Tú

Como olas
regresando a mi,
tormentas momentaneos que me preocupen por días después.
Los pedazos de madera en ciclos en la playa.
Ciclos y círculos que no puedo cerrar.

--

(You)

Like waves
returning to me,
momentary storms that worry me for days after.
The pieces of wood in cycles on the beach.
Cycles and circles that I can't close.

digging

i didn't want it to be like this
our lives intertwined like
a vine on a lampost
yours a straight line vector
and mine
clinging. vectors go in diagonals these days
bouncing off the panes of glass
that block my every day life. they
stand on the corner, in the middle of the street.
suddenly everything impenetrable.
suddenly everything see
through. i wanted
to walk without holding your
hand. to face the night
alone. noah says to speak in a russian
accent. how can i already be so
afraid of holding my
own hands. i didn't want it to be like
this. the little pit in the bottom of my stomach
unveiled. periodically. in half thoughts that
weigh my mind down. to remember i was
alone. that was my original point.
how to fit the dancing and the sleeping
the warmth of your cheek and easy
falling in with it all? how
to understand that things like friends are permanent
but somehow things like you
are not. when everything is impermanent?
i am digging myself
my own hole now.

stomachache; boy (frustrated with her, but g. stein inspired)

STOMACHACHE

A tired girl with a stomach. Head hurt the and before. feel down iron rise to nose but also stay. before head. forehead. hot fuzzy also stay. lightning strikes constantly in sea bursts. Where are my fork and knife? brussel sprouts under the floor possibly taste like cut. When belly opens and. loud loud loud. black warm. big feeling. not morning not evening in between. Waiting for the green beans.

X

Suddenly inside. red out spilt on floor. through back mirror see fall. fingers in your nose out like roots. Pull and chop them. Trash holds left. Turn. Turn. In some cases the and expires. Pickled words bitter for winter. misplaced can openers. all closed chests. forget forward. jelly is dirt. sugar sand. handed a collection of teaspoons. the big hole is empty. not sunrise yet. cold red hands for the turkey. You will not eat. never enough. enough. stay for more. more if you. no pink just yell even in the yellow egg yolks. Break in your palms when you find them. shattered sand. night sky lookalike of paper nails and chalkboard. too many forks. standing straight in a circle. I refuse. Refuse in the trash.

dia de muertos (3)

cuando el ritmo me pega jamas quiero llorar
solo quiero bailar como eso
sin pensar en el movimiento de mi pies
sin pensar en las miradas que andan por el aire
atravesando el espacio adentro de nuestros brazos
tapando mi cintura mientras pasen
el ruido, el musico, el calor de las bocas abierto
de las olas de las manos de las ojos medio-cerrados
la bebe en mano y la pareja como uno
solo quiero bailar como eso
sintiendo como todo mi cuerpo es bueno

dia de muertos (2)

around my lips, red petals
the chasms of your cheeks
we walk the streets to screams
of cars and startled girls
shadowy feet clinking tongues
spirits risen to the surface
we lose ourselves
to inhabit

dia de muertos

perhaps this is my offering

each year

these words

strung together in a state of awe

at the beauty and the horror

of living

at the beauty and horror

of death

and the white paint

that covers both

of our faces like

skeletons

that makes me so happy

and so sad

american sonnet mini-sequence (terrance hayes inspired)

I wake up dream dreaming gunk from my eyelids.

Pieces of remembering: the boy who rolls his bicycle

across the courtyard has not spoken. I see

the dining hall rebuilt, the walls more solid than the portraits.

Failed faces with my head too heavy with eye gunk to rise.

I sleep and I wake awaiting the dream.

The separation between two neither one more solid

than the courtyard or the portraits. I see the bicycle as

it rolls down the center of my spine. The tracks are repetitive.

Tongue clicking without any words to say eye gunk. I can’t

tell the boy that the boy he was before was more solid.

There is a space between the dining hall and the mind

that the bicycle can’t quite fit through.

 ---

Chica is what you call me even as my skin disintegrates into

small islands of slimy green moss. Chica,

you hold them in your hands, slip your fingers

between cracks. You pull infection closer.

Puckering on your skin, a kiss. Chica.

We will never really touch, we can never really touch

our selves. Chica is a selva of trees. They all look the same,

and I can’t remember any of their latin names. I call them

lila, pedro, mariana, but none of them answer.

I know one of them is you. I am the only tree that is not a tree.

When the wind passes, it almost sounds like it is saying Chica.

I convince myself I hear your voice.

 ---

I am waiting for the curve of the wave to touch my tongue

like a cornflower petal. I am waiting for the stone inside me

to rot into sunflower seeds and for those sunflower seeds

to be roasted just cool enough not to burn. I am waiting for my shadows

to turn purple so I can string them up like day-of-the-dead flags.

I am waiting on the corner for the light to shine white. I am waiting

for the doors to slide open so I can step safely over the chasm.

I am waiting to feel the shade of beaten eggyolk

cake batter Sunday mornings and sock-footed feet.

I am waiting for the storm to pass like boxes of light

swinging across the ceiling. I am waiting to be the inhale

before I open my mouth. I am waiting to be the expectancy

in the straining hand. I am waiting for the sand.

I'm waiting for your heroic gesture

I’m waiting for your heroic gesture
Because I want to be as far as possible from you right now
And I can’t. Bring me your flowers
Pulled from in between the library books. I hope they rot slowly and the smell
Like rotting peaches never leaves your clothes. What am I supposed
To turn into. Where are your questions? I keep repeating butterfly but my chrysalis
Has never broken. I am waiting for you to say my name
And for it to break me.
I’m waiting for your heroic gesture
The elasticity of you in one place and me in another.
i swear the wooden planks of the bench are
white tiles. the little bones of
the flower shatter when you touch them. they are just
shadows in the light. do you understand these things? often,
I think not.

saifullah khan

can i write something strong enough to keep me from throwing up?
can i turn away hard enough to keep me from throwing up?
can i wipe away the barbed words and keep me from throwing up?

Thimali tells me I want to throw up
The world right now it makes me want to throw up
I see this article how long will we lie how long will we keep ourselves from throwing up
even when we are throwing up will it ever be enough

even when each page of a newspaper makes us throw up will it ever be enough

i want to throw up all the cruelty in this world, all the emptiness and the horror
the men standing in our halls the men created by this system the system the man
throw them all up and hope they come out in pieces transformed that can be never stitched back together again

i cannot tell you more than this, i want to throw up
i cannot tell you more than this, it isn't enough

bracero tráeme en tus brazos largos
y llévame a los pies de la luna
en el rojo de la noche podemos trabajar juntos
dedos en dedos, con piel de estrellas
tus brazos, tus brazos
aguantándome otra vez

i will love you as much as anyone will love you
as much as i try to love myself
wholly and fully

(like the round curve of a not yet ripe peach,
like the circular embrace of a filling moon, like the freshness
of a bite of arugula dirt grit in teeth, or a smile from a stranger).

sometimes

sometimes i don't feel pretty
or smart or cool
or like i really belong anywhere at all
when people from my other world speak about me
i think they speak in tongues of a girl who doesn't exist
that they don't know the real conditions i am shiny
only against slate and the loose change of this city
makes me lose my luster. maybe then it is
only the middle school boys lurking in the yellow
hallways of my mind that can claim their false knowing
and i will let them, bend my too long hair, the split ends
dragging on the floor, and let them mispronounce my name.

the words feel uncomfortable on my skin
lies and organized religion
the suffocation of the truth slowly in quiet and large mouths
in small ones too and its hard to think that maybe you can half believe in something
or in people who believe in something even though you want to reach out your hand
and lead them slowly away, to not hate it all, but let them keep the glowing part in their chests
as you lead them away, to do it on their own.

lost in translation

yesterday, we wasted away
without knowing
the power of like i am reminded
in blurring the mind
in obscuring time
the fact that what people say is so wonderful
what can create static that hovers just above your skin
is just two people in a room
it boils down to two
people hanging out maybe
eating indian food in a restaurant
or taking a walk and if you say it like
this it seems much less amazing
and sometimes if i squint and turn my
head sideways i can see it like this even when
i am one of those people, and the tandoori chicken
on the plate in front of me
is still hot.

you say you want me to be independent
that you like me, and why would you
want me to not be independent. you've seen it happen
before (haven't we all?) (but i have been inside of it) the absorption
of two people into one, and tell me how your suitemate says he will follow
his grad school girlfriend wherever she goes. you tell me:
this is the dumbest thing he could've said to me.
(yet you yourself say silly things). things about
time and relationship. i am not ready. i do not want
another relationship with an expiration date. this is
not the type of life, the type of living that i wish to be a
part of. i tell you this. you nod. i suppose you take it all quite well.

but you still text me effusively. effusiveness that is okay
when we are together. effusiveness that means
we can have this conversation
semi-dressed, in the light of my window
not at an all school concert that
everyone is partying to. (did he want me
to be independent too? did he care?
have an opinion.) you've done long distance before.
it didn't work out. how long? eight months. but i 
didn't really like her that much. well no i did. (do you say this to protect me?
chico. you can try. but i cannot protect you. the fact that i have loved
is undeniable. i cannot mold it to sound better to your ears. this relationship
i speak of. this relationship that breaks me that forms the edges of my skin still.
the things you say echoes of another's lips upon my ear.
the way you move the retracing of another's hand along my hips.
the absorption the swallowing was not only darkness (though i can see you
construe it that way, in the way my face contorts as i speak of it. in the fear that must
shine clearly enough in my face that you take my hand. squeeze it.) in it too was light.
light that is beyond the curving of this bedroom, light that is beyond all of the
intimacies that we have now reached, that we are still reaching. i do not wish to be known
again. this myth of closeness, enough of a shroud to carry for the years moving forward.
and this, i'm sorry, xxxxx is something i cannot deny.)

florida

i hurt, i hurt

i hurt, i hurt

i want to give you something beautiful

i want to give you something to soothe your wounds

i want to give you something

i hurt, i hurt

i hurt, i hurt

something pink 

something like a shock of fire

i imagine your bodies now

gray paper thin

i hurt, i hurt

i hurt, i hurt

i want to pray for you

i want to give you lavender

for your nights of banging your head against the wall

for your nights of car crashes and cold sidewalks

for your iron sharp minds

for the iron cool metal of the gun

i hurt, i hurt

i hurt, i hurt

i want to pray for you

i want to give you something beautiful

(it's not enough.)

brunch

if he declared his love for you unlikely
what would you do hypothetically
accept it? or reject it?

she sits on the couch metaphorically
and waits for me to answer rhetorically

its pouring outside undeniably

i say i'd give it a try.

some part of me hopes that you cry.

pat patty in son

he says clichés are lifeless
but i find some comfort
in the knowing

january 20th

and so we meet again
in the mirror
your hair is dripping long
and mine is too

i think i see your pain
your growing older
its underneath your eyes

the bags aren't sleep anymore
they're filled with sadness

but when you smile
i'll stay