At the top of the hill
two thieves stood in the midday sun
with their faces lifted upwards.
Down there,
in the fear-ridden town
the only lights they had
was of reading lamps, screens, street and car lights,
and an occasional candle in the dead of night.

Bottles were fished out of pockets,
corks were unscrewed,
bottoms were lifted,
laughter was heard,
spells were whispered,
sunrays were enchanted with song,
so enchanted they stopped dead in their step,
bows were held up,
arrows were shot,
grass was searched,
light was conserved in bottles.
Flickers in pockets for the darkest days.

I've b l  o   w    n        my lungs clean
                                                           ­       e
                                                   k
                                        o
                     ­         m
of cigarette s
So why would you asumme
I wouldn't throw you   o
                                          u

             ­                              t
with the rest of the         trash
that cluttered my life
and poisoned my mind?

Oh, I swear,
I swear I will confess
of all the sins which poison the well
of the crusty diseased soul
I keep locked in a chest
in the most hidden dark path
of my muddled, mediocre mind!

I will confess curled on the ground
of my ungratefullness,
of my laziness,
of the egocentric refusal of
accepting anything but approval,
of the compulsive lies that
my lips and fantasy knit in a sweater
which covers the bare chest
of my uncontrolled rage.
To it all I will confess!

I swear I never asked for it.
I will try my best to assure you
that none of my faults are my fault,
but in the tangled web of lies
where I coddle myself to sleep every night,
I do not know what part of me is real
anymore.
So despite my assurance, I will plea,
don't ever trust me.

Please, I beg you to
inspect me,
inject me,
sedate me,
dissect me,
extract me,
remove me,
destroy me
and cure me.
That or just merely
crush me to bits,
(painfully but sweet)
on the operation table.

I swear I will confess
to the mess in my chest,
and after that
destroy me or rebuild me.
I can't remain this way, believe me!

Should the lights be dimmed,
should the night be dark.
should I ever break
or claim to fall apart,
should my blood run cold,
should my tears run dry,
should I stop believing
that light in dark resides,
turn my face away
from the blackness of the sky,
twist my wide eyes back
from the lands on which I walk,
rip me whole from all of this
I have claimed to have disowned,
and then I'll burst to dust,
and then in light I shall explode,
and then I'll burn alive again,
then I'll be once more a whole.

Should you hold up
the hollow crystal sphere
with the glass ballerina
up to the light
you will see.
Oh, how delicately
she drags her bisque slippers
with a crackling clink
across the mirror surface!
Oh, how delicately
her folding arms
paint excuses
with an indigo tincture
in the shape of questions?
Oh, how she drops
like a wilting little tulip!

Lola-lovely-Manola
stuffs chestnuts from the park
in the pockets of her brown jacket.
She's the type of girl
who believes in astrology
and wears socks that don't match
on purpose.
She says chestnuts emit good energy.

Lina-bug-eyed-Malina
came sad to class the other day.
It was the type of sad
where the glass has been filled up
and when you try to drink it in one go
you can't speak and go silent.
She doesn't want to talk.

So imagine the surprise Malina felt
when she took of her coat at home
and found a chestnut had been slipped
into her pocket.
"A transition of beleif and love"
she called it.

Right as my heart begun fluttering and
Even my friends told me I was aglow
Plain and simple I felt.
Loveable even.
And then right as I had finished
Cultivating the courage to stay
Exposed to your caramel stare holding
A promise quite tender and safe...
BEHOLD! The magic swoop which
Leaves you embarrassed and shallow.
Eyes which have moved onto another.

August, my dear!
You're finally here!
We have to grab you a chair,
most certainly a beer,
oh, don't you dare deny
your seat on my porch,
because you and I know
EXACTLY what's going on.
You don't have to cry,
I know, I know,
I know what they're doing,
you don't have to say,
I know about the pressure
they've put on you again.
They want
the beach,
the sun,
the waves,
the drinks,
the heat,
the friends,
their love,
some precious memories.
You feel responsible
I know that much about you,
but you can't expect to make their dreams come true.
You're not a magician,
they are the ones who have to learn
how to fall in love
with June and July too.
But as long as you're here,
no, August, don't hurry, finish your beer,
I don't expect you to do anything,
just put your feet up and relax.
I'll just run to the basement
and bring that guitar
in case you decide
there is a song here you could write.

I will feed you love
from my paper cup hands
everytime you are starved
for sunny days.

I will put your frozen hands
in my pre-warmed woolen gloves
everytime you may fall ill
from the chill outside our doorstep.

My body is sacred.
More sacred than the holiest
of the places
I've posed in front of
with my family
in photos.

My bones carry a structure
with a bad posture
from never having been
completely held up
in a proper position while reading.

My muscles are working
with the vitality of a young person
who does not enjoy working out
and keeping fit
unless the burden of pressure
is eased by the water
I enjoy to swim in.

The organs which keep me alive
are damaged somewhat
by my unhealthy habits
but are still
keeping the holy magic
of being so painfully alive
going.

The tissues that cover me
have been a curios decoration
for my life's entirety.
My skin has felt the eyes
of the people that tried
to turn it to a commodity,
the eyes who have tried
to call it obscene and cover it,
the eyes who have tried
to fetishize it,
the eyes who have never noticed it.

And my body's an abbey
where only my cells are allowed
to live in permanently.
And for as long as that's so
no one can shame it.
Or me.

Tell all the monsters under my bed
that they needn't tuck me in at night
anymore.
I made a promise to grow.
I'll grow the way mama did
back when her hair was brown not silver.
Tell my monsters I grew out
of  chewing my nails,
picking at my skin,
***** fueled nightmares,
and a tobacco stained tears.
Tell them that I am growing out
of the fear footsteps in the dark
light up in my rabbit shaped heart,
that I'm growing out of the bark
my voice turns to
when I speak to my father.
Tell them I've grown out of
silly weeping over silly boys.
Tell them where there were cracks
now pretty clovers grow.
Tell them that I've found friends
who hold my hands
when I tremble with anxiety.
And tell them that
I hold these same friends
when their monsters threaten
to come from under their beds.

Tell them. Tell them how much
their little girl has grown.

My senses unwrap
like brown parcel paper
tied with a string.

They absorb the smell of
coffee beans and turmeric
and the light of warm brown eyes.

I am home
in a home
which is not supposed to be my home.

I am the *******
who grounded up my bones
into a fine white flour,
who stuck sticks
under my nails,
until my fingers would be
opened red wounds
dripping blood on the muddy earth
beneath the legs
I amputated myself.

But,
Sweetie,
never in your wildest dreams
should you dare believe
that I would let you
hurt a centimeter of me.

The only person
who I would let hurt me
is the one only one I should belong to.
Me.

Lackluster hillside
A many, ideal sheep sleeps
out of jewelry

Relief and horror paint the sight
of an empty airport
and an abandoned mall.
I've seen them both.

But how should I begin to describe
the dread and terror
when the people in my country
have souls like abandoned buildings?

How do you explain the absent faces
and the grey souls in a land
where everything is slowly dying out
and any spark of life is just a memory
from fifty years ago?

How do you explain that
instead of haunted houses
all the streets are haunted corridors
and even if you ran away
the real horror is that
not a single broken ghost will try
to stop you?

How do you articulate that
you don't want to go
but you also don't wish to stay
just to watch your favorite souls
wither away?

My skull cracked open
is a messy endeavor.

Everything makes its twisted sense.
You poke at the laziness,
you poke at my refusal to work,
and you stumble upon
the fear of criticism,
poke that and you find the narcissism,
you poke at the narcissism
and you find the screeching fear,
that I'll never be enough unless perfect,
poke at the fears and it will make me scream.
Make me scream
and my skull will crack wider.

The fish bowl is yet to make sense.
I’m that little red fish
at the bottom of the glass aquarium
you barely remember
from that childhood cartoon
that maybe never existed.

I’m not a pretty fish,
let’s at least admit that.
I’m not a goldfish,
or a rainbow mermaid,
or a toad the prince could kiss
to turn into a princess.
I’m a red pufferfish.

I’m puffing up and I poison these waters.
Like all scared pufferfish,
I dread facing up to my insecurities.
I never trusted my mind was whimsical enough,
that my skin was pretty enough,
that my spikes were safe enough,
for anyone to love them.

And what is a scared pufferfish to do
but to retrieve to the comfort
of painting the pictures of who they want to be?
What am I to do but to lie?

So, I, the pufferfish, lie.
I lie like my life depends on it,
I turn trickery into art.
I become such a good liar that soon,
no one, not even me,
can tell the difference between
the real situation,
and the fantastic tales I tell myself.
Isn’t it a tiny bit ironic?
Being so afraid of the sting,
that the pufferfish resources to clouding the water
with poison so much
that she poisons herself and doesn’t know
which way in the bowl is up.

The trap of the lying pufferfish
is that not even in lies may she succeed.
Even in lies she loses the game she tries
so desperately to cheat.
You see, it’s a little bit like this,
if you are a pufferfish,
and you don’t believe they’re interesting enough,
and you paint them to look like dolphins,
because everyone loves dolphins,
the pufferfish ends up feeling like an impostor.
No matter what lies she tells herself or others,
she’s smart enough to know in her gills
that she is, in fact, a pufferfish.

However,
should you hold up
the fishbowl
to the light
you’ll see that
underneath the layers of paint
and red skin
my little lying pufferfish heart
is transparent,
in a way,
clean.
I swear,
in all the honesty
you shouldn’t trust,
that I mean no harm
and never had.
And please,
little,
transparent
pumping,
scared heart,
believe yourself,
when you say,
that you are trying
as hard as you can,
at having a fresh start
in the poisoned waters.