ojos en la aurora

ojos ensueños

cargado de joyas

caigan en mi boca

y mi lengua baila en su riquezas

y mi garganta ahoga en su yema

dulce

dulce 

dulce 

compañía temporal.

Cactus Honey

The desert will always remind me of you.

A rawbone wasteland
that would make any flower daring to exist
into a siren's song.

The drips from every swollen note would, of course,
seduce the thirsty stranger of the sands that I am.

Hallucinations can make a well out of anything
if you're thirsty enough.

And I made an ocean out of you
with the absence of your touch.
So drunken and drowning off
the sunshine petals of your crackerjack
love

you're only in my head.
and we are out of our minds here.

This desolate ground is no friend to the abandoned.

The sun haunts the lonely into the night.
and the blaze of its rays never leaves my bones.

There is nothing, nothing here to make a home.

I do not know how to survive here.
But then
I see you.

Drawing sheets of silver water
glistening from your pockets
a beautiful unfolding escape
that I nearly swallowed whole.

I found you tucked safely
beneath my scabs
beneath my chest
beneath the darkness
beneath this crowded bed.

You hollowed out stones
I made our bed, you (lied) in it
this was our home
this was our home
this was my home

We played love in an empty house
windows left open while we both crept out
spilling into the neon palate sun
(wish you were still here to kiss my scalded palms)

You are gone.
Gone.
I cannot find my way out of this place.

I have spent too long staring at my own reflection
in the gloss of your eyes.

Too long being a fool for beautiful dreams
and silver linings.

Made me believe there was an endless ocean
at the edge of the burning sands
and I followed them to the very end

but the ending
never seemed long enough
for you to miss me
miss me

I kissed sanctuary at your feet
how much I adored you

Mirages built well enough
to fool the sun
into lending its warmth
to phantom skeletons
The well I've created out of you
swallows all of my wishes
but how comforting the illusion
of everlasting arms

How poisonous hope can be
when your cup runs empty.

I have never known a bud
more placid in hue
more unyielding in bloom

You paint kindness on your petals
but deception was the bitter taste
I found in your nectar

It is you who paints the roses red

Such a blind paradise I found in your sword-filled smile.

You were a whirlwind of
what if's and could be's

my cactus Honey,
you have the most beautiful
bad intentions

My prickly pear cactus
armed to the neck with swords.

you were never my well
never my friend
never mine,
my
hope

just a boy

playing with mirrors in the desert.

my lunita, the silent one.

a flutter.
a stone.
a hollow bullet
into this hummingbird heart.

How graceful you were
in breaking me.
How beautiful your silence.
How kind your goodbyes.

My favorite uncertainty.
My gravest adventure.

a flutter.
a stone.
a hollow bullet.
and we could have never really known

how terrible the water
how reckless the wind
stuck between the crevices
of hearts so uneasy, so eager
to start

My most elegant collapse.
My greatest attempt, my best.

I let you inside of me
before I could hold your ankles
or trace the clouds of your breath.

I called you home
before I could let you love me
or shake inside my secret.

I loved you
before you knew the shape of my palms
or the birdsongs lost in my throat.

I was reckless, a silly broken fool.
A shy balloon, swelling
with every glance, every touch, every thought
of you.

Gliding
ever so uneasy, gliding
Waiting
to burst, to break, to fall.

Such has been my experience in flying.

And you.
My moon, my silent love
only lover,
only, maybe
took hold

And I.
breathtaken and lonely
not belonging to the air
as much as the ocean
dove
as was natural.

Shame on me for not asking
whether or not you could swim.

a flutter.
a sinking stone.

I loved you whole and unknown.
So used to swallowing glass
I couldn't see
the subtle cuts
the missed pass
where hearts slipped from sleeves
and shattered silently.

a flutter.
a stone.
a hollow bullet case.
hidden by the shadows of the moon.

How soothing your lullabies.
How wary your heart.

You drifted
before you could hold the rise of my breath
or taste the curve of my shoulder.

You succumbed to the unknown
before you could fall asleep in the rise of my thighs
or unfold beneath the curtain of my lambent laugh.

You bit the bullet, drank from the black hole.
before you could connect the constellations covering my nose
or name the color of my eyes.

And I.
So brave in my breaking, so impartial to your broken parts.

My somber longing.
My bashful heart.

Lost in the sink of your dimples,
hungry in the pearls of your smile.

How complacent your cradle.
How meager your liking.

I loved you
before the ambiguity
before the quake
before the quiver of our fault
so subtle, so sincere.

My most favorite uncertainty.
My gravest adventure.

a flutter.
a stone.
a hollow bullet.

How reckless we were,
strangers
fickle and flighty by nature,
but how beautiful our fault.

New video of me performing "Rust Collector" at my friend Nick Macedo's Without Flinching Show.
Check it out here!
http://vimeo.com/channels/nickmacedo#31632023

home

 

never settle.

bodies

Bend, but don't break

Bodies, let's keep it that way.

getting over my fear of the ocean

birds
don't always fly in flocks and
don't always fly in pairs.

NaPoWriMo 10/30*

You called me your lover

Though we never made love

we made

Bites, kisses, and teases

Cocooned ourselves into each other's touch

You were

First love

Sometimes hate

And we spiraled in between

Victim and selfish

Hanging our skins

On each other's clothing lines

Who knew

The rain would last months

Before we realized

The sun

Doesn't like to see us

Teasing each other clean

With

Scalpels, scissors, staples

Trying to quilt ourselves

Into ideal

Breaking the silk

Until

We laid

Stiff butterflies

Eyes closed tight

Biting at our half grown wings

Blaming one for the other

Until I remembered

Only the sun can dry

Wet hearts

And tired eyes

So I flew

Crooked and new

Eyes wide open

But please

Don't pardon me

I do not need apologies

Because I knew what I was doing

When I picked a lover

With broken hands

And a spine so arrogant

That

I could feel it collapse

Behind my breath

And you knew what you were doing

when you slammed fists over wings

To keep me from flying

Your flighty lover

Who loved the moon

More than she could ever love you

Sought shelter in the night

Waiting to take flight

Before the sun could rise

But fell limp

Tied by the hips to a pair

Of broken hands

We ripped each other

Limb by limb

Trying to fit

Safely into each other's arms

We were

An armless love

A strange cocoon

That broke under the sun

We loved

Less than ourselves

A torn quilt

Built to shield

Us from drowning

But I grew tired of

Holding my breath.

Sleeping Sickness, I Couldn't Sleep

I could never sleep
With someone next to me
For three reasons:

The first
because I'm fearful
That you'll stop breathing in your sleep
The idea of you dying alone
Without someone next to you
Without anyone knowing how it happened
Did the breaths just stop?
Did your throat rattle?
Frightens me.
What if I could have woken you
Before you forgot to breathe again
What if I woke you
You remembered
And lived
What if
That's one reason.

The second is
The night leaves me a restless fiend
For open windows
and the sound of doors closing
The feeling of being the one turning the knob
Like a god, twisting the earth
to meet its other side
The moon calls me out
And I love her more, so I go
I want to die alone
I have no desire
to have anyone by my side
I want my last moments to be only mine
Die secret. Silent and shaking like old films.

Here, I love you most
Silent, open mouthed
And I know you love me
And I know you're a coward
But in the night
You are none of these and everything
I see the moon under your eyes and i
Want to love you
But you're asleep and I'm awake
I want to leave you before you notice
I have become so vulnerable
You're electricity in the bed
And I'm a puddle in the sheets
I become just like the others before me
My body- a copy, my soul is not present here
I become a traitor to my own body
I feel alone and ghostly
And I can't sleep because you might explode and kill me
And I do not want to die
With someone next to me
I don't want to be anyone's ghost
When I'm gone I want to be gone
A this time happening that will happen again
But not in this circumstance
Not with these people.

The third is that when I do sleep
I have nightmares of you leaving
Waking up and being left
No note, no explanation
As if you were not even a perception
As if your existence never mattered
Because it only came once
And it would make sense
for you to leave how you came
But you didn't come only once
You came again and again and again
I couldn't stand to watch you
die again and again and again
I'm scared to love you when you're awake
your open eyes carry mistakes
But they’re not mistakes at all
I want you to admit them
Smash your clock
Take off your clothes
And stare at me all night
To tease the day into forgetting
That it steals lovers away
That it makes the sound of alarm clocks
And car ignitions and keys
As if the night never mattered at all
I want to make love to you when the sun peaks
Sleepy, still drunken on moonbeams
Singing poems of single words in your ear
Mangito. Melon. Saboroso.
And you will eat them all up for breakfast
And the sun will be mad
That we are still together
Shameless.

rust collector

i want the moon right now
and i want to be alone.

i wish you knew
how it feels
to have the seconds grow inside of you
like rust eating at the bones
time will not heal me.

you left me
with an aching down to my ankles
it feels like i've been crawling on wooden panels
for days

you left me
with hips swollen--an open rejection
i should have taken you all in, i know
but i couldn't just yet and so

you left me
back aching
from bending over backwards for you
while you tucked me away
made your get-a-way
and tip toed across my spine
while i
bridge position with hands tied
how did you ever expect me to catch you
without leaving myself paralyzed?

You hide inside every inch of me,
tell me, how am i supposed to let you go
without breaking myself into pieces?

and how can a mess of flesh on the floor
ever walk upright again?

This is my contemplation
as i am broken
this is my pain, my heartbreak
my struggle to steal handfuls
of time to swallow
because i can't go any longer
throwing up the sun for you
i have nothing more to prove to you

so strip me of my skin, rip the heart from my chest
while i stand naked
taking the blows, drinking the poison
but just because i stood vulnerable
never made me weak or less than human
just maybe too much woman
though

I wish you could have known me
in my deepest moments
where i slipped out of this skin
that kept me from letting you in
those nights when i was full and open
unexplored, untouched
where i was not this broken girl
who could never give enough

i wish you could've known me
those nights I would love every little piece of you
without even touching you
love every bit of impulsiveness
that would leave me at the foot of your carelessness
i love all your faults and accidents
i wanted to love you and have your faults and accidents...

but we never gave each other a real chance
just molded each other hourglass
as if time was always running out
but we were the only ones always running out
only this time you went alone and took to the window
pressed glass into my mouth
"I'll never forget you"
Now swollen tongue, rust collector
"i will never give up on you"

and i will lay boneless, spineless
in layers of skin, in emptiness
on mornings like this (and every morning since)
when the hours roll into minutes
and i live
in infinite longing for you
to pick me up and take me back to bed
a puddle in front of your footprints
i won't leave the place you left me in
because i have no way of standing up.

Paintings

This past summer I took a break from writing and taught myself how to paint. It has been an amazing experience and has helped me grow tremendously and creatively. Enjoy!

Inner child

 Mixed media on canvas

Dead Weight

 Mixed Media on canvas

 Sad Sunshine

Acrylic on drywall

 Starstruck heartstrings

acrylic on drywall

 Sad Sunshine and Rabbit

Acrylic on drywall

 Gemini Childe: Half for me, Half for you

Acrylic on drywall

 For Jayr

Acrylic on drywall

 Purple bruises

Acrylic on canvas

 acrylic on canvas

 mixed media and flowers on drywall

 Salvage what is still beautiful

Set Sights on higher things

Let dreams carry you.

Mixed media on canvas

Hope Happens When Pigs Fly

Acrylic on canvas

Chicken Legs

For Eddie
Acrylic on canvas
traded for Asura vinyl
_____________
Legs long like moon beams
from behind our sun
we come from both sides
the wrong sides
and ended up
somewhere between
belittled occurrences and child's play
young, restless, chicken legs we carry
tossing and ticking
our glasses full of stardust
against walls holding our chins up
great things happen
when you close your eyes
like blinking 20,000 slides
of everything that could have happened.

i am a keeper of things

I remember the old man on the subway. And when everyone moved, I stayed. I kept him and I keep him. And he wasn't old at all. I remember 25/34 and a rose. I kept them and I keep it. I remember the woman in Verona. I gave her my smile instead of some coins and she gave me her with a missing tooth but she knew more than I did. I kept her too. I remember them too, each of them, no labels nothing to hold onto. I keep them. I remember his singing voice stirring and jolting like the wind and water and heat. I remember how they moved too and I stayed. I remember his eyes like the water used to be and he was singing. I keep him and I'll keep him. I remember those twin souls, so beautiful. I remember the dead bird in front of my house. I remember my bird and how he flew away and that's okay. I remember you, yellow eyes full of question and how I turned away. I remember circle, circle, dot, dot, ten bullets in your back! And popcorn kernels and barbeque sauce. I remember the lemonade. I remember how he choked on his own blood and died and I wish I would've held your hand then. I remember how she jumped off the freeway ramp. Free baby bird. I remember foam in the mouth and why'd you have to go and killed yourself in a bathroom. I remember goodmorning tea parties. I, am a keeper of things. I remember those beautiful things. I remember those beautiful faces and those beautiful deeds. I remember my father's santeria remedies. I remember her fierce kindness and how I took it for granted. I remember his treasures, him, golden. I remember meeting my fever on a bench. I remember how he apologized. I remember their secrets. I remember their fear. I remember every scar, every dimple, every curve of bone. I remember how he dreamed in sleep. I remember nose breath and teeth. I remember being a naked mermaid in a sink and I remember where they touched me without asking. I remember and I remember. I remember james and his tears in my hands. I remember seeing a star dip behind the shadows. I remember how he called me joyful and his friend and how much it meant. I remember being one of two choices and sad that I didn't lose. I'll keep her too. I remember twin ladybug souls. I remember headless barbies. I remember beach boy jesus god and dancing like oh that never felt so good and I remember being loved. And I remember being taught to be brave and saving spiders from being drowned in the sink. I remember how he introduced himself as loving me already. and that's so wonderful, really. I remember. And I remember loving you, scared but true. I remember being loved and this, this is for you, everyone. I love you.

all i am

All I am
are thoughts thought before
and a body of recycled cells.
Nothing belongs to me
And I belong to nothing.
There is no "we."
And I think that's where hope comes in.
Hope that (we) and more than (our)selves.
Hope
For more than who, more than what.
More that truth, more than perception.
I am more than myself.
_________
written inside a hole in the wall 
somewhere summer 2008.