Open your heart to a fairy tale untold
Of a man whose path was ridden with ice and cold

His daunting journey lasted for a while
Looking up projecting a luscious smile

Pristine drips of crimson red in liquid emulsion
Was tended and spread in pure repulsion

A hingeless contortion, amongst cruel distortion
A spiritless effigy brimming with emotion

Standing amongst the colourless plates
The sound of devotion resonates

Wearing a mask in pride, containing a brittle smile

He approached the husk before it turned to dust
It danced in the wind once more

~for RK, for now~

Until you have bent your ear to Shakespeare's sonnets,
Till you have laughed with Ogden Nash,
Wept with Frost, visited Byron's ghost,
Read the songs of King Solomon,
And once you
Despair of being their equal,
Shed your winter coat of worry,
***** your courage to the sticking point,
Begin to write then with reckless fearlessness,
Unfettered abandon, make a fool of yourself!

Scout the competition.
Weep, for you and I will never surpass
The giants who preceeded us, and yet,
Laugh, cause they thought the same thing as well...

It’s like a spider
In a web
Crawling closer
Thread by thread

You try to run
But the strings are sticky
So you trip and fall
This was going to be tricky

You get back up
And continue on
Looking back
It was almost dawn

You’ve almost made it through the night
Keep on treading
You’re almost done
But the webs started spreading

The spider slowly follows
And you feel it in your soul
Here it comes again
Time to pay your toll

You lay there
Out of breath
Was it over?
Or was this death?

You couldn’t move
You felt dead
You were full of horrible emotions
One of them, dread

And suddenly, you realized
That big spider
The one that chased you
Was no outsider

You’ve been here before
All because of one thing
You should’ve stayed inside
But you didn’t know what the outside would bring

That spider
It feeds on society
That spider
Its name is Anxiety

i walk into the tightly packed condo
and the unwelcomed smell punches me in the face and one word pops up

perníl

oh and how could my olfactory senses be so ignorant
and try to blind the
cinnamon and lavender incense.
such a great mix.

i’m so tired of everything,
seeing the familiar faces and hearing from those that i haven’t seen in years
that it looks like i haven’t been eating as much.
i get a little cheek pinch and reassurance from mis tíos
that they’d gladly fight any guy that breaks my heart
and how they can’t wait for me to start driving so i can take my grandma places
my uncle’s new novía asks if my parents let me date
and then if i’m dating and how it’s just better if i’m single
because she doesn’t want to find out i’m living like a girl from Knickerbocker.
and then i get a poke from a passing príma
asking me how i dance and that when i was younger i always used to
walk around w ******* and my real thick afro
and then she’d exit but before she did
she’d blow the hookah vapor into my face and start up another convo.
while she leaves me coughing in a fog of
strawberry cheesecake flavored air.

it’s family though
you have to love them
no matter what they’re like..

yeah right.

Count the hours on the clock,
Shifting hands to softly mock,
The nagging tick of mortal flocks,
Atop this fetid, burdened rock

Arranged in dandy rows of twelve,
Nestled firm above the shelves,
They strum a tune for silent crowds,
To dust and grime and hellish clouds

Waiting for its muse to strike,
As if a match or flame alike,
It leaps from hours seeking rhythm,
To seize upon a growing schism

Ringing out, it quells the chime,
Weeping children stand in line,
Dead men all accused of crimes,
Against the grueling pace,
Of time

"These bleeding hands, tis' all you thought,
For now you see,
It's all a sign..."