Click
We took our first photograph together.

Your arm extended,
my fingers meeting yours,
in an absurdly human ritual—
the rectangle of trembling glass in your hand
caught our two shy smiles
as the warm light spilled across our cheeks,
our faces aligned like moons
briefly crossing paths
in an intimate eclipse,
as if we could trap a moment that slips
and defy time’s relentless march.

Of all the infinite configurations—
of angles,
of timing,
of souls—
of all the arrangements of light
that could’ve slipped away,
this was the one we chose to keep,
and save from eternal oblivion.

It was a spring evening.
Madrid was peaceful and light,
bathed in a honeyed gleam.
It sighed beneath the sun’s warm caress,
like a sleeper between dreams,
as if the dying star of the day were reluctant to leave
and dragged its golden limbs across rooftops
like a parent unwilling to close the door
on a sleeping child.

The warmth of spring—
and what a spring it was—
had settled over our shoulders
like a cloak of amber light
that we drank
with our awestruck eyes.

Around us,
pigeons strutted in this park
like tiny bureaucrats,
while the breeze carried the rustle
of the gossiping branches.

Nearby was this temple of old,
once cradled by the tides of Nile,
whose stones remembered the heat from another sun,
still warm from that distant desert,
but now perched on a Castilian hill,
beneath these foreign Iberian skies—
like a ghost misplaced by fate.

And sometimes,
don’t we feel the same,
like relics unearthed from other landscapes,
swept by the currents
we never meant to follow—
trying to make a home
in cities that move to unfamiliar rhythms,
where no one remembers the myths
that once raised us?

We were standing mere meters away
from the altars where incense once thickened the air,
where gods dined on gold and blood.
But these gods are long gone.

And this place now receives
nothing but picnic laughter,
the squeals of children chasing soap bubbles,
and the gentle chatter
of modern lovers.

The mountains watched us from afar,
unmoved along the horizon—
their stone-carved faces glowing softly
in the blaze of the sky set aflame behind them.

Above,
clouds unfurled
in velvet waves tinged with saffron and flamingo,
they drifted like heavy curtains
drawn slowly across the sacred stage
where daylight prepared its final bow.

I do not know if any gods
still haunt the ridgelines behind those mountains,
or if they would care enough
to watch a pair of mortals from there—
but if any did,
I like to think they were old,
worn by the centuries,
but peering with a kind, aching nostalgia,
grateful to rest their heavy, tired eyes
on something tender.

Something called our eyes upward.

It was an agave.
Tall. Singular.
Standing like a lone sentinel—surreal.
Its stalk rose with the authority of a cosmic staff,
unfurling into the air,
proud as a forgotten king from a vanished realm,
risen from the earth
like a titan
in a riotous swirl.

It stood wild-haired,
crowned with strange blossoms
like tiny fossilized flames.
Its limbs twisted skyward,
as if reaching
to drag the ether down.

I just kept staring at it—
this strange, otherworldly thing.
I don’t exactly know why.
Maybe because it was so incongruous,
like it had wandered in from some uncharted planet
and just decided to stay.

It was the stillness that unsettled me.
The strange, impossible calm
within me.

I didn’t notice it right away—
struck dumb under the setting sun—
but my skin knew
before my mind did.

I was…
at peace.

I didn’t speak.
I didn’t need to.
The silence said everything.
So I just kissed you.

I was…
at peace.

Because when you pull me
into the softness of your arms,
I remember—
that love can flame,
burst and bloom,
even when we feel out of place—
like this exiled temple,
like the gods who fled their altars
to hide behind the mountains.

I remember
that even when beasts stir in the dark
and gnash their teeth in the shadow
through my sleepless hours—
still, we abide.

Still, peace can rise,
like those strange flower titans
that break through stones
to defy the cities
and reach
ever skyward.

I feel this peace
in the earth beneath our feet,
in the silence
where the old gods rest
and stretch the hours to cradle us.

I feel it in our souls entwined,
in your soft, kind eyes,
in this photograph we took—
this light we chose to keep.

And…

Click.

We took our second photograph together…

The 101 slopes like a spine bent too long.
Camarillo yawns wide in the morning hush,
valley stretching slow, hills bare-shouldered,
fields glistening, half-asleep, half-prayer.

Lemon trees blink slow, bruised gold in the mist.
Figtrees call a name behind a rusted gate.
Sagebrush whispers gossip through chainlink,
its breath full of stories that outlive the tellers.

To the east, the nursery stirs,
plastic sheeting *****,
row tags flutter in the wind.
A thermos, abandoned, rests by a wheelbarrow.
Mud boots, discarded,
stand like sentinels
against the wood plank wall.
No footsteps follow.
I never asked where they went.

Matilija poppies raise their paper-white heads,
and the raspberries, furred with morning dew,
shiver, just slightly,
as if remembering friends
they were no longer allowed to say.

A coffee roaster hummed somewhere distant,
low and steady, warming the wind.
That scent I never could shake,
burnt and sweet.
I could almost belong here again,
but it’s not mine without them.

I worked inside this valley with my back.
With my knees.
With the same hands,
now soft on the wheel,
muscle memory steering roads
as if nothing ever left,
as if the ghosts still ride along.

I pass a strawberry field, stitched in silence,
no voices rising in laughter today,
no corrido escaping from a shirt pocket radio,
no teasing between the furrows,
no calloused hands tossing tools,
only the soft ticking of irrigation
and the hush of work
that now waits for no one.
This silence has been swept, labeled,
nothing out of place but sadness.

I was here with them,
but only as a pair of eyes,
that never opened wide enough.

The strip mall stands like a broken promise,
painted stucco, faded western wear,
alongside roadside markets
missing the opening crew.
Still, the hills lean in to listen,
velvet green with memory,
quiet as folded hands.

Even now, under this sun,
the dust knows who knelt here.
Who sang into the rows,
who fled before sundown,
their names erased from the ledger
but carved into the earth.

And in soil’s hush,
their names still root and rise.

They say home is where the heart is.  
How poetic. How sweet.  
How utterly useless when you wake up in a bed that smells like someone else’s city,  
when the walls don’t know your voice,  
when the streets spit out syllables that trip your tongue.  

Tell me—does this look like home to you?  
A place where I walk like a stranger in my own shoes,  
where my laughter is softer, measured,  
where even my silence doesn’t sound quite right?  
I sit in a room filled with my own things,  
but they feel stolen, out of place,  
as if I’ve broken into a life that wasn’t meant for me.  

They smile at me, they nod, they talk.  
So kind. So welcoming.  
So oblivious to the weight I carry  
when I pretend that their way of life is now mine.  
Like it’s just that easy.  
Like you can simply unzip yourself from the past  
and slide into a new skin without bleeding.  

Back home—  
(ha, “home,” like it’s still mine to claim)  
the air was warmer,  
the sky softer,  
the ground held me like I belonged.  
Here, I am tolerated.  
Accepted, even.  
But belonging?  
That’s a different kind of luxury.  

So I go through the motions.  
I drink their coffee. I learn their roads.  
I adjust my mouth to their words,  
wear them like second-hand clothes,  
a little tight, a little loose, never quite fitting.  
And I tell myself, maybe one day,  
this place will stop feeling borrowed.  

Maybe one day, I’ll wake up  
and the walls will know my name.  

But not today.  
Not yet.  
Maybe never.

In the thicka the Perth Road's pretence
millin aboot the fustian
o the ald "Hunter S." basement
(cuz there's nae Scottish writers ti name a pub efter)

cap scrapin the ceilin
Bohemian Monk Machine
gettin set on the tiny stage fir a bit o
funk-jazz-sumin-or-other

a hud ti step ootside
wee bit o fresh smoke
a few lads sauntered past in thir
designer gear an zirconian ears

"let's go in here -
nah, am no into country music"

it's ca'd Maker now but
ah it maks me is restless

that initial feeling
of water as
it seeps
through the seams
of a boot
finding cracks
in the leather
supposedly
   waterproofed
against such leaching
of puddles being
drawn in by
a traitorous sock
willing to sacrifice
the fraternity
of dry comfort
that once it held
flooded with irritation
that will be quenched
only with the offering
of an inane
expletive or two
muttered
under breath
carrying the weight
of a week's worth
of frustrations

Mispronounced chaos sways
With its ellipsis misplaced
And taking away
Its own verdict
That was left displayed
Its own hole
Grown
From displacement
Carrying concrete
Like broken shoulder blades
Mispronounced
Mismatched
Deteriorating outcomes
Commonplace is then found
In its unity
Disuniting it all

Empty streets in the cold of night,
An evening not so much as autumnal as it is of winter.
The roads, lined with little pinpricks of light
that seem to go on for miles, and miles,
without a beginning nor an end.
How does one differentiate a starting and a finishing point?
The laws of physics dictate
that displacement be calculated by the distance one has traveled
from their initial point of motion.
If I have traveled far and wide,
and stepped into the same footprints that I made when I first left,
I'd have come full circle;
my displacement would be nil.
Would it have been better to have been away, exerted all that effort, have gone through all the *****, and glamour,
and excruciating moments of boredom and nothingness
that life had to offer, just to come back to the same spot I started?
Or would it have been better to just stay in place,
mum and silent, with the world passing me by,
like streetlights in the road,
illuminating the way like signposts,
to the end for some, to the beginning for others,
but always -- always -- just a rock in the stream?