There was always a great darkness

moving out
like a forest of arrows

So many ships in the past

their bows bearing women
as stalks bear eyes

The burning ships

that drove their bowsprits
between the thighs of dreams

With my ear to the ground
I hear the black prows coming

plowing the night
into water

and when the wind comes up
I can smell the rotting wood

leaving a wake I want to be
left alone with

Night after night

like a sleeping knife
that runs deep through the belly

the tomb ships come.

I was walking
and the ocean
was above my knees

I didn't feel the cold
or mist hanging silent
above, but I knew
the darkness, old friend,
longer than I will admit

I knew the waves
in ways I know
I could never explain

You found me there
and called out for me
to come out of that grave
I was sinking in, I don't know
how deep I would have gone
had you not known my name

I should drop to my knees
and kiss the salt from your feet
thanking you with the sea on
my lips and leak salt of my own
offering gratitude for calling

Thank you through the mist
and waves, thank you for
my heart beating, not feeling
the cold, for my lips that never
tasted the lightless far below

Thank you for following
my footprints when I was lost,
drowning in a sea of sorrow.

"I need to take a shower
before doing anything else,"
I inform my mother as she unlocks
the door to our tiny, temporary
studio apartment of a home.

"That's what you teenagers get
for trying to wash your hair
with Chinese food," she laughed.

As I slipped into the bathroom
and out of my clothes I answered,
"That's not how it happened!"
I tried to brush my hair clumped together
with sweat and sweet and sour sauce
from last night's left over dinner on the road.

The brush couldn't get through
the mess so I let the water
have its way with my brunette locks
until finally the suds and conditioner
were able to work it out for me.

As the soap made its way
down my porcelain skin I ponder
why teenagers have to be so bold

and what I've gotten myself into
this time. When the sound of bottles
crashing from the shelf pulls me
from my thoughts I turn the water off
and pull on my Joe Boxer shorts and
the XXL T-shirt swallows my frail frame;
she asks if I still smell like fried rice.

"I hope not," I giggle and crawl into bed,
when we turn off the light the room
is filled with two words said by both of us
in unison and dreams of being a
mother myself someday fill my head.

~ Good night

I always love when days get
so long and tragically dark that
we believe we can see the stars.

It's moments in life like that that we have to thank
for our growth. I find it inspiring that emptiness and fear
are brave enough to offer us a chance to question
and test our faith - I know what you're about to say
and yes, I am writing this at 2 a.m. while doing that exact
thing (questioning. Testing). But what kind of artist would I
be if I banished my starside rants from these hallowed pages
of clarity and what would I gain from my poetic

therapy sessions if I didn't at least try to make
something more stunning than roses or moons
from my pain? So allow me, if you will, to return
to my point. Because as people - nothing more than
the atoms that form the elements of our societies,

we crave friction and contact, balance and gentleness.
We must be reminded that others out there have felt
what we are feeling when we feel it. We must know
that never in any second of time will we ever be
truly alone. I have noticed something fascinating
in the way humans manage to be stars (fueled
and passionate) and snowflakes (frigid and stoic)
all at once - without ever so much as batting an eyelash

and no matter how horrible we feel or how dark
the sky gets we will Always remain more radiant
than the sun and more complex than any universe.

And it's always thoughts like this
that get me through the days
when I forget how to breathe.

When I was nine
My mother asked, “What do you want to do when you’re older”
And I told her
Honestly
With my nine-year-old smile
As wide as an ocean
My nine-year-old heart
As deep as infinity
I told her, “mama, I wanna touch the stars, I wanna find pirate treasure, I wanna climb mountains and live in the treetops”
My mother,
She looked at my nine-year-old smile
She held my nine-year-old heart in her hands
and she whispered,
“Baby, how are you gonna do all that?”
I didn’t have an answer
You see,
At age nine,
I didn’t think about practicality
Or actuality
Or logicality
Or any big word with an -ality stuck to it
At age nine I had aspirations that I rode like angel wings
Dreams that would carry me to the stars I longed to hold
I was nine years old with a mind full of colors
And a mouth made to love
My heartbeat was the drum I marched to
The melody to my song
I told my mother once again “mama I wanna touch the stars”
Flashforward
I am a freshman in high school now
I stand before you,
Age 15
A year and a half away from driving
3 years from applying
4 years from finding what I’m gonna do with my life
Since then
My nine-year-old smile has dwindled
My nine-year-old heart has shriveled
These dreamers shoulders have hunched
Under the weight of textbooks and GPA's
The fingers that spewed color like a 64 pack of Crayola crayons
Aimlessly type out the final paragraph of an essay
The cavern in my chest, that was filled with infinite possibilities and wonders and questions that I longed to answer
Now sits
Empty
Instead of looking for mountains to climb
My aged nine-year-old mind
Searches for the college that will accept me
Not even the real me
Not the seeker of possibility
Not the tree climber
Not the wannabe fingerprint artist
They will take prim and proper not-nine-year-old me
the one who tells her mom she’s gonna major in finance but she hates math
The one who’ll have a steady 9-5 that’ll numb her skull and make her contemplate if death can come from boredom
A coffee tainted room of pencil skirts and high heels
Instead of her favorite blue jeans and Chuck Taylors
A nice job that’ll pay well but only for the price of her nine-year-old originality
But she only tells her mom that because it sounds like a real job
A not nine-year-old treehouse living
Cave exploring fantasy
I mean, I have to move on from that dream.
It's time to be practical
Actual
Logical
Now instead of making up new words
I learn definitions of the ones that already exist
Instead of painting with my own colors
I use the ones handed to me
Because its practical
Actual
Logical
Its how it should be.
I am no longer nine years old
Far from it at that
And yet,
I still long to touch the stars,
just a little less
I still want to search for treasure
But just as an afterthought
My eyes are still glowing with wonder
Just a little bit duller
Nine-year-old me isn’t dead
She just
grew up

I stand in the middle of the room
My classmates are commanded to listen to me
I am the 14th person to present and so far, everyone has done a good job

I stand in the middle of the room
I begin to saw the name of my project
“My Poem”
I cannot remember what it was about
I do remember, what I felt

I stand in the room,
Hoping that everyone feels what I felt when I was writing it
I felt excited, my stomach had ‘butterflies’ I think
I felt the heat in my heart and the cold on my shoulders.
I felt the tingles all over my body, and the air escaping me

I stood in the middle of the room
I stand in the middle of the room
I was in the middle of the room and said
“My poem”
I heard a chuckle.

I ignored it because the ‘in love’ heart in my chest was more excited than It should have been
I continues and my voice began to play tricks on me
And the r’s rolled and the words were suddenly in another language
My mind still ignored it and continues
Because I felt I could write, and read this and everyone could love it

I stood in the middle of the room,
I waited for the, applause, the smiles, the congrats, or even a simple ‘good job’ like everyone else
Instead…
My teacher said, work on pronunciation. She said it again. Pro-noun-ci-a-tion
Ok. ‘Work on grammar.’ ‘Work on sentence structure’
“Work on being American” the chuckle said
Or the person who chuckled?

It didn’t mean much, you know
I loved writing so much that it did not matter
I would be a writer, I would continue to
STAND in the middle of the room and share my talent
And when I did, he chuckled
She chuckled, I was Mexican

Not a writer. Writers can’t be Mexican
Unless you write in Spanish and in Mexico
But I was too American for that at this point…

SO the next time I wrote I was ashamed,
Maybe if someone else wrote my writing?
But it didn’t matter,
When the teacher began reading,
The chuckle reminded the class it was the ‘Mexican’ who wrote it

“Mi nina” My mom would say
She reminded me that no only was I Mexican
I was a woman,
Only men thrive in this world
I believed it
And that is why my name is ‘The Voice’
Not my actually name,
Disclosure: I accept criticism on how to better my writing
NOT on what to write or on my background

The night reveals more than just the stars
And moons and worlds and Milky Way bars
For the dark matter as a backdrop to the cosmos
Will one day rip its space-time fleece
But when and where, you’ll never know

Stars are like flowers and warrant no rebirth
From the gaseous remnants light years from Earth
For accretion pulls me in like your nebula cries
At the event horizon of a black hole *****
That gladly consumes my coy little lies

Watch them all burn and fail, once fiery *****
And consummate a lifespan for no reason at all
Churning in a chaotic standstill of time
Those supernova dreams and aspirations
Ultimately useless, but in all ways, sublime

Why do they exist and makes them die?
From the quantum quarks to the red giant eyes
I am searching for answers in an ignorant space
On a planet revolving on separate realities
Revolving on a path with a polluted trace

We sit in circles round an astral plane
Without questioning logic and something to gain
But like a star’s supernova, I’m ready to burst
Return from space and find our sun mid-stellar explosion
Eager to stand up and feel it first