I've soaked
myself in silence
for so long,
I make space for her
wherever I go now.

Like the yeast,
that has yet to rise.
The words on a page,
and their delayed revise.

I too was written out
plain as day
with mad intent
-- mom and pop --  
a beginning, middle, and haphazard end.
Clusters of uninformed DNA
seared its way into my kaleidoscope veins.

Two writers unequipped to write,
with nary a forethought to revise.
Like the great poets before me,
who allowed their words to
go unfinished and unchecked,
The forgotten dotted i's
misspelled letters,
unwashed sweaters &
yesterdays newspapers

And although that exists,
and always will,
I have been struck with
the unmistakable urge
to turn my pen inwards,
drawing ink from
the star stained ether,
to revise, rehash and reword
the words of my creators --
clumsy writers at best.
-- mom and pop --

As I march into my
maddening edit,
no longer the work of writers who
have forgotten to revise me,
I reach to become the most unforgotten novel
on your most forgotten bookshelf.

my dear lads and lasses
don't go into nights and day
not understanding the
difference between
a diamond and a pebble,
for just because they are
round doesn't mean
they are the same in value!

and know when
you are treated as such
in accordance to
what you are!

I wasn't crying for you,
regardless of what your eyes told you.
I was crying for me
on that mildew night
when you decreed
we could no longer be.
salty drops of relief,
instead of disbelief.
hands in head to honor
the future I can now possess
as you let go of me
and I can fall further
into the beauty that is myself,
& honor the rose which you never
knew how to stop and smell.

the straightest path
to understanding if
its real love is to
offer up power

and while you
sit there
tiger in lambs clothing,

watch, watch, watch

for although you
can weather all storms
and battles, hunters
and terrain on your solo

your choice of comrade
is that of wisdom
not love, for quickly
can a beast change
its tune when
offered freedom with
your heart.

i looked into the
depths of what i could
possibly learn,
hugging the night's silence
in replace of a crowd,
just to hear her secrets.

and she said

sometimes you
will leave the light at
the end of the tunnel
with a lesson
in replace
of your lover

sometimes you will feel
the agenda of a union
an intuition
a gathering of spirit
welling up in yourself
speaking of some dire truth

grab it

your time with such and such
is coming up, you can not take him
or her of them or you,
with you on your next chapter
leave the lover
leave your mother
father and your brother,
and take the lesson.

how many of you
do I have to ****,
to gracefully unravel
a written rose from
the depths
of my soul?

i travel into the past
and i pick apart the memories
unbuilt to last,
quicksand thoughts
turning
in on me,
laughter on the beach
belittling lover
intoxication stare
one by one collapsing onto me
enticing me to revisit,
as if asking to refill
when my night is all but empty,

I don't dare.
i will stay put in my moment
the present tense is nothing
but a gift from my past you see,
I will only glance in your direction,
sweet memory
I dare not linger
within the depth of
your engulfing nostalgia,
for if I do
i will surely
turn into
a tear.

there are some things
that are just written in ink.
the books that line my shelf
the music I play with my fingers
the startling waves I attempt to hurdle
my surfboard over
the recipe my abuelita passed down to
me of her famous tamales
my subscription to Bon Appetit
these constants anchoring me
when characters sketched by
pencil become too faint to feel,
its these delicate yet sturdy constants
that yank me out of sadness
with a "remember me?!"
with a "remember your abilities, young lady!"
"remember your divine calling to perpetually grow!"

darkness met the boy
and the boy in turn chose darkness
with older age

darkness met the girl
and the girl in turn chose lightness
with older age

and even though the two were both met with darkness,
their choices paved their paths
towards negative or positive
towards light and heavy,
easy and hard

the problem was when those paths
crossed back into each other
battling to find common ground,
finding a language within
the turmoil of their choices,
when love was created in the
rubble of their crossed paths.

i can smell a poet a mile away
who only wishes
to read their poetry to you,

who prods and pulls
away at your brain for insight -
what about this word?
and
let me tell you of the girl
who broke my heart enough times
for me to procure this poem!

i smile and offer
the best of my critiques of course
empathy running too far into my core
and the naive understanding that all
poets hold the same truth.

and as i begin to take the baton
to set out on my journey of recitement,
i see my comrades eyes glaze over
to the toaster where her thoughts now linger
and remain.

and not as i had hoped on the syllables
and motifs i had painfully extracted
in the midnight hours of my
bedroom rumination.

and there your brain remains
as i run my last lap around the
sweet syllables of my favorite words.

sometimes ill carry your book in my purse,
not because i have any intention of reading your words,
but because i want to have a kindred soul
to my disposal when needed.

and with your introduction
so begins my inability
to make to do lists
because all i want to do
my dear
is you.

my poems are just
well written reminders
of all the things
you've thought of
but forgot to write down.

there is a little clause within
their contract,
a small fee
some people don't see.
and that is
with every minute spent
on this device
we will take five minutes
of your creativity,
of your ability to self love
of your ability to tap into nature
of your once keen sense of awareness to your surroundings
of your eyesight
please sign here.

i have failed over
and over
and over
and over again
looking to others
to understand the
strength and power
of my critical thinking.

they try
to **** you dry
every last drop
of hope and kindness
they want to see just how
dry they can squeeze you.

a little game you see,
one thats not to understand
the sweetness of the juice,
but one to watch you see
as they flex their
skill of the purposeful spill.

you chose a rookie
over an all star.
because in order to
be with an all star,
you have to level up,
and to be blunt sir
you couldn't measure up.

now i look to you rookie,
its your awakening
time to be an allstar.

every day you must add a drip
to the well of creativity
flowing within you.

a word here
a lyric there
a small drip
no need
for the flood
my dear
breathe into it

drop by drop
little by little

you threw me far flung
away from myself,
an act of hate and fear.

but it feels good
i have to say,
to look at myself
objectively from this point
so far from the beginning.

i am on the outskirts,
looking back at myself
with love,
and a dedication
to walk through
this new fire,
in an effort
to make myself even
bigger than before.

i was distracted for a moment.

our love
naturally
was my
playing ground.

but there were things
that needed to be done.

a certain medium
ripped me away fervently,
plunging me back
into my symphonic isolation,
before love was my toy.

it whispered,
we need you here
we need your brain
working on this film
on this song
on your reel.

we need you to
take your pain
and turn it
into beauty,
we need you to
figure out the secrets
of the heal
to help those
get back
to the ways of
their own feel.

Going in
Can be hard
When you don’t know
If it’s
demons
Or angels
That inhabit you

lean into it, my dear.

lean into your future,
even though your past
calls you with a
romanticized nostalgia.

lean into your new lover,
even though the warmth of
an old flame burns bright.

lean into the freshness of tomorrow,
even though the
chapters of yesterday
remain unwritten
and beckon for your words and return.

because my darling there is nothing
bolder than turning away from
the putrid pages of yesteryear in
search for a new self.

keeping your femininity
after you've
weathered unimaginable storms
is a high form
of rebellion.

you were brilliant
but it came with a cost

for every 5
lines
i was given
1 insult

you were really good
at the art of
sandwiching
two compliments
in between one insult,

you lathered the treatment
so earnestly
as you whimsically would touch my hair
and bow down to my
choice of shoes
only to, on the way up
snidely remark
about the one hair i had
forgotten to shave on my leg

it is a price you pay
he said as he looked into my eyes
i will give you the highs
but also carry to you the lows

for i am the rollercoaster
you have willingly paid admission for.

i once heard a comedian
bemoan his career
i need to get up and do the thing
i need to get onstage and make the folks laugh,

for i am the gatekeeper to another world,
and when i open the great gilded doors,
for you to walk through
you will have entered a place
of make believe
and candy
sugarcoated walls,
and flowing rivers of chocolate

your pain will have subsided
your worries
if i have done my job right
will have melted onto the floor

remember those bills?
i dont either!
they have vanished into
my topcoat
your woes are all with me now

and i am prepared
to carry your weight
when i arise  
in the morning

i know a heavy transaction
will occur
this exchange
a laugh for your burden.

i am not just a comedian
i am a burden collector.

i know there is a good poem in me
i can feel her
she's underneath a stack of  
recipes and US weekly articles
underneath the lined shelves of
unopened emails and spam,
buried deep deep
under the information
stored on my various tabs,
and daily stress and responsibility
she is there
dancing with the pelicans over a crystalline bay
singing the song of a siren
her hands gliding over the wind
i know she's there
that saucy minx
come out and play with me already.

i had a poem once tell me:
shut up and get to work.
take the string of electricity
just sent to you from the heavens
and weave me onto your paper
this line will only be available
for a short period of time
until we get annoyed with your
unwillingness to devote yourself,
and like the last girl who was also idly
staring into the blank abyss of her walls
we will reclaim our line and
shoot it on over to the grandmother next door
who sits ever so patiently with her tea
and a first edition copy of that new stephen king novel
she has been meaning to dive into.
her pen situated between her index and *******
and i reckon in that moment
i will finally be birthed
in the margins,
in between the paragraphs
speaking of white robes and blood.

i looked in the mirror
and i saw a desert
there was a blank desolate
canvas of space
waiting to be filled
waiting to be acknowledged
or called out
i have no choice but to examine
every grain of sand
that makes me
who i am

i wake up in the morning,
and with the peaking
of the sun and her luminous rays,
a word trickles in through my window
reminding me of
cat hair and soft trips to the beach
allowing some electricity
to enliven me up,
or maybe it was
brisque feline making her way next to my pillow
that awoke me,
and just so
the day begins
with a
perfect
blend
of dreams and reality.

i felt the arrows of feeling
pointed towards me
anger's blade was sharpened by the sun
as it soared over to greet my skin
and my state of contentment
had been washed over
with a dormant state of resentment
because attached to that arrow,
buried deep in the vein of its *****,
was a biting memory of your skin
moving against mine
and then the
bitter pang of its quick and permanent
exit from the chapters of my life.

i don't know
how many times
i need to reinvent myself
to eventually get to myself
with every milestone
that is a mountain
the hurdles i swerve over
taking a piece of me into it
at times a fair offer
a lesson for a limb
an eye for an eye
until it has swallowed me whole
and there is nothing left to learn
and nothing left of me
but the blank canvas to start anew

bad poems
never cease to
inspire me
more than the
greatest poems

and i don't know
if its because i feel like
i can do better
or if i relate more to
the state of ugliness
than i do of
beauty.

if i make a poem out of iphones,
people will actually start taking
a liking to the forgotten form.

i can make every phone sing
with a new hit song
at the perfect time
as your eyes glance over them
while they offer you a new promotion
to go with your completed poem line.

and as you are thinking about the confusing
symbolism between a flea and blood,
you can also get 50% off
your next purchase at Target.

write a poem.
its been two long years
and i fear I don't even know what a poem is.
i fear i've never even written one.
i look back at my fleet and
i see forced words
prematurely picked
from their fields.
****** into the arena as dogs
with their tails glued to their thighs.
i fear i have succeeded at preparing
a dish of underdeveloped corpses.

Nothing scares me more than inspiration stampeding towards me
I can feel her coming on like lightning bolt
As I sit in the distance eyeing her songs and poems and sonnets and anecdotes
Spiraling with great effort towards me
She has given me a net and a silk floral dress
For she has grown weary in the heavens
Living as idea and essence
Preferring a life of the palpable
To walk amongst the lay of men
To sleep within the threads of a woman
And yet I can only feel the chaos of her wash upon me,
As I throw her net into the great gulp of her eye
And I capture nothing but the pure feeling of
Her wrath in between the seams of my silk dress.

i am growing more and more
into the person whom will be worthy of him,
and him of me
but i fear i will be marred with bitterness
wondering why he was never there to help.

i have traversed many miles
walking with the night,
she with her satin leash
wrapped around my neck,
ushering me under
a divine compass of stars
who navigate me
into a
grey fog of fantasy;
tempting me
away from
another tired night  
of suggestion
and malcontent.

i do well
stepping into my role
of daydreamer
in the night,
eyes glazing over,
body weaving
like some
mechanical soldier,
as I slowly sink
further
and further
into the rabbit hole
of my mind,

where i touch
the membrane,
the pulsing vein,
the sturdy skull
which cups
the hiding  
mass of brain,
and the tangled knot
of treasured ideas
and thought.

i enter casually
under the mark
of exit signs
searching aimlessly
for an idea,
stuck in a lightless cave
of a deeper depth,

the one born and lost
on the winding interstate,
without pen and paper
in hand to collaborate,
eighty miles an hour
of reckless power
births creation,
when
neuron,
synapse
and speed
galvanize into
conceit.

but this one escapes me.
it flickers out of sight
like the rest of them,

as i close into
where it hides,
like some feral animal
who knows
not of a friendly hand,
it scurries back
into it's lonesome wasteland.

but i remain
walking under the
invasive moonlight,
for I yearn to take my idea back home,
to wrestle it into submission,
sew it to hand and feet
and give it deserved recognition,
to dive my sharpened teeth into
the thick of it's juicy meaning
to bleed ink
onto paper,

for there is nothing
back in the stagnant terrain
of my body,
or here
lying on my desk
but the blank pages
of the greatest story
never written.