sometimes being awake feels
more like a dream
than being asleep
open eyes slowly awaken
to the insanity of our race
humanity
looking, we devour art;
words, images, songs and stories
of the
insatiable ache in every foot
and every drop of blood
that makes a home of this
celestial rock, suspended by
gravity whose strings are
pulled by holy fingers
that pry open seeking eyes
to unspeakable horrors
and indescribable ecstasies

the universe exists inside every chest
when new light is shed on tiny
truths, before unseen
they blossom into realities
unabashed and weighty

Cost benefit analysis

I'm the kind of woman
whose love only ever means more
than it seems, not less

When I peel off my clothes
letting them tumble to the floor
I'm also peeling off parts of
my skin, so you can admire
the depths buried beneath
when I wrap my legs around you
I wrap pieces of cardiac muscle
around you too, telling you
"don't disappear too soon, you
might take something with you"

It took me so many years to realize
this wasn't weakness, but strength
because lying on your back and
letting people sow seeds and falsehoods
inside of you is easy
but tearing yourself open so
sunlight can grow those seeds
into oak trees and beauty
is excruciating

When I stop for a moment
and dwell on how much you
take versus how much you offer
me, the kind of man you are
can never be enough for
the kind of woman I am

And since you're an accountant
here's a cost benefit analysis
from a poet
having a weed like you in my life
Is too costly to my flourishing
grove of trees
to let you keep dwelling there

You are vast enough
that the truth you know
can be equally as real
as the ache you feel
you can bear both
fire & ice
sustaining all elemental
states and stations

You are vast enough
to be utterly shattered
and completely whole
all at once
though the tension
seems to be tearing you apart
it's really stitching you back together

feminist rant

i can be demure, if it pleases me
barefoot, pregnant, made-up, if it pleases me
i can be sweet & polite, if it pleases me
i can double-check my sources,
laugh at myself, smile, dance,
kiss (with tongue or without)
cross my legs when i'm sitting
in a dress, yes, i'm capable
if it pleases me

but i will no longer do these things
to please anyone but myself
if i'm being the kind of woman
you prefer when you come around
i'm still doing it for me because
i don't feel like dealing with
your bullshit
if what i want happens to
coincide with what you want
congratulations!
but don't for one second think
that i'm bending for you
because the only people i
am willing to bend for, to break for
would never ask me to

Southern Blasphemy: part 1

Big hair & bigger gowns
wedding causing debt that drowns
brides with the frugal-est of minds
I'm not interested
in the kind of
stress a white dress may require

People will say I'm just bitter
and better think twice
but thinking twice is what
brought me to this conclusion

$20,000 is not an investment
worth making if it returns nothing
and lasts so few hours
Celebration is a spirit, not a price tag

But at the end of the day
I'd rather be alone
the rest of my life
than connected to
the wrong
human

People will say I'm just bitter
and better think twice
but thinking twice is what
brought me to this conclusion

Sunrise Poem

Her song rises from the depths
of darkness
light begins to
peek its gentle fingers
from the edges of
her holy lips
lavender beams grow warm
the sweet & tender
notes fly slow & mournful
towards the
horizon of her throat
emerging from her soul
the golden orb of sunlight
bursts into the morn

Dragoncita

There was a time
When leaning into you
And growing towards the sun
Were synonymous
But one day
I realized they'd become
Antonyms
And I had to walk away
Because I need the sun
More than I need you
Because I need to be me
More than I need you

7:13 a.m.

What's the point
Of being able to stay hard
To hold your shit together
For an extended period of time
If you don't know how to
Properly operate my clitoris?
If I wanted someone
To punch the fuck
Out of my cervix
I would have specified
That

Sonnet I

Version 1:
Purity my soul may now not find
Buried far beneath where I can reach
Whole memories fixed firm within my mind
Walls are forged from broken things I ache to breach
Them, yet how can I respire if mother would not teach
Me how to blink away despair of injured wings
Or mend the sighs, love-sick with each
Passing year, the reasons why I've ceased to sing

But mother I can't blame for everything
For my hungry eyes blindness may not claim
Nor may silence be the music that now rings
In my straining ears, there is not mystery
So deep as incarnate light that must learn to love to be

Version 2:
Purity his soul may now not find
Buried far beneath where he can reach
Whole memories fixed firm within his mind
Walls are forged from broken things he aches to breach
Them, yet how can he respire if mother would not teach
Him how to blink away despair of injured wings
Or mend the sighs, love-sick with each
Passing year, the reasons why he's ceased to sing

But mother he can't blame for everything
For his hungry eyes blindness may not claim
Nor may silence be the music that now rings
In his straining ears, there is not mystery
So deep as incarnate light that must learn to love to be

Make my thighs an altar to your hunger

My body the sacred training-ground of praise

The gods in me rise like the rivers of my desire

And you will learn to weep again, as a man should

9.24.16

Young woman,
Save your sighs for when you are old
For by then you will have built
The grace to bear them

10.6.16

I bury men inside of me
Covering them with my sand
X marking the spot
Surely this time I am a treasure

i give truth a body
but sometimes
i give lies a voice

do you know how hard it is
to be strong and soft
to be powerful and kind?
i see more of people
than they see of themselves
i give a home to orphaned
emotions that broken humans
place near the road in cardboard
boxes reading, " dn ǝpıs sıɥʇ "

do you know how hard it is
to devour injustice with your eyes
but not vomit endless rivers
of lava and fury
to carry delicate hearts made of
flower petals and silk
in the same hands that hold
back all deluge of despair
to not destroy the one
while restraining the other

do you know how hard it is
to carry the weakness of others
under your tongue
your mouth always pregnant
with ignorance trying to escape
your teeth the only cage that
keeps your rage from
eradicating those who need you
but are too proud to ask for help
and too blind to know to thank you

no, i don't think you do
you don't know how hard it is
to be a hurricane and a whisper
a tear and a caress
but if you did
i wouldn't have had to learn
that i am important

-inspired by the poet, rupi kaur, and the aggressive dumbass at work, but mostly rupi

well-meaning bullshit

now, daddy always told me

i’d go for a lot at the slave market and

he always meant it as a compliment and

i always took it as a compliment ‘cause

he didn’t know how to say,

“you’re sturdy, girl, and i love that about you.”

but one day i realized i had reason to take issue

so i took issue because some of my sisters

have mothers whose mothers

went for a lot at the slave market because

they were “sturdy girls” and

some white man loved that about them

I begin to lust for
other lips
To prove to myself I don't need him

Medicine Man

you said, "I'm so sorry I took that from you.

if only I had known you were a virgin"

boy, for so long I blamed myself for your dyslexia

you fixated your eyes, misreading the sanskrit writings on my skin

as you pressed in you waited for my moans

that came only in winces

no. I didn't come yet

no. I didn't come at all

but you asked me, "how good does it feel?"

more times than you asked, "darling, may I?"

you never called me darling, I would've liked that

but you liked that ass, making sure it felt so good

so you could feel you'd compensated me for your climax

virgin or not, a man wouldn't have touched me

my body, the sacred training-ground of his praise

not a cheap, backseat thrill, a medicine man remedy

satisfied only with offerings of blood and innocence

medicine man, you can't make penance to my body

by touching my body, that you hurt, asking me still,

"how good does it feel?" when I wanted to say,

"stop trying to earn your forgiveness,

it's already given."

you prove that the only part of you that's a man

thinks that hands can heal the open wounds you caused

I let you back in, giving you a chance to say,

"no. I cherish you." but somehow I knew

you still needed me to carry you

giving me a good time won't give back what you took

so why don't you take another look at what

you could've had, take a moment to be sad that even if

you wised up, no matter how much of me you

think you fill, you will never feel my trust again

rejected offerings

it is right to say
that my body is an altar
but it was built for praise
not for your penance
my moans are not meant
to carry away your guilt

paper airplane

when you send me your condolences on stationary
i'll unfold the creases of your sorry
& fly it back to you as a paper airplane
because I am not broken, I'm single
there is no way to rearrange the letters
in that word to spell "insufficient"
or "too much"

preferences

some

men see my skin and its pasty pigmentation

as proclamation of superiority to my sisters

whose varying shades of brown perfection

conceal passion and secret kisses that

no hands are ever worthy to discover

but to other men my skin is too pale

cause I can’t be white and a whale

but I’m not moby dick, and if your dick

has a problem with my beautiful

why don’t you stick that shit somewhere else

get your synonyms straight, boys

white does not equal better

big does not equal ugly

people say, “you can’t fault people for their preferences”

sure, but let’s ensure that preferences

don’t become prejudice

presenting perfect women with

impossible parameters

‘cause that is ugly

I am thick and proud and I am not

too full of flavor to be delicate

I’ve learned to love my ivory skin and I am not

a trophy to be won and placed on your mantle

thick

silent disdain slides from slick tongues

boys crafting insults they never needed to hurl

for i was already practiced in the

art of hating my body, always being

too much to have and to hold on

to; i searched for a knife that was good

for carving mangoes and skin

to slice the strength from my bones

carve the smooth from my curves

to be skinny like the skinny girls

seducing hungry eyes of the boys i grew up with

delicate, a flower, like my mother, my sister

but with each year my body betrayed me

my hips grew wider, my thighs more full

of earth & flesh, & i began to wonder

if God made me big so that my body

could bear my existence and

my frame contain my power

a crafted vessel of clay & pride

these hills & valleys were never made from dust

i am a mountain range covered in

stone & fire & earthquake

i am not too full of flavor to be delicate

i can always carry you

that does not mean i will

for the weight i carry must be worthy

of stone & fire & earthquake

they say I'm like you

they say I'm like you
I have your nose, your lost, brown eyes
always hurling themselves into oceans of thought
I wear your melancholy across my shoulders
broad, like the ones stretched across your back,
daddy
they say I'm like you
your fingerprints carefully forming the pride in my spine
we lifted all the heavy furniture
moving it from one side of the house to another
like the chess pieces inside my chest only you can play,
daddy
they say I'm like you
looking at myself, pulling triggers of impatience
fingers to my brain, temples full of disdain
my hopes and opinions sharpen as I train
my wit and will of iron
you set out to raise the kind of woman you expect
but you raised a queen instead
am I too unlike the son you still don't realize you wanted,
daddy
they say I'm like you
the sturdy sapling you watered with your blood and patience,
but placing angry fists
to the parts of me that are an unflattering mirror,
daddy
if I were your son
would you have told me, "you're too opinionated for your age."
if I were your son
would you have meant, "too opinionated for a woman."
if I were your son
would you have told me I would be beautiful if
I could just look more like my mother
whose tiny waist and petite frame have
never borne well the weight of her confidence
if I were your son
would you have equated respect with my acquiescence
daddy
the masterpieces of adoration my imagination painted of you
made a likeness that looked too much like you, like me
for you to accept them, daddy
if I were your son
would you have told me, "I don't care what you think about me.
I don't need your approval."
when you know your very bones draw life from my
powerful affection that you taught me to give,
daddy, I love you, but I'm done apologizing
for being big, for being powerful, for being enough
and I will hide the parts of me I'm proudest of
until you learn to stop apologizing to the world for me
because it says I'm like you,
I like you, daddy
but I must wait till you do

Night Hawk

She came (or didn't) and left in the dark
Taking with her the blood you offered
With greedy hunger

Make my thighs an altar to your hunger
My body, the sacred training-ground of praise
The gods in me rise like the rivers of my desire
And you will learn to weep again, as a man should

To the man who shines shoes near my favorite coffee shop

I want to make his shoe polish into seeds and sow them across our city
I hope the seeds will grow till they've uprooted the stubborn cement, revealing
the earth that is as black as his beautiful skin and as rich as his passion
for polishing shoes and as deep as his knowledge that how people walk matters
more than where they and up

in that soil we could nourish a new order and overturn the tables of the
slave-owners and torturers who do their clinical work with clean lines
in the name of a God they have never known

that quiet, inner-garden place
a niche for shrinking pains and growing worlds
its graveyards host the hosts of murdered hates
bared teeth & burning passions are not welcome
until they are tamed and learn to cry
broken pots leak their nourishing streams
and flowers find their minds and strength

you are just a human

i. you lied

or perhaps your told the truth but changed your mind

what I would find is that you'd planted ghosts in my belly

I tried to leave you behind like an abandoned child

but your lie grew briers in my womb

you wily thief, your serenades burying my tears

in that back seat of your car, now the scent of leather

and your cologne

makes my neck remember bruises from your teeth

and my dreams recall the smoldering rage of months to follow

the thorns grew into muscles atrophied from fear of motion

ii. whenever I tried to speak forgiveness to myself

the words caught in the net of my throat

like the wriggling trout I was, silver in your arms

I can hold oceans in the cistern of my hands

I can bear the weight of your body on my hips,

my spine, my sternum

but I can no longer carry your silence in my bones

nor your laughter in the hardness of my muscles

I must forgive myself,

wrenching the mountains from my shoulders

I must forgive you,

extinguishing the fires I set to you with my eyes

it's so quiet as the sun rises

scattering honey'd fingerprints

across the landscape of my body

and the tracks of my memories

now, you are just a human

your right measurements again

Healing

Did you know deserts are made from the souls of shattered people

who let themselves waltz with breezes and

who beat their bleeding chests, dancing 'round fires

holding the oxygen hands of hurricanes

Time takes an unsteady fist-full of their shards

because she's the only one whose skin is

impermeable to the cruel perforations

of protective edges and glass scythes

The broken ones cannot take up arms if their

frantic arms are pinned to their sides by the

marching embrace of time and weathering winds

Just so, I, the deadliest edge, will be made soft again

once my pieces are made so small that they can only caress

But small doesn't mean insignificant

it's just that a desert is vast

and a broken vase can only take up so much space

it's not what makes you up to be ornamental

but what you're made of

I'd rather bury forgotten things in the

affection of my blustery brokenness

than be a proud adornment that throws itself

on the floor again and again to warn of the

quake that's coming

no

the earth will listen now

for it's covered in me and it never knew

how much it needed me before

Lock up your houses all you want,

but I won't come knocking

'cause they're built on me

New Babel

after a year we found a way to stop spinning
Yes, we still loved our hurricane, but we looked around
Up - riotous stars playing hide-n-seek,
but instead they count to 7 million years
Left - to dry, orange, grass-less fields
masquerading as desolate
Right - tall, reflective buildings praying
no one will ask how the weather is
because they're hyper-introspective
and they don't want to say, "Well,
the gloom in my spirit quite resembles
a tempest"
Down - impish, hot heat making earth into glass
so we can look up the skirts of cultures
that don't make sense to us

it's funny how closing one eye takes us further
than keeping both open
as if the mountains know we are lopsided and primal,
but that we also tend our flower gardens
we stop because our hands are blistered
from searching through Babel's rubble
trying to find the bricks that were holy.
made by bodies in love for a common end
Babel had good stones, wrought from unity
the problem was that it was tower
and not a city, meandering up and away,
trying to escape

but we will win the world back and make
a sprawling and wond'rous city
where no one speaks the same language
but everyone is understood because
all words are spoken between the heights of
12 and 144 inches
where everyone has to convert inches to meters
to miles to fluid ounces, 'cause they want to get lost

our city will be chaotic, colorful in nameless
varieties of green and crimson, water will always be cold
brows will always be warm, sticky with sweat
and unruly wisps of hair
every day we will be astonished by the growing
bounds of our affection for our home and for
how our home is our legs and
dipping toes into new sand
and for how sand is actually weathered glass,
whether or not that makes sense
(How? How is it soft?)

touch my lips "for I come from a people of unclean lips"
burn me with smoldering
coal from forging fires to keep the creeping,
violet cold at bay
for while we build our city we must
serve as the builders and the wall for we are
the blessed saints of Nehemiah and we
sleep with one eye open
because noisy sponsors tear down projects
that have failed before
but they don't know enough languages to silence us
they don't know the anguishes that would teach them
not to silence us

so for now, we weep and cry Shalom
so for now, we weep and cry for home
amen and let it be so.

[Untitled]

I'm proud of my worshipful tribal mask
delicately painted and carved from the wood of trees
I hand-picked for the feel of their
unforgiving bark and smooth interiors
these trees are like me, but right-side-in
my fragile insides, bouncing and bashing against
my rough places that the world can't handle
but, you see, my tribal mask has a few functional flaws like
when people who love me want to see my battered face
they see the smooth, sanded smiles
and cut their earnest fingers trying to see
what I don't want to show them
I can't decide if I'm too ashamed or raw
to open up my fortifications

Plans

Mud adores the way it feels between our fingers
Slippery and tepid, full of the grit of tiny stones
Sliding to the aching earth with whispering thuds

We love the way mud smears like it knows it can be cleaned
By throwing in its lot with fresh water instead of our skin
Dust in disguise returns to dust, unabashed
It splashes into new viscosity

And tree roots wonder which is better for food and for home
Wiggle your toes like roots in wet sand
To see how long it takes to topple

We are endless

Young ocean interlocked her foamy fingers with another
Her rough, clam-shell eyes scanned the dark expanse of her comrade
The sea kills so much, births so much, devours so much that perhaps
She may forget how endless, untameable and hungry that she is
But to see another ocean is to see the truth
And the side of her mouth crashed and grinned a
Tsunami as she sighed from her depths and remembered
"I am vast and we are endless"

A tribute

thank you for telling me everything was my fault
'cause that fault-line crack in my confidence
has become one of my favorites.
a favorite fissure filled with gold
like Japanese pots and Van Gogh paintings of sunflowers

and thank you for taking what I gave ungratefully,
your great greed rive guidance to my dreams.
dreams overwhelmed with your absence,
with furious flames of affection, with toothy grins
and thank you's, so many thank you's

speaking of which, thank your for wresting from
my trembling fingers what I was unwilling to give.
your teeth drawing colorful scarves from between my teeth
of stifled cries, caressing fingers fitful nights, and gagging humiliation

and in case I forget, thank you for pretending you escaped unscathed
from between my claws and from between my legs.
my thick, muscular tentacles relinquishing you readily
into your ravenous hunt for fresh meat to bury
your loneliness in

case you forget, thank you for not being unscathed.
for being your own prophecy told and retold
om miserable, unwilling whispers of how
none of us sirens were notches in anything but your bones
and when your closet vomits out your skeleton
you can't hide from us anymore

At least I learned to acknowledge my broken femurs
and slicing, broken-glass-edge defense mechanisms.
I learned it from wanting to antithesis myself of you.
so thank you for being yourself, for being mean,
for being blind, for being insecure and shattered

Here's to you. may this tribute be like mouthwash,
cleansing and burning and forcing you to
shut the fuck up
even if it's only for 45 seconds or so

Our women

I tell you what, they know deep
My aunties, they wrap their firm, old arms 'round every neck
Sowing kisses like seeds and heartache, and I tell you what
For every name they recall like catechism they know stories
Like honey and vinegar, sepia photos and tales
Of deep mountain moonlit mischief & how Grandmaw used to make cornbread
And how Grandmaw stopped making cornbread when her memory abandoned
Her life stretching into thinner threads of flashing snapshots til they snapped
And she was gone
The decadence of the soil of our home and how it's not our home anymore
Our women carry heritage in their bones and playfulness in their grins
They are broken and brave, stubborn and kind, our women are the bards
Who burden their backs with the aches of yesterday and the glories of tomorrow
I tell you what, my aunties, they know deep
Exploring catacombs and mine shafts with the lights burning in their eyes
And I tell you what, I know where my blood comes from
I know where my pride comes from
Because I am our women now.

Our men

Muted majesty, powerful men amble outside
Their steps are heavy and slow, cigarettes hanging famliarly from their
Sticky lips, their conversations held in low grumbles of laughter
Eyes that have seen so much twinkle with practiced mischief
Breaths full or beer and mirth rise from their belly
They talk of hard times, what their daddy did, what they did
They talk about the earth, they talk about the railroads
Telling of the rocks and mines and metal that forge their blood
My family, my kin, these are our men, they kiss their women, leathery cheeks
Adding extra vowels to their doting nicknames, drawling
"Honey"s and "baby"s sink into my ears and my heart and I know
These are our men, broken and earnest, passionate and reckless,
Gentle and growing older

Our baby girl & P.S.

It's a great irony that I write poems to forget you
Because my poetry is a piece of me
It's like giving birth to your child but she is born hating you
and she will grow past her daddy issues to become
Breathtaking. Magnificent. Powerful.
For every wound you donated to me
she will heal someone else's
Your most kind and productive offspring
is the one that shows your ugliness
The Beauty whose kiss makes you into the Beast
And I will love her unapologetically
'cause I'm sure you'll never apologize
I will be fine. I will be seen. I will be loved.
I'm already fine.
I'm already seen.
I'm already loved.
And our Baby girl, born of grief
will grow wings
and wear crowns of leaves and
With a wink she'll be swept up in the wind
And I'll finally let her go
Because it's time to move on
And this time I believe it's true that
you are not worth the effort

P.S.
I hope a woman stronger than me
draws you in to the quagmire of her eyes
and leaves you there to languish
I hope you never learn so that
she will inhabit different shapes
and drown you over and over
and I hope she does it just
because she's bored
and you're an asshole

"All you meant was" or "I already wrote a poem about you"

I already wrote a poem about you
I'm supposed to be over this shit but
You seem so lonely and my heart
orients itself towards your North
When I ask, you shrug and tell
me not to read into everything
All you meant was that you've given up
All that you meant was you gave
the universe and ultimatum
I say, "cool. well if you wanna chill, hit me up."
All I meant was, cool. well if you wanna chill, hit me up
The next day you ask for me to unveil you my body
I didn't offer that, who do you think you are?
But I'm just being defensive and
you tell me not to read into everything
The lava in my belly rises towards my lips
As the injustices of your fists disturb my rocky roots
My claws extend reflexively and
I put on my boxing gloves
To contain them, 'cause my intent
was never to cut but to caress
But I let my arms hang limp at my sides
When the lava erupts it pours
out of my eyes instead of my mouth
And I would rather cry than fight because
my strength offends you, my softness confounds you
I'd rather confound than contend
You're not worth the effort
and I wish I believed that

I want to affection you to death
but with each embrace you strike me and
Shout, "I'm fine! Why are you here?
Stop reading into everything!"
And I cry 'cause all I meant was,
"Let me love you. Let me try."
All you meant was, you were never
anything more than sex, bitch
All you meant was, let me reel you in
and mock you for getting caught
You drop my body on the dock,
gasping gills, and you laugh as I
Embody the was your ventricles
crystallize and your heart suffocates
from too much oxygen

You may never know to regret this
but I will be sure to haunt the
negative space in your paintings
To make sure the whites of your eyes
pale in fear of what never was
I want to goodbye you into so many yesterdays
that I only remember the tattoos across your chest
and that there are some people you soften for
I'm just sad it wasn't me but
I'm just glad it wasn't me
Bye. Goodbye. Goodbye, Goodbye.

Tired of f*cking love poems

Love is looking down the barrel of a loaded gun and screaming "shoot!"
Love is glacier-carved paths of patience dragging through your insides
Love is over-full bathtubs, warm water havens from chilling outside air
Love is crackling halves falling, lightning-stricken, away from mighty trees
But I'm tired of love, talking about it, hearing about it, finding it frequent in my thoughts
I want to drill love shut into a wooden box and toss it deep into a hole I dug
out of fresh black earth. I want to bury it with my dreams
endless bright trajectories, full of learning and adventures
But I want love to be buried so deep that it suffocates and decomposes

How can something so tragic and fragmented be beautiful? And please tell me
How something so breathtaking can be so violent and terrifying?
They tell me it's because I don't know, to "just wait. you'll see.." But f*ck that!
I don't want to know, and I hate myself for wanting to know so desperately
People can keep their loaded shotguns and dying, charred tree trunks
People can keep their chilling air and warm tubs of running water
Because alone is a pain I can trust, it's a pain that understands me with
fewer tangles and chains, more familiar aches, and a hunger I am learning to deny
I suppose this is a poem about commitment issues, but welcome to the mess
I'm done apologizing for my romance gag reflex

Because I'm hurting..
And I've thrown myself from every cliff I could find
Now I'm wondering why all my bones are broken

Virulent

When will my poems stop being
so violent with virulent images
marching across stricken, sleepless
eyeballs?
What does virulent mean? I forget
It sounds intriguing, it's a sharp word
and would pair nicely with
"slice" "pierce" or "shards"
like steak with dry red wine
And here I go again, wanting
to make things bleed

If I was a famous artist I would
use a paint-roller to spread crimson
paint across a blank canvas and
I'd sell the painting for $23 mil
And say, "This piece was wrenched
from my veins, like life and love...
This piece was painted with the
pulsing pieces of my confetti cardiac muscles
And someone will buy it for
$23 mil plus tax and hang it
on the white walls of his house
calling my suffering art
I'll laugh at him 'cause that
paint cost me $10 at Lowe's, but
it's red so he'll use it to tame
the bulls, but after a while
the blood will make him crazy
because he'll be able to smell it
in the dust of the plaza del toros

But to be honest, I'd much
rather set shit on fire than
make it bleed because fire
is so majestic, romantic even
And it demolishes. Everything.

6.7.16



Definition: Virulent (adj.)
1. (of a disease or poison) extremely severe or harmful in its effects

2. bitterly hostile
3. my affection
4. what I think love is

6 days: The road through the desert

Day 1:
I see the way they cluster,they clot like blood outside the holy places
They cry out in honor of adultery against exquisite truth
Tempests of fury rise up within my depths, and I become destruction
On my sturdy knees, I implore my God to make me a whirlwind that
Decimates any pagan who claims my Lord as his god
Who in his worship freely flaps his lecherous tongue

Day 2:
The sweet flavors of victory hang from my mouth, and I lick my lips
As his blood, un-clotting, runs through the hot streets
His death becomes my glory, every tear proves me of my station
I unroll my wrath like the scrolls that declare him to be defiled
And my arm grows long as I build the sinews of my mind and soul
Making myself un-pressable stone against the seductions of his lies
For I am a blade with the sharpest of edges, one side to the next
I will make my name a bludgeoning defender of my Lord

Day 3:
My eyes, my eyes! Pierced by merciless daggers of light
Every color floods my skull as my sight drowns into darkness
And he asks me why my hands are dripping with his blood
How can he not know I tore open flesh in his name
And fortified my chest with others' bones in his name
I cover my feet night and day with desert dust, a conquest in his name
He asks again, why my hands are dripping with his blood
And I am silent
And I am blind
And I am not hungry anymore

Day 4:
A cold river runs through my riven rib cage
The looters left me with only leaves and quiet
I am emptied and aghast at the residue on the reservoir walls, so small
Was I really full?
Was I really great?
And I am still silent
And I am still blind
And I am still not hungry anymore

Day 5:
A man came today, though his face was hidden
His voice bore authority and was adorned in mourning
And peace; he spoke for my Lord, and I, on my weak knees
Begged forgiveness
My eyes, my eyes, tears pour forth in healing, scales fall
Away, in broken pieces on the earth, my blindness dissolves
Light has been endowed with a new name, love
Color has been left with a new titled, love
Knowledge is now called affection, power is brokenness
Delight is found in emptiness
Hope is found... in me

Day 6:
I live my days outside the holy places, clotting like blood with my brothers
My feet tire by day, raindrops of sweat bury me by night, in torrents
My smile is an involuntary crack in the flesh of my weary face
For on my shoulders I bear a message, a song of
How a treacherous murderer painted cities with death in the name of his Lord
But saw one day, under unforgiving desert sun, that his altar was unto
Only himself, bottomless, voracious, death became his glory, every
Tear made him worthy of his station; lowly, furious, frantic, lost
This murderer is now the hope, bard to foreign tribes of a bright and endless affection
And on the road through the desert, the snake slithered away in fear
I became a man, a paradox, a willing, suffering bearer of light
Now I ask them why their hands are dripping with his blood
And they are silent

El Caribeño

You carry island passion in your platelets
Sturdy barrio pride fortifies your spine
Your smile is crooked, much like your affection
When you found me, I surprised you
with my swaying hips and lilting español dominicano
And for a few scrumptious, summer days we melted
into one another's mouths and minds
haceindome un vaso de cafe caliente
Bailamos la bachata, mis pies tontos
cercándome a tus cadenas perfectas

After that delectable, cool night,
you know the one, you laughed
I became your subservient joke, you
left every discourse feeling like
Muhammad Ali taking the final
winning blow, and I wondered,
"When did this become a fight?
How badly you must hurt to have
to hurt me like this." Fatherless son
of a powerful mother, you're lost
Perdidito, solo quería una mordidita de mi
pero... you choked and now probably
wonder why choking is so bad

Remember what you told me?
"As long as you make it look like
you're enjoying it, I'll enjoy it."
Well, parcero, suffocation doesn't
look good on you, so véte y que te cuides
I'll be over here, without you,
Breathing

V.

I.
Look your need into me infuse me with your desperation
You know I see you, but I'm the one you don't see
Like a beetle, I'm an exoskeleton of all smiles, laughs and twirling
I am your whirling dervish of mirth

II.
You used to see me, my blood drenching you
Your arms were a fortress for me
I thought you loved my mess
I loved fingerpainting my pain for you
But you think you've graduated me
that your studies in fine art
make my fingerpainting childish
But my thoughts come to me in
violent bursts and vibrant prisms

III.
You ask for my thoughts, but you don't
want them, you want your couch back
But I'm not comfortable like that
I refuse to let you sink into me
with ungrateful familiarity
Baby, your tower's too lofty for my
shiny, beetle existence these days
I think you'll tumble down the stairs
of your cool, dragon-less castle
someday
Today, though, I offer incognito refusal
I'll smile and sing your hipster songs
But I will remain complicated, messy, proud
too much for you and your righteous friends

IV.
I will always adore you naming
stars after your green eyes, and
fruit juices after your sweet laugh
I will always be proud of you
the way you construct crystal sonorance
with your vocal cords or record
silly declarations into the arms of loved ones
You are my palm line, the one that
squiggles from the valley between my
pointer and middle fingers
winding, tantalizing, deep
You are my blood, but right
now you're boiling under the heat
of your own scrutiny, your own frown

V.
Come back, Beloved, when life has
pulled a few punches, I'll be here
Still complicated, messy, proud, adoring you
Ready to be drenched in your blood
To make my arms a fortress for you
To hang the fingerpaintings of your pain
on my fridge and call them fine art
I love you
Come back
I love you
but even if
I love you
you don't
I love you
To every crossroad and back
Sincerely, your beetle

5.24.16

Deliria (n.)(pl.)

1. Pathology. a more of less temporary disorder of the mental faculties, as in fevers, disturbances of consciousness, or intoxication, characterized by restlessness, excitement, delusions, hallucinations, etc.

2. a state of violent excitement or emotion

Lion

His laugh and bright eyes are the nail in the
coffin of my broken days

The words of hope spring from his lips and
pour over the rent and tilled soil of my memories

I feel the symphony of his voice, wind making leaves dance,
drawing green-sprout smiles from my mouth-corners

He wraps my organs with his strong arms and shakes loose
the dark beads of bitterness until it tickles

He thanks me for my stories

And I thank God for him, and for teaching him the
same language that my insides speak

So I know, no matter where I put my roots, there are those for
whom I won't need to translate or paraphrase

5.18.16


Dedication: For you. You don't know who you are, but thank you.

Amai

Her breath is milky with stars and violet

Ivy and wisteria hang from her thoughtful tongue 

She wraps her powerful, tree-trunk thighs around Earth's waist 

Her womb is cool, cavern depths with jade stalactites 

Her finger spread wide, verdant maple leaves, and soft 

Icy mountain rivers run between her breasts with every sigh 

Her laugh is fingers sunk and tearing strawberry flesh 

Crimson juices drip down to soil forearms and boulder elbows 

Her irises are red waterfalls of lava, her pupils cold obsidian 

Her tears are cracked pebbles of azure topaz tumbling and 

Crumbling down the mountain-sides of her elevated cheekbones 

The soft slopes of her collarbone are snowdrifts of pure powder, white 

Follicles of orchards and vineyards grow from her whirlpool mind 

Wine and water wander their way through her oaken veins 

The gradual, inviting curves of her hips serve

As a cradle for deep valleys and ravines that divide the ranges 

She is the sweet aroma of decomposing leaves and the intruding heat 

Of the unabashed and golden summer sunshine 

Her song is giggling creeks and vaporous, sighing geysers 

Her skin is soft moss, too green to be called green 

She is death 

She is life 

She is mother 

Amai 

5.17.16

14 years later

She told me, with a wagging finger, that I was selfish, that everyone is

Her declaration sunk straight to the bottom of my soft, 9-year-old heart

And I revolted, I couldn't defend myself from her distorted lenses

But my small back was resolute, my bloodstream

Full of rioting villagers with sharp scythes and pitchforks

Now, 14 years later, I wonder where she is

What she's doing. I wonder if life gave her

A bludgeon-proof exoskeleton, or, rather if she purchased one

With her tears and heavy drops of sweat

I wonder if the mannerisms of her love ever changed

I wonder if she saw the fingerprint impressions

People left her with little more than dark blue vignettes

And elusive eel memories of how the world is lumpy and asymmetrical

I wonder if other children disliked her, with her baggy sweaters and sharp edges

A stalwart unto herself, her love, clumsy and didactic

Hers was a hug-less love that forced me to eat my tomatoes

I felt she had no right to my home yet she tried to rule it

With a fist more firm than my mother's

She wasn't a step-mother, that young, invited guest of ours

She was one of the first to stoke the waking embers of my future fury

She spoke falsehoods over my fledgling spirit

Yet somehow I understood she herself had been quenched years ago

But they named the water-buckets "love" and "wisdom"

So I forgave her, and 14 years later, I wonder where she is

She-devil

Throw her out into the streets

Until her bruised knees and elbows

Serve as targets for your stones

4.28.16

The white stag

His eyes tumble greedily from her lips to her ankles

Pointedly overlooking her eyes and feet

Her eyes that would peer into his darkness

And make him feel like a man

Her feet that would carry her to his side, the warmth of her

Body and heat of her gaze rendering him helpless

Her pale skin, smooth, freckled

Returns her to the mind, she, the commodity

She will refuse to be paraded down the sidewalk

As he says, "Look! I got one!"

No, you didn't

4.28.16

Scapegoat

I want to sink my teeth into

For every cheek familiar with the back of a hand

For each ripped strand of cardiac muscle

I will carve the names of their tears in your flesh

I will draw blinding drops from your tear ducts

For every glance under which she shifted in discomfort

I will tattoo her limp body on your eyelids

So that her suffering is your lullaby

I will grind your teeth into powder

So you know what it's like to be reduced to mouth and tongue

I will adhere your hands to the stovetop

Where you brewed your poisons for her mind

And at the end of it all I will not apologize

For I am insanity incarnate and I will sacrifice you

Om the altar of every smile stolen from a little girl

Who just wanted to have wings and wear a crown of leaves

4.28.16

Nicotine

I consume poetry like cigarettes

Rolling the pages and inhaling the words deep into my lungs

The ink staining my fingers and teeth and the balloon

Of my breaths, smoky dioxide exhales, full of conversations

That I never had but wanted to

I hold the phrases, warm, between my lips

So I can use my hands to tell stories and paint murals

With each draw a new rib cracks and my nerves calm

4.29.16

Air pollution

Peer between my breasts and through my sternum

And you will not find a heart but a furnace

A massive, ominous, belching furnace with an aortic valve

Made of sturdy iron, atrium walls of char and black

It's a storehouse of un-meltable, plastic spines

Strewn in yellowish, mangled globs across the bottom of the bowl

Non-committal destruction, polluting the oxygen that it breathes

The fire, that is, hungry and full of mischief

5.10.16

"On me"

Come on! Flash me those big brown eyes again,

as their rehearsed twinkle falls, melting

on the smooth cold marble of my mind

Go on, Darling! Blink me the S.O.S.

of your eggshell ego. Watch me drop it

"accidentally" on the concrete.

I could destroy you with a deep breath, and

swallow your entire existence in the

ravenous ocean of my fury. But you turn

your misery towards me like a well-aimed

sniper shot. You, in your fatigue, place the gunny-

sack of your insecurities on the sturdy shoulder

I am woman, I carry your scars in my dignity

and your weakness in my flight

Put your flimsy roots into the earth and deepen,

for you are unworthy to take residence in my body

My heart aches to be seen by bright-fire eyes and

held by caring, calloused hands.

Same day your shade will cast protection on the weak,

you will be a mighty oak. Rich soil made whole by your

heritage will make you strong.The prayers of your sisters

and tears of your mother are your shield and sunlight.

You are pre-intertia, ready to gather speed, to exist,

to velocity your way into this angry world as man,

one who protects, one who loves, one who sees.

But now, my sapling, for you are no man yet.

And I am a hurricane.

I will drown your mind with relentless rain.

You cannot withstand this vicious wind.

Probability and Statistics

Well, we crossed the road to opposite sides

From him wanting me, me relishing the power

To him wanting me and having me wrapped 'round his little finger

I've learned a lot about probability, you know

There's a direct correlation between most things

The tighter my clothes, the likelier he'll be free later

The more weed he smokes, the more quickly he'll fall asleep after

The more often he holds me on his couch, the more tangled I become

Another newly familiar subject is statistics

When he's inside me he brings the bodies and hearts of

Dozens of other women, putting them inside me too

Does their pain have a right to me if I'm asking for it?

"Asking for it" makes me a statistic too, a notch

A notch in the belt around that trim waist

Probability again, how likely am I to keep coming back?

Statistics: Well, you've said yes now, even when he doesn't ask

Probability: You know how badly you want him

Statistics: Unless I'm missing something you're 100%

Probable to run to him whenever he hints because

Statistically you don't demand, you don't ask for much

Probably because your body is your wall

To those whom much is given much is required

But that's not how it works with men, I mean

Mankind, or is it man-unkind, I forget?

Someone once said the body sheds its skin

For a whole new one every seven years, statistically

I, like a slow snake, will have a body untouched by greedy hands, probably

But what's the number for a defiled soul?

What's the probability the stone glaze over

My deep, hungry eyes will go away?

I'm inside-out Medusa, my chilling gaze renders him statue and irrelevant

I'm backwards Midas, when he touches me I see him as cold, bloodless metal

But fire can char any stone, melt the frigidest golden face and body

I've never been good at math, but my brain is a friend of patterns

And statistics are like familiar ruts in the cowardly ground

Probability, my mud-stained feet surrendering to well-worn paths

You probably don't understand, but statistically rain comes

Around before miry mud pits and I'm tired of

Letting math be unworthy hands and presumptuous lips

I've decided to become a mudslide of unpredictability

I hope the world pulls out its sled and enjoys the roller-coaster

Tosses and turns of my breaking heart and the

Healing soil

4.14.16

[Untitled]

I reminisce:

I ask myself, "What would we talk about otherwise?"

My hot tears mingle with those from the shower head

If I denied him, would he withdraw placidly?

Realization follows more tears, "It's all we've ever talked about."

His scent clings to my skin, I can't wash him off

My lipstick was sticking to his teeth, I dabbed warm

Water on my smooth mouth, half-done he laughed,

"Good enough," from behind me, gripping my hips

He tossed me onto the bed, I like it a little rough with him

Because then, at least I feel his ferocious eyes on me

I'm alive, aren't I?

He's liked my ass since I was 15, I, his tiny conquest

Impressively remained elusive for 7 years, damn!

The defenses I built for his honor to protect him

From my scrutiny and good ideas, are irreparably

Squallored and tailored to tumble eventually

I tell him:

Honey, you're a lingering virus and you've finally

Run your course, by which I mean

I'm done running my fingers through your hair

And your tiny raccoon fist has released my

Shiny heart, in my vermin-trap rib cage.

You never wanted to inhabit my lungs,

But there were days

When my deepest exhales were your name.

Its syllables dripping

Longingly from my tongue, you taste of bourbon and coffee

You wanted a place more cavernous than my lungs

You chose my body's first defense

Once you permeated my presence, my hungry flesh

You became unobservant

Every gate but my legs remains closed to you

4.15.16