Like a crushed petal, unbearably tender,
I walk the place where you were born.
Shadows now surrounding the ecstasy,
Of kisses lingering ‘til morn.
The space reflects now an innocent light,
Where we thought a lifetime arose,
Our lives filled with supernatural minutes,
Perfumed nights, naked flesh, we unfroze.
We were drunk under the spell of summer,
And in perpetual moments we captured,
All that was, and is, and ever could be,
From the moon to the stars enraptured.
We spoke of everything in the world,
Our subjects were only ever you and me,
Dizzy, bubbling, life’s blood streaming
A delirious passion, lasting eternity,
And now within this terracotta land,
Under blinding cerulean skies
My heart cries out to the cold cruel sea,
As minute by minute I die.

A fool is he that shares his bed with the fear in his head,
My choices weigh my down, like cement shoes they pull me under the ever rising tide of self-loathing that constantly threatens to drown me.
Why do I feel such hatred for those eyes in the mirror, I can only stare for so long lest the urge to put my head through the reflective pane become too much.
It is a fire.
It burns within me, this anger, this disgust.
The shadows sing quietly so as no one else can hear.
Whisper abuse, taunting,
I am weak, hopeless and predictable,
As always, I rise to the bait.
Shackled, bound, as much a prisoner as any convict rotting behind bars,
I waste away within my mind.
I'll lash out at you!
I will...
Can't stop till I've had my fill,
I starve for blood and my own will do,
I hate that I want to hate you,
I hate that I fall short of the mark,
I hate and I hate and I hate,
Until I'm completely lost in the dark...

I'll **** your demons,
Knowing you can't **** mine,
And when asked if I'm okay,
I'll respond with "I'm fine",
I'm not your burden,
Though I may be your friend,
Put the pressure on and I'll break before I bend.

Onetime I let a boy inside my ribcage

I warned him upon entry that the path to the     space     between my lungs was a oneway ticket

that I had never smoked a cigarette,
but the walls inside me were tar-filled  

and sick

that sometimes my heart failed to beat with my brain and instead fell into
perfect
uneven
synchrony with the faucet

where I threw-up cherry red the other night.

Onetime I let a boy with a knife inside my ribcage

and I had seen the knife

and I didn't care

he climbed inside me so gently
like he belonged there and was just taking his place

like a missing *****
he made me his home
reassembled my insides

vital pieces of me now resting on his body,
depending on his body

one hand on my heart

the other on my throat.

Onetime I let a boy with a knife and a bottle of bourbon live inside my ribcage

he cleaned the tar off the walls
but didn't cure the sickness

I think he liked the smell of it.

One night he carved his name everywhere

spine
clavicle
esophagus

and I pretended to sleep

cut
nick
slash

he tried to claim me
he tried to clean me

but lost souls can't be claimed
and I'll never be clean enough

my heart follows faucets
not boys

and that scared the boy

so one night he poured the bourbon down the throat he held

and I didn't stop him

and I almost drowned

gulp, gulp, gulp
slash, slash, slash

cursive illegible sorry's
over every spot he had once cut his name into

and he kissed the wounds
and I woke up heavy.

Organs are worthless without their host but

Onetime I watched a boy tear his way out of my ribcage.

Knife and empty bottle in his place,
nothing's been working right in there since.

I haven't let anyone in there since.

I'm sorry I loved you
So dreadfully whole,
And with the white-washed candidness of soul.

I'm sorry I loved you,
And that with everlasting breath:
I praised your song,
Sung, as if to the death.

I'm sorry I dared raise
All hope's expectations,
By reaching out a childish hand
To cold adult's gaze,
And thinking my love untrue -
Why else then, my innocence razed?

I trusted you.
Like God trusted man with Paradise.
I fell in love with you -
Your untainted beauty and miraculous eyes.

I'm sorry.

For youthful naivety,
I´m sorry.
For universal chord that ties us together,
And untied us forever,
I´m sorry.

For praying to a fallen God,
Loving a pig's gall and sod
Dreaming that from the clod and dirt
Of the earth's mud
A Prometheus of love returned might rise -
But rise the love did not
And child's heart was shot
And child's innocence did die
I'm sorry I loved you,
You with the miraculous eyes.

Your words embody me and melt in such a way I lose all train of thought.

I breathe you in deeply as though you will only last a moment.

Take me, melt me, mold me to the very curve of you.

the glow-in-the-dark stars on my wall
are brighter than
my ambitions,
vicodin washes down with
stone cold fear,
and mercury is in retrograde-
not that we felt the need to communicate.
tiny planets on a string,
we danced in the
orbit that we shared.
you had misgivings,
told me pluto
never made it around the sun,
not even once.
but earth created a moon
with her soulmate.
mercury doesn't return direct
until february 11th;
by then
paracetamol and hydrocodone
will have passed.
opiates and human beings
both sources of anxiety
but i don't mind
drowning in them both.

Stand
          Through
                           Odd
                                    Pain




Copyright© Cynthia Ulloa
All rights reserved.

My heart melted at the temperature of her words.
But it would not freeze together at the absence of her voice.
The orchestra of her vocals ceased for an instant,
the musicians halted their strings to leave room in the air so that her thoughts could be heard,
mulled over by the world,
and exalted as the word of god, for truly she is a goddess