Backwards Trajectory

I can see the parting riptide
Ten helpless swimmers reaching for the sun

A journey is a lone soul without romance
Countless hands lurching from the abyss

The only tree for a thousand miles
Wilting under a cruel violet sky

Highways sinking into the mantle

Lava forms in the shape of a crescent

Will you be waiting for me
One thousand three hundred and sixty miles away?
Or will I reach into the sky, the lone soul
Rotting underneath ecstatic skin?

We align under youthful sunshine
We agree under a thousand trees
Is there something more here?
Will that ageless wraith disappear?

The stars are screaming out
For me to bypass digital emotion
I don’t see you or feel you
Yet I am flowering and towering
Scouring the nations to find you

Scrape the rust off this mechanical heart
The pulse of the city now runs through me
And the skyline screams your name
Time and time again

the reflection in front of me has tears 

streaming down tired eyes.

It’s a miserable girl, one who feels so empty 

at a young age. Too young..

It’s me.

A Broken Reflection.

Tiredness formed around my eyes.

I used to think they were filled 

with so much light, so much positivity.

I guess not.

Body is weaker.

I haven’t consumed anything in my body.

Starvation.

Mentality is six feet under the ground.

Where I’ll be rotting.

Soon.

Hopefully, at least. 

Depression.

“Do it…”

Repeats over 

and over and over

in my already  chaotic head. 

It sounds like a crowd in here,

attached to me, echoing off the walls, 

two words in a small space.

Do it,  Do it,  Do it,  Do. It..

the clock restarts each time I catch
an accidental glimpse in the mirror –
green eyes
a pronounced cupid’s bow
stands out against
alabaster skin
a patch of freckles
the same double-bracket
collar bones peek out
of her hand-me-down
cardigan
my mother’s ghost greets me
in the morning, brushing my tender
teeth, enamel eroded by decade
without dental care. my tongue
travels over rough fillings and
receding gums, wondering how
long until I need a crown, too.
when my nail beds begin to bleed,
I envy her steroid-induced talons;
at what point did I learn to flinch
from my mother’s touch?
my fascia is made of trigger points,
tension and resentment
I am a body created to recoil.
crows are known to care for
the injured members of the flock,
but even they know a fledgling with
clipped wings
will only ever know suffering.

Al arbol que das mas frutos es al que le tiran mas pierdas. The tree that gives the most fruit is
thrown the most rocks. In a firing range I sat still as an obelisk. Readying myself. Paloma blanca
redacted. In a city that knew a hundred years’ war. Shame was fury. The indolent still reaped. An
ampersand faded on the pale skin of grief. I saw not much haverstroo, Dutch for oat straw. In the
dark divorce. Sleepless cupidity. Swain at the bottomless youth lagoon. A spire of blue smoke
like a shadow following its mother down the foyer of mirrors. Dutiful as though death transpired.
Waiting in the anteroom. Yet no one queried after the blue sapphire snake twirled up the body of
una flaka blankita. Gentling the carnal girl. It is a watchman observing himself alone in a bed.
Giving names to thoughts. Agua ardiente in a house bucking. Feral darkness. I saw the shrew
winnow. Chasing its tail to swallow itself completely. Pallid wet fingers. There is nothing. An
abandoned church. A boy sees the shadow and names it. El agujero hondo, deep hole. He refuses
to pluck the water from its casing. Alone and denigrated. Days become nights. Poverty wets the
young man. And the nuns take off their habit. To drink the blood of Christ after mass.

The hive, the honey, the air
as shore, the scraps
of a landscape we measure
as time, today, I thought
about the smoke rising, about
running towards it, even if
it’s too late, even if the what-if
is true again. I could be help.

you won’t believe this
the way you died was so
sudden and casual
like a cord ripped
still sparkling
from its socket
and the funny thing
the icing on a cake
was that the only person
I wanted to talk to about it with
was you.

It’s simple, 

I am not beautiful enough to stop anything. 

I would be ok dying with a witness, 

Becoming nothing,

Having meant to at some point. 

It’s not just me—the train was tipping,

The joke was funny, 

Nature was always there 

And I was never out of hope 

Long enough to love it.

It’s hopeless to try when things like that become the norm. Summer stops and winter tops, never to find it again. No matter how far you look, there’s always more. The stops and starts and the walks in the park, all going without a clue. Bright meadows and false loops, steadily careening into a new year: heavy-handed at the tremors, wishing and bearing fruit despite the distance gone. Shambles clap up and shine, walking on false starts. Thereabouts it doesn’t matter what goes wrong, when it’s all neglected. Sloppy justice does some of it, while others clap off and try again another time. Bones upon bones and hunger, always the hunger and thirst. Sleights of hand sometimes arise out of nothing, when they dance and chance upon the wall. Thoughts go into thimbles and cave in, happy as can be. Rotting on the shorelines without a doubt, sitting in a stuffy library and trying to find a way. Tired without a cause? Loose-fed on the blankets, grinding it out. Who cares when there’s nothing in the air? No momentum, no shimmer, no bliss. Huge branches sway and clap hands with the pond by the wayside, hoping for the best.