There's good reason to forget infant memory.
Too many colours, sounds, and faces back then.
My upsets were soothed with a soft hand and a healing kiss.
It wouldn't be fair to compare,
I would feel weak to compete
With those faded images and feelings.
It's bad enough with my adult recall,
Stories and pictures that bring on palpitations, clamminess and racing.
My school is an empty lot, beside an empty rectory, and an empty church.
My childhood avenue is derelict, like Mockingbird Lane.
My Triumph Herald is still baby blue in some photo.
With each memory, I feel the nausea.
Look at this one. All ten of us.
Five still.
I'm already beginning to feel queasy.
If I were five still, I'd forget.

The crashing feeling
The stress inducing
The nauseating
The heart racing

Feeling

Constant fear
Constant feelings of doubt
The feeling that something bad
Is going to happen
I wish for no more
Stress
Nausea
          
I wish for no more    
  Anxiety

A Love Letter to Lost Tattered Souls

I.

Why do I so desperately desire recognition
When I know full well glory is beyond time
Even hither
Praises too early gained would
Place one above all in the midst
Of the wheel of fate
Yet
Soon or later with only room to fall
And be crushed by the
Cruel reality
Of eventual and inevitable
Tedium

Unlike a life ever on the climb
Or of a timely return to the everlasting
That will be never be subjected to
The suffocating dread
Of such a loss
Of height

As
The roaring gale would always lose to
The ever-present calm wind
Vital yet unnoticed like the breath of being

And

II.

Why do I despair when my words
Don't glitter like gold
That would make wise men
Lament in fist-raising envy
And mock the children that
Don't understand them

When I know the truth are
In words that would move children
To tears of laughter
And laughter of comfort
As per The Word
That is equally
Ridicule by men
Of ashes and dust-
That will never understand-
Or remain upon-
This world-
As something beneath them-

Like the earth that supports
All living creatures
And the humble grass for lambs
To graze

Be the needed
Not the desired
But unnecessary

And


III.

Why would I feel shame to wail in despair
Beyond my control for a word of your love
When
What is love, without patience in suffering,
What is suffering without pain?
And what is pain without complaint?
There are truth and devotion in my lament
A testament of my bearing the constant silence
Yet still singing devotedly forever
For the suffering Nevermore

Love fearlessly your overlooked
Plain imperfections
And unbloomed seeds of poetry
Burrowed in the present land of a future
Undying forest
Far outlasting the abandoned and
Overgrown gardens of timely praises
That's now lost in maintenance
And translation

As with the minute storms
And only half-day suns
You don't want to plant your love
In bricks of spotless silver and gold
Nor do you want to bury them
In scorched earth
That have never greeted a
Raindrop or the
Stars

Fear,
you make my body quake
leave cracks in my esteem
and invite doubts
to harbor and fester as you
send a shiver down my spine
to drown my fire.

Fear,
you soak up all the syllables.
that I was to mutter
so I stumble
and stand there mute
with my stomach heavy with nausea.

Fear,
I take guilt bites
as I am lost in panicky howls.
while you lay out procrastination unevenly
and drink from the reservoir of my energy.

Fear,
you trick my potential
wipe out my credential
leave nothing but
raspy and rough remnants for me
to draw from.

Fear,
you rule the beats of my heart
pulling me out at the first hello.
you grip me,
whisper obscurely
whilst darkness grasps my sense
and wraps my dreams with dark matter.

Fear,
with you my my soul
remains parched like the desert,
and my brain wrecked with nervosity
as the sensation spreads across my body.

But Fear,
I want to be one step ahead
of you this time.
I don’t want my fate to collapse
beneath your decisions.

Fear,
I want to spell courage louder
than your stifling whispers
as I embrace opportunities
regardless of how daunting and risky you paint it to be.

Through and through my mother is anorexic
You would be too if your environment was toxic
I can’t help but be sad when I come home late at night
And she’s asleep on the couch with tear stains from a fight
I bring back food from the restaurant I work at
She says she can’t have it because she’s too fat
Eventually she caves and I get her to eat
Fish, broccoli, fries, and red meat
She tells me it’s too late at night to eat snacks
Although she’s a normal weight her bones still sound like they crack
It’s now 1 am and I go to turn off the tv
She quickly wakes up and stairs blankly right at me
“Leave it. And turn the heat on”
She says to me, fighting a yawn
Before I leave I notice the wrappers
A caloric binge had clearly trapped her
And tomorrow I’m sure the cycle will repeat
As the image of my mother withers and retreats

A veces me mareo de tanto blanco,
No se malentienda, gran color ese blanco
Sólo me marea verlo y verlo en todos los edificios,
Las paredes
Y no me marea el color en sí,
Me marea la intención
Me marea usar el blanco para adormecer
La sensación de acorralamiento en jaulas
Que doblegan voluntades
A través de necesidades

El ser estático en su jaula porque no hay más a donde ir
Y las jaulas blancas
Para que sienta paz
Y las paredes blancas
Para que esté tranquilo

Me marea el blanco
Me marean las intenciones
Las intenciones “blancas”

Me marea recurrir a colores
Para disfrazar crueles realidades
Nadie quiere estar sentado todo el día

Quizá me marea el truco
Me marea
Me marea el blanco y lo que implica
Me marea el uso

Y la pregunta, pero sí no el blanco entonces ¿quién?
Entonces ¿cuál?
No abundan opciones
De jaulas negras, de jaulas rojas, no vendría nada mejor
Tiene que ser el blanco
Y eso me marea

Probablemente me marea la realidad y yo
Yo lo refiero todo al blanco
Me marea tanto blanco

at night
the sound shifts
and in the low hum of voices
I hear a silence hiding
a flower growing in concrete
laughter and sadness live
in this place
beacons, shedding light
on darkness
and how the dark
        will break your bones
        and turn your stomach
without the silence