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