Halfpillows

There, where the spilled dreams
teach me

I am distracted by comfort and defiance
My own recollections,
misshapen halfpillows
but they are where I rest
as I lay on sand at high noon
being cooked alive by stars
wishing

I believe it to be true
that falling in love is a mockery
of death

Revolution is never without blood
and pride is still an armor
sometimes

There, where the spilled aches
of my heart spoil my dreams

I ask
When will it be sufficient
to show ourselves to one another

Hoping to Remain

Soon everyone will be drinking tea
and smiling weakly
about the argument the night before
Oh, I still love them, of course
I’m just being dramatic today

Tangled memories left in piles
on a handmade table
wait to be filtered and pressed
like flowers,
safe, dormant

The stench of death meanwhile,
quite lazily disguised,
remains stuck
to everyone’s bones
like a putrid barnacle

Soon we will all drink our tea
and try to forget those
common, wilted griefs we carry
hoping to remain loved
by an immortal

I will turn you

You will turn into a ball of mud
if you do not let me do what I’m supposed to
I want to speak in tongues
until I am Death upon your skin
And you can’t help but feel disdain
when you remember
at someone else’s expense, with extra horror,
how I cut out the sadness from your wrinkles
and sneered
while you ceased trying to remain yourself

Careful begging, dipped in your own shame
smelling of old blood
leaks out of your ears
while I watch like a rogue spy, darkened

I will turn you into something useless
If you do not dry into stone first
It’s too late anyway
You have turned your tongue too far
to ever close your mouth again
Upon your skin I complain
and sharpen knives, rusty from bile
I have no use for your adornments
for there are better things to do
than to cry over the heart of Man

We Were Told to Paint the Houses White

We were told to paint the houses white
like an impartial, starry dove

Before they come to inspect
between our teeth, behind our eyes
Invite me to be witness to your sin

I think about what you feel
When you pant and gasp
inside my solid gloom

We were told that our ghosts
would be left in peace

Which death squad did you invite
to narrate your afternoon
next to the unpainted houses

Bloody, gangrened doppelgängers
laugh and cheer
foaming at the mouth

We were told
we had to forgive our own sins

Blinded, listening to the song
of a pious, aching dove
Do you know how to repent?

Invite me to be witness
before the houses are repainted
and the ghosts are let down

This Isn't Anything

What if you really knew
the darkness I keep in my heart
Old
Love
What if I took off the mask
you taught me to make myself
Pulp whisked hurriedly, braided together
Old love fitted perfectly around
all the blemishes you can’t stand to look at
You have always known me
This
Isn’t
Anything
New

We all sing, together:
When do I get to say something?
I salivate just as much as you do
When is my howl?
Old love, is this the chorus?
This
Isn’t
Anything
if I don’t care what it’s like
to be you

Catch Your Breath

Catch your breath
Say
I love you insufficiently
Tell me let me count the ways

If only the gods could apologize
Catch their breaths
Say
I love you all insufficiently

Yell
I don’t understand how we got here
Yell
I don’t think you really know me

Catch your breath
It’s not enough for you to love me
Tell me we aren’t lost
and that the gods haven’t left

Grey Boxes

I’ve never wanted to feel my best
all of the time
We are all taught by someone
how best to hide our misgivings,
when best to seduce away discomforts
I know there is no net

I’ve only been disemboweled a few times
Does that answer your question?
I want to be able to give an answer
that pertains to everything
the way magic solves the strange urgency
to weep

I want to be able to write:
I was an ice cube
gently melting in the cocktail
I was somersaulted,
Ohhhhhh
but I wasn’t taught to do that

I am in the dark
I do not sit inside grey boxes
I was taught to be severe
to keep myself safe
My charm is a soft sadness
Blanketing all you think is there

If I Invite You for Soup

It is solid work
to grow space
for the New
for all of you

Sometimes
there isn’t any water
and no talking
but to the Dead

I put cinnamon
in almost everything
Now YOU
will have to remember, too

Sometimes, it gets cold
I get cold
I want the New now
I can’t apologize for time spent

Yes I remember
all the steps
I remember euphoria
I know how much salt it calls for

Collected stones
under many seas
boil carefully,
children’s leftover wonders

But all of you
have already eaten
I wish I could grow faster
And keep my monsters better fed

Flies

Eventually
the flies will die

We will feel differently
from how we feel now

It’s not impossible
for memories to wilt,
found stiff, dusted over
in the corner of a room
when it’s gotten cold out
again

Eventually
the flies die

Wilted revulsions,
Revolution
We dust over

Eventually
the flies will die

Deluge

Not all love affairs are the size of
collosal,
sweeping desert clouds,
sonnets dancing
next to the Sun

Sometimes,
the rain is there
to force a change in tempo
and there is a murky
interview between giants

I forgot to practice that part,
somewhere between shadow
and light
Neither clouds nor rain nor sun
laugh here

I forgot to practice looking at clouds
before they bury passions,
collosal, with a deluge
somewhere between
shadow and light

John Carpenter Haiku

Horror is purple
This isn't vanilla twist!
Fate never changes

Stitch

Take your ugliness out
Unhide it
Sew onto it my kiss

It is inside love
where I can most easily navigate
It is here where I know who I am

A torn map worn as a crown
Use my flesh as a guide for your stitch
Unhide old tangles

A cloak patched with kiss
It is in here, in love,
that I can protect

How Will Our Souls Look Then

When asked to explain to the aliens
who will have travelled from some ancient moon
to empirically define the human soul

Why we butcher one anothers’
sons, daughters, fathers, mothers

Why we cover the living magic we call green
with inert, plastic greys

Why we take what is not ours
and leave lukewarm puddles of oil and blood under our own feet
Why we defend ourselves against wretched words
written in fallible, old books, with creators of permanent ghosts

Why we have such wanton disrespect for love
and illogically poison our children with hatred

When asked to explain these things
without any god or chance or economy to distract
How will our souls look then?

Your memories of me

My lies are in a golden box
sitting at the bottom of the sea
All I can do now is pant
in the sun
wet and torn open by wolves,
peachlike

There is no fear left
to protect my lost gazes,
your memories of me

We Are Cursed

What must we have done
to the gods
for them to curse us
with such violent need
to search for utopia

Even our skin is imperfect
and from time to time
stops stretching,
impolitely choking the body
without warning

There is no such thing
as a penitent human
Ultimately
it is unimportant whether or not
you strike back

If I am to be truthful, then yes,
I am ugly
What you see are pencil marks
dug too deeply for erasers
to forgive

We will always be willing
to drag each other, screaming
through mud and spines
We search
We are cursed

Sandwiches

In my dreams
I am singing sad songs
with Roy

and the only way
to pay for something
is with sex

or
sandwiches

It must be difficult

It must be difficult
to be a child

Disdainful adults
Everywhere

Yet constantly
still wanting
to be held

by Mother

Ancient text 2: voice and death and rains

It was not until
there was Voice
that the rains paid any attention
and Death could finally
be laughed at

Voice was a twin,
her copy dark, seismic
He told more jokes than she
They could always hear one another

Rains learned to laugh,
inspired by the velvet growing
unexpectedly on rocks
Voice was endless with power

It was these howling twins,
born in the center of a star
that created the ability to tease
Before the rains’ laughs, everything was silent

This pair clamored to create the seas
Their laughter forced mountains to stretch
All the secrets of the old world drowned
Death felt obsolete

Ancient text 1: death

They were the first
to cover Death
with gold

They were not confused
They had slept to the South

Both made Death beautiful,
prepared it for heartbreak,
cold weather

This was their role
These were the last ever to rear

But I am god, she finally said
I can make
my own everything

Death swallowed them easily
Still covered in gold, alone

No one else knows how to build alone
All will always be
only halfway holy

Every day

The best time of the day
is in the early morning
in those few moments after waking
before any words have been spoken aloud

It is then that there is no fear

If dogma ever pays a visit,
that is when she arrives
There is more to pray for in winter
but she likes to sweat

Who to hate,
love
And why,
how long
This is all decided here
Every day

We should all be born
and die
then

Mysteries

Still, I have flirted with Death
even though I never say the words I’m supposed to

I can remember the sounds of voices best
and have woven clouds with silent string
that no one will ever be able to see

I have no interest in solving this mystery
In retracing past cowardices

There isn’t a way to write all of it down
A faith robbed and then sleuthed
somehow knowing the whole time

It’s nearly impossible to know
when the last time will be

I can’t write this story
No one ever remembers how it ends
Coquettish grief keeps doors from shutting tightly

Early Mother's Day poem

My mother knows how to fold fitted sheets

You can feel it too
That moment when it felt
like it wasn’t supposed to
The universe skipped a beat

The sheets are soft and evenly folded

I know which bone will break first
It’s completely sane to fear death
I can’t lose her
I don’t know how to be her

They all fit in the same way on the same day

Please tell me when I have to pray
I was told to look my best
when I am beheaded
I’ve always been the water

Molting

My love will only end at the end
It shines neon
Inklike, delicious sphere

I wish I had always loved you
An absolute, taciturn sun,
scrying

My rituals are imperfect
But I’m allowing you to use
my pulse

If I’d loved you then
there’d be no need for molting
this spent skin

Egg Moon

I’m not naïve enough
to recite a definition of paradise
But one day all of you
will breathe next to me
and we’ll look at the moon,
gasping together

It’s almost enough
at the entrance
of every memory
carried by every cell

In our current heaven
heavy and dusty,
we burn candles
for one another
and smile
and sigh

Cost Haiku

It’s practically free
Falling in love only costs
one big bag of hope

Day 19: I pray to the gods of sleep

I pray to the gods of sleep
Bash my skull in
Please
Make it riskless
for me to live

I am nothing but my mind
You are nameless
I’d rather choke
on my blood
than fail to honor you

Day 13: Standard Haiku

Yeah, kissing's real strange
Two friends getting stuck trying to
unblow a balloon

Day 12: Citrus

Brightly lit jewels weep phantoms
loved by the Moon
Tart affections are planted by stars
dripping and mysterious, enchanted by secrets entombed

The smooth, spherical skin of potential energy
is salty and falls into the heart,
next to pink lungs that write in laughter
Not quite viridian: this verve is a jolt

Gifts of science and fate choose carefully
There are granules of salt encrusted
Bitter hesitations are avoided
They do not match the kind greens

Jewels carried under the Moon
accent truths unspoken, sitting quietly, yellowed
They are bound together, balanced
All the silences are perfect

Day 11: Hamlet Ditty

Ghosts pour out of your ears
Old, meddling men live in the walls
Oedipus laughs at your conscience, coward

Fair, juicy maidens leave woe to the living
while old friends come to volley words
and villains smile and smile

To be and to not be seem the same
when you spend your days
whining in an empty castle

Day 10: Anguish

Follow me no more
Stop absorbing
my twisted bones’ marrow
Stop setting
your unfathomable eyes on mine
as you rest against my breast
Stop stealing
my breath
Stop drawing
your portrait in my mind
Stop exchanging
bouquets of funereal crowns
Stop waiting for me
at corners, in mirrors, photographs,
poems, clouds, shadows, dreams

Somersault your heart, inject it with the light
in between the yellow-green leaves
Don’t fool yourself
The world grows and shrinks
with the rise and fall of your breast
With your gait, you change the rhythm
with which the snakes under your feet slide
The sun warms you the same as corn, ivy,
honeysuckle, chives, lilies, maguey.

**original poem "Angustia" by Rachel Thorson Hernandez, translated to English

Day 9: Cenote

Let me be what I am
Emerald cenote
filled with pulp
blessed by blood
from gods who fell asleep
and haven’t awoken

Cursed, reflecting pool
Sanctuary for all senses
Use my minerals to get strong
In this sea of sprites,
we mortals must be
each other’s saviors

Green cenote
I am your immaculate silence
Blind fish grow up
blessed by emerald reflections
I know how to make life grow
and stay still

Day 8: The Most Intimate Poem I've Ever Written

I like steaming my floor
I get to be as angry as I want
That ruby floor keeps
my mysteries slick
Held tongues and
quiet talkdowns
Tantrums: Straight,
Even,
Polite
Back-and-forths
All day long
It’s done the way I want
every time
Just a low hummmMMM
My patience sanitized
I yell without guilt
Wrath keeps my feet clean

Day 7: Making Out Poem

Hairless primates dance
in clothes with sexy thumbs

Sucking face, Some base
Tongues risk it for the nerves

Preposterous bipedal mammals
Rituals make them quiver

Day 6: Romeo & Juliet Ditty

Capulet/Montague tongues touching
I bite my thumb at all of you

Those crossed stars got it twisted
and there are heads filled with mercury

Repenting lovers, Fates’ sufferers
Sucking at love inside a tomb

I do bite my thumb at you
The folly of youth is bliss

Day 5: Aureliano

There are many kinds of happiness
and also, only one

It is you
I revolve around you

If I am to be controlled
then let it always only be
by love

Day 4: Witchmonth

Laughing at shadows
Vanishing the sunlight
I’ve lost myself in you
so many times

All the eulogies for pasts
that ended as mirages
Swindling labyrinths that
cannot not be retraced

Things are not yet neon
but it’s no longer quite so polite
That trickster wind was here
the year before as well

This is the rejuvenation
Confusion lingers in pastel
and I am mocked by the speeds
of the wind

Luminous eulogies pop up, grinning
The last three were never read
and sunlight doesn’t recall
what it’s like to be desired

I’ve lost myself again, of course
but inside fresh mazes
Leaving past grief to be eaten up
and return with the strange winds

Day 3: Sixth Sense

This is the sixth sense

And I am an oracle
And this
is where my heart lives

I will speak in tongues
on the side of a cliff

I am skinned

Skinned and stretched
and speaking in tongues

This is the sixth sense
More than fate or lust

My heart is
Here

Day 2: Parts of conversations with

Tell me about
the ones you think of every day
Without trying, without
wanting to

Where do those ghosts
think they will live
when you die

They will live in caves! In the dark!

How much can you squeeze
out of a bone
The remedy for nostalgia is




I’m tricking you; of course I don’t know
who killed you

And those I think of
are not lost yet

Tell me
how your treasures
get to their nest
in the end

Day 1: Lovers' Quarrels

I’m selling lovers’ quarrels
Two for Five!

I didn’t add much spice or sugar
None of you can stomach anything anymore

Don’t complain to me,
You all look like Walt Whitman

I think the cause might be good
At least, that’s what I told myself

The price is fair for everyone
to buy just one

The Soothsayer

There was a soothsayer
who came to a small town
He said to never believe
the things he said

And he warned us all
not to run out of memory

The soothsayer arrived
when it first started to matter
He could laugh
He was always vernal

All his warnings took up
too much space

He stayed
and did not want to love
He preached silence
and could see everything

And we wanted to remember
but there wasn’t the space

Another Clumsy Ode to Spring

When I see you
I am reminded of love
Violet, strange

Winter obsidian melts
Flowers are bees’ chants,
devouring rain

With strange, silken love
chanted by birds
We are always time-traveling

Southerners sing
I am reminded of love
Violet, hoary

This great bloom breaks
melted notions, hidden
among green spirits

Winds from space
move forward to watch
violet blooms
Chants echo, feeding worms
when I see you
and we travel through time

Watching the Apples Grow

Let’s go watch the apples grow
Eat! Feel holy
It’s going to take a very long time

And I am only devout to myself

When did you pick your first sin?
How many can you carry away?
I don’t understand your venoms at all

You have no faith in your own glow

Watching apples grow
in the light that has stretched so long
There is so much that stays, leftover

I don’t want to eat in the shade
And I don’t understand
How can you hate someone
who has experienced true love

Go into the dark and pray alone, for yourself
If we sat together in ancient light
would we grow in front of one another
with all those sins, in all those baskets?

I believe in apples, and light, and dark

Be holy only to yourself, and understand
Eat, as if it were your own heart,
and watch the apples grow

So Bright

A break from the body
and endless loops of treacherous thoughts
keeping the toxins
from leaving the head

A break from work
so few seem to enjoy or benefit from
allowing sugar and spice
to atrophy the soul

A break from love
and the future and money and potential
We’re all gorgeous and strong
and want to be free

A break from the bank
and all the crimes fantasized about
late at night
Mysteries unsolved are leftover hearts, broken

A break from solitude
Such big mouths and teeth and brains
foolishly tie us all together
Floppy, and so bright

A break from time
Memories held so dear and so tight,
they become calcified and then dust
What a comfort nothing ever stays put

A break from hatred
Oil that is dumped into the sea
filled with the dead
No one’s god is better than any other

A break from the soul
An attempt to find peace,
It is possible for everyone to rest
and to remember their own light

In the Winter I Stand so Still

I want to write odes about all of you
But I can’t

It’s still winter
I’ve just passed my own ghost

I want to write an ode to love
but it would be too sincere

In the winter I stand so still
to understand everyone

It’s still winter
I write odes not meant to be warm

Bring Me a Valentine

Bring me a Valentine,
sweet and full of pulp
Slightly thick pressed tree,
pale pink, like my gums when I smile
and no one sees

Send it or don’t
I remember the smell of the forest either way

Loose-leaf valentines
licked lovingly, punched through
Declarations can’t be crumpled up
and thrown away
Don’t spit on my grave

Anonymous love stamped on
Laced, frayed edges cushioning such weight

Bring me a Valentine
even though it’s sticky and won’t fit
I sit in the dark and eat chalk candies,
pale pink like on the inside
drying up all my vanity

The Last Time

Who’s taking me
to my father’s funeral?
I know I’ve asked at least
five of you
Drunk
One night or another on leftovers

In death there is peace but
what if it’s not like that at all?
What if you can feel the earthworms
eating your flesh?
What if no one comes to say
goodbye to you?

Who’s taking me to the moment
I will never be whole again?
Let the last time I am myself
be my best
Occupied with smiling and touching
another living thing

In death there is peace but
Love gets ruined by losing time
Memory laughs
and changes the song
You forget how it felt to argue
and dance, and stare

Winter Fever

What you are feeling
is the reason I listen to nothing
but
doo-wop

Sorrow and Apathy
Fevers that get in the way
of trying to learn
how to be free

But it’s there, dormant
To sit down
and rest at the same time
That’s it, right?

Yes but ghosts are boring
and tricky
Don’t trick me, please
I’m so tired

On Thursdays
I eat a sandwich on the bus
I ask for the raw red onions
to be left off because of heartburn

When you feel what I feel
will be the moment we can be mute
and listen to doo-wop
and be free

Some Things Only Happen in Spring

How about that
exquisite
exhausted glow of unremarkable love

red-rosed sonnets,
demented
That sort of thing

Romance is such sweet manipulation
Affliction not to be trifled with
while I can’t stop thinking about death

Syrups, glowing,
clogging up
Hold still please

Give me your regional dialects
You all smell like sugar
Even when I don’t need you

To My Five Year-old Son for his Birthday

Curious, stupid
and always
queasy from love

Every day
Not all day

I remain petrified
after
One thousand
Eight hundred
Twenty five
Everydays

I am not immortal
You are not

There is no terror more pleasing
than the sound of your laugh
unblemished

Every day
All day