i have to find a way for this to be enough

your words across a page

the memory of your face upon the pillow

to push it at an arm’s distance

the gold in my hand glittering

at an arm’s distance

at the distance i can understand.

without reservation

her face flipping in my mind, back and forth
right in front of me, this shyness
her eye staring and her mouth saying nothing

and the moment after i say the words
shivering on the concrete
she is standing there watching me
and she says them back

the ending i didn't bear to believe
the ending i didn't even think of
just the need to say the words, to not have
them rattling around inside of me for another two weeks

two weeks two weeks
wanting it all at once, to drown in the sugar dangerous
this extension silent torture as i awake from feverish dreams
oh yesterday feels like it was just a dream

your soft cheek and the way you twisted your legs around mine
the way you let me in beyond
lying there breathing in the silence
letting me hear the things you shouldn't have noticed but did

and now we're in this inbetween space
and i wish you were here with me actually

wanting to ditch all my history, feeling fully once again
the weight the power of simple side by side existence
that makes me feel so happy and so sad

these simple things to live for
the softest things that break us

that i know will break me, will shatter me, even as i try not to look into a future i don't understand

all i want to do is hold you right now
and not try to understand.

dia de los muertos

i feel like i’m hurting a lot right now and i don’t really understand
why still seeing you walking down the street and choosing to ignore you can derail me
imagining you with your hands on my face painting it white
imagining your laugh, the dab of the black on your fingers
your swinging cross on the chain, the jesus above your bed
the way your hood was pulled tightly around your face as you walked by
as i pretended you didn’t exist as a way to grasp blindly for some sort of power
the hurt that is worse for being inadvertent

unfinished business that i’m beginning to realize you may never finish
that keeps hurting

and the way we walked around new haven that night
faceless, invigorated by the mask glued right above our skin
you calling your mother and watching me trying to read me in the watson basement
the mask that you created not letting you in

i feel its return now
as it raises from below my skin
like when we watched coco and i looked over at you and you were silently weeping
an action i had never seen on you
the hurt that makes us turn mean to protect ourselves

as you danced with me without caring in the abandoned plaza
and asked me if i was even hispanic months later

the light and the heavy becoming confused
indistinguishable to the untrained eye

that wasn’t there to feel the punch in the gut
or the surge of an inexplicable happiness---

the kind you don’t want to speak of
that glows golden on the inside of your skin

a warm secret against your chest.
and as we pass I feel cold

steeling myself into feigned ignorance
beyond the smile i know is on your face every familiar detail pains me
lingering inside for the rest of the night
in ways i can't explain.