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 Jan 2017 jack of spades
daniela
on my mother’s side of the family,
we are german immigrants spider webbing out
from jasper, indiana.
those branches of the family tree are the sort of people
who like everything about the midwest
that has always made me chafe,
made me feel like i could never belong here
on the buckle of the bible belt.
for them, i think it’s comfortable,
living in a town where everyone is basically just like them.  

so i sit down for thanksgiving dinner with people
who voted for donald trump.
because people can love me, they can be friends with my family,
eat thanksgiving dinner with us, break bread,
be my own flesh and blood,
and they can still believe deep down somewhere inside of them
that this country belongs more to them than it does to me.
i mean, if they didn’t, what’s the other explanation
to hearing a man on the campaign trail call
latinos rapists and criminals
and threaten to build a wall to keep us out,
and thinking that was something that you were okay
with overlooking in your vote?
they can clap my latino immigrant father’s shoulder in one hand
and build a wall with the other.
and that realization is painful to reconcile
with the pledge i was taught to say everyday,
it’s difficult to reconcile with the american dream as i understood it.

so dear aunt cindy,
you shared posts on facebook are beginning to reek of white supremacy
and i just have to wonder, did you forget me?
when i was sleeping your guest room,
when i was eating thanksgiving dinner at your table,
did you forget where i come from?
did you forget about the half of me in paranavaí,
shifting, drifting away from middle america,
inch by inch, year by year, the product of tectonic plates.
dear aunt cindy, your daughter-in-law is an immigrant, too,
but she’s from europe, she’s white, so maybe that’s different.
dear aunt cindy, i don’t want to believe
every well-wish, birthday card, christmas gift has been a lie
but what am i supposed to think when you like a post on facebook
about white nationalism, about keeping “illegal aliens” out?
see, i don’t want to think that you’ve been lying all these years,
that you don’t care about me because i believe you do,
but when you also believe that this country belongs to you
more than it belongs to immigrants, to latinos,
to those who don’t look like you,
how can you not taste the aftershock of my name in your mouth?
dear aunt cindy, when you hate people like me,
when you hate people who come from where i’m from,
how can i not think you hate me too?

my mother, the furious peacemaker, says that she doesn’t think like that.
but that’s like coming out and telling me you still love me
but you… just don’t get it,
that you don’t think it’s quite normal, quite natural,
like i’m supposed to thank you for not spitting in my face.
maybe aunt cindy does not look at us and see “other”  
my father always says that my people will know me,
but i think if i ever have children they will come out of me
with our family history wiped clean from them.
their names will probably be easier, never mispronounced.
whiter than mine.  
and it’s the guilty reminder that, sometimes,
when it’s dangerous or difficult for me,
i am afforded the privilege of a choice in taking who i am off.
when it’s dangerous or difficult, i don’t have to be latino.
i can disappear.
but even when i am allowed to disappear, to pass,
i cannot scrub my heritage, who i am, off my skin
and i will not be ashamed.
so i tell people who i am,
because if you’ve got a problem with me,
well, then i’d like to know up front.
lol changed the name in case a relative ever stumbles upon this
 Jan 2017 jack of spades
dawnie
I hope you look for me in every crowd you face
And when you think of me your smile instantly fades
Then when she grabs your arm and asks if you're okay
You'll push her off and tell her to go away
I hope this becomes life for you now,
Every. single. day.
 Jan 2017 jack of spades
haley
there are so many books
scattered, unread, overlooked

throughout my bedroom
and it fills me with gloom

to see the untouched art
created from the deepest of hearts

left to linger on the cold floor
for the rest of their days, unexplored
 Jan 2017 jack of spades
daniela
january found me breaking my resolutions like breathing,
like you always do, no one ever does it like they meant to.
january found me trying to tie to heart myself to somebody else
like body to a brick, sinking, always sinking.
you only ever liked my mouth closed, you only like me smiling.
silent. teeth gritted into a grin.

february never found me.
salvation does not come from bottles or books or other people.
trust me, i’ve tried.

march found me writing, bleeding.
did you know that there is a word for “soul” in almost every language?
correlation does not equal causation, i know this,
but i like to think this means our hearts all beat in the same tempo.
i like to think that we can all build our compassion on common ground.
i have always found poetry to be a good way of slowing life down
into understandable pieces.
this is why we write about tragedy, i think, to make it easier to swallow.
so cities have become synonymous with gunshots.
we pray for paris and orlando and dallas and turkey;
we pray until our mouths go dry.

april found me burying my childhood in the backyard,
a pretending it didn’t ******* burn.
my mother plays purple rain until the vinyl warps,
until it echoes around our house like a catacomb.
her record collection is beginning to look sort of like a graveyard.
my mom says that older you get a lot of things begin to look like graveyards.
when prince died, he was younger than my father was,
but i don’t like to think about that.

may found me rewiring my nervous system
around my systemic nervousness
because i don’t call it anxiety because then if did, i might have anxiety
and *******, it’s only funny after the fact.
may found me trying, bleeding, failing at scrubbing myself
out of my own skin.

june found me sitting at the dining room table
in the pale afternoon light, trying fit my mouth around
the word “tumor” without choking.
my dad keeps saying, “it’s benign”
sipping holy water and brushing his hair down onto his forehead
like he’s hiding, all my life he’s never ever gone into hiding.
even when it was easier not to be himself,
he stood tall.
i always thought all my friend’s parents were so young,
but now i focus in on my father’s grey hair,
think about how in twenty years he might not be there.

july found me having reincarnations of this conversation
with myself on repeat.
i spent summer 2016 drowning, 900 ft above sea level,
because i couldn’t get my head on straight
and no one noticed mostly because i didn’t want them to
and when i blinked it was me and my thoughts in room
and it was suffocating.
june swallowed me up and spit me back out,
july played a symphony of my ribcage
and let the blood soak into the earth.

august found me saying goodbye
until my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth,
i’m told next year will taste the same.
we carry each other inside ourselves, like time capsules and russian dolls.
we are the reflection of the people we love most and the people we hate most.
we don’t grow up we just get lost and found.

september found me eighteen, but also somehow eighteen and eighty.
september found me hiding under my bed and dragged me out
even though i’d made friends
with all the monsters who lived there.
even though i knew all the demons by name.
september found me wanna-be fearless
and trying.

october found me eating my heart out.
truth is my heart is restless, breathless, willing to get tangled up
in anyone who seems willing.
see, i realized last april bleeding into may
that i could argue with you for the rest of my life and be so ******* happy.
see, i decided last june that that didn’t mean ****.
see, last october i didn’t even know you like i know you.
see, last october my heart was like this, too, indecisive,
see, see, see,

november found me waking up to a country
that no longer felt like it could belong to me.
november found my body an apology, my skin a statement,
and my family tree a liability.
november found me every morning waking up in a country that hates me
and sitting down across the table for thanksgiving with people
who voted for a man who makes unsafe in my own skin,
bigotry growing between the hedges and yard signs of my own neighborhood
like i’m looking at my neighbors and wondering which one of them
thinks that this country isn’t mine like it’s theirs.
breaking bread and the american promise,
breaking bones.

december found me drinking white wine out of plastic cups
in someone’s basement and trying to pretend
that you don’t make my skin spark,
make my heart feel like the fourth of july.
and sometimes i still find i am looking for you in everyone else.
looking back at 2016
 Dec 2016 jack of spades
mrs kite
my stomach revolts often
and then sometimes not
food is appealing sometimes
but then often not

my heart stops sometimes
pushing sour saliva up my throat
bile pulses through my veins
but not often enough

I shower too much to be sad
sleep sometimes, too often enough
smile a little, but
too often to be anxious

brushing each tooth, carefully
I thought you were supposed to be depressed?
walking the line between too much
never enough
 Dec 2016 jack of spades
haley
Ascending to the second layer,
a stench of nauseating breath
expands across the zephyr.

I attempt to avoid a cough
and the opaque fog thickens
as we reach an abrupt drop-off.

Depicted below are frantic beings
who have only the remembrance of
anxiety, torment, and panicked feelings

hiding amongst the remaining rubble
in a soft whisper they beg for mercy,
neglecting against their fatal,

violent destruction on the vitality of the innocent.
The scent swells to an intense sickening
along with the dryness of incalescence.

A low growl begins to rise!
Traveling across the infinite distance,
a foul creature comes to brutalize.

The petrified beings cower in their hideouts
and I hold my breath carefully as
three giant, damp, and cold snouts

emerge from the heavy smog.
A rush of frigid wind washes over
and I come to realize, it is the Watchdog.

One risks a dangerous error
in the act of running to the void, but
the motion distracts the devious hunter.

He strikes and pins the immoral,
viciously tearing the flesh to pieces.
Finally, taking him in the muzzle

Cerberus violently tosses the limp body
for it no longer contains value nor interest.
And I ask my Lover very faintly:

“What becomes of the one enduring torture?”
And he, nonchalantly: “Don’t worry, my dearest.
They have yet to regain their composure.”

As we escape from the horror below
to the unknown exceeding cruel,
the dying mortal begins to regrow.
 Dec 2016 jack of spades
haley
Upon entering the vast crystal dome
we venture through the endless
that such vile creatures call home.

Before me, occurring a ghastly sight
of those cursed to these depths
are confined to the blackest night.

Embedded into the surrounding walls,
irregularity complicates the network
when one wanders the immortal halls

of a timeless place that captures its victims
to intensify the thoughts inside their head,
eluding the state of true mortem.

With heavy rope held agonizingly tense
woven within their eyes and mouth
blocking all intellection of the sense,

the creatures meander aimlessly forevermore
nervous and cautious of their movements,
bloodied and grimy from the soot-ridden floor.

I question my Lover out of curiosity:
“Why must these souls dwell in a daunting
labyrinth without physical perceptivity?”

And the Lover addressed sweetly: “My one and only,
Greed is a moral infection of the human mind,
be wary of the heart and the desire Lustfully.”

He then turned, and I followed him through
up to a Beast whom I would not dare test
for he validates the lack of your virtues.
 Dec 2016 jack of spades
haley
Awoken in a wood of dark and eerie
I find myself alone and lost with
an arising feeling of anxiety

amidst the ash in the thick air
that leaves a sour and bitter taste,
filling my lungs with despair.

The sudden unbearable heat
from the lifeless forest around me
pulses like a heartbeat.

As I walk beneath the scorched and rotten
to discover my Lover isolated before me
in a world where I am forgotten.

Dolan, my Dearest, effortlessly strides
towards the distraught, roaming soul
and with a saddened lack of pride

he speaks to me calmly and awaits
for the precise explanation as to
“Why have you strayed from our fate?”

Despite the uncomfortable torridity
I manage to utter a sentence or two:
“I do not wish to trouble thee!

You see, for I have no recollection
of where I could possibly envision,
for us, the proper direction.”

My guide then willfully took my hand
leading me to a massive, clear sphere in which
controls the eternity of the ******.
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