i straightened my hair today
for the first time in three weeks.
my mother was happy
but i was not.
--
last night
she said,
i know you're an artist,
pero no andes como una loca.
don't go around looking like a crazy person.
--
i kept touching my hair today.
missing the stray curl that stayed behind my left ear.
missing the space my hair used to take up,
wild and free.
feeling smaller.
in a body that was not my own.
--
this hair, mami,
does not belong to an artist,
y no es de locas.
es mío; con él nací.
in it i carry the waves
that carry me
that carried the bones
of my ancestors all the way here.
--
these curls, mami,
they are big enough to hold me,
to hold all that i am.
they are a garden in which beauty grows.
they are rivers that lead to the ocean.

it is a house of refuge
a place where you can
run away.
a shelter against
the cold winds of life.
a yellow umbrella
for when it rains.
like the flower fields
during spring,  
a little niche
in an overwhelming world.
a secure spot
where your heart
can be at peace.
it is where
your brokenness shatters.
but also where it is pieced
back together
in the form
of simple words.
it is a blank page
and a pen in hand
and the fervent hope
that your prayers
will be heard.

there are words
hidden in trees
and growing in flowers.
there are words
between people's lips
and in songs being carried
by the summer breeze.
there are words
on our fingertips
and lingering in our ears.
there are words
left unspoken
and there are some
that were spoken
all too quickly.
there are words
in our body  
and in everything
that is alive.
because life is
a combination of words
and we're just trying
to make them rhyme.

lean into this,
the hard work
the heart work
the art work of growing.
know that this isn't forever.
your body, your home will catch up
to the blossoming of your soul.
days and months and years will pass.
but then, like a child, like a flower in spring,
you will bloom, you will rise.
here.
unrushed.
in your time.

****, here I am again

suffused by incoming sunlight floods,
blonde tresses decorative,
and a
refrigerator light dim surprising,
******* a future fest,
when in search of ordinary milk and coffee

cherries, grapes, watermelon,
cole slaw, caramelized walnuts,
Spanish Marcona almonds,
chicken defrosting, and wine,
a pink rose,
blushing like me,
at the amplitude of love and blessings
I have uncovered,
and that covers me,
while she sleeps,
I sip first coffee and
her love

and more than suffused,
I am effused,
unable to contain all this,
what I am feeling,
like my water broken,
pouring tears
and I wonder who is
this idiot

that forgets to say
thank you
for what he
has been given,
and who in return
can merely offer up
a pauvre writ,
a love poem,
of salt and sweet

and here i am again
at the intersection
of pedestrian language
& old wives tales
swallowing gum
like 7 year memories
opening umbrellas inside
cause i can't seem get away
from all of this rain
i ******* with my left hand
cause i was told
back in highschool that
"it feels like someone else is doing it"
it gets me wondering
about the difference between
losing you and finding out
that some one else found you
or my sleep
or lack thereof
its starting to tear me apart
i keep having this dream
where you are in
an unfamiliar body of water
trying to wash my poetry
off of your hands
or the one where
something happens in my chest
every time you sit
on someone else's bed
i'm tired of feeling like something you've misplaced
but don't have the heart
to look for anymore
tired of you saying my name
like you're trying to bury it
i'm tired of wondering
if you can tell the difference
between the absence
of my voice & silence
the other day
i almost started sobbing
at work when a woman
asked me about
our equipment
i was explaining how
things come apart
and almost mentioned your name
it made me think
of how you used to say
things like "what would you do
if i showed up on your doorstep
one day?" now, i haunt
the windows in my house
i don't leave for weeks at a time
i sit on the porch like the dog
you didn't shoot behind the shed
the one that refuses to die
until you come home again
i told somebody once, that
you didn't even know
what my voicemail sounded like
i wonder if they thought
it was because you
are so important that i never
let it ring that many times
before picking up
or if you dont know
what it sounds like
because you've never called
you can't be the ****** weapon
and the search party
i'm tired of all the seats
to the ferris wheel in my chest
being empty
tired of your voice
being the one i look for
in abandoned places
that one sound i beg
to bounce back
down vacant hallways
i just seem to stand there
in all of that quiet
like someone looking for a mistake
on an eviction notice
so i guess the hardest part
isn't letting go
it's forgetting
you ever had a grip
in the first place
and since you've been gone
i wonder if when
you pushed yourself away from me
you used your left hand
so it felt like someone else did it

The moment I saw you,
a thousand unwritten poems
danced their way into my mind;
I compiled everything I wrote down
into a library, but it was not enough
to contain the sufficient words.
And so I burnt all the books
that were gathering dust on the shelves;
long-forgotten, expired tomes,
ghostly reminiscences of lovers past.
I watched the flames that licked them up
dance in my eyes,
like the way you danced into the empty
crevices of my worn out heart,
asking me to take your hand,
and follow you into the unknown.

Only one man in history claimed " a giant leap for Mankind"
while taking a small step for a Man
and I think he was the first poet to walk on the Moon.
( his day job was an astronaut )
And he left his boot prints in the Moon dust as witness to his first hand experience to his poetry.