April arrives—bare, too soon
unraveling the winds

Do the mountains know
Do the rivers

That you are the light
sharp as the moon

Pink blossoms bloom—
splitting the bluest sky

Do the seas confess
Do the sunsets

That you are
the ocean’s dream

Pearls, flowers, and rains—
flower into spring

Green meadows grow
into butterflies

Do the stars concede
Do the shadows

That you are
summer's smile—

The forest of heaven
and dawn

wilderness, the cosmic
heartbeat—

simply, outrageously
irrevocably

beautiful

My past won't protect me
My future is set to destroy me
what will I be doing now
smiling at the creations
is everything just decorations
it's all set up, and I keep my time
It's now what I do
It's in present how I be
don't fight, be at peace
I live and breathe the tranquil.

monster dreams
and hides,

burning in my
bones,

melting the
doors,

finding ways
to survive
when it gets
cold.

words have
drained,
doused the
fires

outside.

outside, there's
this wilderness
I cannot
control —

how it eats
me whole,
tearing pieces
of my soul

until there's
nothing left
of me

but silence,
untold.

Inevitably, something has fractured
and I renounce:

I renounce beer, captive lover of sublime moments.
I renounced my children, defiled in the womb by shadowed adulteresses.
I renounced my mother's love,
who flung herself into the gaping jaws of empire.

I renounce Zurita and Vallejo,
I renounce Rimbaud and Lorca.
I renounce the revolution—
a slaughterhouse of lambs bathed in epitaph sauce.

I renounce the symbolic burning of the body
because I renounce the body.
I renounce the beauty of being surrounded by lotuses
because for me, blood and bones.
Because for the disinherited, the roads
are mapped in filth.

I renounce your fingers tracing my spine
because I renounce my spine.
I renounce the madness of your ***
and the trampling that follows.

I renounce poetry,
for she renounces my wanton kiss.
I renounce metaphysics and catharsis.
I renounce the ceaseless spilling of ink.

I renounce eclipses.
I renounce dimming my eyes with tears
that do not belong to me,
that are not even mine.

I renounce returning,
for the path moves only forward.
I renounce leaving,
for I will sit beneath this vine—
and I will not eat its grapes,
and I will not drink its wine.

And when, a thousand years from now,
a monk arrives
and lays the three masks of the universe
before my bones,

I will renounce my bones—
and the universe
with its three masks.

I have yet to let the silence fill me completely.
Only words remain — pale husks, soundless,
yet screaming in the marrow of my ears.

I alone bear their rotting weight,
the brittle corpses lining my tongue.
Who else? I speak into hollow rooms,
my voice scattering like dried leaves.

Who else will watch you crash into the moon,
then spill into my half-empty glass
of fumes and restlessness?

The sun will rise tomorrow, unknowing
of the raw labor it takes
to lift my body from its grave of sheets,
my heart a stone, unmoving.

The ceiling gnaws at the sky —
its teeth sink into my hours.
Dusk, with her damp palms,
presses me into forgetting.

And yet, from the balcony,
I see distant cities glitter like broken jewelry.
I do not ache for their songs,
their spinning dances, their crystal plates.

But the crowds — the crowds —
let them tear me limb from limb:
arms, legs, flesh, bone,
the soft, spoiled fruit of my mind —

let them take it all,
until nothing remains of yesterday’s weight.
Only leave me these eyes,
so I may witness the undoing.

My house, when I was young,
was tangled with trees and neat little flowers,
lined in rows — seas of red, pink, and white.

Or perhaps that was only a dream,
and I was never young.
Perhaps I arrived
fully formed, carved in stone,
walking in borrowed feet.

How is it that I gave myself up so easily?

Was it the sparse decorations,
the dusty mirrors where I saw myself,
trying not to become barren,
swallowed by storms,
covering bone with flesh, hair,
and new fabric?

I wish there were a place
to set down my heart and leave it there —
let my lungs do the talking,
let my arms measure the weight of hurt.

Perhaps then I could lift my spirit
at the decay of night,
and not lie awake,
in this sedated body,
restless beneath the autumn sky.

This tenacious boredom
has carved a cathedral
deep in my wounds.

How quickly I would give it all up,
burn it all, so easily —

if I weren’t made of neat little flowers,
smoke, ash, and forgotten relics.

But how can I?

They deserve to flee,
to root themselves
in a new home
elsewhere.