what no one has ever told you about the devil, is that they aren't real.

my mother gave birth to a rose with pure innocence. clementine, raspberry, oh! look how sweet she looks like. the glow she produces, everything her fingertips touches becomes stardust, and her stares can feel bittersweet - get burned or ache for bonfire inside your home? either way, you will discover how hungry you are for the thrill and torment.

beneath the pillows is the pain - how easily forgotten, but it will never stop regardless of how many white dandelions she will plant at her backyard.

her bones marbled amongst the other, calm a crocodile upon its attack, distance - that's what she's good at. i wish this dampen cloth made from grief does not cloud her judgment. she made too many ruined choices, embarked on a journey alone once or twice, sew the torn sheets, spilled four caffeine - and still, all she knows is how to look at the stars with tearful eyes and buttermilk aroma smile. naïvety. a great trap, i suppose.

   ; don't you know how much i want to drown those lovely sins? it makes me think of the galaxy i once felt, and like metamorphosis, it turned into wishful skins, then slowly, burned into ashes as i try to nurture the wooden skulls. i shouldn't have done that.

will you light an aggressive fire for me?
look what you made me do

... the devil, perhaps, it's within us.

When I drive, I spend more time looking in the rearview mirror than I do in front of me.
No, that isn’t a metaphor, I mean it literally.
It’s more appealing to live in memories, forget the trauma as it’s happening.
I may never change, but I like living in the illusion of safety.

watching moments
recalling then writing

sharing them across the world

i hope his finger survived

people eat them i hear
here i would not

not now

i write in places
where no one comments
yet i have found that friends
read it quietly
and smile

they tell me

and if no one came
it would remain the same

in time to the music
the pattern
the pulse

paces

which slow sometimes
when we give way

it was a pleasant day yesterday
there was drizzle and wild flowers

the garage fixed the wheel
and changed my seat configuration
as always

they are taller than me
most are

the gas man came as i was fiddling
with it
and helped

he always does
a kind man
who retires next april

looks young to me

6.46
crumbs in the keyboard
dust on the screen

dry day
to hang the washing
out

(No puedo hablar la lengua.)
I cannot speak my father's native tongue.
(No puedo hablar suficiente...)
At least, not enough of it to get by.
(...no entiendo, lo siento.)
The body I inhabit feels like foreign territory.
(No lo se.)
My grasp of it ends here.

I. OTRA VIDA

Dia de san valentin, 2000: mi padre aprendió inglés por amor; voló a través del mar Mediterráneo. Él tiene miedo de los sonidos cuando trata de hablar. Pero él lo intenta. Él habla casi perfectamente -- mientras, estoy teniendo una conversación uno-a-uno con Google. Es vergonzoso.

I recall two or three trips, max. There's a blend of urban and natural that's a haven for the eye -- the buildings themselves are seduced by the sun; divine blends of amber, tawny, white. Classically Romantic. That nighttime humidity fogs up your lungs and makes it feel like a hug. There was a time when we were poised to move back there - and in Dad's case, another, nearly leaving without any desire to take me with him.

My makeshift home is built upon stereotypes: orange trees, olive oil, generous glasses of vino. Pienso qué un otra vida where I'm stood on the beach at dusk, with heavy-lidded eyes and ears attuned to cicadas and rolling waves. This is narcissistic lust for the woman I could've been - she is all smiles, bilingual, peace embodied. Those are the nights when I'm not careful: she leaves my bed by morning.

II. ESTA VIDA

To mourn the "what ifs" shows a lack of gratitude for what is, and god, what luck! For inglés to be the second most-spoken language, de-facto "centre of the universe"! To migrate most anywhere and get by; for the Western world to be coerced into Anglophonic bliss since tourism makes their ends meet!

On a holiday, I clam up ordering "una batista fresa" and get a taste of how my father feels. José Francisco: his colleagues call him Frank, in the same way I shun my legal surname because a Spanish 'LL' is too hard for others to grasp. I reek of privilege - post-post-Franco, white European, playing with my non-language behind closed doors. There's private delight in a rolled 'r': momentarily, I'm local, not a mere faux-foreigner appropriating my own heritage. Ironic - he tries to be "less immigrant" whilst I've got the fortune of trying to be more.

I was born into a universe of possibilities. A million options feel like fate -- screenwriter, Oxford grad, Spanish barmaid-or-waitress-or-I'll-take-whatever -- each unchased path is a reminder that, somehow, I'm choosing wrong. I've never perceived myself as small (ex-tall child, "ex"-chubby kid with a head outstretching the clouds, first of the eleven-year-olds to grow **** and got gawped at like I'd grown an extra nostril). Outside this hall of mirrors, I am tiny -- too small to have this many dreams -- manifesting as terror-borne paralysis because I want to do more than I'm built for. Solution: aim smaller or grow up.