Picking Up The Pieces

Afterparty

The floors are lathered in 

a coat of unidentified goo.

Is it morning yet? Or is it

the middle of the night?

I see my body from above me, 

a sad excuse of a person.

I return to myself as the music dims down,

only to realize I have nothing to return to.

I press my feet hard against the gooed-up

wooden flooring, trying to make the moment last.

I want to make a dent the size of a crater,

I want to let people know that–

despite my absence–I lived.

My pain becomes never more apparent 

than when my so-called friends fill my home, 

or my hollow body fills someone else’s. 

A Person That Is No Longer

you didn’t die, you live, 

i wish you away. 

what is remembering,

if not fiction? 

you offered

peace and i called you God.

“i have always been a martyr.”  

you are my faith; i cannot

renounce You, but I wish you away

like a child does their parent.

“i repent.”

Storms

The breeze of a deity, the air

Of a witch, caresses my longing:

Breath for my compromised lungs.

Filling them, not with oxygen

But spiritual kinship.

Vibrations of melancholy

Penetrate skin, reach beyond—

Like my reflection reaching

Out the river—

finally a familiar embrace.

A wave of sorrow transcends, quickly becoming

your cries and mine and everything that has ever felt or been.

The lines were never blurry,

Sound is a god, and in sound, we live.

Pandora’s Box

I knew it back then,

some of us are just born

Bruised, 

yet to become rotten.

I tried so hard to think otherwise

when you looked at me. 

I’ve been no saint, never deserving

of that mythical force, but

It was nice to believe in you, 

in your magic.

Your goodness is what God made

this universe thinking of

and I am a purgatory for

my self-induced sins.

What a gift it was to have been grazed by you. 

How lucky, how damned, can one be?

I was only graceful, 

for you

I would’ve been anything.

  I was safe until

you tore me open.

Then came rushing the truth,

Like water out of a broken pipe

in a storm, flooded,

Blood gushing from within

a hidden wound, I died,

I drowned. I wished 

for my angel

to never awaken me

again that was not my fate.

You stayed, 

evergreen, ever peaceful, and:

“The troubles of the world

all belong to me.”

Me Comio La Lengua El Ratón

Mi abuela me lo dijo

tantas veces, que me ha pasado.

Cuando era niña, era fácil

decir lo que quisiera.

Enrollaba la lengua para articular

mis deseos, los canté.

Quien me iba a decir que solo se cumple

lo cumplido, y lo deseado te busca

cuando no lo queres encontrar.

Años anhelando esta vida y me ha atrapado.

Soñé tantas veces, dormí muy poco.

Nunca me dejé llevar por el destino, lo no creado.

Mi abuela ya no está, y con ella

se fue mi inocencia.

"Me comió la lengua el ratón,"

y la imaginación me la quitó la vida.

Dissection

I can’t kill a fly without seeing 

a future in flames, but I can wish

death upon my brothers and smile 

at my reflection. 

You can search 

for everything it is you long for in this life,  

I’m afraid it’s gone. 

Waste your time; I'll buy you some. 

What currency 

do they take anyway?

I’ll bargain with my newborn laughter and

bottled oxygen. I’ll label it one of a kind. 

Breathless, I still fear 

that despite our efforts to separate, 

despite the truth of our composition. God or

this computer made us the same.

But please do look at me 

with those eyes, 

tell me I am something.