Your voice has settled
On the taut film
Of my ear drum,
Like an echo
It howls,
But I've hummed it
Into a soft whisper.

Prayer while entering adulthood

Abuela says you can guide me
To be better
And to succeed,
So I should succumb to the power
Of your holy blood,
But I have my doubts
About you.

The almost sibling

An almost brother,
Or maybe sister,
Perches at the edge
Staring down
Searching for me,
An unknown brother
Save for short peeks
Between clouds,
And wonders of the almost life,
The almost love,
They could have found
Amongst us.
But the love was taut
Barely enough
For us to be sustained.
I’ve heard mom speak to you,
While clutching herself,
Asking for forgiveness
For taking your almost body out
Before a body could be.
I hope you know,
Crouched there watching,
Though I never met you
Or knew your almost self
I still love you.

Peaches

We used to pick them fresh,
Right off the branch,
From the tree in the front yard
And place them in a basket
To take inside and taste and devour.
You’d wash them for me,
Me too tiny to reach the sink,
Then take the knife
And carve, swiftly,
Slicing off a smiling slice
For me to eat.
Now your twirled fingers
And paper skin can carve
Only lopsided smiles,
Gnarled and unfamiliar.
Let me take the knife
And dig into peaches
For you to enjoy.

Meditations and French Fries

I sit watching you nibble on some Mickey D's fries,
And taking sips of your milkshake,
Your two hands grasping the cup as if to make sure
Nobody could take it while kicking your feet,
That barely touch the floor, and humming.
This makes me love you more than I already do.

Your eyes move up and stare at me and I look at you,
Searchingly, but you cross them,
Making those crazy eyes that make me smile
And then you let your lips curl into a smile matching mine
And show the small fragments of your teeth and you are beautiful.

You are so content with sitting here, with oily salty potato slivers,
With impersonations of milkshakes, and more importantly with me.
I love you, and your tiny teeth, your short legs, your belly.

Everyone says you resemble me, all your ticks, your mood swings
Your ****** expressions, your desire to learn, your sweet tooth.
You are a copy of me, a miniature me, but you are not really me.
You are my brother, my blood but not my copy.
I see the differences between us, the different upbringing, you know what
A childhood means, you know fatherly love, and for this I am thankful,.
I wish you more than me, more knowledge, love, confidence than me.

I wish Mickey D's is better too, and that the economy doesn't go bust
And that you could afford some fries and a milkshake for less than 10 bucks.

to know your skin
is to know the turmoil of creation
you are the visceral
the primal roar
urging its way out

i will shape you
mold you out of sand
draw your pleasure out
and ruin your salvation

you've given me a taste
so now i'll sniff out your blood
and crawl my way over
and snarl and scratch at you
and feast on your flesh

Prayer Poems

A prayer from a five year old me

Diosito if you can help papi,
Wipe the white dust off his nose,
And let him remember my name,
My face, even when his eyes
Are lost somewhere
Bring him back
And keep him here with us.
Melt the soft belly of his feet
To the ground
And let him stick for me,

I’ll be thankful.
I don’t need much
Just mami and papi
And less bottles,
And belts,
And bad words,
Then I can be happy.

Sharpeville, 21 March 1960
"The native mentality does not allow them
to gather for a peaceful demonstration.
For them to gather means violence."
- Lieutenant Colonel Pienaar

1.
We went with wrists ready
For metal shackles
To clench
Their cold grip
Onto fire hot skin
Boiling with white rage;
The appropriate rage.

This situation has justification
In the predications they hold true
Where to some
Human is synonymous with
******* nature,
Dangerous and hungry for
Light white blood we
Must be caged
To prevent the massacre
We could create.


2.
A child’s body is not a hurdle.
But when fleeing,
Feet pounding on dirt paths,
Black with dark blood, leaking
From shafts of taunting revolvers
And throats of the permanently
Silenced,
What do you do but run?

5,000 bodies bound together,
Melding flesh with flesh,
Fusing unhinged bones to bones
Still cradled in their skin,
Line the street where
Puddles are forming next to
Concaved skulls emptied
By misinformed bullets.

Last thoughts and worries
Are forever splattered on faces,
Tracing red lines
On skin
Sooty black,
As dark as nights will be.

3.
Sixty-nine lay dead.

A rock they said.
When interrogations
Took place
A rock they said.
Empty hands laid
Palm in palm
But a rock they said,

This, they said, sparked
The worry
That made it right for them
To make bullets fall
Onto us like metal raindrops
From an angry heaven
Hungry for black skin
And black blood.

Hands digging into earth
For retaliation,
For blood they said,
But everyone else said,
The rock that flew
Was in hands white as light
As bright as the day was
They say.

If the rocks they said that,
Spurned uniformed egos,
Flew from ground,
To air,
To gunned men like they said,
Does it justify the dead?

you know more
than just skin
sliced it apart
gotten under
dug close to the bone
so please
get gone

i will love you
fiercely
till you feel me
in your bones
cushioned
in the marrow

I will carve your lies
Out of my spine,
Wipe it clean, 
And discover the bone.

I will choke you down,
Pry open your jaw,
And pick my flesh 
Out of your teeth.

You don't deserve
Any part of me

whenever he complains
about my cold nature
and says
"baby, please open up"
i bend my knees
in a silent prayer
and take his **** in my mouth

II.

I will spend hours
Braiding all our tender roots
Into a tight noose.

You were ‘mom’ and I was ‘dad’
And my stuffed plush toys
Stood in for our children.
We did what parents did and do
And soon you said it was time for bed.

We laid down and you,
You pulled my face near
And pressed my lips to yours
And held me
So that I could not move.

I stayed put.

You were older after all,
I looked up to you.
But then you took my fingers
Into your mouth
And down your Tinkerbell *******
To lead me inside yourself.

I pulled back, I think,
But you threatened to tell,
To get me in trouble for something,
It’s hazy, I can’t remember now.

So you kept my fingers
Trapped in you,
No matter the complaints
Or the moist cheeks.
You made them travel and discover
More than I ever wanted them to.

Preacher's Son

You spoke like a preacher,
Marble mouthed messenger
Of the rules of your domain.
You let your tongue slither words,
Voice deep, booming, bass thumping
Coursing through my chest, beating.
This was your weapon of choice - 
Each syllable a warning 
Of what was yet to come.
Your pulpit a collection of your vice,
Beer bottles, ***** jugs, remnants of snowfalls.

You are nothing more than 
A false idol,
And I will no longer cling
To your drunk speech
Or grovel at your feet.

Go crack your hammer hands
The ones that nailed my praise-song
Shut to my throat to make me meeker
But these hands were still free,
Free to write silence across your lips
And I hope these thoughts pierce you like darts,
Like spears of defiance.

This is no longer your church, 
And I no longer your son 
Worshipping the verbal lashings as Godly,
Laudable. No longer seeing bruises as adornments
Of unabashed, deep down spooky love.

Meditations Over the George Washington Bridge
For Tyler Clementi

1.
I could hear the faintest of notes crying in the wind,
As if your fingers were still nimbly holding the bow,
Striking chords on your violin,
As my car rolled over the George Washington Bridge.
I think about how beautiful this is,
This feeling of suspension, how life is held
So taut on these wires, how simple it is to find
Weightlessness over all this water. My mind questions,

Did you second guess yourself? Did you know you
Were worthy of being held, cradled in more
Than just cool air and metal grates and wetness.
But I guess some higher being knew you better,
Than anyone did or could. Knew how those fingers could string
Harps and violins and heart strings, and you,
You were more than all of this, this wasteland
Where desires and kisses are taken for mockery,
And your love can be twisted against you
To make you feel light enough to float away into sleep.

2.
You flew that night. I could tell. Spread your arms like wings
Like a firebird descending into waves, looking to extinguish
Itself, and to take the world with it, to burn out the innate
Inhumanity of human beings. What they found floating
On those waves was a mere carcass, the shelling of your being,
You shed the unholiness of your skin off to alight yourself,
And blaze us with our ignorance.

They were too blind to see you flew that night, let yourself
Unravel into the sky, ripping through the darkness like a seraph,
Like some holy being, some light meant for a higher calling,
But I know what you did, I could see the shadow of you in the night
Gracefully floating. You, you are a testament to language spoken
And silenced, to the words stuck on tongues prying themselves
Through gritted teeth, you birthed meaning to the need for some sort of justice.

3.
You served your time well,
You messenger,
You,
You young,
Holy creature of God,
And I wonder as I pass over
Your take off spot,

How long you will string
Your notes over us
And how you would have fit
Into the Philharmonic
And looked walking up
For your degree

And how long your memory
Will haunt me
And how long your memory
Will stay a lesson learned
For us all.

i searched for you
in the countless bodies
of over 30 year olds
before i reached 18,
in the multiplying bruises
from the spankings on my ***
that you and they
adorned me with,
calling any man
who held me
after entering me
daddy.

it's funny how easily the tongue
forgets itself
loses language
struggles hard to roll around
too belabored
to find meaning in simplicity
too taut
to learn new speech.

16 year old on suicide watch prayer

If you see me and hear me,
If you love me,
Like they say you do
Then take these thoughts and bury them
For me.
Heal these wrists.
Let me know you hear
The thoughts inside.
Let the glass shard
Shatter,
Before it presses down.

why should i remember
to call you papi
or say te amo
when you can barely
remember my name

I, foolish lover
you, down-low *******
no loving for cowardice

I found dusk in you,
welcomed it willingly.
Almost forgot dawn.

The Morning After

I remembered your hands this morning,
The way you let your fingers run down my neck,
Self-conscious of their effect on me.
They would make their way down my spine,
My back curling to them, awakened.
Meld my flesh to your fingerprints.

I remembered the taste of your fingertips,
The dip of your palm, the folding effect
Of your skin - How it would pulsate against mine.
I know them and the roughness off your calloused,
Hard working hands. I loved the grazing of you,
The warmth of your skin.

You let your hands bloom in mine,
Opened up your fingers, spread your palm
To let me take hold of you, to memorize
The swirls and lines of you. I loved the sensation of you,
The aftershock of your devotion.

The sun creaked through the cracks
Of my blinds this morning and I remembered
You and your touch, your hands and
The creases I would lose myself in,
That I traced endlessly.

there's an eden
waiting for you
between these thick trunk thighs,
enter again the garden,
drink from my waterfalls
and taste a little creation.

A Fist and A Jaw
To Elena, for your strength

I.
I seem to draw my body close,
Into itself, into the ground,
To center myself,
My weight in search of some
Sort of gravity.

Fire lit palms burning symbols
Into my cheek,
Branding and marking,
Territorializing me,
Claiming the parts that belonged
To you, and the ones that
Belonged to me.

Your hands rolled into
Rock fists pummel
At the curve of my back,
Tracing lines down
My spine and I shiver
At the rainstorms
You trickle down on me.

II.
Your fist met my jaw today
And I can still taste the blood
That wafted in the cracks
Of my tongue,
Filtering slowly
Down my throat,
Back into me.
I didn’t want to lose
Any part of myself to you
Or your thundering fists.

I never knew till you
How easily bones
Could be turned into dust,
How simple it is
To snap the concreteness
Of a body,
How effortlessly anger
Can manifest itself in
Hands, and bats, and feet.

I’ll never forget the life
That grew in me,
And how it traced lines
Down my thighs
And rested in dark pools
At my feet,
My fingers dripping,
And our carpet absorbing
The hands and heart
And eyes and smile
Of the life that should’ve
Grown in me.

A prayer five years later

I don't need you
as much as mami does,
so nestle her in yourself,
hold her there
so that she knows to be calm
if I happen to meet you
face to face before she does.

Lazarus

The night blew darkness into me
But you, you whispered my name,
Splintered apart these eyelids
Let the syllables wrap themselves
Around me, carried me back to you.
Awaken you said, and so I did and you
Let the words Come forth drip down
Into my ear drums, and so I did.
I came back to you, uncurled my body
To the sunlight peering itself
From behind you and I knelt,
Knelt for your touch, knelt for your words
To awaken more than just this,
This limp body, give me reason for being,
And so you did, you took this skin
And struck life through it,
Taught me to roll my tongue, to own
Your language, and you pressed
Your forefinger to my forehead and said
I will take you home.

Nostalgia
To Marjorie, thank you

On nights alone I think of you
And the way you would pull blankets over me,
Fold them back, crease them, and tuck them
Under, and the words you would whisper onto me,
How you would bathe me in your prayers.
You wanted me to know what security felt like.

You could take the moonlight in your hands
And let it hang over me like a brilliant guardian
Watching over, so that I could know what home was
So that I knew that you loved me, reassuring me with lullabies,
Duermete mi niño, duermete mi amor; and I did and I do,
And I wonder how different life would be without you.

On these nights I wonder where you are,
Whether you think of me as this grown man
Or as the lonely toddler scurrying for your embrace,
Laying in bed waiting for my bottle with warm chocolate milk,
For your soft voice, for the final Te amo of the day,
For my response of yo tambien mami, me too, and I did and I do,
And for the moonlight dripping from your fingers
Drifting onto the air, hanging above my closing eyes.

You are
Just a bitter
Aftertaste
Swimming
On my tongue.

Coddling the past
“I am accused of tending to the past”

How can I lift my hands
To reach forward
If I cannot learn
To let the past run through me,
Gnash it’s teeth
And bite me
And fight me
Until I can make it succumb.
Don’t urge me to forget her
Cause she will slumber
Until she is hungry
Enough to leap out
And ******.

A teenage prayer on prayers

If ever these words
Manage to find you,
Hold them
And guard them for me,
Press them against yourself,
Taste them
And swallow
So that even your blood
Knows them.
Bear witness to them
Till you're ready to fulfill them.

There was a hollow
In the valley
Of your crooked spine
Where your sweat collected,
Each drop a story;
Who will drink
Mine away today?

You are marble mouthed.
I used to curl my ear
Around your lips,
Conched in, to hear
The delicate manner
In which you spoke of me.
You coddled my name
On your tongue, separate
From the others held in there,
Pressed tight against the cushion
Of your cheek, so that
I'd never have to find them.

Nostalgia (Part II)

Most of my days are heavy with thoughts of you.
Contemplating, pondering, ruminating;
Who tattooed your tongue with righteousness?
At what point in your life did you remember my name?
When did you stop snorting your past away?

I remember the temperaments of you,
The kicks, the snarls, the growls, the enunciations of your
*******'s.
I remember the folded sheets tucked under me
To protect me from you, dad,
The late nights of laying awake
Listening to you slur your words,
Your tongue rolling around curse words,
Tying planned intention to mumbling misconception.

God turned his back to you,
Turned a blind eye to the doings of you,
Left us here to our own devices,
And I wonder how it would feel to wrap my hands around you
Choke the ******* life from you,
Hug you, love you, hate you, and be done with you.
Most days I wonder where we will go,
Whether I can ever let me love you.

A Familiar Wound

The doctors slit your belly
To get to your spine
And cushion the disks
That slipped from you
Like soapy plates
From frail worn hands.

I was ten when you asked me
To wipe the stitched opening
With swabs and gauze
and to make sure that
The staples would not pop
From their place, exposing you.

I bent down next to you,
My knees denting craters
Into the carpet, and cleaned off
The stapled wound running
Perpendicular to the scar
That opened up years before
To place me in your arms and hear you
Whisper my name into being.

The pills slurred your words,
Your tongue undulating lazily
Heavily weighted in your mouth,
Rolling out gracias mijo
And I blushed, realizing
What a small gesture this was
Nursing the same belly
That held me inside years ago.

Eve Calling
Variation on Eve Thinking

I hear him thinking
Trying to wrap his tongue
Around me
Searching deep
For me
Attempting to call
To me.

I’ll place this gift over him,
Crawl through the blades of grass
And breathe myself inside

So maybe then he will hear me
Call to him
From the missing piece
I own.
I’ll kiss my name onto his lips

And use my tongue to scribble
Language onto his.

why does it matter
what i put in my mouth
or who i push myself into
as long as neither involves you

WORK IN PROGRESS - FEEDBACK APPRECIATED!! ;)
---—--------------------------------------------
On nights when the moon
Sheds herself of pretense
She speaks,
Reaches in,
Spins out thoughts
Like yarn, unraveling

Shows me what I keep
     What should never be spoken
Shows me what I dream
      What should never be seen

And I can almost feel
The cool touch of metal,
The warm after- blaze
Against my temple,
Of a ****** barrel
Giving birth to a silencing roar -
Pushing through
Emptying mind,
Thoughts splattered,
An abstract on my walls,

The things I keep
Dripping
Crimson
In her light.

III.

I'll dig back to you,
Reap you, snip the synapses,
Hollow out the soil.

Love, last night you walked
Into my room and peeled off  your skin
For me, a sigh still clinging to your throat,
Waiting for the forceful
Expulsion of your exhale.

Peel it for me.

You hung your fears on my pleas,
Whispering the words I mouthed to you,
Mouthing them back onto me.
Lights off this is you
At your finest.

I love you, at your most nervous.

Last night you wrote on my skin
With your tongue, the words still cool
On my warm body.
Only the tips of your fingers remain,
Scrawling your name on my back as if you
Could tattoo the permanency of love with touch.

A History 
 
As I watch a bead of sweat 
Swim down the outline of your spine
I wonder of the stories it holds
And the history it knows and I never will,
Who else has made you sweat like this?
Who else have you laid beside you, 
And over you, and locked in your arms?
How many have held you like this,
And how many more will come after?
How long will you hold my essence
In your lungs, and let my smell linger 
In your pillowcase and bedsheets? 

After these feelings come to pass
Like seasons do, swelling like tides
From this to that, will you think of me
As I do of you? Will I be more 
Than just beads of sweat collecting
At the nape, treading down your back?
You see, your name leaves through my lips
Familiarly, like they were made to whisper it.
Maybe it's not insane to let emotions rest
On my tongue and leap off my lips
Like I have let them do in front of you.

Will I be more than an abandoned name,  
Or is this all that this will amount to,
This final moment of desperation, 
Of drops dancing down my shadow
Marked so finely against your back?  
My fingers slowly  blending them 
Into your shoulder blades, drying up the past
And absorbing the possibility of this, of us,
Burying the future into your pores
With my eager, hasty fingertips.

Eve awakens

Cushioned by a garden
Her lungs took breath,
Opened up and expanded
To air,
Unfolding she stretched
Outside of herself
Felt dirt, grass, flowers,
Silent on their names.
She let her fingers
Reach down, and she shuddered,
A gasping of breath,
Let her hands run up
To her lips,
Forcing them open,
And whispered
Eve.

Adam Feeling
Variation on Adam Thinking

I feel a stitch at my side
A missing piece, a hollow part of me,
And there is a rumbling,
A movement,
A hushed gasping of your name
Slowly rising
Perching itself on my tongue.

I bring my hand close,
To hold the absence.

I speak of you inside me,
Too new to call,
So I come back to myself
Touch my side,
To search,
And find you kneeling there
Settled knowingly in the hollow.

You offer up your lips,
Pour them over me,
Like libation,

And whisper
a silent prayer
Across mine,

And I
Bathe in their glory.

How honored I am
To know
The chapped, raw flesh -  

Oh how blessed
To know their taste.

Eve is tempted

Honey voiced sooth sayer
Speaks like seraphim do
Curling itself amongst branches,
Undulating body throughout leaves
And amongst stars slips its tongue
Into her ear as she sleeps
Making her itch for something,
Making her miss what she does not know.

Apples           Apples             Apples
She dreams of her fingers lacing around
Red shiny skin,
Her teeth picking at its' flesh

Apples

They haunt her, and a snake
Calls her to its branched haven
And her tongue is at a loss
To voice what she does not know.

I awoke to only one ******* 
In bed today,
And none for me
To service.

i will never be
as great
as the greats
so i find solace
in their words
etch them in my bones

to know them

and i feign
artistry
for the sake
of ego

I want to memorize
the angle your thighs make
when they spread open for me.

Musing of a prayer at almost 22

I don’t know you.
My tongue can’t bare to move
Itself to speak
To you anymore.
If you are there
Show me,
Take these words
And prove me wrong.

1.

Let me dig my roots
Up and out of your taut flesh,
You are salted soil.