Every once in a while,
when time stands still
just long enough,
the hazy curtain
of life is teased apart.
Just enough to see
the world for what it is.
And when that happens,
I inhale and grip tight my breath;
Hoping that maybe, just maybe,
some of the infinite beauty
will be trapped in my heart.

I hoped to become an eagle
soaring above amber waves of grain
seeking perch in rarefied air

a red-tailed hawk,
or even a garden warbler
would have sufficed

instead I metamorphosed
into a mosquito and found myself
skulking on a fine lady's arm

I could only hope
she wouldn't swat me
before I drank my red full
and took flight into dusk

or returned
to my pitiable simian self,
lice laced and  homeless, hunkering
in a cold corner, wishing
I could fly

I called to you 
softly when I 
was young; my
voice bounced off 
the bricks of a 
suburban slum,
sauntered down 
side streets and 
stirred piles of 
leaves, then snagged 
in the branches till 
the wind tore it free 

to collapse at your 
window like a 
weary songbird
that had been 
singing for decades 
and finally, you heard.

I am the sky,
The girl who keeps her head in the clouds.
     I am the land of the unknown,
The girl who dreams of being anywhere but reality.
     I am the ocean,
With feelings going up and down just like the waves.
     I am the flowers in spring,
The girl who is sweet and fun to be around.
     I am the distant fear inside,
The girl afraid to do/ say or believe outside her comfort zone.
     I am a warrior,
The girl who overcame many obstacles.
     I am a bunny,
The girl whose thoughts hop around from one topic to another.
                             I am me.

My mind resembles something like
a rabid VCR—baring its teeth,
foaming, unapologetic, at the mouth,
rewinding and replaying and repeating
all of the small cuts of two people
I swear I used to know and love.
Rerunning a patchwork reel of the scenes
I can stand to remember—
(which is all of them when I’m feeling
particularly masochistic).
Rhythmic static travels from
top to bottom of my mind’s eye—
a familiar flaw, cracking and popping
as the picture struggles to come clear.
I try to stop it—all of it.
Rip plug from outlet—
throw this snarling archaic beast
against some unsuspecting wall.
But it’s made in the good ol’ US of A
and runs on something
a bit more complicated than
any energy they can send me a bill for.
So I'm stuck
in this cyclical hell,
where there is no fresh air,
and the only oxygen I can get
has to be ****** through
a barely functioning dollar store crazy straw.
And, really, my only anger is directed at Dante
for not including this part
in his little ditty about the Inferno.
I swear I’d take
trying and failing
to escape a river of boiling blood
over whatever it is that causes me
to create a dramatic VCR metaphor
any day.

you're pouting
  i'm sulking
you're peeved
  i'm mellow
   and i know
it's the corazon
not the amazon
that's got me
whispering
      and
   whistling
  as el nino
  rains dearth
and we weep to see
good things go bad

i lose myself in the titter of your raindrops tonight
who listen to me more intimately
than any being ever could

for your dark a.m. streets breathe
a musky scent exactly like my broken love's lips
and a sip of you is fresh as your wry scarlet sunrise
which whispers secrets of espresso and brick
and aged thrice-thrifted books and the dim glow
of ***** neon signs who call to no one in particular;

during lonely nights when you drink me in, i melt
into a solace of wet pave and unlit alleys
and emerge among sinuous swirls of painted walls
and hazy lights, a blur of chilly comfort and
being perfectly lost between
you and the moon

under my blue polo
with the emergency logo
i think there is a hole
in my chest
but i am afraid to look

another deep breath
and another

send the ambulance
to the old lady
who has fallen

what if on further inspection
there really is a hole
in my chest
and i find that i am missing
that big cardiac muscle

i still remember
when he said i was
heartless