#motherandson
Like a scouting ranger
The cowboy's flower will
Be my secret messenger
To show how much
I cared and do still
I never told you how bad it was
How much I missed you
How I drowned it
How I almost came through
Like you wanted me to
Sluice gates shut and
I blocked my flow
Vault doors closed to
Hide the treasure
Vanity stopped the show
Because of family illness
I blow the dam, I explode the cache
Out everything pours
Gold coins glimmer on the floor
Untamed flood of feeling, reeling
My mother will not disappear!
Like I have for her!
Like I made you do!
I will take it all
And I will feel it too!
There you are in the
Precious pile, the frothing jetsam
Like losing my mom's mind
It was this bad only one time
When I was losing you
After a generation
When my hair is grey
Instead of sandstone
And I am crinkly not handsome
When it is far too late
I'll do it on your birthdays
And our anniversary
For how special you were to me
A picture to hold the place
Of my old face
I hope you know that it
Has meant tragedy arose
Now it's in friendship's style
You'll never see my profile
But I'll post that yellow rose
Jul 24, 2020
Jul 24, 2020 at 11:24 PM UTC
Hijo,
Ay Hijo
By Jiovannie Martinez
The earth has been eating my heart for years, one grain of silence at a time. My hands no longer feel like hands, but claws, scarred by the grit of a thousand false leads and the cold indifference of men who told me all I could do was to go home and pray.
But prayers do not dig.
Prayers do not sift through the salt and the rot to find the pieces of a life that were thrown away like trash.
Prayers do not bring the son that I should have cherished far more than I ever did back into my hands, which are now too scarred and calloused to hold you like they once did.
Today, the dirt under my fingernails feels like the only thing that is real.
I remember the weight of you as a baby, the soft, heavy heat of your head against my collarbone. Now, the weight I find is different. It is light. It is hollow. My shovel strikes something that isn't a stone, and the world stops breathing. I drop to my knees, not to worship, but because my legs have finally turned to water. I brush away the silt with trembling fingers, and there it is; the small, jagged curve of your jaw, the same one that used to break into a grin when you saw me through the window.
There is a scrap of cloth here, too, stained the color of dried blood and old rain. I recognize the thread. I remember the night I stayed up late to mend that sleeve, humming a song to keep the shadows back. I thought I was protecting you then. I thought a mother’s love was a shield, but the drug war turned the world into a sieve, and you slipped through the holes. You weren't a soldier or a statistic; you were my boy who liked his coffee too sweet and always forgot his keys.
I pull your bones to my chest, and the dust smears across my face like a cruel blessing. My sisters from the collective stand over me, their shadows long and weeping, but I am alone in this hole with what remains of my soul. They tried to erase you, to turn you into a secret kept by the soil. But I have unburied the truth. It is a cold, quiet victory. I have found you, my son, but Dios perdoname (God help me), I have found you far too late
Mi Hijo
Ayy Mi Pobrecito Hijo
Que te hicieron?
(My Son
Ohhh my poor son
What did they do to you?)
Feb 10
Feb 10, 2026 at 12:08 AM UTC