Every week they gather around in a dark room
Where sounds are the rulers of body movement
Music becomes the puppeteer that aims to abolish silence
Prophecies of love and lust spread across the floor
The veins of the room are shaken by harmonies
Sight is overworked to the point where it no longer works
Light beams run wild, and spotlights bring shadows to centerstage
This busy room is where the dead are born again

But when we want to talk about the dead
Who said anything about coffins and carcasses
Anyone becomes dead when they have lived too much
Like this lady in the corner sipping on her drink
She wears her lips like blood on a battlefield
Her body is raised like she's tipping over the edge
Her skirt hugs her like an old lover
She laughs loudly like she’s ready to cry
Her tears fall directly from the cracks of her broken heart

Another is a boy drinking his youth away
And drinking away all his clean shirts and pants
His eyes wander and surf through the sea of people
Around him are others who drink like him
Others who want to forget
He gulps down each red cup he can get his hands on
He waits for the alcohol to go straight into his brain
Like polish remover, erases the traces of heavy hands
And sharp words that hurt him every time he breathes

For some, this busy room can be home for a few hours
Because home is where life is not allowed
Life does not interfere with our safe space
We come to this room with our dead hearts
Hoping a drink or a song would jumpstart it back to life
We hope the beats bring back the beats in our chests
We hope it brings back the warmth in our skin
For this is the room where the dead are born again

Draining pools of blackened filth
Tiny pockets amass
An ocean of sludge to horizons end
Stone heart is cast away
Descends to the bottom

New blood bursts forth
Seeps into empty spaces
Mortar for the soul
In this wounded way
Ascend to begin again

quisiera olvidarte
quisiera olvidar
tu nombre
y las manos que antes
me acariciaban

todo lo que he hecho
como una tonta
sin nada
por nada
nunca era nada

mis manos llenas de
la tierra
la leña quemada
las cenizas
de un fuego
que antes existía
dominando las colinas

las puntas de mis dedos
quemadas
un dolor extraño

nunca he sentido estos dolores

entierrio las cenizas
con todas las memórias
beso el zacate
verde y rocío

un día crecería
un arbol
lleno del amor
todo el amor
que me han rechazado
tirado, destruido
un arbol
nacido de las cenizas

In a universe of sunsets
we linger on the fading
of luminosity not realizing.

Nothing sets, we just move
from the view of another...

Our tears evaporating in to
metaphors, voices of emotion
speaking silently as tears smudge
lingering meanings.

Are these the words of love or of
emotions fleeting like summer showers.

We are silhouettes dancing upon
the remainders of what lingered.
Coffins of hearts buried within us.
a eulogy of what was and past.

From ashes does a single flower grow,
reborn are petals not as before.

We gaze in opposite directions,
wondering if the other looks behind.

I stand there my palms waiting,
will we hold on to another, or forever let go.

Reborn into this skin of a warrior. Past these birthmarks and moles are stories of the warriors battle scars. You ask me why my heart aches out of my chest, yet this is just my battle cries. Dancing in the flame, though I won't let the devil submerge me. Drowning into obis of my pasts regrets. Dainty ink marked my skin with the things this little girl never said. When I absorb them into my shoulder they no longer felt so dainty. Biting my lip made a metal taste absorb into my tastebuds memory and it felt almost like revenge of my enemies.

The past comes back to us,
emerging from the dark, cold water,
dripping wet and breathing hard,
born again and longing to be held.