Lhasa likes basketball, although she is tall, she is awful with the ball.

She perceives the arc to be far away and the more nervous she gets the farther that orange arc moves away.

However, everyday she likes to get to her school gym early to shoot some hoops.

The more hoops she shoots, the closer she gets –the distance dissolving in front of her.

I really do love him or I would it have not come so far away from my own home

I think of all the letters I wrote with so much love till the moment I got here
of all the middle of the night alarms I set to wake up so I could watch him smile and play

I just sincerely love him
and I also sincerely love myself

I am Jane loving Austen
Purring with her own happiness in there solidarity home

I am flower moving in the wind
feeling it’s conjures that life is indeed cyclical and you should sway to its wind

The clothes hanging on the foldable rack dangle: socks, shirts underwear, and t-shirts. The pile that awaits to be loaded into the washer keeps nameless pieces of cloth- just a pile. The people you read about whose faces dangle in front of your screen and on the billoards outside, you can name: First name Last name, Jane Doe and John Doe, Maria Lopez y José Lopez. The people you walk besides, the crowd keeps nameless - just a crowd. But if you would turn and smile even while wearing your mask you'd know that there is no such thing as a “just a ______” and the soliloquy of life would become a fully staged production where you could be writer.

I am walking into the light
into a reawakened life
into the vast colors and into
my own fullness
brilliant and unobstructed
I rest in life
here in this place and at this moment
I will choose to see the brimming cup
and hold back the tears of joy
because I made it back
back to myself
thanking little limbs for walking me
thanking my soul for not leaving me
thanking my heart for daring with me
here in this place and at this moment I choose to linger in my wholesomeness

you never needed to be a prim
and proper porcelain doll
with a white stand running
down your back

you are everything but a doll

i had settled for being the girl admiring you from inside the store just across the aisle  
but seems like i am standing outside, again behind the glass  

with strings attached to my hands
and life puppeteering, all i can do is close
my eyes where it as dark as night and trust that when life sits me upright & i open my eyes– i will understand surrender
           (I will understand why)

I know we never needed to be a prim and proper porcelain dolls with white stands or strings

I know we came to be human, but why does it feels so fragile even more so than being a doll

wherever it takes you may it be filled with joy
may the days meet you with exuberance
and may all harm halt at your door

somehow,
let it be so

so that you do not hurt  
because then I feel
as though I hurt too
quietly
without being able to tell you

so may you keep the light
and may it hang like a keychain
from your hands

The end of sorrow came on the second day as I understood that as I lived I died

I have started saying "I don't know"
when they ask on what page it's on
Although I know, I have begun not answering
question and letting silence take to the air
but I know the response,  mentors
friends and life have so kindly given to me
the letter with the answers, I don't want to pretend
to be dull-witted--I do know
it's all blood and scrapes and great heaps of
love to know, not haughtiness --

1.why
The breathe we exhale gives route to the carbon  that travels from atmosphere to organisms circling the earth

your breath is the breathe of the massive red pine tree next to you

You inhale while the mindeulle around you take from the earth’s soil what was laid to rest and exhale

there are dandelions all over the world that slight death just by breathing out

2. The embrace
The way in which everything touches
everything make me think that we breathe together across time

your breath is the breath of your mother and your mother’s mother

The way that everything touches everything makes me think that I am already holding you

(each breath slighting time)

I lean further in
because from afar
everything is abstract

Failing in the wind you were more than that
what the spark of you
ever present my women you bore a belt of bullets

and if I were to tell people I come from women who bore guns who fought in revolutions
a lovely Adelita
my lovely great aunt

how wild a heart
How strange a women they would  think  you were
What choice did you have but to sing a song of rebellion and to sing a song of war
I am  lucky that I get to be gentle and sweet
Drunk walking back from a bar
Having drank  a whole bottle of Chardonnay with friend whose family lived through war and moved out of Sierra Leon

How lucky I am to be able to have the option to be gentle and loving

Great aunt, we are of the same tree

perhaps the body needed rest
and much of the streets needed silence

as the churning of the great metropolis would not halt
if this was not the case

as we see living as the art of productivity in lieu of the art of leisure

factory smoke subsiding and even the sky is in languor

Oh dear how we wake up to hold the clouds and the sun
The rain and the splendorous shimmer of our being: lightness on this earth

Oh dear how, how can I cry for this long without being seduced by the trees,
the flowers, and the howl of my own deepest nature

I cannot
so I run off like toddler smiling towards today
“Come on” I tell every part of myself

Life is no longer for rushing
it is for full steps, sturdy and calm

No longer to deceive
ourselves, it is for honest conversations
not just in-front of the mirror but with others

No longer for stagnant
patterns, it is for frightening
change rumbling the asphalt
below your feet construction underway

no longer for the accumulation
of traumatizing
behavior, it is for the cultivation
of love

behind the big wave
is grace

When it rings within my ear
like it has done today
,yesterday and all the other days
when like an arrow it pierces though my third eye until I have to no eyes, no hands no past
nor future
no more stories to curtail the moment

Every morning
and every night
I wake up and then go to sleep
having to make a choice
whether to shrink my heart
and my perception of the world
to only that which I can see
to become wounded and scared

or to become wiser and more in love with the kindness that holds me together
that cradles me at night and when I travel through towns amongst strangers alone

to keep allowing the beauty I see in eyes of old women and their silver grey hair
as well as the laughter of friends nearing my age laughing uncontrollably at each other’s words
make me believe in growing older and more tender
and in how loving and attentive one humanbeing can be towards another
how simple it is to show care
how important it is never withhold light or love

every morning and every night I choose again, and again

and again

I close my eyes, ball up my little fists and whisper “ do not shrink; take courage heart of mine” again and again
and again in my empty room I do not feel alone
I see more than lack
and sorrow in my life
I see the capacity of the empty space to hold; its abundance is clear

Let gentleness be my way
let it lead me
direct me when my eyes must close

There are days when I want to say hello
send something I have read and share the way words or music sit on a sheet or laid  down on a track
when I want to open my rib cage and smile at you at the entrance of my door
And say “this is who I am”
  “come in”
A gift to behold you and a gift to be beheld

I want to keep my beautiful and big heart more than I want anyone
I do not want it to shrink and when it does I want to be courageous enough to stretch it again
I want what I am as I am
and to preserve and cultivate the loveliness within me

My heart rings with every bell
this life has struck me. I am wake.
It’s tolling glorious; it’s sound still reverberating through me

“Hope”called by many names
is the true muse
–it is the bird in our hands–
a torch passed down on this long and arduous journey

our desire to light the next one
and dispel the cold nights of hate is vehement
we cradle, what is to come

I dreamt of a full room, something important was happening in your life, an opportunity or something you worked for
some sort of celebration
I was there just to say hello

I gave it all I could muster with all my strength I dared
will all the might I could call upon I came
with all reserves of courage
with everything I am
with no tear withheld with shakey hands
but I came

They can all see my blind spots
and I would not hide them

everything must be looked at
and all brought to light

all old pattern examined
and what remains must be what I choose
to nourish and uphold

all parts
splinters
and gentle flowers
All in the light

no need to hide
they are all worthy of being seen

both no obstacle simple what is

Some days I still cry for a love that never lifted a hand but claimed with love songs it’s presence
still I wake up some days sad  

I sit with pain sharing a of drink in the morning
And eat biscuits of hearty realigning perspective
My worth placed over my two hands like a small tender bird
I must take care of it

When the flowers begin to sing in spring let me hear them
when the earth exhales in contentment let my feet absorb like a tree its breath
when the wind tickles my ear
let me be able to notice it
where this is beauty
help me stop and appreciate it

even if others might think me odd
to feel this existence in such a way

when there are barriers made by men, women and locked into schools of thought let me close my eyes and seek inside the truth
let my compass be strong and unwavering

wet without rain is the color of my eyes right before they get blurry
and the saline waves  cover the horizon as far as I can see

for this second everything looks expansive
the sea at night
my pupils floating like boats over the tide
reveal that if I trust my hands
the stars above will offer guidance and the will moon lift the tears off of my face

why can i not sail comfortably through this hard weather
not deny how it pulls and sometimes feels immense

My friends say that I am like a solitary monk
that I am a hermit
a recluse and sometimes
I believe them like I believe the calendar that tells me it is April

Who really knows what “April” even is
the name of months are birthed from languages’
named just as babies are named
and in their vowels and consonants can be found  
nestled
a promise of life’s yearly renewal
cyclical forgiveness,  do-overs

but I do not know what April is I just agreed to it like the rest of us and do not know what a monk is so perhaps

a wide field as far
as my eye can see
my feet are surrounded
not by the dandelion’s
flowering yellow but
by the second blooming
of its seedling flowers
where thousands of wishes
sit on little stems
waiting to be granted

The things I thought about:

I could never take someone’s parent away so I thought your girl could have three.

I thought of about really having to change careers so I could help you put your girl through school (and get her anything she needed) and so that her mother wouldn't have to work so hard.

I wanted your baby girl’s mother to reach her dreams because then baby girl would grow knowing she could do anything.

I thought about having to become her mother’s friend. And I also thought about her hating me and your little girl hating me too.

I thought about needing to live near them, so you could be there Incase of an emergency.

I thought of the ways people would try to guilt me or shame.

I thought about you dying sooner than me. I thought about those final years and I would miss you.


Silly, that I thought about all this. silly that I moved across the world. Silly that I sit here alone, but true.

I flipped my phone and it read "trying to look at things from a new perspective".

Have I ever turned a daisy upside down to look under its petals?
No, not with the intent to find beauty there; So, I missed it, the sepal's protective curves and the lightly muted white.

Instead of melancholic
I feel thrilled.
How many more things can deepen in beauty?
if only I look at them differently

How many of the same streets and parts of my daily routine can I repaint with more color, so that I can see another aspect of their brilliance?

Let us love
the bodies that
we sit inside

run up the
hills and enjoy
the fast gallop
the slow tread and
the graceful mercurial pirouettes
that make us lose
our balance and fall

Whether we are
full of laughter
at our sudden drop to the
ground amongst the flora
or whether we are enraged
by the spontaneity revealing our
evident lack of
control

Let us love this physicality
these hands
–this–
these hard and
soft breaths
that carry us into
the deep valleys
and crevasses that
form around our eyes

May we hold in esteem
all that we are

long live the birds that migrate
and the people who follow

long live the black bears that adopt
the orphan cubs

long live the grey wolves that repopulate
north of Los Angeles

long live the human kin that stand
next to each other

to protest tyrants, oligarchs, and kings

Keep slugging, slugging...all the things I plan seem distant

whenever I turn around a bush thinking I am close, the road seems to stretch further

but I keep slugging, slugging...
at this point I’m calling on all my strength
to get me there

slugging, slugging my way in your direction

nine days of prayer
ceaseless for you
as you transmute

There is no bridge you’ll cross that will be clean

there is no being that does not create
and you cannot forfeit the cold for only the warmth
or only the warmth with the absence of cold

you can not deny what you are
do not spend your whole life
pushing away your humanness
hold it once and for all
do not spend your whole life THINKING something is wrong with you
hold your self, sit in yourself
tomorrow does not exist

They say there is no beauty there
but I want to challenge them
tell them “ here, let me lend you my eyes”
they say I do not see reality
but they do not understand that what we push for becomes reality

Come sit with me on a bench
I long to ask you how you have been
but we could as well just sit in silence
and that would be enough

The deep crease in my eyes
is as deep as the ocean
and as profound
as every word I sincerely
wrote to you

Szymborska and her cigarettes
Szymborska in the middle of the crowd spitting out her drink
Szymborska leaning her head against her right arm

In the digital world, I need not go out and buy a book to see her face inside its flap
I can simply call upon Siri,
she, too "no non-being can hold"

I gather the riveting shards of glass
that have pounced like garden cats at the sight of a moth
when cracked by the simple act of you
pulling your hand away

with love for the little things that hold me up
this earth
that dark soil
This mount of well earned tenacity and gratitude

with love i behold everything that makes me up

The slate can be clean and it can always be wiped.

What you chose to write before can be a precursor to today. However, it is not contingent upon it. You can take your elbow or even the seams of your sweater and wipe away all things previously written. The ones that take up too much space. And as for the ones others have written for you–those do not necessarily have value.

Rethink. Re-write.

As children, we would line up shoulder to shoulder at the edge of the swimming pool trying to figure out who’d jump in first.
One of the boys would always attempt to throw the other one in. Sometimes, you ‘d hear the cold holler of the skinniest kid ,that couldn’t hold their ground, splash into the water; the laughter of the other boys slowly dissipating through the air.

Kids grow and learn fast. As we grew up “everyone got smart” and instead of one casualty we would end up with two. If someone tried to push you into the pool, you would turned around and lovingly hugged them. As you fell in, so did they.

We played that game for a very long time –and I knew how to play that game. It was the other games and the other things that slowly changed that threw me out of whack.

Like high pitched voices, acne, and *******; only the chubby boys grew *******, too. The chubby ones and I were told to wear bras. It was a joke for one of us and a requirement for the other one.
...
We would line up shoulder to shoulder, and although the boys grew so much hair , as they got older, my back was till the hairiest one. At least there was one furry constant.



© Guadalupe Salgado Partida

When I cannot, i brim over with words like a glass of water.

someone who sent those loves songs
could not show affection any other way

“are they okay ?” always whirled over my head
passages from books, illustrations, podcasts, songs, essays, interviews and articles were always  my way of trying to offer something
“was I okay?”  

things will be okay
“life goes on”
and it is what we decide
to make of it
from this moment on
onwards with joy as a compass

They have started dressing as civilians waiting
for professors outside their classes taken, even if
they are residents they are arrested to be deported.

What dream of democracy have your tucked
in your shirt's pocket like a card you can pull
out and say "here, free speech" just for show  

Where is it? where is the discourse that democracy connotes?
suing law firms that bring cases against your point of view
because if only your opinion matters then what is freedom of speech ?

And what is freedom of speech used to harm another
but something as untamed and vicious like this country's founding
Who says they will not come after you?

first them, then you ? first the folks on the margins, then you?
you samson , you lie with delilah. your freedoms one by one
extinguishing like candles over constitutional cake

They have dressed like civilians and started taking people. They have dressed like civilians and they are taking people. They are
not upholding a democracy: they are taking it away