Said the woman,
with her trendy haircut,
colors of the season,
modern attitudes.

“I’m not like the others,”
wearing her tribe’s symbols,
Needing aproval,
Marking her skin with the same icons;
like words of the same language.

“My personality is unique,”
yet if they all spoke at once,
they would form a choir of millions
Millions, searching for individuality
through the same path.

this body doesn't belong to you.
you want to crawl out of it,
and the only think you can think of
is how good it would feel
to just peel it off
and disappear.
you can hear them talk about you,
every word is like a slap in the face.
you feel small in this open space,
but their laughter resonates
and all the exits are locked.
so you try to make sense of it,
try to teach yourself their ways,
try to follow the rules of their game.
they say you can't win if you don't play,
but you haven't won yet.
this body isn't the one you chose.
you wish you could give it back,
write a complaint to the maker,
but they don't accept returns.
so you live through your thoughts,
dreaming of the day
when you can change your clothes,
your address, your name,
finally peel it off
and disappear.

Between the Waves  

There was never a single border,  
only the shifting tide of language,  
guavas glowing in the heat,  
the churn of Spanglish rolling in  
before the tide could pull it back.

At the checkout line, the cashier asks,  
"Paper or plastic?"—so simple, so sharp.
I glance at Mama, but her words stick,  
caught between lips and hesitation.
I answer for us. The shame clings,  
her silence louder than any mistake.

Each summer, my abuela arrived  
with stories curled like conch shells,  
her voice full of salt and lineage,  
each word a bridge we crossed halfway,  
somewhere between knowing and forgetting.

She tells me of the women before us,  
how her mother boiled guava leaves  
to ease the aches of growing bones,  
how a girl’s silence could mean strength  
but never surrender. “You carry oceans,”  
she says, pressing a shell into my palm.
"Listen, and you will always know  
where you come from."  

In the humid dusk, I traced my name  
in sidewalk chalk, watched rain  
blur it into something new.
Could memory be pliant? Could belonging  
be washed and reshaped by the wind?

But what of the body—  
its slow turning, the way girlhood folds  
like an old dress, pressed into something new?
What of the hands that will cradle, will teach,  
will shape another name into the world?

I watch my mother’s weary eyes,  
the way she smooths the hem of her days,  
thumb and forefinger pressing the fabric,  
flattening something unseen.
I wonder if I will smooth my own worry  
the way she does—without pause,  
without breaking.

Outside, the cicadas rasp,  
their voices a low and constant hum,  
a pulse threading through the thick heat  
like something old, something knowing.

Here, the neon hum of the city never rests,  
palm fronds shudder against the skyline,  
the edge between past and present dissolving,  
Miami swallowing whole every homecoming,  
every goodbye never quite gone.

At the bodega, my friends are waiting,  
laughing too loud, pressing tamarind candy  
into my palm, the sticky sweetness clinging—  
a small amber stone, a promise of what remains.
We swap bracelets—plastic beads clinking—  
a quiet oath in neon-lit safety.

But between jokes, between  
sips of cola and smudged lip gloss,  
I catch glimpses—mothers’ tired hands,  
names that slip too easily from memory,  
the weight of futures we pretend not to see,  
just for now, just for tonight.

Still, the tamarind sticks,  
a sharpness beneath its sweetness,  
as if warning—this is not just candy,  
but proof of change, proof that  
what is soft can still pull,  
what is sweet can still sting.

As I walk home, salt on my lips,  
the moon folds itself into the bay,  
the water whispering,  
"Listen, listen,"
until it carries the answer away.

Somewhere, I smooth my sleeve,  
flattening the fabric beneath my palm.

an alien---sharper eyes and softer lies,
ink-stained hands and paper planes,
calloused fingers reach out to you,
bluer skies, she's got less to say,
for clouds, they fill her mind,
hopes, passions, and fears,
her peculiarity, known,
a cut just in between,
barely noticeable
---descended.

All my life,
you said what you said.
I did what you said.

I wore full-sleeved clothes.
I stayed quiet.
My cries went into vacuum—
swallowed, silent.

But you always stood strong.
It’s the colour of skin.
The hair you couldn’t tame.
The nose that wasn’t yours.

I always just...
heard what you said
until my ears bled out.

You remind me of the mountains—
the ones I grew up with:
tall, oddly shaped, and proud.
It’s shocking
that my tears made you crumble,
like a lost girl at sea.

Glad to see,
the past haunts you
like it does me.

quite a few severe misconceptions
hey! seriously, that's how you can summarize my life for me!
beyond the glitter, the actual bones of the beast
ugly, somehow disgusting, but they make me up, me.

i sometimes wonder, if i could be poetry
perhaps? – actually we'll scratch that.
i will be overlooked, as this usually is.
will you still write me?

no, i don't want you to write to me
or write on me – though i wouldn't mind
if i could carry it everywhere i'm ought to be.
but still –
write me. write about me.
all that i am, all that i could ever be.

there's multiple, many – oh god, a vast multitude
that i wish to talk about to any.
literally, whoever bothers to listen – and to see.
well, mainly to see, to not go over just once
and simply forget me.

i feel like – i might be a pathological liar
and a people pleaser.
but is it too wrong? wanting to be seen?
and not just as a trophy you can bag anytime,
or a passing moment, when life has you bored in its rhyme,
or even worse – someone just for the pleasure.

will you notice me?
heed to my voice and all that resides within me?
you know what. i think this was enough of 'me'.

the "almost" kind of hurts, you know.
it's always been just that.
at least for me, that's where my clock stops.
i hear about how you like me,
hear about how you want to try it out on me –
why is it always, "the almost of us"
with you & i and i & them?
why does it always have to end?
(even before it has began)

perhaps i indeed am that one tale,
kind of like the midnight rain.
they say they do cherish my existence –
but they never stay up, at least in most cases,
or bother to listen.

i can't focus, or give you my all –
i know that's a flaw at my side.
one that i wish i didn't have to follow like a rule,
settled in the hymns of my body and my life.

this, to the "almost of us" –
why do you always just... give up?
leaving me halfway,
like i'm not even worth the wait.
never did you want to know, maybe,
what really lies at the end of this race.
(will you regret, if i were to say, there weren't a lot of opponents for you to go against, per se?)

being wanted is what i've required –
to be asked for, to be known,
to be understood, not to be shown.
i hear about it in the books
and in the movies and different tales of the hues
of others’ vastly nerving stories –

how when someone likes you,
it lights up this part of you
that almost resembles the feeling of being desired – finally!

contrast is jarring though.
i see you, realize – wow, you see me too?
and yet almost always –
almost wanted, almost pursued, almost something.
and then a beautifully cherished, salty little nothing.

am i really not enough?
or did i do something wrong?
i did pay heed to your existence
even though i might have missed my own.

the unspoken loss –
one that i didn't require.

you know it hollowed me out a bit.
oh, who am i kidding –
it took all of me from me.
maybe you too liked the idea of me,
and not who’s real.
i know it is kinda messy.
at least that's how it's always been with me.

i have always had a habit
to press on those tiny little bruises –
so soft in nature, hurt a bit.
just always the right way, they hit.

i didn't even ask for you or them.
and yet –
the way you fumbled
and had me finding the sweet little nothings.

sigh, i guess i'll just admit
i want to be chosen.
there. the truth out for the world to see.
(i'll hide it to my death and never let you close to me)

i wish you'd pursued me with intention –
and not always the almost trying
only to give up before the trying even came close.
it left me crying, you know.

it's always – the spark that they leave.
never enough to light up a fire.
and then they find flaws within me.
why am i attacked, i wonder?

all i wanted was some real connection.
what of it when i scream
for all those who hear –
you have no right to drop bread crumbs
and leave me to clean them up.
i won't, as i never have.
but please, just once – notice me.
and don't treat me like an ant
like you did to others whom you've had.

everything's worth trying,
one way or the other.
everything's got a fruit waiting –
if you're willing to not just give up.

i ain't just shallow –
feel too deep.
trust me, this isn't something i've wanted.
yet you leave me with the same question,
as they always do –
why am i the one hurting,
when i didn't even ask for anything, or specifically you?

sometimes i'm afraid –
what if i'm being the particular "pick me"?
but i promise to never show vulnerabilities,
even though i speak a lot.

you might call me arrogant,
but all i've done is exist
and ask for something in return –
to cover all that i am,
all behind the makeup on the bruises of my existence.

too much, too cold, too confusing –
i ain't any of those.
but i wonder if i'm worth choosing.

some say i'm that poem
someone doesn't know they remembered
and made memories with until it's too late.

is it too petty of me
to give you such chances and options
again and again?

what's hard to digest though –
is here, the truth written in the blood of my pain,
and all the cuts that you've given me to aid.

they will forever look at me in a particular way –
and half of them who heed to me,
it'll be because they require the things
they need from the kind of me.

never has anyone asked me the questions
i wanted them to ask –
like things that shaped me,
or the ones i liked truly.

the ones i'd love, to be honest,
if it's with someone who stays.
i'd want to be with them throughout
and share those little eye contacts and loving stares.

i need depth.
want to be asked, not just seen.
maybe again, i'm asking for too much.
please forgive me.

i wore the sun for you –
yet you chose the rain.
the same rain i used to be,
but it was one during the day
and not the midnights like i usually erupted.

too much for you to handle.
i wish you'd accepted.
needed no spotlight – just some care.
someone to notice, someone to lend a shoulder.

yet left behind, almost always.
but what can i even say
when it's always been – "the almost of us."

i'll withdraw in silence,
just to be looked at the same way as any other.

might be complex, chaotic – miserly at times,
what if you indeed realize
i'm just barely anything, not even like any other?

is there any place anywhere
where i can fit –
where i belong the most?
perhaps not, perhaps the answer's a never
but i wish you'd loved and chosen me – at least once
just so for once i could feel something
other than just always being the ghost.

We're sailing through time,

just we and the two people --


we have been before.

To hell with normalcy.
I'd rather be someone revolting.

It hurts?
That’s a fallacy.
You're a coward —
and that’s fear prompting.

Indeed, there are hierarchies.
And rebelling is... concerning.
Misusing the power to control the industry —
Rebounding on the surface;
it's redundant. It's taunting.

Amuse me!
What — you think this is fancy?
What's wrong with wanting something?
Just because some are powerless... it's raunchy?
Distrust directs the regime —
look, the balance is burning.

Excited to show them dreams —
flaunty.

Look at that smile.
Look at the face.
Full of surprise,
sharp with the gaze.

Oh! You're blushing.
Excuse me — my breaching tendency.
You're beautiful.
And shy.
That's... compelling.

I wish you'd stay that way.
But —
the farther we go,
the greater the dismay.

Subdue this malice.
Subtly play.
If you want the prize...
you gotta pave the way.

I hate it when you're bamboozled,
procrastinating as you sway.
Can't you just stop being a wuss?
Even forecasters have their days.

But in this dance of defiance...
let courage lead the way.

Shatter the chains of conformity.
Let authenticity — stay.

For in each rebellious heartbeat,
a revolution brews with a glaze.

Even a meek-looking fuzz
can become
a blasting,
blazing
wave.
                                                             -Asher Graves

I am not broken; the world is.
Every day, it’s a new trend, whether worthless or rich,
Whether Black or white, dull or bright.
Every day is a new battle, a storm in a sea of dreams.
Dreams which get lost among the crowd of mindless bees.

The unfortunate truth is, the world favours aesthetics.
Whether in your work or in your deary beak.
Each day it’s a new goal, whether money, happiness, or ******,
But I ask, where is the genuine, the giddy, and the fulfilled?
Lost in the wildfire of fleeting faces and smoke-choked dreams?

Where are the joyful, the dreamers, and the poets?
Lost in the world of the weary, the cynic, and the skeptics?
But finally, I see the truth, the infallible truth—
Hidden behind the layers, lies, buzz, and noise,
That I am not broken; the world is.