I held onto nothing
Because I wanted so badly
For there to be something

Me duele el alma porque te quiero

Look at me. Really look at me tonight. Take me in. All that I unfold here before you. I'm the girl you could potentially learn to love. I'm the girl that you possibly do, already love. Open your self to me, you'll never be the same, we'll never be the same from here. Look at how beautiful this has the potential to be, our shared existence in this solemn universe, in this swollen universe, so filled with possibilities and love. Indulge yourself, immerse within, the welcoming of my open heart.

The sky looks nice and so do you.

The world is vastly infinite
I am not
And I am thankful

Sometimes I don't know
If I should smile about you
Or cry about you.

Miss me too
Like me too
Want me too
Love me too.

I hope to always be full
But I hope to never be satisfied
I hope to always want more of You
More of You
More of You

Si no lo digo
Y no lo hago
Es porque no lo siento.

And all I'm left with is nothing.
Nothing is what you've left me with.

How does it feel
To kiss me without commitment?
And is that what this is?
Take and leave
As you choose
Is my heart really up to you?
There was love once
Inside of this house
The walls embraced it
Have they forgotten?
Will you remember?
That is was you
All these years

And this hasn't even started yet,
but already I feel it, I feel you
slipping away, passing me by.

One day our bodies will lose its breath,
and I am happy to have met you.

I'm no longer concerned with whether
Or not these words resonate
They're not for them
These words are for you

These words are to let you know
That today I wanted nothing more
Than to call you
Just so I could tell you
That I hope your day
Is even better than yesterday

And I can't wait to see your face
And kiss your lips
And hold your hand
This Thursday

Quiéreme, imbecile.

Que la boca no hable por mi.
   Que mis ojos lo digan todo.

I hope that the tender look in my eyes
Draws you away.

Simply make them fall in love with you.

Me duele el corazon porque no eres mio.

I could love you
On the painted steps
Those that tell us
To learn from our mistakes

Standin' sweetly
next to you
Sweet you, holdin' your hand

I could emphasize your name
At the start of every phrase
We could be as bright as day
Flor de luna,
Mi Ignacito

Amor de mis amores
Mi dulce elotito

Que mi dolor seas tu
Que sean tuyos mis errores

Que la vida es solamente
Solamente tu

To Live as my Father has lived
To Love as my Father has loved
To weep as my Father has wept
To die as my Father has died

Beginners. The part in Beginners where Georgia takes young Oliver to the art museum and playfully tilts her body to mimic the juxtaposed metal frame installation. Or when on one of their drives in their 1982 Mercedes-Benz 300 D Turbo Diesel, Georgia tells young Oliver "You point, I'll drive," so Oliver knee-jerkily points his finger to the direction opposite of where they are driving, and Georgia calmly steers the car out of control without any bit of hesitation. The fact that Oliver keeps the "You point, I'll drive" tradition alive with Anna years after Georgia's passing, but never explains or even mentions to Anna the backstory and significance behind these words, it's just something he casually incorporates in his counted moments with her, which conveys through indirect verbalization just how much she means to him.

Oh, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Don't even get me started with Joel and Clementine, and all their heart-wrenching, perfect one-liners and phrases.

"I'm Clementine. Can I... borrow a piece of your chicken?"
"And then you just took it... without waiting for an answer. It was so intimate; like we were already lovers."

And,

"I could die right now, Clem. I'm just...happy. I'm exactly where I wanna be." All the right words, in the right sequence, with precise pause and emphasis.

Or,

"I'm a little out of sorts today." A line I secretly quote and have casually adapted into my every day utterances.

And of course the infamous Tangerine and Joely Sequence;

"You're pretty, you're pretty. You're pretty... you're pretty... pretty.."

Both of these movies mean so much to me. These are the kind of things I would tell you. These are the kind of things that would mean something to you, that would lead you to finding some bit of magic in me, and maybe even make you fall in love. But you've never asked, and you don't, and you won't. Still, I wish that you would ask.

And falling in love

Are bearable.

- A love note.

I'd make tea for two
I'd make tea for you
Without asking me to
I'd offer to, for you
For you
For you.

Can you remember anything without me?

Are you exactly where you want to be?
If you died, would it be happily?

I want to be the best me for you.

You hurt for me
You hurt with me
And you weep.

Compassion.

I hurt for You
I hurt with you
And I weep.

Your heart overflowed in mine.

Tell me you want to kiss me. Tell me that it's ruining you to consider that this may be the last time we'll ever see each other. Tell me that it's only been three hours, but already a hollowness is starting to form in your heart. You are not a coward. Tell me. Ask me. Make me yours.

Tell me that you hate that I'm leaving.
Tell me that it's tearing you apart.

I'd end all my letters with 'to the moon and back.'

Let me love you back to life again.

Tell me I'm the best thing that's happend to you in a very long time, but you don't feel me in your heart yet.

Give me a 'yet'
Give me a 'but maybe with time'
Give me a lie that I can cling to.

I want to love you without commitment
I want to love you without giving up my heart
Listen to Chet Baker with me
Let's be funny, let's be each others valentine
Hand holding is so nice, let's hold hands the whole night
Sit with me on sidewalk retaining wall
Let's collaboratively make up stories of strangers passing by
Let's go out to Granada
Let's dance our hesitation away

J,
I want to be something you can feel
Something real, without compromising the deal
Without compromising your heart

I was afraid I'd lose you in a dream.

I want to lie down on soft grass underneath the night
and listen to Slowdive until I feel better

I think I might take to eating more chile verde
or replace my mattress with a bed of sunflowers
or compose a poem using sopita de letras,
gluing every word on the refrigerator and kitchen counters
or learn how to play La Llorona on acoustic guitar,
and perform it at an open mic karaoke bar
in a distant town of people I don't know
or wear a white pillowcase over my head
and call myself a ghost
whisper all my secrets to strangers on the phone
or take a right turn instead of left
or climb a wall, or fall in love

I guess it should be expected from me
To still try looking for you in songs
Where have you gone?
You never warned me I'd feel this lonely
Octavio

Octavio, it is likely you're just another name
Faceless, traceless
Like the stars in my dreams
I'm all bones, you're all sheets
Haunt me in the realm of dreams, te lo pido
Cariño

Do you understand this Spanglish tongue?
Can you feel the latido of my anxious heart?
Octavito, chiquitito

If there was a time of pastel pinks and blues
And yellow ribbons

If there was a time of citrus and lime
And air-drying linen

If there were days of tu y yo
Birds and bees
Half-creaked windows
And shaky knees

I'd like to visit those days, mi gansito

Is there an us in the summer
Some summers from now?
The shortest nights, the longest season
Is there any way to tell?

I'd like to know, amorcito

Octavio, mi pan dulce
Mi corazon de papel, mi pajarito
You exist sweetly in my thoughts
If no place else

Dim string lights on a soft summer night

the ghost of you in this photograph
I see you now, I can almost feel
the motion of you passing through
both our bodies

Cut the small talk.

is it possible to spend your whole life fighting love
fighting for love
here I am and there you are
fighting for and fighting against
chasing a moment a sentence a feeling
is it possible to spend your whole life
determined to making it work
and is it enough? is it ever enough?
is it more than you could ever wrap your heart around?
is it possible to spend your whole life worried
of possibilities, whether or not these things will come
will I ever find a place to lie my worrying head
in the form of a lovers lap, corduroy pants on an autumn's day
is it possible to spend your whole life searching
is it possible to spend your whole life hiding
I've not a million lives but one
Love, where is my one?

How to express the weighing
Tenderness in my heart for you

How to explain
My heart
That is losing its shape
And taking form of
A condition

Invisible and critical, demanding
How to make sense of this

Longing here, in the empty shelves of my rib cage
Where you stand before me
Our feverish hands so close to touching
But they do not touch

How to let it be known that
You are wearing down, softly
The parts of me I stregnthened most

Should I laugh about it?
This comely irony, my soul burning bright for you
On winter's coldest night

Tell me, how should I behave?
What façade should I turn to?
When this means more to me than I know it should

How should I conceal, love
The layers
Of you
That can be found in me?

Remember that one time years ago on thanksgiving day when I was feeling so sad and had gotten in a shaky argument with my mom so I drove miles and miles into the night crying along to Radiohead, and all it took was sending one brief text message for me to end up at the step of your garage-bedroom door. your family had just finished eating dinner, I met your uncle for the first time, that might’ve been the last time I saw him, too. we spent the rest of the night in the dim of your bedroom, lying down on raschel blankets you’d carefully set out on the floor for us, my body like a crescent moon cradled in the orbit of your arms. darling boy, I’m falling apart again, and it’s in these times when it hits me most, when I realize the significance of your Autumn skin, of the monolithic bones behind them that held me close the way they did, that held me together as on that night. I’m sorry I didn’t know it then just how lucky I was. I’m sorry that I’m writing something like this now knowing all too well that none of this will ever reach you.

I haven’t always been the best lover, daughter, sister, relative, friend, coworker, student, individual. But my intentions, for the most part, have always been good. My heart is many things; conflicted, light, heavy, dizzy, a transcontinental road map, oozing liquid, electric, pure. Kind and pure. I can't confidently say that about many of me, but of this one thing I am sure. In my lifetime I've positioned myself to be the one who gets hurt and not be the one to cause it. But taking it for how it is, it doesn’t always work out that way. It rarely, actually, has ever or will ever work out that way, not always at least.

I’ve hurt you, and I’m sorry. I’ve broken you, parts of you, and I’m sorry. I’ve let you down before, and I’m sorry. You have hurt me, and I forgive you. My heart is broken, but I do not hold it against you. You’ve let me down, and it’s okay. This is the part of existing we didn't sign up for. Yes, I realize the whole "sign up for" analogy is ****** and weak, I can do better than that, I know. But it's just, what I'm trying to get at here is that this is the part of being I am no longer wrecking myself over trying to understand anymore. We are fleshed boomerangs of disdain and consolation, martyr and martyred, antonym and synonym. Take me for who I am and who I have the potential to be. Take you for who you are and your potential just the same, resent and mend, just the same. Let go of your expectations, take it for how it is.

Am I getting this wrong, again?
I just want you so bad
I just want you so bad

Memory 1:
Cutting oranges off their stems and eating them underneath cherry blossom trees post-rain and post-picket sign protest in Sacramento with Steff.

Memory 2:
Night time, FYF VIP area, sharing a scarf to sit on. slice of veggie pizza, Denisse telling me about her dad, how a beat-down truck with working men made her think of him as she was driving on the 210 the other day. how it moved her so much she ended up pulling over on the side of the road to cry. String of dim lights overhead, Air's Playground Love assimilating in the background of the momentum we've just shared.

Memory 3:
Fourth of July, Navajo woven blankets, lying down faced up arms lazily stretched out in the back of Tia Irene's pick-up truck. talking about how scary it is growing up and how much we fear God. you've decided you no longer want to be a news reporter. I tell you you'll be successful in whatever it is you end up doing. All the while sparks of reds, purple, green, pinks, blues fill the sky in slow, steady twirls all around us.

Memory 4:
Valentine's Day, car parked a few minutes away from where we're walking to. An empty construction site with a view that overlooks our city. you set down the box of pizza, take off your backpack, set out a blanket, a candle, two glass cups rolled up in San Bernardino Sun, a bottle of wine. Tell me to dig in, I pull up the lid, it's shaped like a heart. You didn't realize the wine had a cork, try pulling it off with your teeth. We forget the wine, play The Doors from your cellphone instead, they've finally been added to Spotify, we comment on this. Lying next to each other, my neck cradled in your arm, the warmth of your skin transcends from the wool of your shirt. A shooting star passes the auburn sky like lightning, said you missed it, had your eyes closed. I close mine shortly after, too.

Memory 5:
Everyone is huddled in the living room, a serenade of whispering and sssh she's coming. Tio Frank and Dad have the wheelchair turned around, your back facing us as you enter the door. They move you down the steep of the entrance, you look up, Las Mañanitas starts to play from the stereo, welcome home! You cradle your head in your hands and begin to cry. We reach out to hold you, crying, too.

I think one of my favorite things about dining in restaurants is the background music and how it synchronizes with the sound of silverware clicking against dishes

My grandmother from Mexico used to use this Jergen’s face cream that she would call “la crema de las tres caritas,” and every time my dad would go visit her from the states she wouldn’t ask him for anything except to bring her one, and he always would. With time, even when he would make surprise visits, he always made sure to take her a tub of her tres caritas.

I ended up meeting my grandmother when I was about nine, ten years of age, and after that I only saw her once more before she passed. I don’t recall much of our encounters, I don’t really remember what her voice sounded like or the words we exchanged. But I remember her embrace, hugging her for the first time and feeling an immense sense of warmth and love in its purest, grounded form. She had womanhood in her arms, an airy sense of strength, tenderness, and compassion even though I was just a child and couldn’t pin down the feeling just then. It was a unique hug and comfort that only a grandmother could give, and it has come to mean more to me now as a young woman that it ever has, now that I understand. The encouragement and reassurance of her hug has remained with me through the calamity, sufferings, and heartaches of my life; just as she intended.

What I do vividly remember is the complexion of her face. A caramel bronzed, subtly creased, pearly glow. Observing this for the first time as a child, I knew the reason why, and it brought me joy. After that, whenever I was at the store and came across the pink lidded Jergen’s it warmed my heart, it still does. I asked my mom if she could buy me one when we were shopping at Walmart once, and from then on I’ve continued buying and using it. It’s been about thirteen years now, and sometimes when I put some on early morning or at night before going to bed, it makes me think of her, oh her glowing face, of her radiating warmth, and in some silly way it makes me feel close to her, like that first and last embrace we shared that I don’t think I’ll ever come to forget.

It kind of blows me away, in retrospect, how simple objects, little things, how everything seamlessly has the potential to intertwine with significance and meaning. All of this means so much to me.