Crumble
brothels sprout
flesh peddlers collect their fees
selling daughters
in twos and threes
Lopez or Diaz
lazy or defiant
escaped
in polluted lagoons
the virus spreads

Dancing with the dead
priests absolve the devils
in their mist
Pilar sold her virginity
for a few bars of gold
wrapped in an old ladies hatred
she murdered her vows

Mexico is a land of smiles
the knife only glints
in the Aztec sun
as they bury you
after eating your heart

On the Day of the Dead
I felt remnants of my soul
Make their way back to me.

This hurts with tremendous magnitude.

I considered you irreplaceable
While you were turning the cogs
To push me aside.

I've been gone ever since.

I'm spiraling into the edges
Of where depression used to lie,
And I see clearly how the guilt
Has taken its place.

I'm sad all the same.

I guess I cannot blame you at all.

I only wish that you had loved me
Like I was loving you.

I wanted to build a future
With blueprints
That looked like you.

I wasn't thinking about the benefit
Of only investing in me.

Don't say I'm not the pinnacle of humanity
When I know all too well
The full spectrum of emotions
That I must endure daily.

This isn't how I was expecting
To begin my November
But I guess that's how it was prophesied.

Don't we all feel the cold now?

Isn't the severity setting in yet,
Or is that only for me?

You dismantled our plans,
Not God,
Not Fate.

How can we lie to ourselves now?

Why am I so below you?

I'm asking the questions
That I already have the answer to,
I just can't bear the truth
To take hold of my mind.

I gazed upon the sky today
And that hint of gray
Looked like all the beauty
The Earth arrives at
When it needs to be purified,
And all the while
I knew I could no longer ignore
The Hell I was storing inside me...

Maybe Milton was on to something,
Or maybe my understanding of paradise
Is getting twisted,
And only now is becoming clear.

My foliage is burning
And that seems to be
The only climate
That I can survive in.

I have to take hold
And forget that you exist
If there is to be a world
In which I can strive in.

You broke me with a single blow.

I never thought it would puncture
Quite this deep.

Your colors are so heavy, how dare I, I cannot sleep. Years inundated under, through skin coils, marigold fields. Yellow crocuses, orange California poppies. Moors of cattle ranchers, yokes of oxen. Plasticine uber-confidence, silky white-skinned testubular thrice people harmonies. Blisses of contagion, contagious bliss. Wrists and incisors, tying down in a bedroom, waking up to live harps and choruses. You dance like you're so alive, but I'm so alive I can't dance. Or breathe. Or knead my fists of earthen wears, or sell my soul completely. I drove off a cliff last night, but the four foot fall ended neatly. The plateau authors my chance to sew my bright, beyond- my fortunes. But the hour before I fall asleep, seems to be the greatest torture.