The base of my spine was tilted causing everything that stacked above it to be miss aligned
any shoulder so stiff when that when pressed on they would not crack
“Are you pain?” He asked
He began to try and relax the muscles and crack my bones back into place

all stories can be dropped
And all can be accepted

the people sauntering
around us are their own celestial bodies detached from the outside world
in their mind, inside their screens —they are far, far away.

we pass pedestrians on the street, towards
the same corner park, where we sit and chat, but we are light years from the other folks and from one another. and i wondering if i tilted my phone and aim it’s reflection into their eyes if they’d receive it, if the speed of light is really all it’s cracked up to be then how quickly can it reach them play my golden record of connection “hello, from this child of planet earth with oversized limbs”

How did my father survive the streets of LA
a young dark skinned man
a mixed blood being in his prime

I flash back to the time he shouted at me while teaching how to drive
a  simple thing like me hanging  a small dream catcher from the rearview mirror
was enough

“They can stop you for any **** reason, Pita” he’d say.

what I didn’t know was that he was right
and what he did not account for was that I would not be seen as a dark skinned male the day I got pulled over in Davis, Ca by a cop and I stepped out of the car and walked straight up to him and he walked to meet me and asked me “Ma’am have you ever been pulled over ?” I replied “ no, this is my first time” and he smiled as if he’d popped my cherry. “I figured a small and smiling girl didn’t get of the car with the intention to start a fight” that is what my father did not understand
and I wish I could say I understood at that moment
and I wish that officer would of understood too that the only reason he did not pull a weapon on me was simply based on what I looked like

I close my eyes and think of the warm smiles and hands of friends who have held out their open palms and lifted me

when I close my eyes I feel them
gather within me and I know I am strong because I am not alone

And I thank them for not leaving me out in the cold, alone when they could hear me struggling through the storm

I thank them for being true to their hearts
for stepping out on a limb for me
for such a love is grace received

when I close my eyes i feel warmth, peace and I have the sense that life will only get better
that this will only deepen

The grounded planes begin to take off
and friends begin to spread far beyond the sprawls of L.A county
some to school, others on tour, quite a few to start off somewhere new
my brother among them
on his way to Denver
and me sorting through thousands of poems most of them never quite right
and drawing scene from my everyday life
flying inwardly and heading toward my own destination
gathering the annotated white papers containing poesy off the floor
picking out the ones that will make it into my first book baby

Quiero árboles y sol
quiero hojas del tamaño de mi cara
y quiero amarte sin rodeos

Sin tener que estar tan lejos
cuando el sol amanece sobre ti
el mío desciende

Quiero mas vida, pero quien no desea esto


I want trees and sun
I want leaves the size of my face
and I want to love you
Without a rodeo
Without having to be so far

when the sun rises over you
mine descends

I want more life, but who doesn't wish for this

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

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 .

All the frogs leap
all the walls feel like today
all words are near approximations
to what you can only point at

when someone dies with a forest full of light in their mouth
there is no asking “can we replant those tall oaks”  
there is no longer any waning of the moon
not waiting for the fullness to add to the fluorescence of a mouth
when someone dies with so much light
you thank the earth they every sprouted from its minerals bathed in flesh with shiny eyes that reflected like the oceans water

When someone dies with a forest full of light in their mouth
you can weep for beauty complex to do so

you be so lucky to die with a forest full of light in your light

Nothing is a competition–I stand in my own being.

How dear this living is to me
I wake and whisper in its ear “good morning dear”

How dear, how dear
oh how dearly I do love
this living

the people, the flowers, my heart renewed by our shared existence
how great this living that broke the eternal solitude of the cosmos

we keep ourselves company in different forms
the space between two stars overcome with the embrace of our arms

May you wake up and may the sun smile upon you
The are many triumphs that might not seem mighty
but they are
like looking in the mirror and smiling gently at your reflection
putting your palms together and saying “thank you for this new day”

I leaned my head all the way back and watched the snow fall to ground
magical
nothing less than magical

desde lo profundo
la calma llena todo mi ser

hoy solo es una dia dificil
pero quizas mañana sera mejor

el hoy se asoma y lo tengo que atender

You sweat through the fury of a blazing love that gave too little and still wanted to call itself love

the scent of orange blossoms will guide me and the peel
of a grape may be deemed too thin, but it encloses
the softness of flesh, the outer & inner mesocarp, the sweet dream
of the migrant—
my grandfather over a field, surrounded by his sons
somewhere on the surface was a point of rupture
but I know there was a seed, too

it is spring again, the planting furrows will blur
as some drive past them but I see with clarity
where I am going

Because I love you this place stirs me
cold or hot is not an issue; the summer or winter are okay. Because I love you the mountains of the past dissolve into the sea as a seismic shift internally takes place. Because I love you everything rumbles, clears in the name of lightness, making room for beauty and joy to be shared with you. Because I love you, I am transforming.

My body is tired by my will it’s so strong
I plow in one direction with all my might  because i am young and I can do that
and I have enough energy
and I am dogged
headstrong
but even with that
the rest of road is not for me to sole clear
it’s in the graces of what things do align

The best things are priceless their weight in gold has been paid for by life and they enter into this realm as unstoppable commands of life

It does not feel great to be last on the list
nor does it feel great to be ignored
or to be forgotten
to not receive an apology
or any form of communication

it does not feel soothing
or healthy, nor loving and not even  friendly to be treated in such manner

it feels like punishment
for being a flawed human being that regardless of mistakes deserves to be appreciated, valued and not taken for granted

I love to see how life flourishes
everywhere it finds a way to thrive
I love looking at the same people with new eyes
I love getting older. I love forgiveness and I love that we are all
not the same

There is a loving stream of light that embraces me. Never too far and never too weak in presence –always guiding me sheltering me with warmth. Years smile at this bravery to live and this inescapable joy to be authentic, authentic for the sake of my own happiness.

As a child they never called me Guadalupe nor did they call me Lupe.
They called me Lupita and Pita.
Sometimes my parents still call Pita.

I hug my legs
apanasana pose
and I whisper to myself
“hang in there Pita”

What if I am watching myself grow more and more beautiful
inside tulips bursting
what if I am also like one of  the monarch butterflies that migrate each year to my mother’s state in Mexico
what if I, too just emerged from the cocoon

My my
my little pumping heart
little ocean of hope
birthing Venus over foam
my earthly tether
my Tonantzin bringing new life
into my breathe
my my
my miraculous corazon
dancing in my chest

The hardest thing by far is
lovingly letting go
I smile and I cry at same time
I am joyful and in sadness simultaneously

My eyes well up and I not sure why anymore

May your eyes shine because you are a gemstone of a human
May you know that all my words are only guides that take you to the doorway of the beauty that you already posses

(May you know that I know no one is perfect, but I still so fervently love humanity)

My childhood friend died yesterday. I tried to cry but I couldn’t feel a things. I listened to his albums; smooth lines about being raised in LA. I was there,too long ago by his side–being“smart” is what “saved us”.


Numbness, is all that came to me. I didn’t even bother asking my body for the tears. Today, I felt like was a half unfrozen popsicle so I went to sing. And finally I I unfroze… cried and cried and unfroze-dripping all over the karaoke room.

Something is present in this empty room
The light coming through the window adds its brilliance
to the already present luminosity that oozes from everything
in this small apartment I am calm and truly home amongst my being

A frog does not sit starring at the water deciding the right time to jump in

it is led by the powerful wisdom woven into its nature

there is never a “right time” to jump
that is part of frog and “once upon a time” stories
it is the “right time”
it is time when you decide

her little hands need you
so I quiet my mind and heart
trying to will them into submissive silence

to be this is a privilege some write, and I agree

to be this that lives
and breathes
is a gift

I sat there
looking out the window
as vulnerable
and as frail as any other living creature
with my wounded feet covered in bandaids
with black chipped nails
with spongy untamed hair
undeceiving

it is a privilege Campbell
to sit here bare as I am
truly it is

who would love a poet
greedy with words and full of intent
that dissolves into sorrow and brevity
and then at an instant springs
into the delight of joy smothering everything close enough
with such sharp affection akin to a second of piercing recognition,
but one raging like the sun toward a slow unfathomable end

What do you do when too many words clutter your mouth?

When like a small child you are caught with a mouth full of cookies, unable to quickly and cleverly interject.

Sweet dear words of yours, too stuffed into the narrowness of your own mouth
and poking out from the space in between your lips.

Too many thoughts simultaneously obstructing the possibly of eloquence
no baked goods could emerge unbitten and wholesome when spit out at the same time

it as if we disappeared
our hands never making it past the hanging  veil
voices muffled by cloth
20 arms stretched forth holding in a cry
worker’s limbs, your daughter or sister
racing heart when they shouted out of pain
they could no longer stand

When labor too pressing too demanding stood in front of them a well dressed  smooth talker and asked politely for just one of their fingers
they again screamed

i look at myself in the mirror
and wonder how many lifetimes i have lived
not because I feel old, but because i feel
timeless
every living things feels
  timeless to me
    and everything is living
living timelessly within a very timed material form

If I could be anything I would still rush back into this body
hold it tight and remind myself how good it has been at helping me write & paint
how it has stretched
stretching its hands into cupboards  to reach for jars
stretching  its hand out to console
and to ask for help
or simply lathering my hair in the shower

I would look at the places we’ve been and thank this body who at times was my only companion” thank you for daring with me” I would say to my tiny feet

Maybe you keep getting the same lesson : be patient because you have not learned it

Maybe the first time it was a whisper,
the second a branch collapsing over you

the surrender into patience will be greater
the longer you refuse to be patient

Just let patience coil around you (you are the space inside) let time bake your outer form but retain the spaciousness inside

Be patient, be patient, be patient with all–
and most of all with yourself

Do you believe there is no renewal?
not of the mind or of life
do you believe we don’t deserve to change
are we always to be bound to the past
instead of aided by it’s wisdom

think deep
what do you really believe ?

Simply in flesh
expressing

simply like you
born into earth
breathing

simply here
for just a while
living

simply all of life
loving itself
in disguise

simply
and humbly
trying
(like you)

And then I will have no big reasons to live here

my work can be done from any country
and now so can my studies

and when this year is done
perhaps you’ll think I would of left either way
but I would not of
I would of called this place home
because your were here

I am a lounging lizard
in love with the sun and the brightness of life
in small daily deepening rituals abides the warmth of my heart and a sense of gratitude to last a lifetime tenderly unfolds and continues to drape this expansive existence

cut across the community center and walked quickly with eyes on the light

I have timed these lights. I know it takes a minute and thirty seconds from when the light on the other side of block turns green until this light ahead of me turns green. And I know they go clockwise.

So, I lift my left hand and tighten my grip on a bag of muffins and a roll aiming to participate in the upcoming race against the street-light clock. I exert a faster pace than I have in days because tomorrow is a monumental day and I have yet to pack.

I have yet to pack a suitcase to board my flight tomorrow. Yet to pack with the sincerest of reasons as to why I haven’t yet done so, so darling are these reasons that they carry my friend’s name. She came to my town and we talked as we always do for hours of her childhood in Ukraine and mine in the states, of dreams, of joy, of both falling the bathroom. We stir the banter until it’s ready to be cooked, and then we cannot part until sundown. It is true I walked to the station and the chatter became daily bread. The kind only a good friend can share with you.

Although I carried muffins, I was already happy. I was full.

when you smile the whole words brightens
and your own roses bloom
and your love of life thickens
when you smile the sun recognizes itself on foot  
and places its warmth at the front of your hearth waiting for kind thoughts and hopeful rhetoric to push it into your fire
and when it's added, I can see the gleam
emerging from your eyes

when you smile even though it has been rough
I see my humanity in you and I smile, too

when you smile the whole world bears fruit

And I knew today that I would not leave you
that so was my love I dissolved into a sea and could longer pick out the grains of salt that were me

I do not want to pick me out I want to the part of me that is you to live and wilt as all life does when it’s time comes. How many years, how many embraces–I want them all next to you.

Are you ashamed to love me?
If yes, then you are not right for me.

May it pull all your seams
tightly together so that today
you feel whole

May your eyes source the world
catalogue its pieces
so that in silence you fall gently
into its beauty
again, and again and again
Until you dissolve
into it’s charm