Memory of Pain

If living were my legend,

I'd make it forgotten.

Like a ghost town disappeared,

Or a sunflower meadow burned down.

I would lie to my guests,

And tell them its all gone to dust.

Make them feel the pain,

Of something that never really lived.

I hope they would cry, in sorrow or madness,

Feeling the irony of the void, which my sweet heart embraces,

But legends are stories,

Unaware of the validity or truth in their lines,

And a legend is just how it sounds, it is lost,

Forgotten like the leaves of the tree of my soul.

Hellish Eternity of Love

I thought the heaviness of the years was mercury enough to kill,

Inventing stories from the secret garden to cleanse the blood,

Hiding treasures in the vault beset for only the imagination,

Becoming endless and eternal with the red rouge and plumpness,

Winning over the house of the tree of knowledge,

And spreading my wings over its beaten sun,

With songs of restlessness and worry,

Of starched diction and repetitive melancholy,

Floating on the clouds of misery of memory,

And falling deep into the redness of hell’s bounty,

Where my fiery instinct comes alive,

And the promise of my smoking flesh,

Is more than all the reason to live in the eternity,

Of the eternity with you.

Red Rose

I am woman,

Hear me cry in simmered sadness,

I am girl,

Watch me grow into a rose, bright red.

In ways I cannot stand, touch me say to me,

Beautiful beautiful is she,

I know your eyes and mind together,

I see your heart beating hard for me each time.

I wish you loved my thoughts my intellect,

My wit, my  jokes my silent judgement,

I wish I wasn't merely a bright red rose,

But also the dirt, the roots the worms,

Won't you see me far beyond?

Won't you bother to discover the black woe beneath the red?

Girl into woman,

Woman to withered rose.

Unashamed

I wish to know you all the way.

I want your hands right next to mine.

With no guilt no terror no remorse,

I want to feel your love inside my face.

Tickle my senses cold,

Heat the drizzling of this frozen spirit.

Numb away what all is said,

Pick and throw my pains up to that air.

Cry wet tears against my back,

Never let me run reversely.

Keep me intertwined in you for all time,

Walk with me, don't miss a step.

Hide these shamed eyes from the truth,

Guard my solitary existence from the earth.

Pick grains from your heart,

Lay them in mine.

Immerse this loneliness in sweet candy breath,

Absorb me into you.

Sharing Darkness With The Dead

Sleep comes easy,

Then it comes hard,

I listen to the footsteps of the dead,

And give them room to sit upon my bed,

I know you don’t believe I’m unafraid,

But I dream and speak,

Share and yell,

Caress and push,

The deadly souls at night,

Often some that I don’t know,

Bother my darkened home,

With glimmers of their distant hopes,

Which they hope that I can float,

I do not yet comprehend,

God’s purpose why I see the dead,

I just hope that they are lead,

To a place they can be fed.

Musical Enfatuation

It’s not that I don’t want to,

It’s just that I can’t,

Your saxophone up in the air,

Bursting exclamation points,

As musical notes,

You move with every word sung,

And caress the microphone,

As if in a kiss.

I would if I could,

I would if I could.

The Form of Life Alone

His shoulder against my breast

My head falls on his sweaty shirt

I dance as if there is no end

To this saga of beer frolicking in my hand,

I see the neighbors come and dance,

I see the birthday man drunk and gone to bed,

I am alive, I am toxic, with the waste,

Which I wish to be so many days,

Today my feet are red and hurt,

 But I can’t waste away the night,

For it turns up and down,

And side and up,

And I can’t waste away the night,

For it comes far and in between,

And whirls to the sight,

Of poems great as these,

Which cannot lend to rest in bed,

But instead stumble to their wake,

In words stolen from sleepen slumber,

In letters that still do not exist,

I’ve foretold it many times,

I am she who tells the truth,

I am she who forgets about the great Alexander,

And makes her own forbidden wake,

Do not see me when I’m dead,

For that is no longer who I am,

Burn me, sing to me, but do not look upon my face,

For he who’s dead is no longer in the sinner’s body,

But rises to the heavens and meets God’s delight,

I’ve forgotten that which crept into my flesh,

And ate away at my heart’s most stupid aches,

I’ve lived on and on and learned to love him to leave behind,

And let him live the life of his, and let me live the life of mine,

Which blessed it is with man so solemn,

Yet so soft and gentle, and consoling,

With a biased approach to interests of thy self,

And a heart as grand as countries rich and strong,

We will not reform, yet life is what is born,

From the earth alone,

And no one none truly knows,

The form of life alone.

Chicana

We grew up different
I watched them with my head sunken into my right hand
As they talked with beer from wages earned under the hot sun
Always keeping quiet, but remembering every sigh, and telling Papi,
"ya vamonos", let's go home
I didn't know why they came from el otro lado, and yet why I was born
Uncles Sam’s daughter
My mom with her composure always drawn to the ground, shoulders
hunched as if she believed she didn't exist
Always cooking, working, cleaning with a beaten soul and body
I don't have the words to talk to those which carry my blood, and I'm
ashamed to shake their hand
As if it's my fault they are not at home in this Chicano land
 I hug my uncle because I think he gets me
We don't talk much but he knows that I'm keeping records of his stories in my heart
My grandmother died and with her went the submissiveness I'll never meet
I don't belong on either side it seems, as if within my mother’s womb I stayed wet inside the river not belonging over here or over there
The hot busses when I go to Mexico confuse me, I look away as the men
stare at me as if they've never seen a woman
My cousins laugh because I can't say the two L's right and I cry
inside because even our clothes is different.
And I'll never be confident enough to walk the streets knowing that my skin
is brown as beans and my face is unbeknownst to those who believe that this land is home of theirs alone.

With Me

Still you are here,

In the farthest and deepest,

Corner and crevice,

Of this figurative heart,

Still your eyes look back at me,

When I look at my own,

Still I wish to know of your presence,

When cold tears fall from the sky,

Yet you’ve forgotten,

Even though you assured not to,

The maple in my voice,

The heat of our venomous encounters,

The arching rise and fall of our breaths,

Forgotten,

Hidden,

Washed with the white of your new wardrobe,

Which God himself called you to wear,

Well God should always be true,

Even in you,

In me,

In them,

But I am your devil,

And I live close to the shadow,

Which your eyes tend to ignore,

I am the night,

With which comes the silhouette dreams,

That cannot be destroyed,

With even prayers so deep,

I live in the blood which runs,

And trickles onto your created existence,

Which is my created existence,

Of a created existence,

That we both stagger towards,

Only grieving,

Only heaving,

Only leaving,

One another behind.

Breath and Air

I always put the covers over him at night

I know his coldness can’t withstand my heart smiling heat

For if I died I’d die and live to see,

My many lives in front of me,

The mirror which retracts and sees,

The same room reflected incessantly over,

Into infinity of every day,

Why don’t you know,

That everyday is the same as yesterday,

I could go mad just living in the hour,

And counting seconds when I know they don’t exist,

My mind goes running after the beating of this heart,

And is only met with disappointment and dishearten,

I wish to throw the crystal that is life,

And see its tiny shattered pieces floating ‘round,

Because its only matter and sustenance,

Which makes our world that which we perceive,

But the honesty of burden is hemmed so innocently,

That our clothes fit well and things are swell,

When really what is there,

Is only breath and air.

To Give

Here’s to you,

And here’s to me,

For everything to be,

Slither to the closest chair,

And tousle with my hair,

Sink your venom in my neck,

And promise not to tell,

Cackle in your raucous tone,

And never take me home,

Clean the blood leaking from my mind,

And grate the pestilence of my skin,

Scratch the walls to make me quiver,

And I will be the utmost giver.

Waiting for a Non-Existent Love

Wandering hopes,

They lie all around my brand new life.

Happiness should reign, here in this sunshine colored place.

Dreams vibrant, so much in night as in the warming day.

Books of endless wisdom in their diction,

Every tasteful word a poetic line of sugar.

What should be is unrelenting gratitude with delight.

A great triumph of joy brought forth with little effort.

Instead, what my eyes see is perpetual affliction.

Desires lost between the golden sheets that freeze me cold at night.

Dreams thought to be great reality,

Instead strike sadness in the moist pillow underneath this shut tight eye.

Never leave this place of solitude,

They must not know this misery is accredited to them.

He shouldn't know I'm slowly dying while I'm sleeping,

Wishing violet colored lightning struck my brain.

Never open the left turn lock,

Even if the baby's crying fingers sneak past the bottom of the door.

Don't let these wandering hopes into the innocent air,

Don't let mami breathe it in and perceive my lost loves.

The pestilence of thirsty hopes is not what you want to smell.

Sweaty walls taste only of anticipation.

Waiting for the one I know won't come.

Wishing he'd knock, knock, knock.

He will be here, to hear the echo of my lonely beating heart. 

He will come and drag the desolation from this chest.

In this desperate dream, he's coming now.