I,
am a walking
headache.
My figure parts beams
of others' light
my coming--
like an aura
that signifies
a migraine,
accompanied by--
the passing
unnamed,
unnecessary,
blips
of luminesence
that,
is my signal
to both come,
and to go.

At thirteen,  
my sibling, my supposed partner,
in our disheveled family life  
taught me a different kind of warmth  
that comes from talking back.  
My ebullition  
was matched
with a violence that erupted
like a passionate applause  
for a trombone feature at the end  
of Mahler’s third symphony.  
Only this applause  
ended with  
a cold hand outstretched  
latching, to my wrist
as the other  
bare palm swung,  
into the lobe of my left ear
leaving behind
a warm, feverish  
crimson glow.

Mom.  
            Mom,  

My skin,  
is alight.  
My fur, singed
like the surrounding brush
of my home
and your home (and their home)
alike.  
Each breath
and step  
that I take  
secures a winded grip  
from within my chest
as the crackled
orange embers, spread  
their scorching grasp
across the rest,  
of my feeble body.  
–For a moment–  
I, am picked up
in a heated embrace,  
then dropped
like a child  
gets disinterested  
with one toy
before pillaging
to the next.  

Mom.  
            Mom?

This isn’t a warm hug-   

We’re burning.

When I was eight,  
The Great Recession began.  
During it,  
I heard a line
that floated
off the page of a poem
and into me
“We hope the world survives.”
– Hope –  
I remember that
and the nights I spent  
sat up  
on the uncomfortable  
wheezy wooden floor
of my home
constructing a new one  
from Legos,
where I could see  
by way of a light switch
not a Coleman lantern.  
Where I could eat
by way of a real stove top
not a portable one.  
You’d think  
that I was camping,  
not sweating  
in the stagnant air
of a house  
devoid of power.  
Now,  
a virus moves
unseen among grass
beneath out feet,  
flirts between the vacancy  
of embraces
and  
the fear of a handshake.  
We speak words
underneath masks
and hope –  
that this,
will be over soon.

I live,
under the quilted
periwinkle skies,
of my room.
This is where
my clothes
amass themselves
and spread their empty
arm and legs,
like a stubborn,
overgrown child.

My sister,
will never give life
to another.
Never give life
to a soul
that'd be a part of her
but not truly her own.
Never attempt
to break away
from bonds,
from the young ones
that cling to her
like rain on stone.
Until the last bell
shouts to signify
going home.
I won't,
ever relish in laughter
of chesnut locks
and curls
that aren't my own.
My brother in-law,
will never say
oh that's mine,
when asked,
"which one is yours?"
Nor call someone, my boy
or say, that's my girl.

I was seventeen,  
when I realized  
I wasn’t beautiful  
in the clothes I wore.  
At the arriving end  
of December–  
before my eighteenth birthday  
I began my sweaty resolution.
It became a song  
forcefully, put on loop
playing again, and again–  
and again.  
I counted units
of food energy  
like beats  
in a measure of time,  
keeping practice logs  
for when I could
eat.
My metronome  
for living,  
was kept in time  
by the syncopated,  
rhythmic beats  
of my breaths
as my feet sped
long into nights  
on machinery  
that went–  
                 nowhere.
Running,
the same line
of track
over, and over.

Here, in this village,  
I, am unpigmented canvas  

my suburban skin,  
unfamiliar.

Where the trees
bleed colors of resurgence  

into the vacant
and vibrant damp,  

dark, earth below  
to begin and paint again.

Sometimes,  
I feel like, I’m drowning.  
This feeling–  
a never-ending rush,  
of water, that cascades
throughout
my body,
my veins,
leaving me submerged
from the inside.  
This feeling–  
a longing for the mundane
when I could wake
to the sound of a 6:00am bell
and not,
have it be answered
by a throb
from within my skull.  
Today,  
my mind,  
sags, like telephone wires
swaying tirelessly  
in summer heat.
My bones,  
ache.  
These feelings–  
a second self  
carried
through this tired will
of conduct, I call mine
much like the nails
on my fingers  
and the hair,  
upon my scalp.

As I stood,  
on the wet street  
in solitude, behind
the external lens  
in my hands,
I could hear the passing  
of painted, ticking clock hands
as they whispered and waved
through static noise  
from precipitation  
around me–  
        I wondered,
if a past soul  
of mine, contributed  
to a time of white flight,  
when a financial crisis  
sprawled like a crack  
on a windshield, from a chip  
in glass, created  
by another battle  
between politicians.
My present soul,  
              resides,
in Heidelberg,  
where  
stories of others
become painted dots  
on buildings  
climbing walls  
like spiders,  
their painted eyes
against the stark white,
doted house
seeing all.

Living,  
with chronic
pain,
is like sharing a space  
with a younger version  
of myself.  
At night,  
I let her  
come into my room,  
she is slow, delicate  
like a child sneaking
into bed.  
Her nature
knows, no
childish mischief
like that of a child  
up past bedtime.  
She knows–  
all the corners
of my tired mind
where my nerves  
sag like telephone wires.  
She knows–
where to lay
an icy touch
and play  
in the realms  
of my life, before  
we met
and,
she knows–  
how to go
to bed, at night
and wake with me
in the morning.

Sometimes,
I think
that getting a piercing
would make
me feel better
as if--
poking and prodding
my skin,
my face,
with surgical steel
and permanent ink
like I'm some
eighth grade
dissection lab,
would allow me to remove
and dispose
of all the useless parts
that make me
from the ground up,
like an architectural,
design.

They blossom
up from the soil, in which  
they were first grown
on a different street
for no one, is planted here
underneath  
the interstate.
Out from the floral spread
of the prosperous, Third Ward,
is a grievous sight
and I, am enraptured
by this scene in the city
of swollen summer loads  
and multi-storied canopy
that flourish, like the  
common wood violet.

When I was eight,
I would press myself  
against the creaky floorboards
of my home  
and listen  
to their tired groans  
of protest from my weight  
atop them,  
as I ripped the caps
off Sharpies,
and let the ink  
spread across the plastic wrap
like a flare.  
I’d stick my confused
colorful Picassos
into an oven
and watch in awe
as the wrap  
would shrink  
and fold in on itself  
appearing smaller  
to the world.  
Now,
at twenty  
I no longer listen  
to the groans  
from my creaky  
childhood home,  
I listen–  
to the murmurs  
from the black  
cellophane wrapped  
shop windows and signs
of tired buildings  
tired of wearing  
faces, to great  
the masses  
of the world  
that don’t show.

There is a melody that sings,
of a dream lost in time, with music
that fits the space  
that can’t be filled.
She is as real to you,  
as the wood in your hands
and at night, beyond the timbre of your guitar  
that murmurs melodies about a world
too many understand.
What once was elegant boulevards
in Madrid, are now  
a melodic strain  
of fleeting moments, trapped  
in colorless discontent.

I can’t brush my hair
for it ignites, like a fire
across my soft scalp.