It's as if You slid a silk sheet over my chest,
or placed Your big palm over my hunched back;
or kissed my knees after their knelt espousal.

Gentle dabs at the window, still.  
Maybe the clouds dip their pureness here,
purposely.

Even the greatest angel was envious–
this wickedness, these slopes and steeps–

This is humanity.

From my nose,
my lips and eyes–,

strings.

I’m attached to
white.

There’s a nutcracker
in my throat.

I squirm,
go down the drain–,

Slime, slime,
and strings.

Its on my legs,
my chin,
in the smell, the air.

I’m attached to home,
to the lingering
blue
of my favorite room.

If ceramic dolls were
bowls,
I’d mark them all.

Friend, don’t give in.
I’m drowning in knees,
they are up to my chest
and I can’t breathe.

But we can flush,
and maybe “purge”,
can mean rebirth.

I see artistry in the way these branches bend and twirl.
The abundant bough goes naked.
I see there is artistry here.

You peel open my chest–
how beautiful, Lord–
You turn this rotten apple,
to color.

Maybe its time to put these rabid dogs to sleep.
They’ve mastered the art of barking at midnight.
My eye-bags have sagged for eternity.

But You touch the heavy heart,
the one that sags just the same.

It heals, expands,
and breathes.

I forgive.

I'd like those passing trees to be my life.
Like a child who traces the contour of nature,
as they whoosh by the window,
on the backseat of a car.

I'd like someone else to drive,
to see one-fifty meters ahead, all the time.
I'd like the sunshine to toast my rested face,
as I head somewhere, always.

And sleep as the miles go by,
as the miles,
miles go by.

Knees on the ground, he said:
"The calling of the abyss,
the beckons from the smoke,
the waters down below,
I'm falling with ease."

But I came from his rib.
I bow, –submissive–
In quiescence I can't preach.

Yet my veil grows.

Take my hand.
Anointed or not;
Man,
I am your glory.

[A prose poem]

I need to tell you about someone you should know.

She never uses her index finger.
          Well, that's not true anymore. She gave up on the quirk, and now uses the fullness of her thin fingers. They're wounded though. You have to know her hands.
        She picks the skin on the borders of her nails, as if the lack of red were mediocre. She needs passion, she does. And roses. They cascade on the right wall of her room.
        See, there's something about people who tape roses on their walls. I can see her scarred little fingers, pushing adhesive on the flowers.

In the deep corners of 3am,
I find her.

She exhaled, and the smoke became her neighbor.
"I came from you," it said, "I've been through your lungs.
Why are you so anxious?"

Anxious.

She looked our her window. The trees were still.
"You came from my lungs," she said,
"why don't you tell me?"

She turned to it, but it was gone.

[A prose poem]

       I never loved apples. They taste just okay. But I looked up "how to be anorexic" on google once, and an ana-pro idiot said we should imagine food as monsters. "Take an apple, for example. Imagine it turning into a dead pig. Imagine it rotting. Worms coming out of it."
      I still don't like apples. But I still like chocolate.

Let there be,
in this moment,

peace.

Let in
these pages,

let there be peace.

You kiss
my soul
to sleep.

And I know,
that I know
that I know

You're good to me.

What happens to poetry
When it only exists
While it’s drunk?

Bear with me, Smile.
Let me cling to this denial.

Sleep, rose.
Wither your petals slowly.
Hush, now.
The wolf prowls soundly.

The snow is kind.
Sleep, please.
End this softly.

(First and Last lines taken from Paradise Lost).*

Through Eden took their solitary way,
the contemporary mind, page by page,
sitting idly on his soft bed and modern age,
witnessed the injustice, far away.

“Not today’s fault,” cries the observer.
“It is for the first man to pay.”
There is no reason a mind so clever,
could muster in its wavering faith.

What fault was his in such arrange?
Was he to pay for something so estranged?
Was it his own pain to ache?
Was it not years, years too late?

But away from his leathered book,
off to the pristine white of a winter’s day,
his eyes wander, and cry his inner grey.

His hand would abate this fray.
For if love can cast out hate,
In love, His grace will satiate.

What could he understand?
Isn’t feeling all he knows?
It is in the tears, the gentle hands–
In grace, His love will flow.

For if the stars are in our veins,
and hidden lives in a single verse,
if there are wonders in the mundane,
and even more in the lofty universe,

How could one aspire,–
How could someone underestimate–
to audaciously take life’s fires,
and in his mind, encapsulate?

So the man decides for sweet abandon.
And finds that in his soul it would suit,
to trust someone with infinite compassion,
as he read the story of the devil’s loot,
*of man’s first disobedience, and the fruit.

Soy tormenta.
violenta.

Por dentro, solamente.

Si me ves por fuera,
veras, querida,
a cualquier otra.
Como todas,
no hablamos del dolor,
ni de la incapacidad
de levantarse cada mañana.

Y como?
En esta Honduras?
Donde la penumbra se encuentra,
en la sombra de las criticas,
el chisme, clase alta,
y pendeja,

y por eso seguimos
aqui.

Pen-named or inked-- 
her wrist swivels. 
She's had many names, this author. 

even through so many lives
still learning how to be unafraid. 

Her wrist swivels. The page turns. 

And the blank pages terrorize
like a cliff.

and she, on the edge, 
does not know how to jump--
does not know if she should.

maybe if I close my eyes,
if I stop thinking
Maybe the world will stop turning with me,
like a friend

And in this magnificient pause,
in that glorious stop,

maybe we’ll breathe.