealing
to deities of their own devising,
focused on pressing demands
to the exclusion of higher concerns,
unable to grapple with the immensity
of their guilt, unwilling to concede,
if only to themselves, that a society
that sacrifices its children forfeits its future.

He was tension under explosion,
wafting enough heat to kiss,
and we gasp, as if pausing
for the secret pulled from his hips.

I caress the same lines he drew hours ago
so carefully to outline body’s borders.
I recreate the wide curves his hand took
and I carve out this morning’s driftwood.

I write this to you in the dark
because. even at eight, I knew
dark breaks down the lines of body,
and I can think again.

I think of the day I choked, stopped
breathing the air afforded to children,
as mis abuelos watched me grow up
on FaceTime. Borders have a way
to mangle your family, ring out tears
until your face bears the
engraved streaks of ambiguous loss:
We mourn for those not yet dead.

My mom didn’t talk about this
painful poisoning that kissed our lives,
bruising me with purple lips, but she sits
on the dining room bench with the yellow midnight light.
as I softly rest my head on her lap, she caresses
from my arm to my face, closing my eyelids for the last time,
letting me drift into slumber.
To her, I am another child lost to borders.

In the time before time, when stories hunted their own endings,
a traveler came from the east—
carrying familiar games with foreign rules.
His smile a trap,
fatted with plenty, yet eyes glimmered with hunger.

In the grass ocean he found Buffalo.
They shared smoke of the kinnickinnk,
offerings rising to Kemush,
then cast the bones.
Buffalo wagered pride,
wagered hide,
wagered all.
“Perhaps one more game? Win them back?” the man said.
Buffalo trusted the guest-host bond,
proud, uncertain.
By dawn he walked home thin—
ribs sharp as winter branches,
his coat stolen away in the dark.

By the mountain fire he met Mother Deer.
They prayed over smoke,
offerings rising to Kemush.
She wagered joy for laughter,
her bright stones, her crown of antlers.
“Another throw, and they are yours again,”
the traveler promised with teeth.
She trusted, believing in kinship’s honor.
By dawn she wandered bare-headed,
the sky pressing cold fingers
where her crown had been,
joy estranged,
laughter stolen.

Within the marsh he came upon C’waam.
They shared smoke, gave offerings,
then set the game between them.
The fish wagered baskets of wocus,
then his shining smile.
“Play once more, and I return it,”
said the man, eyes glinting.

Trust betrayed again,
by dawn his lodge rang with laughter
that had no teeth.
That is why sucker fish has none,
for his voice of joy was stolen,
leaving a silence that gnawed bone-deep at kinship.

Still west he walked,
shadow light, pockets heavy,
until the black wolf came.
Smoke curled from kinnickinnk,
offerings for Kemush.
The bones clicked like teeth in the dark.
The man cheated,
and claimed the wolf’s dark coat.
“Return it in the morning,” the wolf said.
The traveler swore,
but fled at dawn,
shattering the trust of host and guest.

But the coat turned thorn,
every quill hooked into his skin,
burning frost into bone.
He clawed, he bled,
yet it clung like shame.

The wolf shed his mask.
It was I, Kemush.
“Only I wear this as beauty.
On you—it is curse.
What you gathered, you keep—
wounds for winnings,
shame for shadow.
Those who take without respect
end up cursed.”

And so the traveler became Porcupine,
hiding by night,
daylight too sharp on his back.
The wind still remembers his name
but will not speak it aloud.

The animals cried for reparations.
I answered:
“You will know this lesson until time ends—
do not gamble what you cannot afford to lose.
Greed is its own spiral.
Those who resist, remember.”

Your white smile
and firefly eyes!
Your lighthouse laugh
Guiding my ships of speech!
Your soft kiss
Like a candle in the dark!
This is what I mean when I call you my light, love.
Oh, ours is no light love.

I just got home from work.
I mean, work-work.
I have to wash the brown stuff off my skin.
It could be:
Resin
Sap
Oil
Blood
Just brown stuff
Because of the insulation, I need to start with cold water, so it doesn’t get into my pores.
They’ve even stolen the one luxury I have —
A hot shower.
I want to wash my hair of it and of the sawdust,
But they say shampoo will give you cancer —
Unless you get the organic stuff.
But I can’t afford that,
Not with the job I have.

The way you speak to me so calmly
And look at me with your bright soft eyes
Remind me each and every day
How lucky I am to have you

Staring at each other from across the room
Watching you do what you love most
Pointing you out by your jersey number,
My favorite

I never want this to end
Because I love you
More than you will ever know

The world has sunk into sleep, the window and an overcast
glance, there’s nothing to wake you, darkness engulfs the day
more and more, and sometimes you can’t tell
what time it is now, everything becomes strangely distant, mist, glass,
I need stronger glasses, more expressive rituals.

I don’t want to wake in the morning, I growl from under the covers, building
tents from my childhood, everything is just echo, I no longer ignite that
joyful game. The soup is bland, no one chases
the shadows in corners, now I think that I’ve always
lived so tepidly, it’s neither November here, nor is it anything.

The forest and the trees, fading sheets, unripe winter berries
and colorless birds, I trudge along empty byways,
soaked by the cold autumn rain, drops on my short eyelashes – – –

I try to echo, to answer, I hoot with laughter at death’s
doorstep, I must rebuild life from the ashes, I need
blood and milk, my veins are already barren.

I must toss back my heavy head, drunk from the humidity,
kiss the quiet passerby in the city, worship nudity, commemorate
all of the saints, create a litany of hunger,
survive this month.

Sundays are for eros, &
I wear my anorexia like
a condom

Depression is when you
forget how seductive
sunrise is.

Just because
you shutter your mind
doesn’t mean the sunset

isn’t an orgasm.
Here, the cure to depression
is my mother’s knock,

my lover’s thrust,
& my newborn smile.
Remember those moments

when our mothers veiled us
from her crumbling home
& nursed us with love.

Is it this frown –
is it this wrinkle
you want to pass as hope

to your boy?

Never write with your left hand, it may give you bad luck.
Always talk about your sorrows, since we all give a #?@*!
Never mind having a point, as there are miles before you sleep.
And please don’t forget to rhyme.

Use punctuation even when you don’t know how,
when it comes to poems almost anything’s allowed.
Don’t bother with sonnets, as who could top Shakespeare?
And if all else fails just crack another beer.

Above all else, always say what you mean,
trying to figure out all those metaphors can get confusing.
But the last thing you can take from me, about the rules
of poetry, is that it never hurts to get a little bit cheeky.