"A" is for Abuelitos left back in Mexico who are
Heartbreaking knowing the moment,
they see their children leave home
to cross a dessert they might ever cross.
Heartbreaking knowing once they do arrive al Norte
decades might pass without seeing eachother.
Heartbreaking knowing that they might not get to know
their nietos because their salud esta muy delicada
Heartbreaking knowing that their would be a chance
of someone dying in either side
and wont be able to say the last goodbye.

"A" is for Abuelitos left back in Mexico who
I have never got the chance to meet.
Abuelitos who I loved since the day
I saw pictures junto a mis padres
Abuelitos who I share sangre y caracter and face feautures.
Habra un dia donde nos reuniemos como la familia que somos.
Pero hoy escribo un poema en sus memoria.
Tambien para los abuelitos que me siguen esperando,
Los quiero mucho y sean fuertes

In memory of Memorio Covarrubias y Cecilia Martinez.

passion wasn’t in your dictionary
even though
you tried to show me
time and time again
that it was

and thats fine
because at least you tried
to show me
the blank space
where passion
was supposed to be

Escapades avoid but the stars persist
When I saunter below the pale elm;
“That” pale elm with –
Whiskey in one hand, “wanting” reached the other.

We could drive this device every night,
And every night we nearly did,
Come every shot, every smirk, each and every –
Shooting star; wishes for naught, dreamt even deeper.

So the perfume would task, talk and mask
The other who could never be you
And therein lays the tale to the tree –
Our elm, “That pale elm where we’d learned,

We’d loved and at ends, opted to part ways.

My echo wont reply for me.
My reflection will not look at me.
My shadow does not walk with me.
My footsteps will not follow me.

I lost myself to someone else.

And they never gave me back.

day 1 (uno) that we talked you tried to whisper the clothes off my body and told me you wanted to see the folds of your fingers inside of me (as if it was nothing) and while I rejected he formulated and cracked a new plan — to tell me thats all he wanted to hear, and demanded self respect while pushing for lack of self respect.
His eyes couldn’t lie but when I tried to locate them, he carried me away in his personal blue seas (this is a cliche) and made me taste the waters (I got addicted as a result) and I guess that even my logic obsessed self couldn’t make out what was right and wrong anymore, so I drowned myself and floated in his rivers

Proceed to day 34 (teintra y cuatro) where you admitted under a drunken spell that you loved me all along and wanted a future. Phase 1: Terrified. Phase 2: Relief. Relieved that my love was not only mine, but ours. Relieved that I could drink from those waters forever. But terrified, so, so terrified of the mess I made from the man who only wanted to have my naked body and infect it. I had only shown a glimpse of my skin around my lower back, and you could only demand more while judging my self respect (or lack thereof). My logical self had decided that this behavior was him at his finest he was just setting me up and wanted to invade my skin. My loving self was convinced that he was acting out on his newly found addiction. Since I had just fed him the same venom he poisoned my body with.

In the end, it was all just a test of my self respect.
Or lack thereof.

i can only promise you
one thing

and that is that someday
there will come a moment
where i
snap.

they always told me that
depression was
anger turned inward
which i understand

but this body of mine can only
hold so much

and i can promise you
there will come a day
when i just
snap.

i'm already
cracking

and i can feel all the
anger inside
trickling out
through the
hairline fractures
in my emotions.

i can only promise you
this one thing

i don't know what will
happen
but i'm afraid for when
it does

because i remember two
moments in my past
very clearly
burned into some
heavily scarred portion
of my memories.

i remember when there was
a board somewhere
behind his door
behind his eyes
and i remember when there was
a hole where my
doorknob used to be
heart used to be.

and both times
i remember
screams
threats
and tears
i cried
and panic
cold
dark
panic set in.

he was screaming
through the door
and i can still
hear it.

i know
like i
couldn't
help it
he couldn't
help it
he just
snapped.

if i dig somewhere
below the
headache
i can still hear him.

he swore
i remember he swore
and screaming
is not a big enough word
to accurately describe
his voice
and the way the rage and
hatred still transcends
all time and space
gaps between the facts.

i can only wonder
if there was anyone
in the basement
or across the driveway
who heard how
he was going to
**** his family
**** himself.

and i wonder if anyone
ever knew
how my entire world
seized
and the teetering stability
so crucial
that i acquire
fell.

to this day
i don't know why.

all i know when we talked on the phone
he said "there are some scary people here"
and i couldn't understand
how he could be
a scary person by night
and my brother by day.

years later i stood in a hallway
next to some locked doors
and i could hear a ping-pong game on
the other side.

they told me that it was the
adult ward.

and i thought about the scary people
and then i thought about me
in the adolescent ward
and wondered if i had become
a scary person too
but i still don't know.

i don't remember that
he came to see me
but i remember that
she said
he was
upset.

one day my other
brother told me that he
had had four suicide
attempts.

but all i remember seeing was
the two a.m. kitchen
conversations about
God
perpetual blue lights
from the crack under
his bedroom door
until the sunrise
and nights where he never
came home.

there were three doors
down that hallway
one had a barricade
one had up all nights
and one had a hole
where the doorknob used to be.

we're in different hallways now
ones where the doors aren't
all in order
but i can still hear the echos
and feel the separation
pulling us apart
over meals that i would rather
eat alone
and weekend car rides spent
with headphones in.

and the walls have been painted
but i can still see every word
written in invisible ink
around each window frame

the story of a family
that slowly snapped.

We stopped talking but
you've messaged me four times now
to say I'm worthless.

I decided that
we weren't good as friends, and you
did just what you do.

Jay, I'm not asking
for your forgiveness, just that
you keep your silence.

I'm tired and longing
for a peace of mind you seem
eager to ******.

"Manipulative",
you texted me to say that
you were in Cleveland.

I read that message.
I waited three seconds and
I deleted it.

A long time ago,
yet so close to yesterday
I really loved you.

Your friends told you to
cut me out of your life, like
my friends said I should.

Neither were wrong, and
this is what it has come to.
This. This is the end.

Your interventions
always came up to protect
your own interests.