How magical is life that I still want to open my palms
breathe the dust, pollen,  

and carry flowers from the fields
to my gentle resting place
How magical that we suffer
but that woe is never us

I decided I am going to be wonderful
whenever I can
and that what people say or project on me is their dealio

My name short was uttered with reluctance in a room in which I was not in. Why ?

I wake up in the morning, and I understand why.

Friend’s home and laughter/smelling the skin of a passion fruit/ her brother grew/ /coffee beans from El Salvador/we giggle and drink late night coffee


My mother‘s home under foliage/ wind carrying guava leaves / this hour murmurs/ the old earthenware from our people/before they told their names


My home with a desk facing the window/ the books eating ledges/ my dreams are  wolves that cross the desert / silver are the steps of the moon/ still I walk into thirty-two in the green gown

So I pour all the verbs into my own life
and it slowly feels so much better
and I am in no hurry for anything

I am settled and in the rhythm of this

All thought patterns need to be out in the light. If it makes me uncomfortable I dig in even more, see the thought patterns and give them a name

I talk to folks whose job is helping others navigate life and identify unhealthy ways of thinking and acting
from monasteries in the mountains to therapist over zoom
the classroom extends to the even the people around me
there is a teacher everywhere

much growth is in progress

My smile combines with artistry, with intellect, with profound gentleness,
with my audacious willingness to dance, with my multi lingual tongue,with the rising of my chest as I lift it to prepare to catch a wave
it marries in my fingers, that were taught to play Spanish guitar in my humble demeanor the scent of the girasole, and the monarca butterflies that migrate to my mother’s state of Michoacán each year
their wings and mine a miracle

tucked in her ******* is the paragon
of devotion, dripping
from her ****** into unfruitful
barrels of nothingness, she mothers
the absence of empty fridges
and messy closets.
"Soon" she whispers
soon there will be someone else here to
drink of her milk

I can no longer write poetry
I get lost in images

I unlearned synonyms, words
how to run my fingers over verses
while reciting them to be able to tell
what is stressed and un stressed
aspired for their depths and left them at the door (as far as they could go)
so I cannot write poetry
if it lingers in a vacant lot


the last womyn in the grocery store strolled out with her cart to her car and never turned around to see she dropped her vehicles’ keys at the door

I need poetry: the keys

How do you raise a strong being
with a resilient spirit

you raise them knowing they are cherished
and just as divine as the plants and the animals and everyone around them

they will carry it with them throughout their entire life


and when someone tries consciously or unconsciously to grasp for control and power at they expense of their opinion, authenticity and their light

they spirit you helped raise will feel
the drastic shift in intention
they will feel the thickness of manipulation
and rest on their anchor of self in that  love and cherishment you showed them abides eternally with them

And having arrived at that open never ending space they will calmly
turn towards the words of control and say “no”
simply and confidently “NO”

I scrape old paint off of my forehead's wall
I am smoothing it out as we speak
I got a new finish-my words of self-love are the final varnish

When I smile there are beautiful lines under my eyes
and I do not want to hide them

I bear with great joy this life of mine

My friend is like water
anything and everything that comes at her
she flows with
She has been like this  since we were 12 years old aways a master of embracing without loosing her core

Today, she wrote to me She is going to try rock climbing

And there
and here
I transform
what you give me
all the splinters
****** to open
a small surface protruding
into my life
but with intention
find it laying over a flower
Over the smile of a stranger

I have these dreams
that keep me up.


There are golden pigeons that sing “come, come home” and you stand next to them.

I am scared every time I wake up that if I ever tell you, where home is you’ll laugh at me–think I am a silly girl.

The pigeons tell me to come home to you
to the land of the morning calm, across a sea from what used to be my childhood  house.

the pigeons sing loud and I wake up with their songs in my ears, and although I fear
I also dream awake, dream of a home and you standing next to golden pigeons.

They grip at me  
Two fists snuck into an envelope of soft words
I get “Adjust” instead of its harsher
commanding counterpart “change”
(“comprise”  is in absence in this conversation)

But I see my grandmother smiling
And great grandmother dancing
And all the womxn that have made me
appear from behind the mesquite
emerging from the thick wilderness of time
to transcend
to bear naked their wisdom and  grant me their heart

Their dance swirls within me
Their smile leaps
reaching through flesh
like a ray being emitted from my inner cove
To materialize over my face

And I can sit calmly and confidently
Smile And say “no”
“You cannot dance with me.
Go!”

I saw a beautiful man in his late 50’s
with his curtain bangs and his shoulder  length white hair that contrasted
with his tan brown skin

the creases below his eyes looked like holy mountains
And around his lips and under his mouth a thin three day beard let itself  awaken over his chin as well

But the two most beautiful things about him were the glistening of his eyes and the field of calm that surrounded him

I stood up and said “ hello, I want to tell your hair is so beautiful. I am growing mine”and pointed towards my three strands of white hair. He smiled and chuckled a little and said thank you with with a spanish accent.

He reminds me of my uncles, my cousins and the old pictures of my grandfathers.  So beautiful his long white hair.


How beautiful, how I long to remember
when my own set of hair becomes an enveloping white sea against my skin

Hi little star we made many mistakes
tumbled to the mercy of old habits
found at the very tips of our being
touched deep wells of sorrow

little star there is nothing I want more
than to make sure your path gets better
and that from here on I am better, too

we did really roll down the hill and into the lake, but moving in water is starting to feel refreshing

we made many errors but that is what takes me from pain to humbleness  to continual humbleness  to refreshing humbleness to liberating encompassing humbleness

I walk across the overgrown grass and scattered patches of wild flowers with her by the hand
we are going to take a walk together
her small palms are warm
her heart she believes is as big as a dog’s  heart
and she believes her dog is a superhero
who will live forever

I walk with her and promise not to leave her. I kneel down, look her in the eye  and promise to choose her that I will no longer entertain friends, acquaintances or anyone who does not hold her, respect her and see that her feelings and her life matters, too.

I will walk with her, and only those who embrace her with care can embrace me. We will walk and only those who wish to see us and are not ashamed to be seen with us, not ashamed of caring for us
only those who would proudly say they love us with words and with simple gestures will be allowed to come near her

At the end of woods, there is a small path that we will thread and when she is scared and feels responsible for someone else’s thoughts of her, I will remind her that each person must sow their garden of love.

Tell her we are heading toward our garden, planting— that we are walking down the path of lightness and forgiveness and we have no time to stop and take in the illusions of the world. I will tell her we going up to higher ground and only those who dare traverse the depths of their heart with honesty will meet us there

We all make mistakes it’s a “tell me yours and I will tell you mine” kind of deal
Its not about not making mistakes its about fessing up to them
No matter if one is a week late, months late, years late, or decades late

For L

You were wild. They were not too keen of wild womyn and less of wild girls. I was rather reserved. Quiet but always strong willed.

If I said I would come, you knew I would show up
And you, your sister and your mother loved me
–and I you

the first time I moved away you came to help me pack
I kept the picture we took on that day  
Your short purple hair and my frizzy locks
Everytime I am home you embrace with so much love I forget time has passed

For KJE
She is wild too. they tell her to love someone else and she says no. While riding her  bike she came to the realization that loving another womyn, and choosing to spend her life with her was testament enough that she was “not so bad”. She could have chose  something easier, something as simple as marrying a man. But she chose to live in the land of the morning calm and ride her bike though mangwon- do with her love

For NL
She is the quiet kind of wild, closer to mine. She does not talk much but she feels the world as if it were an extension of her. Her long golden hair. Her love of animals and her gentleness soften anyone in the vicinity. Countless times I have been in awe of her depth. I swim there with her and she swims there with me. We grow expanding like two foam growing capsule lizards. Who knows how much we will grow but we are willing to find out

For AC
Car rides, records stores and synchronized dancing to “Yo La Tengo” running through sprinklers in the middle of the night
swimming
concerts and sketching, Co-op sandwiches and poetry readings
She call herself a full time goblin. She embraces what others think makes her un lady like and she is not apologetic for being who she is–a force of nature

For DR
You are firm. You are the kind of woman trees envy. The kind that is rooted and grows evermore into her own beauty. When you dance your eyes light up and you giggle and sway your branches.

I can
always feel you
in the center of my chest

    I can feel your longing
and I can feel your sorrow
as-well as your love and joy

Don’t you know— I ask you to be well
because I can sense you
             less than hour ago you were here
at center of my costal

I am the maker of my destiny.
Writer, pilot, sailor of the raft;
I am responsible for my own life
for my own joy –no one else.

I need good soil; no one can do things alone. How strong you are, how bright your light remains depends a lot on the richness of the soil that nourishes you. The less nutrients in it the more you have to compost the more minerals you must add every so often to your life just to get by. And now your adding more and more –without fixing the root of the problem: you need good dirt. Yes gratitude is a fertilizer and does great things  but you need to plant yourself somewhere divine & loving.

Speak your words
Take them, from the street signs
Tear them from the books, from the thoughts nestled into song, take them
clip them onto your chest, and once you are ready
pull each of them off and stack them on your tongue

Saliva to soak them is all you will need and when you feel like you’ve had a bite full and
it’s much more than you can chew

Thats the minute you will start choking up,
And that is when you will know you are back.

Move your body
Let it move in any way it must move
and make sounds
Any sounds

Now open your mouth
and speak
You are alive again, with your own words caressing your lips.

She would take me horse back riding through her small ranch and through town.

I remember the way men would look at her riding
my aunt’s quiet composed tough exterior
as her horse galloped through town
she was unimpaired & confident
her dad had taken her riding since small

My grandfather believed a women should be strong just as worthy and just as capable as any man
and that was unheard of in small village
but he was older when he had her and he had made enough mistakes to be wiser
a better father the second time around
and by the time
I came to be
he was soaked in spirit and soul
and he told me
to keep digging within that
that’s where I would find my treasure





He was right
My aunt and I
reek of love and it because he was


he was flawed
he was humble
And he took responsibility for how he was

and I do not want to forget him
I keep the picture of him and I
him and his white loose shirt
me and my old Led Zeppelin t-shirt

the full moon is a fresh cut catalina
mariposa lily that you placed in a vase
next to your virgencita de guadalupe
(the one you hung by my little bed, I'd yell
when you'd ask me to dust off stuff)

in the childhood  blanket of my dreams, the inquiry glittered

How do you transform anything
now I know only with love

You are not an object to hold onto you
you are living breathing being
you are not at fault for anything
I understand the way life flows
it seeks constant renewal
it is in constant change

there is nothing to chase
to fill you
so there is
only giving

every edge of your body that slept
slowly awakes
how could slumber be
sweet when it robs you takes
your money and still asks
for the product of your eyes

What are you without vision?

May this be something with the potential of humanely beauty

Not:
one who gives and another who takes
that could be classified as exploitation

Not:
two selfish people who only expect from each other because if expectations are not fulfilled tyrants can grow resentful and angry

Yes:
to two people who give and nourish one another in this dance of life leaning on each other when needed, and springing back up on their own two feet so as to not lose themselves in the identity of each other

Yes: to partnerships deeper than personality and skin that bind at the spirit
and whose intimacy becomes richer with the years

Yes: to unconditional acceptance & love–
no judgement zones, the space to be openly flawed without shame

When all the sorrow of the world spills over, cup your hands and try to hold it.

Even if you think it might run over,
know the earth below will hold it, too

Together you will see to it; see that these rivers that long have ran with each others blood and that are marked white deposits of salt from histories of tears serve
their deepening purpose and  nourish
the soil. That all boiling blister of hate pop
by our consciousness renewed. Growing among the dirt of yesterday, the fruit of all our mistakes will be our garden that grows flowers.

It was added to me this sweet scent of summer that accompanies random days when the thought  of your smile makes me smile and cry simultaneously
reverence for life means
to hold in your arms the painful and soft

resignation that smells of a stagnant room fills and so does love and so does sorrow as does loss as does self respect as does truth

Transform my heart into something beautiful
something that knows of lightness and of the daily pleasure of constant self love and appreciation

Transform my eyes, so that they can see truth even when it isn’t spoken

And change me, so that I do not accept what is as a finite option
I want to be reminded that tomorrow can change.

So transform me, I am willing to shed all the things that bring me sorrow.

I am willing to let go of all the guilt I use to keep myself down under.

change me, I am ready

Like the earth, I too am in rotation aligning with the stars above me

Luna lounges under the sun walk off when it gets too hot, seeking the cover of tree branches and the opportunity to sleep
When Luna gets comfortable, he rolls on his back; his little belly exposed and the hue of his fur darkening as the sun sets over us, I, too, lay on my back looking up the sky observant and still
waiting to see the planets
Saturn at 7:38 pm
Mars at 11:31 pm

during the day there is talk of another cold war & a reignited space race as Amal, mission"Tianwen, and Perseverance " make their way to the red planet I remain over the grass curious to the gifts the night can bring

Lately, my chest has been bursting at a different time every evening.
Although it runs on somewhat a schedule, I keep forgetting.

Sometimes, It catches me in the kitchen with my PJ sandwich and pushes it out of my hands.

Other times, it catches me right before I take a nap; I get up to clean the mess, and then I have trouble closing my eyes again.

On occasion, it sneaks up on me when I've just taken a shower, and I have to hop back in and lather.

However, today it caught me outside next to the Alcatraz flowers, and as it ruptured through my *******, that bundle of purple flora seemed to fit perfectly among the greenery.

I want to travel São Paulo
and Oaxaca with you, since you have already been to Mexico City.

I want to be better at seeing the world through your eyes too

I do not care if anything is slippery
it is coming out onto the floor of the page
swiveling, punching, crying or half dead
but it’s coming on the page

It feels so raw so fragile
a pink bubble gum bubble blown out falling back a little, creasing when it beats

The sparrow's songs blossom like azaleas
until they  become an open chorus sung in rounds amongst the trees
ever circling and deepening
they remind me of what life is truly like when we venture back
away from the illusion of thoughts

every earthly moment seems beautiful and fleeting when it trickles like the light through a window to illuminate your smile

as passing mourner and expectant mothers are en route the same sun drapes them and a similar ephemeral breeze grazes my face

all is precious and the heart cannot help but to exalt this truth when rays slowly make their way to the edge of your chin before they disappear

life dissolves
and yesterday's heat persists
in the right seasons
and imagining your face in front of mine
I,too want to dissolve
      
               d
                    i
                       s
                  s
              o
             l
                v
                  e

between this spring
hoping that my cocktail of atoms
arrives as a postcard to your address

on nights like these the pact that the soul
made with the body wants to undo
because I would like to be free
to go embrace you

and ask you  << what weighs on you? >>
and << can i help you carry it? >>

and finally
tell you sincerely that
<< I won't give up >>
for you, in times like these, I come undone

I am in a field of lilies
collecting flowers–making bundles
I will not come unless I am called

I sing to you the way a butterfly sings to a still flower
I sing to you in the midst of winter as your petals wither
I sing not just to you but to the wind that shakes your stem and to the sun the feeds your belly, when I sing there is water in my breathe and the flower’s  carbon
food on my exhale
I sing because to sing is to nourish the earth; it is to breath with the everything
at once

en el molcajete están los claveles de mi abuela y los pétalos de las rosas del jardín de mi madre
a ellos les agregó aceite de amapola de California y me la unto como remedio

All the Eyes of Eye are walking through the markets
performing a dismounting dance from buses
onto sidewalks
crossing street lights erratically
diagonally tracing their feet over a surface not as impressionable as sand
their gravity given weight: leaving little trace behind

...
The eyes of eye
are born one day, burgeon and transmute
and more eyes open
like lilies replenishing: the eternal spring of consciousness
Each pair of eyes is the Eye
...
It is late now but I have gathered my keys, put on a coat and walked to the corner store to buy Chamomile tea. I close my eyes and feel the cold breeze. One. One other person is walking far off in the distance down the same street as me. I see recognize them and whisper to myself “eyes are I”
...
Her eyes are the same color as mine. You could say she gave them to me–my eyes. I move through the world with them.

I am still here .

Let me show you how worthy you are
how beautiful you are
and why it’s worth protecting  every flower until it dries and dies
instead of thinking “ it will die anyway so what is the point”
the point is the process, the growth not the end
we are not about ends but the mysterious in between

When the bees buzz over the ripened fruit, you will know it was love that brought them to the stamen not pollination.