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I really wanna write pretty ****
Like about birds singing at night
or the tired steps of the one Mexican maid
as she passes by my house before and after work

I want to write pretty ****
About my mother’s resilience
Her words of encouragement
And the sound of defeat in her “mijo no tengo ni pa’ la leche”

I want to write pretty ****, academic ****, deep ****,
About beautiful man of color
Trying to be anything but black or brown
Girlfriends claiming their white side
The silencing of accented voices
I am dying to write pretty ****

I want to write about her big *** eyelashes
And her fierce makeup
And how her face was flawless when they found her laying there
In a poodle of blood
Why would anyone **** someone so pretty?
It’s as if they hated pretty ****
Like the color of brown and black skin
And green trees and ****
Why do they like to **** pretty ****?
Like spirituality and native languages?
And they give nobel peace prizes to ****** up institutions with ****** up policies that push people to desperation, bomb them, starve them, and at the end blame them,
They like to blame pretty **** too

I want to write pretty ****
Like waking up to the bright sun
And driving by the day laborers at home depot
Some of them look so hopeful, and some of them so defeated
Some of them sleep beneath the little tree on the parking lot
Why do you illegalize pretty people?

Ain’t freedom pretty and injustice ugly?
Then why don’t we write about justice and ****
About the caribou not having to be fenced
And native land returned to indigenous peoples

Why don’t we claim our inner beauty
And recycle all them ****** up magazines filled with cropped bodies treated as money, souless bodies,
The fashion industry is ugly

And why don’t obama talk about pretty ****
Like reparations and wealth redistribution
And getting rid of Deportations, Deportations that’s some ugly ****
it ain’t got to be so complicated

knowledge should be available

free and running like water streams and ****



love should not be incarcerated

neither should dreams be lacerated

amongst barbed wire fences and ****



no body parts should feed the desert

no last breaths should be taken at the edge of dreams



why is it gotta be so **** complicated?

Filling out papers and ****

Singing hymns and chants to the empire

            Why should some hide their red

            While others call it patriotism?

Yet, the sinister of their practice is glorified and praised and ****

Praised like Jesus.. en el nombre de Cristo Jesus



A pregnant woman left to starve

            While pedestrians watched

                        And children recorded

Children,

            Children beaten by life

Children who beat other children unconscious

Drug dealing children

            ******* children

                        Illegal alien children

Poor children

                        Poor colored children



Why has **** got to be so complicated?

We as a society feed off their flesh

Their voice, their fall from grace

We feast off their broken spirits

Cash checks over their corpses

And we demand more



What type of society are we

            That we demand doom

                        While claiming privilege and ****?
Malinche
Traitor to my race
As I dig into your white thighs
as I dive into your body
500 years of colonization
Your blue eyes
blue like the oceans your ancestors crossed to invade
invade the land I call home
just like you invade my thoughts, my flesh, my desire

Malinche
traitor to my cause
as you kiss me i keep thinking
will i be one of them?
one of the men of color accused of not dating his own, loving his own, desiring his own
buying into the "pa' mejorar la raza" narrative

Malinche
as you are laying over my chest i keep pondering
if it's ok to desire you
to hold you
to tell you you are beautiful
and i wonder how many times you've been told that
by someone like me

so i fall asleep in your arms
wake up in the middle of the night and asked you to leave

Malinche
traitor to my desire.
Yo quiero ser la otra:
La que escondes de noche,
La de paseos en coche,
La de cosas prohibidas,

Quiero ser la querida:
Por siempre tu derroche,
Cómplice en tus huidas,
La que lame tus heridas
Y sabe mirarte a los ojos
(Cuando ni tú mismo te reconoces,)

Jamás ser la oficial,
Ni la de la silla presidencial,
Ni la santísima catedral,

Yo:
Yo quiero ser templo escondido,
En medio de la sombra del suplicio,
A donde llegas hambriento y cansado
A ofrecer tu sacrificio,
Tu amor
Sin derechos, ni beneficios...

Caemos lentamente al precipicio,
Donde dicen que de allá uno jamás vuelve,
Una sombra roja nos envuelve,
Dicen que ahí es donde los pecados se absuelven,
Ahí, donde te conocí,
En ese bar de mala muerte,
De la mano de aquel con el alma rota...
Yo quiero ser la otra.
que piensas de la noche..
cuando yace callada
eterna y desvelada
como bohemia dormida
;
las estrellas colgadas
en aquel libro *****
son iguales que versos
son como una caricia
;
los arboles ya secos
alzan sus pobres brazos
intentando tocar
un pedazo de cielo
;
las aves se acurrucan
en las tristes palmeras
los carros pasan secos
como aire en primavera
;
lo opaco de la noche
me llena de cenizas
los techos y las luces
luciernagas que pintan
;
pintan mi invierno triste
lo llenan de resina
y yo me sueño libre
como la noche fria
;
la noche nunca pregunta
siempre llega campante
invade cada parte
sin dar explicaciones
;
la noche se destaca
por ser bien libertina
la noche es un poema
repleto de caricias
;
las estrellas colgadas
del libro de la noche
vamonos a lo oscuro
vamonos a otro mundo
vamonos en un verso
al lugar mas profundo
al ***** de la noche
al lugar mas oscuro...
Babe you are worse than late night ****
Sinful like fried chocolate cake
Ironic like chicken and waffles with a diet coke
Or using lard based dressing on a salad

You bad
Like menudo without lime
Like hot cheetos to my kidneys

My desire for you is like:
That nostalgia you feel like a lump in your chest
The first time you smoked ****
The first time you came
The first time you fell in love

I’m sad cuz you ain’t here
And glad you’re far away.
It's late to believe in sunshine
after dawn
why not think about the endless possibility of darkness
for instance, last night
when you slept in my arms
as I licked your face
Literacy
“Please don’t tell anyone
My husband beats me…
I am undocumented, I don’t speak English…
And my child, el pobrecito thinks he’s the only one who can defend me
He thinks he’s the man of the house…”

His eyes get lost on the spotless white wall,
Thinking if his dad got home…
Yelling in that cursed language his mom can’t understand,
Language becomes a violent beast coming out of his dad’s mouth.

A monster that smells like alcohol and burnt tires,
Feels like broken glass, blood… and fear,
And he ain’t there to stop it.

What if his mom is calling him for help… in Spanish?
And he’s there instead,
Encased amongst all this English and them four pristine white walls,
“What are these letters good for if they won’t save my mom…” he thinks.

A teacher tells him
That he should learn how to read in English…
He then could teach his mom,
And one day she could defend herself from the beast.

He devours below-his-grade-level books.
Each letter: a weapon.
Each word: a shield.

And he begins to believe that through knowledge he could save her.
Every time he writes a word
He imagines himself as a victorious warrior,

The beast is tamed,
And his mom will one day be safe.

Yesterday he smuggled words inside his old torn backpack,
Stole a fruit cup and the entire alphabet, took them home.
“Here ama, this is for you!
One day you’ll talk so much English you’ll be free.”
Llora palestina, llora
Llora gaza
Lloran las fronteras
Supuran sus llagas llenas de cantos de injusticia
Largos cantos de dolor que emanan de las entrañas

Llora Honduras, llora El Salvador, Llora Nicaragua
Tus hijos los más pequeños montados en bestias
Huyendo de otras bestias, rodeados de bestias
Hacia la bestia padre
Padre de todas las bestias (solo basta recordar para entender)

Llora México entre plomos y promesas
Llora el indio en la sierra
La mujer en costa chica
El campesino en la huasteca
México un plantío de drogas y de sangre
Donde los ricos se hacen más ricos
Y los pobres valen menos que las balas que los matan

Llora la Tierra, Onile, la Pachamama
Entre lenguajes hegemónicos y pueblos sublevados
Hace mucho que nadie la escucha
Solo los indios y los brujos con sus hechizos
Pero pronto volveremos a poner la frente al piso
Para oír de cerca lo que reclama.
Los dioses moriran, lo dijo un viejo sabio, con un tono de agravio y un poco de ansiedad
los dioses moriran, porque no hay sacrificio, y solo por beneficio se mueve en sociedad
los dioses moriran, y sus conocimientos, sus treintamil ascentos y su conformidad
los dioses moriran, un tanto por olvido, el otro por descuido de la ingrata humanidad,
los dioses moriran, que dioses tan humanos, quizas algo mundanos, y un poco de maldad
los dioses moriran, entre piedras del rio, escencia de rocio y fragancia floral
los dioses moriran, cantaran los ateos, suplicandole al cielo que vuelvan a brillar,
las estrellas del cielo, el sol y su cautelo, la luna y su desvelo, las corrientes del mar,
lo alto de la montana, el verde de las plantas, pero sera muy tarde
los dioses moriran.
We live galaxies away
thinking of different things
chasing contrasting dreams
you... you run towards the light
while I ponder about it in darkness

You know...
I too have learned how to tame my shadow beast within:
the one you tend you unleash
with that luggage filled with insecurity
and lies...
...and secondary places in your life
(meanwhile I am your primary care
your home, your flesh, your receptacle of tears
your plate, your soil, your forgotten sketchbook)

how far away are you?
I wait for this chess game to restart
so we can go at it once more
waiting for a different outcome
with no plan b
without a care in the world of what can be
and contrary to advice
good customs and common sense
I will make the insane decision to submerge myself again
in love
Love is beaten out of us

Every particle that begs to stay

Every little bit

Mercilessly we chip away each memory

And fill it with venom

Because it makes more sense not to love

I’ve come to the conclusion

That perhaps loving is harder than forgetting

I want to be in love with you… and never forget.
Make love to me in the suburbs,
on the back of a random gas station,
under the starry sky,
inside your beat up red car.

guide me through cold and darkness
for I cannot see, for it is hard to feel,
between all this numbness.

take me, by my love handles,
rise me up to the sky, constantly,
like an offering to our fragmented goddess,

make this a new form of prayer,
where sighs and moans
are sacred words
from millennial, heavenly languages.

Make love to me in the suburbs,
on the back of a random gas station,
under the starry sky,
inside your red, beat up car.
Bury the seed of my love

Deep in the heart of the earth

Let me be a distant memory at best

A big tree with huge arms

So you can sit under my shadow

Whenever you feel tired, or sad



Let me be your manantial
Indeed

I needed to hear it, listen to it, see it, touch it, and feel it

I can’t just work by memory

Because if we think about it

How many memories of love do we have?

They are so few that I hang on to them with all my might

Pero cuando es solo una persona con el peso del recuerdo, it hurts.



And since I love and approve of myself como dice la Louise Hay

Today I forgive you and I let you free

And with that I free myself too

I free myself so I can meet someone who can offer me real love

Not that your love was fake, but it just wasn’t fulfilling

Like going to olive garden and not eating bread sticks

The love I envision every morning (that’s around 11 am for me)



Tienes la maña de irte cuando la cosa se pone buena

To walk away from love when it’s the most intense

I grew up with fear

And I don’t want it in my relationship, in my menudo or in my diet coke

And since I’m letting go of **** right now

Mr. Fear, I forgive you too and I let you free

And with that I free myself too

I free myself so I can walk firmly, sin miedo.



You have a wondering eye, why lie? (And so do I)

****, I cheated on you I don’t know how many times

But the difference was I know how to cover my tracks

And I forgive myself and set me free

I cheated myself

Believing that I could find the love I was missing from you

Inside other men’s ****

So I ****** some mean *** ****

But I would do it fast thinking that you were home waiting for me

How considerate of me!

Indeed.
I want to write you a love song

Smooth-slow

And soothing to your ears,,,



I want to write you a love song

That takes you to a moon made out of brown sugar

With giant crimson trees

And big strawberries,,,



I want to rescue whatever romance is

I want this song to touch you

And run down your skin like thick, warm syrup made with rose petals and agave honey

I want you to lay back and listen

Listen to our love song
Monster

Darkness falls amongst your thighs.
I disappear in the middle of the night to search for unfulfilled fantasies,
Long lost dreams, illusions of water-like love that melts away from my hands into a deep and dark blue sea.
I want you to take me to the bottom of obscurity and show me what it looks like there:
Show me the beast (but hold my hand please)

I lay in bed next to you thinking about tomorrow
Imagining that your skin is made of fertile soil
So I plant poems and kisses and water them with my tongue
My tongue
My slip open tongue, accented, venomous tongue
Sometimes I forget to speak kindly
And I become this monster filled with words/lost in desire
Desire to keep you close forever
Yet with enough words to send you away and never think of you again

But all in all I’m just afraid
Afraid of me and what lies at the bottom of this heart full of knots and unspoken truths
This heart that does not trust
But longs to believe every word you say to me,
So I await your words, the touch of your lips and your callous hands every evening …
Praying away my slick tongue, my quick thought process, my heart full of assumptions and a monster made of memories and emotions, memories and emotions, memories and emotions.
Y vendrán tus monstruos a buscarte,
Escondidos en la solapa del pasado,
Recordando aquellos tiempos escaseados,
Donde existías sin necesidad de responsabilizarte,

Y vendrán tus monstruos a buscarte,
Todos ecos de tus gritos y tus golpes,
Alhajados con mil manillas de cobre,
Donde hay llaves que abren lo menos deseado,

Y vendrán todos tus monstruos a buscarte,
Desde el más pequeño y recóndito rincón,
¿Te recuerdas cuando te decías campeón?
Ahora vives haciéndole ofrendas al amor
Esperando que te vuelvan lo invencible

Y vendrán tus monstruos a enamorarte,
Pegándote los labios al oído,
Repitiendo cada prosa ya olvidada,
Con la que te hacías decir que eras un dios:
Los demás no valían nada.

Y vendrán tus monstruos a devorarte,
Como punto final de breve historia,
Llegaran mofándose de tu gloria,
Y no tendrás más que callar
Y volverte una memoria.
Almost like a dream
pa' que quiero el cielo if I could touch you
if I could feel your lips

I can write endless poems over your flesh
with the tips of my fingers
bite your knees
taste your legs
as I hear you sigh... suavecito... y con pausas...
our only language is the tremble of your thighs
your sudden fast breathing
a moan.. or two
your *** over my hair

asi... we stay in passionate silence
almost like in a dream
we speak of broken times
except we do not speak
we write

asi holding you tight
as night waves passed by us
I catch your dreams
you slept
your lips spoke to mine
I learned to hear you with my flesh
never had silence being this sublime

“i like writing with you
it feels like a long poem... one that I enjoy...”
Why do I cry about love when children are dying of hunger?

Why do I feel empty about you, when millions live on a dollar?

Why do I cry about love when mothers are burying their children?



I want to cry for the right reasons

I want to cry for injustice

For wirikuta

I want to cry to my mother, my sisters, my grandmothers and beg them for forgiveness

Forgive all my sexist trespassing, all my alliances to abusive men, all my silences

Forgive all the times you cleaned after me and served me

All the awkward situations I put you into for defending me

And my right to be queer



Forgive me mother

Sisters, aunts, grandmothers, godmothers

For allowing you to be undermined in ceremony

For stepping up and not letting you speak

For speaking the words that belonged to you

For not singing soft enough for your ears



Why do I cry over men who don’t love me

And forget about the women who raised me to be the queer that I am?



So I place these tears as an offering of love

Will you please accept them?



Mother earth

Mother universe

Will you please accept my offering?



Why do I cry over love,

          While others have tears no more?
i want to write a poem

about you

but my mind is blank

my creativity has gone on strike

and my heart beats beautifully

at my own rhythm this time
I wanted you to be welcomed, part of my flesh; I wanted you to be Him
But every single movement repulsed me
I imagined traveling in a bubble and moving up and up and up away…
And there you were, looking up, trying to save me.
Except I didn’t wanna be saved,
I wanted to escape my mistake,
Tell you I secretly hated you without making you hurt or cry,
But I am bad at these things,
I’m so rusty at loving someone,
And even more at pretending to.
So there I said it
Like a silent secret prayer in the middle of the night
Fist to my chest
Forgive me, for I have sinned (not really)
Except that this time, I made sure there was no penitence, just a quick good bye and a pack of cigarettes.
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)
If we were the people of god....
we wouldn't **** our neighbors....
if we were in the promised land....
blood wouldn't be shed....
if god indeed promised the land to all of us (Muslims, Jews and even crazy Christians)....
it might be that he wants us to coexist ....
instead of driving them away and pushing them to the sea....
if Moses was to open the waters again....
who would he guide to ....Eden.... but the destitute of today’s most normalized genocide?....
Those whose rocks are replied with bombs....
Those who we hate, and hate us back....
Those who make a great political slogan (on both sides) even if one side is more ****** than the other.....

Those who we call terrorists as we bravely launch missiles in to their elementary schools....
Because we ought to defend ourselves since we are the people of god....
...But we probably already killed Him on an airstrike.....
Gracias te doy a vos
el canto atroz de las montanas
Llano ensordecedor
Que de nuestro alrededor emana

Gracias viejo profesor
Por cada leccion reprobada
Cada clase repetida
Y la garganta ensangrentada

Gracias amante infiel
Amigo traidor
Lengua azotadora
Hechizo de amor

Porque cada golpe
cada herida
Cada grieta
Me ha hecho no solo mas fuerte
Sino mejor.
Quiero escribirte un poema malescrito
Lleno de errores ortograficos
Un poema hereje a la metrica poetica
Un poema irreverente a la gramatica

Quiero volverme un rebelde asmatico
Tu amante diabetico
Amor antipatico
Ateo y medio psiquico

Lago en sequia
Freemont street sin puteria
Entre azul y buenos dias
Barrio caliente sin policia

Quiero que resientas todas y cada una de mis ausencias
Como la biblia a la ciencia
Opresor a la conciencia

Ser tu desacato
Tu rebelion
Tu desobediencia
Un beso roto en resistencia
Lo contrario a la decensia

Amor sin contrato
Puta con licensiatura
Medio malo y medio ingrato
Inocente y hasta novato
En eso de pasar el rato
Sin que el corazon se enlode
Igual que cuando pisas el fango
Con tu zapato.

No hay poemas simples
Solo poetas nerviosos
Tacos fritos oil's drip
     drop by drop
          skin by skin

i eat the flesh of my own
     taste their blood
          drink their sweat

i become the piece of glass
     that cuts their knees
          as they kneel

i am the extra chili on the sauce

     i'm the rock in the beans
          the high pressure in their veins

               the cents of their paychecks

dry cement on their boots

     in their hands:
          i'm the most hurtful cut

i am a sign in their thoughts
    
     i'm a moment in time

small piece of their soul

     the beggar's ***** clothes

           oil stains in the streets

i am the memories of dirt floors
    jalapeños
      pork skins and sour cream
          the pains of poverty...
xtp
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.
Quiero salir de tu cielo
A otros mundos más felices
Volar como las codornices
Con nervios, pero con vuelo

Quiero salir de tu cielo
A otros campos más bonitos
Andar descalzo y solito
Lejos de cualquier recelo

Quiero olvidarme un momento
De serpientes y puñales
Y dormir entre nubes blancas
Como las de las postales

Quiero salir de tu cielo…
En sueños yo te salvo sin querer,
Y vuelvo hasta el antaño en un segundo,
Pensando en lo vano, en lo profundo,
En lo sincero y en lo vagabundo;
Y cuando tú apareces, mediodía,
Con el sol paralelo a tu sonrisa,
Desarmas las estrategias y guías
Y ganas la batalla por un día.
De noche yo te abrazo de costumbre,
Buscando el calorcito de tus brazos,
Escondiéndome como un niño en tu regazo,
Huyendo realidades con engaños.
Y a veces tú me miras "diadeberas",
Te das cuenta que existo y me liberas,
De lo mortificante que es quererte,
Sin a veces saber que puedes verme.
Quizás yo por mi letra y mis consejos,
Debería de quitarme de complejos,
Buscando algún guiño en aquel espejo,
O una señal de vida en tus montañas.
Yo soy expedición de vez en cuando,
Y tú un dios que se esconde en el ocaso,
Me vuelvo eterno como el firmamento,
A ver si en tu creación te pertenezco.
No quiero ser tu vida o tu sustento,
Ni tú necesidad semi-quimera,
Quiero ser tentación y vicio eterno,
Ser algo como una suave condena.
Vivimos entre espuma y medianoche,
Entre miel que nos cubre los adentros,
Llenando poco a poco los silencios,
Yo me lleno de ti
Y tú
Me salvas luego.
Spanish Español Chicano Xicano Latino Love Amor Poema de Amor
En sueños yo te salvo sin querer,
Y vuelvo hasta el antaño en un segundo,
Pensando en lo vano, en lo profundo,
En lo sincero y en lo vagabundo;
Y cuando tú apareces, mediodía,
Con el sol paralelo a tu sonrisa,
Desarmas las estrategias y guías
Y ganas la batalla por un día.
De noche yo te abrazo de costumbre,
Buscando el calorcito de tus brazos,
Escondiéndome como un niño en tu regazo,
Huyendo realidades con engaños.
Y a veces tú me miras "diadeberas",
Te das cuenta que existo y me liberas,
De lo mortificante que es quererte,
Sin a veces saber que puedes verme.
Quizás yo por mi letra y mis consejos,
Debería de quitarme de complejos,
Buscando algún guiño en aquel espejo,
O una señal de vida en tus montañas.
Yo soy expedición de vez en cuando,
Y tú un dios que se esconde en el ocaso,
Me vuelvo eterno como el firmamento,
A ver si en tu creación te pertenezco.
No quiero ser tu vida o tu sustento,
Ni tú necesidad semi-quimera,
Quiero ser tentación y vicio eterno,
Ser algo como una suave condena.
Vivimos entre espuma y medianoche,
Entre miel que nos cubre los adentros,
Llenando poco a poco los silencios,
Yo me lleno de ti
Y tú
Me salvas luego.
I want us to have a little country together

Made up of scratch paper,

Every inch of it overwhelmed with poems and random thoughts.



No wire fences but pens and pencils waiting to be adopted

Taken into the safety of our hands



Not shores or beaches

But open skies filled with imagination and room

Lots of room to think, and question, and ponder

And question, and ponder

And question and ponder



Books will be our passports

Songs will be our visas

No invasions or wars

Only consensual agreements



Our country

Filled with strange people

You and me.
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)
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.
The world is full of shade and prose
And I don’t know what to do anymore
Audre Lorde said “silence will not protect you”
But I been weaving my silences into a survivor’s quilt
Because I’m tired of surviving
And I’m cold and want to use it as my blanket
Out there in that cold *** world

The world is full of shade and prose
*** workers on boulder highway
Wanna be poets writing in spanglish
White privilege, patriarchy and all
I kinda wish I’d write songs instead of poems
You know, songs about love
But no
Cuz the world is full of shade and prose
Bus stops/stop and frisk
Judgment day enthusiasts/Holocaust deniers
I am tired of “it happened before I was born”
And “I feel guilty but I did not ask to be privileged”
And when I say: Then do something
They ask me “what?”
I reply: NO
The world is full of shade and prose

The chicken never made it across the street
There is so much deconstruction
And so little relief
We will soon end up homeless
And will have to pawn the master’s tools
Or maybe just sell them at the swapmeet
For a dollar or two

I mean who cares as long as we’re in love
If at the end
The world is full of shade and prose.
let your fire burn through me

mark me

be the drum that never ceases to play

the sound that makes life happen

the melody of love



let your rumble be the change that we need to see

let justice rejoice

let us dance at your pace

let us be free with you, my king



the king came back as thunder!

Be the thunder that calls our hearts to fight against injustice

Be the song that reminds us how to struggle

Be the fire within our souls, and have mercy over our enemies.

Ashe.
She held him tight
While her baby said
“Sometimes I wonder if god loves us anymore”
She replied “She does, but some men won’t”
And she held him and went to sleep forever under the stars.
Short Film

Scene:

I wished for these minutes to be frozen,
Paused-while-in-motion, congealed, kept eternally intact,
Like a slow-mute-black and white movie in constant repetition,
I, surrounded by your arms: an eternal art installation.

You sparked a procession within me,
All’the sudden… I remembered,
I recalled that which I did not care to forget,
Just like when I would memorize them old romantic Mexican movies grandpa used to watch,
I replayed every dialogue thinking that one day,
I would ride away into the horizon on top of a white horse locked into Pedro Infante’s arms.

Short film:
One which owns no plot,
No cathartic ending or even a narrative of love,
Random flicker of time,
Broken words and missed flights.

I apologize; I tend to arrive late to everything,
Including your life,
My bad.

Short film:
That long lost sense of belonging,
A plant with dumpy roots searching desperately for soil.
Somehow you triggered and meshed some recollections,
You know…
I have not felt someone caressing my mind at the same time as they desire my flesh.
Lost in lust: A short scene between your legs,
A brief script amongst our lips.

Melting glacier within
Resting ***** face
And cut…
It is not my story to tell:
Languishing dreams in the midst of barbed wire fences,
Fearless laughter,
We add lemon, chile powder and salt to this border.

They carry these stories,
Heavy as a sack filled with indignities,
Weighty, like your grandmother’s advice,
Cumbersome, like this daily mental displacement.

I have not bought big things as of lately,
In my mind I plan my exits,
I constantly check my relocation fund,
“What if” is a constant in my lexicon.

I often break in tears at the sound of an immigrant story,
My emotions become gallons of water:
broken and splashed by the boots of immigration officers,
Little do they know, we are cacti:
Tough and our seeds also flourish post mortem.

I want to sing an immigrant song:
Less like butterflies who migrate,
But more like dislocated nations,
Collateral flesh, caught up in steel thorns.

Rest assured we will survive,
Like leaves of siempreviva,
Even after torn away from our stem,
We will grow our own roots:
Defiant, resilient, and with a stubborn willingness to belong.

We are you.
I wish I was unbroken, without baggage, and free
I wish I could make you a house out of cardboard and dreams
Take away all your worries, rip and recycle bills
If only I could hear you singing to my ear… before I go to sleep

With you I’d:
Ride the bus towards freedom
Walk into alleys of autonomy
Streets where we could freely hold hands
Cover you with bed sheets filled with poetry written by our skin

I wish so many things… but now, it’s my deepest desire to feel you next to me.
I wish it was a lie. I’m gullible, you know… I still believe in love, yes, even at first sight.
You spark:
a chemical reaction in my brain
that is hard to control or forget,
waves of energy from my love handles
to my fingertips

and I have to tell you
once again
that I love you
and that you make me feel crazy things
Your eyes like your destiny ever-changing

I was getting to know you

I don't know you anymore



Leftovers, unfinished conversations, longing, wanting, needing,

You wanted to be selfish, self centered, goal oriented

I wanted to be held, caressed and felt



You left slowly, fading away like a spirit after a séance

leaving me with the need to cleanse myself

of your leftover emotions, your demons, your denials



Agua con añil de la palangana, flores blancas, colonia...

    " Me voy a limpiar, me voy a limpiar, con el agua del rio, con el agua del mar... "



I rise above my wants

my needs and my desires



While I am made of flesh

spirit never expires

you do and so do emotions



I will hold on to nothing that's not worth waiting for

you eyes forever changing

my eyes forever brown.



" Se van los seres, se van los seres... "
We’re not supposed to be
It ain’t our moment

Even if suddenly you think of me,
And if dream after dream
Life keeps telling me
To keep my promise,
Some days I’m feeling weak
Some days I’d rather walk
Some days I fly to you and don’t want to come back
And some days I hate you deeply.

I often lose my self
And cannot find me
Then you ground me
Your grind me
And throw me back at the sky
(Why can’t I remain in your arms?)
Sus manos tejian poesia, como torteaba, como cosia, como ella hacia para que el chile se convirtiera en su sinfonia, como ella asaba chiles serranos, como sus manos tejian poesia...
Why do you hold on to nothing
as if it meant the universe (to you)
their doctrine: encrypted in your mourning
as if god had branded your soul
to remember (only what/when/where you are expected)

reminiscing about those days (that never happened)
illusions
restitution of dreams
and forgotten pasts (that you've chosen not to remember)
believing lies that make you feel warm inside
because that's what you're made of (according to 'you')
not acknowledging that what we are constructed of is constant transformation

so you remain in delusion
because comfort is more familiar than revolution
and even within the confines of this so called movement
your sight is not set on the walls (as they crumble)
but on the ground
because the sky is too high
and your mind is too little
or at least that's what they told you (and you believed them.)
The border to me
XUAN CARLOS ESPINOZA-CUELLAR·WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2015
  
The border to me is a constant anguish,
A big pause button,
Often in dreams I dream of Mexico as my lover
And he waits for me,
And waits.
The border to me is my grandma’s rosary,
She said she’d hold on until I could go back,
Until she couldn’t.
I recently found out that for years she’d scold my cousins for using my table games “he’s coming back, and he’ll ask for them…”
And she’d save t hem in her old, rusty closet.
The border to me is a big pause button,
I often dream of going back,
Who will I be then, when I hit play?
Who will I speak with to recover my grandmother’s prayers,
To collect 12 years of unclaimed hugs,
All the wrinkles and gray hairs I missed on her hair,
And every step I couldn’t walk by her.
But one day I will cross back,
In the middle of songs and candles I will conjure her spirit,
And I will look in the back of that old closet
Where she saved my table games
And there I will find her love
And her songs, her advice, her songs,
And the little pieces she left for me, hidden for me,
When she envisioned the day
That this pause would be over.
The girl with the unpronounceable name
the long *** name
the foreign name
the made up name
the name filled with poetry, memories of war, the name that sounds kinda like when somebody runs away, the name that only her mother knows how to pronounce, fully, syllable by syllable as if she was telling a story (she really is telling a story tho.)  Her mother, she calls her spirit back to her body, old/ancient rituals, spells, foreign foresty magic, she calls her name.

the girl with the unpronounceable name
her eyes get lost sometimes
she screams
and kicks
and people say it's because she remembers

so we pray that one day we can learn her name
and help her to forget
the war
the inner wars
the wars within
wars as lengthy as her name
and as painful as her exile.
el hombre que yo amo

ni sabe que lo amo

he doesn't dream of justice

he's not even conscious

even if i'm meters away

he can not see me

he's blindfolded by social constructions

..

the man i love

doesn't notice

que desde hace tiempo

my love has been receding

he can't look me in the eye

for he is afraid to see his reflection

the man i love

is full of fears and demons

..

el hombre que yo amo

is totally imperfect

he's not even my type

too low for my expectations

easy to forget

hard to keep loving

yet something inside

deep inside

keeps revolting

..

el hombre que yo amo

no sabe que lo amo

tal vez le importa mierda

si me voy al con~o

..

deep inside he knows it

deep inside he feels it

but he's such a ******* coward

weak

and full of *******

..

el hombre que yo amo

..

mas bien

el hombre que quien sabe si lo amo

worships indoctrination

colonized perspectives

he's materialistic

he can't see beyond flesh

sometimes i even wonder

if he has a spirit

..

el hombre que yo amo

como un gran pendejo

vale pa' pura verga

no se ni por que lo quiero

i guess that says a lot about me

very ******* telling

..

i'll turn on a candle

and do a little prayer

para asi olvidarlo

..

el hombre que yo am
Papeles pa’ que los quiero

Si tengo mente pa’ pensar

I think therefore i resist

My humanity is not made of plastic, ink, paper or congress



It’s made of flesh, soul, sangre



Who will be a citizen?



            Silent tongues, grateful bowed heads, patient hands, traumatized spirits, beaten souls, tired eyes, tinted dollar bills, recycled cans, college degrees. Corporate dreams.



Who will you have to become now?

How many more masks should you wear?

Where will you leave your soul at night? Before the sun shines and you go off to Corporate America, soulless and blind.



Will you also be genetically modified? Layered, self censoring resistance thoughts… who will you be? Who will you have to be now?
My eyes feel heavy

Simmering and hot

Like the canela I drink to lower my blood sugar



I dream of you leaving

Entering that hotel

And me: motionless, helpless, and waiting



You want to eat the world

And I want to eat with you

You want to fly and feel

I want to fly and feel you: your heartbeat, your breathing, your stories…



I want to love with you

I want to believe your words

I want to hold your lips sacred



May be I am not as open minded as I thought I was

Maybe it’s my internalized sexism

Or maybe I learned to hold on to what I love with all my might and strength

And maybe I just don’t know how to love

But I want to re-learn it ******!



I want to hold you

And warn you that what’s out there ain’t always cute and cuddly

That these men we call our lovers will tell you anything

Make you lose whatever little dignity you have

Whatever little love you got left

To fill you up with their flesh, *****, lust, damage.

I’ve been with these men, these men we have fantasies with, these men that will touch us but won’t feel us, **** us, but won’t kiss us, **** us but won’t hear us. And you dream of these men, and you touch yourself thinking of these men, but these men will never make contact with your deeper self, con tu espiritu, con tu corazon.

Not to say I’m not possessive, overwhelming and impatient.  I just want to hold you under the rain, and let you know it’s ok to be wet, but not soaking the whole day (pretending to be dry.)

Good  Night

All to say, our mother’s are right: be careful out there.
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