Winter Blues

I love the heat
pressed against
the soles of my bare feet.
Night sweats
and booty shorts,
and early sunny mornings.
Bring me Summer on your back,
will you?
Bring in the last jug
of Kool-Aid before
the flies get to it.
Bring in the nights
the heat kept me up,
but found me satiated,
belly swollen with warm rice
and lukewarm coffee.

Winter doesn’t look the same.
Doesn’t feel the same.
I’m sat here with an artificial light,
trying to wring out the warmth
of a perfect sunrise
in June.

Long days nourish me
deep, through and through.
Bring me something sumptuous
on your way back, will you?
Something like sweltered
evenings, laying on the grass,
waiting for the moon to peek
through the widening
hole in the sky.
Stars come through like
light through
the gaps in a knit sweater
draped over your head.
Only a slight breeze,
and the roaches sing.
Streetlamps hum overhead.

Before you go,
can you remind me,
not once or twice,
maybe three times
that it doesn’t end now?
That Winter slinks
away every year,
without fail,
and Summer
slips in through
the venetian blinds,
whether I’m waiting
or not?

Summer Tombstones

Drunken summers under smoky skies.
I’d melt into the pavement every afternoon.
Bare toes in the evening. I’d slip on dewey grass,
5AM, no sleep. Who could sleep when the joy
was so loud?

Sunshine slapped against the window,
stuck its fingers through the venetian blinds,
pulled me out of a sleepless bed.
Looking in the mirror, sunkissed glow,
Wondering when wrinkles will carve
rivers into my face. Wondering
when my glow will turn
to cancer.

Wish I could be 21, always. Wish I could
go back to 25, and it was Summer.
I’d do it right. I’d live the joy.
Wouldn’t bury it under blank tombstones
and cry, “Later. I have time.”

It Could Be Worse

I could not be 30.
I could regret it all.
I could’ve loved every minute.
(I could’ve lied.)

My shoulders may buttress
a chapel full of saints and
promises, but the stained glass
details are mine.

This window is where I
sat in the garden
and wept. This is
where I stumbled 3,000 times.

At least it’s mine.
At least I wept.
At least I faltered,
and my back grew spine.

I’m glad for grey hairs.
I don’t try to hide my frame
like I used to. My canvas
may be muddled colors

in a museum full of
almost-getting-it-right.
But it’s mine. And
I could not be 30.

Brow Bar

Saddled just above my brown eyes
are my grandmother’s eyebrows.
Hair as thick as her bloodline,
in my early youth,
I attempted to thin them out
with shears.
School mates would harp
on their potential,
if only they were tamed.

I have hacked
at my grandmother’s
legacy for decades.
Tried to thin it out.
Tried to not offend
others with
its brashness.

They say eyebrows
frame your face,
and they sit just
above the windows
to my truest self.

Then why lay waste
to my truest self?
Why should I find
unnatural arches
to appease the
stranger
at the supermarket?

They are there
as a unique frame
for my unique face.
If you take offense
at the amount of hair
my face is capable
of sprouting,
then try and match
the history of hairy
Europeans in Aztec
territory, and tell
my grandmother’s
lineage to get it
together, and take
their asses
to a Benefit
Brow Bar.

Blackout Poetry

I attended a blackout poetry workshop today, and I absolutely fell in love with the form. I attempted a couple during the workshop, but I got real into it when I came home. Here are a couple of the better ones I made at home. 🙂

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a cascade

suggesting

life happened in

me.

no, I won’t

forget

my words.

I reach my voice.

shrugged shoulders.

back to earth, suddenly

calm, I

smile.

I stay.

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island smaller than rage,

thieves, and time.

I smiled in

the green clearing.

small skin.

old boys.

look in to help.

new prayer

i have hoarded
a lifetime of introductions.
the window
to my mouth is boarded
with new beginnings.
my tongue is lined
in a fine film of
starting overs.

i’m done with
new leading
nowhere.

i anticipate
a reply from
dedication
and perserverence.
i’ve dialed three
times now.
i hope they
can hear me.
i leave a
voicemail
in prayer.

woman,

how many ways can you spell ‘mistake?’
how many ways can you tongue
a sore insult in your mouth
before you learn to spit it out,
and replace it with loving-kindness?
i hope you can look in the mirror
and realize you’re more
than a sum of mistakes.
you are not a collection of defects.
you are not the pain
of destructive explosion;
you’re the ecstasy
of discovering new ways
to spell ‘love.’
you hold napalm
in your palms,
and i hope you shape
it into your own body,
and incite a revolution
of motion in your insides.
a movement. a choreography
of acceptance
of self.
– i’ve felt it, too

 

D E A R M E X I C O

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DEAR MEXICO,

I’ve found you on tile floors,

under uncles’ breath,

and in between tortilla presses.

I’ve found you in every corner of my

mother’s mouth,

and every landscape

except your reddest clay.

Dear Mexico,

your green, white, and red

marches in my veins,

and I have inherited your adobe

bricks, which now glisten

in the sun of my skin.

But I have never touched

your ground.

Dear Mexico,

I find you in the slopes

of my knees,

like mountains,

and I find you in my nieces’ eyes,

brown, and brown, and thank

God for brown.

Dear Mexico,

you show up in every dream;

you remain a vibrant fantasy.

I know you are more fact

than fiction.

But for now,

let me pretend

you are a lemon tree,

abundant, with your branches

heavy,  your citrus

full of juice.

Let me make lemonade

if I can’t live you yet.