I encourage you to abandon your faith
imagine the uncondonable
do the unpardonable
and rest in the arms of father mountain

I encourage you to go beyond your thoughts
appeal to your animalistic self
let go of your inhibitions
and tear me up in bed

I encourage you to try the impossible
reach the corners of your body
where pleasure is indigenous
where there will never be colonization

I encourage you to learn a new language
to not be patriotic
and worship your own flesh
resist majoritarian temptation
and dig an altar to yourself

I encourage you to love me
without strings, with no chains,
corral me, make me struggle,
and deep your soul within my veins

love me whole
sin fragmentations
love me across borders
without concessions
with negotiations
and complications

I encourage you to love.

Papi, we won't struggle no more
I promise you
it will be fine

papi, i'm gonna buy a car
and take you out to look at the stars

u won't have to ride the bus
with all them weird fools
(they probly think we are weird as **** too)

papi,
your skin is like the sky at night
do u remember how I held on to your back?
(but u never called back)

It won't go away
it negates me
and it remains
imperialistic and entitled
penetrating my nostrils
my eyes
my senses
my memory

this pain
is like that ***** stain
you left on my bed
(it won't wash away)

When your lips touch mine
they share centuries
historias enraizadas
struggles, shy moans
star dust
desert cactus
ocean

when your lips touch mine
I can hear the ocean's roar
I can feel one thousand waves under my toes
and I want you to hug me
for hours

when your lips touch mine
I forget anger, and lust,
I feel found and lost
lost and found
(and something deep and profound)
when your lips touch mine
I see the sky in your skin
in see the sea in your eyes
I feel the warmth of desert's sand


when your lips touch mine.

You are beautiful to me
your eyes, you hips your lips
the warmth of your smile
the subtle of your embrace
your skin
your laughter

even when you're a mess

you are beautiful to me
you are beautiful too
you are beautiful
you are
you

Because i'd rather avoid you, delete you, ignore you
because the last thing I wanted to was to find myself in the middle of the night before a full day of MEChA activities and workshops writing you a ******* tragic melancholic pathetic love poem
which makes me angry and sad at the same time
talk about intersectionality

because it's hard to survive
and I want to live
and feel loved
and I feel you take me for granted
and in order to honor the love I have for you
I need to let you go
until I can love you as a friend

you taught me to love you without limits
and that's so hard to unlearn

because I learned to wait, to listen, to save, to not expect, to serve, to accept

because I refuse to go on and pretend this love doesn't exist
because I can't be your best friend
comadre, sister or whatever the ******* call it

because you make me feel little, ugly, betrayed, silenced, guilty, unwanted, dependent, anxious,

and because you always expect a reason from me
mientras como de tu plato hondo de soledad y silencio

because I want you to cry like I cried
feel what I felt
believe what I believed
know what I once thought I knew

because I need me whole
and you taught me to love me in fragments.

Because I love you, and love like that is so hard to unlearn. Any theories for that?

The last poem you wrote me

I folded.



A drop of honey at the center

a small piece of cinnamon

A red ribbon

a good bye…



then, left it in the freezer

all the way in the back

behind the popsicles and the personal pizzas



hoping my love for you will freeze

and be kept there

safe and cold

until is time

to snack on it

again.