off and on
infinite dreams
yellow silk sheets
stay with me

no other woman
no other lips
i truly miss
all of you girl

Suicide notes

Clothes have outgrown me many times over,
but this sadness never does.
One size.
fits all.
There should have been an obituary for cancer,  not you.
Wishing these slits within my skin could have been
replaced by a reality check from you, “You chose to exist.”

My name causes a sigh to escape from lips,
that do not feel like they belong to me,
the girl,
whose words always had to be special.

The schematics of hospitals like a birthmark in my brain,
born into sadness, a gut feeling as a child.
Never trusting time
due to what it delivers.

Death, being the only thing I desired.
But you, 
who I love,
endlessly-
robbed by it.
Whose ebb for life glowed so feverishly.
Stopped comparing depression to lace,
restricted the belief that suicide is poetic,
seeing things as they were.
More often than not, applauded for feeling emotions deeply.
Every second that dies, the shift of my heart quakes.

This world is not tender.

II. Sad.
I have known the flowers I wanted at my own premature funeral,
knowing how many bouquets honored you that day.

split open my veins like a dimension
reminiscent of days where I anticipated deathbeds.


My family wondered,
can we make it through another day?
Death scares me for what it has taken,
yet, I’m not afraid to die-
it’s all I deserve.
So I await the day pain erupts
from my throat,
acknowledging the days a soul
lived inside of my body-
footprints that walked,
belonging to me.

But I learned so well.
How to suffer with a smile,
dreading the beating of my heart
how unfair—
I don’t want to take these deep breaths
You deserved,while I masquerade as a member of the undead
Never outgrowing the desire to rot with the phantoms residing under my bed.


III. Jokes played by the universe.
punchlines delivered,
how could anyone to stand to be in the same room as myself?
How could anyone look over skyscrapers and sunsets,
and not be infatuated with concrete consuming them?
How I shared a sigh of relief during the thought-
of knowing people would thrive without me,
or the power of a belly laugh,
resembling a laugh track audience
drowning out 3 AM suicidal thoughts.

as a kid
there's nothing
like wasting away inside a tiny
room
sitting on the backrest
of the couch
looking out the window
and seeing her
tread through the rain

a red umbrella covers
her.

Mother

she's going back
to the liquor store

my mother sees purple
because purple lives on her flesh.

she has stains
from shoulders down.
they scatter across her back
like pressed grapes.
the juice squeezed out of them
to create a rich man’s wine.
they wrap around her legs
like grape vines.
pulling her closer to the ground
with each step.

she hides them.
when men approach her
she says
“quiero que me ames.
my body has rejected me
and even in the womb
i was mutating.”

the men love her face.
she is a woman who does not age.
they say to her
“tu eres morada.
to love yourself you must
accept the color.”
so they have all added
new shades of purple
to her body.

i think that is why
my favorite eyeshadow color
is purple.