Web

I have spider webs in my stomach
It's almost beautiful
the way they twist and weave
invisible fibers
stretch up to my throat
and tighten;
circles around the heart
and strings through my vulnerable
systems.
Glisten - weave -
then leave me alone.

Mangroves have feelings too.

The mangrove stretches its roots above the water and folds its gnarly legs to its trunk, like a child cradling his knees under his chin. The roots anchor reluctantly like the tips of curled fingers tapping below the surface of opal sea foam.

Think about it.

Love is the ultimate masochism.
Delicate
Precariously balanced
a tea cup
warm
and seductive
sweet
inevitably tips
Pieces of glass
I run to it
hold it tight to my heart
Pieces of glass
breaking my skin
I hold them close
and cover with kisses
Pieces of glass
breaking my heart
Love
is the ultimate
masochism.

And there will be wailing and grinding of teeth

Treachery
disguised thinly as
debauchery
fools no one
and it is known
that fools
reside in the house
of mirth,
and the wise
dwell in the house of
mourning.
But when morning comes
so slowly I
wonder what was
worse:
the agony in the garden
or the torture on
the cross?
Judas
must you
betray me
with a kiss?
A crown of pity
A crown of thorns
A crown of revelry -
they say wine
poured from
his wounds
-blood and water-
-a feast at the table-
Some wounds sting longer than others.
Thanks be to God.

I've decided...

I've decided that I am going to run away with a young sea captain with squinty eyes and sun-bleached hair and beard-stubble, and we're going to live on a house boat and sail the seven seas, catching things such as lobsters and conch for our meals and we'll wash it all down with tropical-punch Kool-aid and we'll see the entire world through salty-ocean-spray-lenses and our skin will turn into leather and we'll be somehow beyond human-half human, half fish -- because we'll spend approximately 33% of our time in the water, punching sharks in their stupid flat faces if they dare to come near, and every night I'll get to watch the stars from the deck of our house boat and I'll tattoo the night sky on my body with freckles and between my adaptation to the choppy terrain of the open sea and my shark-self-defense, I'll become so tough and strong that I'll be unrecognizable to my squishy self now that cries during the "Little Drummer Boy" song in a children's Christmas pageants.

The Sky Above The Island

The night sky is so dark that it appears to be ink, in which all light of cities and sounds of civilization sink into its endless depths, beyond the surface of the atmosphere into the silent vacuum of space.

The angels cast handfuls of stars across the surface of the raven sky and float in clouds of nebula and shine in diamond studded pictures of connect-the-dot mythology.

The treasure of the night sky (above the islands) is the tropical orange moon, rising above the ocean with ethereal grace and Christ-like substance.

And far below the salty breeze and bits of maritime debris decants the bitterness of me.

Perplexing

They say that
"comfort is the enemy of change"
but I'd say that the enemy
of comfort is change.
A mirror reflection, perhaps
but beware the back luck
of the broken shards of a
looking-glass.
Look into your reflection
and be honest what you see
beyond that pretty face
the mask of
plastic
smiling and smiling and smiling.
I'd say to check your priorities.
Bullshit isn't flattering.

Neurotoxic

Extracting venom from a serpent
is simple
press its face
softly
fangs sink into
a vile
and catharsis happens.
A catharsis
of poison.
But a woman has
no fangs
that one can see
and she can only
hold it in
until
her body tingles with
its potency
till out her pores
the venom pours
and searing eyes
and silent cries
and she's found coiled
on the floor.

Sojourn into Childhood

After a turbulent end to the semester, I find myself traveling 800 miles across the US with my parents, my sister, and my 10 year old brother to the sunny state of Florida. In a car. So far we've discovered the most complicated ways to order Subway and to arrange blankets, pillows, and bags of snacks in the overly-packed vehicle. We had car trouble not even a third of our way down south and had to stay in a hotel that was also housing a couple hundred drunken monster-truck rally fans. (I was prepared to fight for my continental breakfast).

The trip is highlighted thus far by Erika almost popping one of our tires on a curb, me almost killing everybody merging onto the expressway, and our family pulling up to the wrong house at 1am.

Despite all of the complications and the Beverly-Hillbilly methodology of transportation, I realized that there is nothing else I'd rather be doing, and literally no where else I'd rather be.

My biggest worries right now consist of doing a bit of light reading and figuring out how many sodas I owe Weston. (Stupid "jinx" game...)

This is, in many ways, my last sojourn into childhood.

A choice.

I choose light where darkness infiltrates
and coldness freezes --static-- tears etched in ice.
I choose to cast my soul to the mourning light and past into the afternoon.

Translucent Woman

-translucent woman-
we see her heart
-translucent woman-
and growing fainter
becomes like a cold dark spot in space
blackness blotting out the stars and
pulling in
pulling inward
She folds inward
and disappears into herself
collapsing in her own gravity
And stars streak across time like searing streams of burning light
and mark the face of the night sky
And suns burst with silent swells and beating lashes
And air is sucked from the deepest fabric
of the darkest reach
in the coldest cloud
of the most ancient dust.
And it is this dust that makes her solid,
once more.

Incandescent

I did my best, it wasn't much
couldn't feel so I tried to touch
...
And even though it all went wrong I stand before the Lord of song
with nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah...

The days rolling over into heaps of sand
notes play music, sweet and biting and beads of blood
like rubies in my body a body of jewels and worth and jewels and worth

Don't touch me.

Kneel before the Lord of Love and grovel and beg and uncover yourself from shame and fear and pain and tears and kneel before the Lord of Love.

And when it's right there will be color and maybe butterflies and maybe we'll hear the flutter of angel wings like beautiful turtle doves and we'll all rise with the sun and bathe in white light and sing the sweetness in our souls and drink nectar from buttercups.

And then you can touch me, maybe, lightly, with your finger tips. And that will be all. And we'll watch the white roses wilt and die.

Song of the Earth and the Body

The Earth
hard and molten
water, tears
rock and ice
warm and cold
and flesh and bone
stench and sweetness
from the sunken caves of
our bedrock morals
spilling red of new auroral
The veil of light in
sunrise – sunset
covers and clothes
bodies reposed in
darkness
rich and ample
soft as fleece or
rough like the gravel--
grovel on the road and bed of the refugee--
holding – running – hoping – weeping – searching – running
scarcely resting
pushing back the gun shots ringing
running from the bullets reeling
people falling reaching slipping
waves of bodies crashing – crushing
into beds of sand and stone that sucks its treasure out to sea
beneath the surface our
hearts are beating
every single human body pumping blood
our necks are warm with rhythmic life
our chests are full of swallowed air
our minds are pressed with lines of thought
our eyes are filled reflecting light
our flesh feels out with drifting sense our sins
of self
and what we know
and what we keep
the waving sins
Promethean fire
and pools reflecting
vanish to vapor as you draw nearer.

Run.
I'm going to take your hand
and deliver you from evil.
Run.
Don't stop--
Hold on and don't let go
Run.
sweaty hands
slipping
people slipping
--don't slip--
people falling
never rising
You know you're dead but you keep on going.
You keep going.
You keep going.
Days and weeks
sleeping with eyes open
We do it again--
take my hand, little brother
and cross over
into safety

If I had the head of a hawk and the body of Cher...

You'd better watch out, Cleopatra.

I'm going to steal your kingdom. I'll rid Egypt of your tyrannical grin and set myself, instead, upon your throne, draped in scented fabrics and ornamented with gold and jewels. I'll trifle not with make-up. Rather I'll bare my naked face before all of Africa and before all of Rome and before all of Caesars. Eat your heart out, for my flesh is as pure and beautiful as the forbidden fruit of the garden.

In luxury, I'll suck the sweetness of the Cyprus plant and lie a while on top of the flooding Nile, spreading its glossy likeness of the sky across fertile fields. I'll bring the harvest from my bath, my breathing body a sacrifice to the gods of the pyramids--for they please so easily. Drink up, Horus, the hours of my legendary leisure. This isn't Isis, nor Ra, or Osiris. Eternity only lasts so long.

Song of the Undergrad

Come closer to me,
things in my rented home
shabby and beautiful like the days of my college years
Yield closer and closer and envelop me in the stimuli of the hour;
floorboards creaking like the moan of my growing pains
insulation lacking like the barrenness of my bank account
cold feet
cold hands
cold panes of glass
cold roommates writhing in the throes of monthly hostility
cold bills monthly magneted to a cold and empty fridge
Yield all of these things to the matter of my flesh and rejoice in the tacky and sensual years of budding adulthood

Were all my tuition dollars practically spent on the ruckus of Theatre, what would it amount to?
Were all my grades admirably scored, what would it amount to?
Were all my future plans articulated and tabbed with colorful post-its, what would it amount to?

The 4.0 and the studious and the dedicated and the motivated and the hungry and the lusty and the usual terms. A student like me, and always the usual terms.

I say to you that the piles of lint and hair accumulating on my bathroom floor and on my hallway floor and on my kitchen floor and on my basement floor are more relics of youth than recorded history. I say that I wear my youth and womanhood in the hairs on my legs and under my arms. Damn the razor and its patriarchal conventionality. Damn the infantility of smoothness. I am a woman in my hair and a woman in my sweat.

Neither a pageant queen nor Cosmopolitan daughter am I.
I take no sooner a shower than when I desire, and no less a shower than what I desire...the natural scent of my glorious body is no less magical than the splendor of roses. Than explosions of fire in the sky. Than the first and last sunset upon the planet earth.

When I arise in the morning, sunshine beams from the crinkles of my groggy grimace and birds sing in the heavens. The sight of my white naked body in the bathroom mirror is no less wonderful than the silver sliver of the crescent moon in the early evenings. It is more priceless than any piece of antiquated art cracking with the distortion of age and preservative techniques; encased behind glass. My body is fresh and young. Ripe with youthful vigor. Nourished with the nectar of canned foods and dried noodles.

I am the epoch of 21 years gestation
I am the splendor of my parent's DNA
I am the exemplification of the “glory days”
Every pore excites and mystifies the boys
Every pore excites and mystifies the girls

Where I to behold you, I would praise you with equal exultation, for the freckles on your face and the dirt beneath your nails are remnants of days spent in the sun and hands working to move soil. I say to you, if you choose a life of harvesting carrots over law school, you as wise as Gandhi. I say to you, if you choose to study law and leave the carrots to the recluses of rural and undereducated populations, than you are also as wise as Gandhi.

Have you ever pondered mortality while bushing your teeth? Have you ever scrubbed a stove and uncovered an epiphany of yourself? Have you ever awaken in the middle of the night to find a stranger spooning you in bed? I say to you: these are they days of your most creative and physically attractive years. The presence of your quirks will attract and repulse possible mates; neither hide nor feign anything.

Naturalize your cosmetic face and lounge with me in sweatpants and t-shirts...or if you are male, cast away your razor and nurture a stubble beard and count with me the tiles on the linoleum floor,
the stars in the sky,
the bills on my fridge,
the scars on our bodies,
the socks scattered about the living room,
the cushions on the sofa,
the hairs in the shower.

Convulse with laughter and join me in jovial frippery,
in the brewing of bulk coffee,
in emptying boxes of toilet paper,
in the draining and the rinsing cycle,
in the thawing of cheese pizzas
in the reading of egregious priced text books,
in eating of frozen dinners and the discarding of bags of trash,
in carelessly tossing about magazines and tenderly preserving raunchy cut-out ads of Calvin-Klein models
in the mounting of posters of mountains
in the sorting of second hand clothing
in the steeping of thrift-shop tea pots
in the indulgence of flannel and lace and denim and the indulgence of silky things
and 100-calorie packets
and absurd amounts of ice cream
and secret notes stashed away in dusty drawers
and secret trysts on back yard porches
and picture frames and cork board pins
and laundry bags...soap...and masses of dryer lint
and in clogged sinks and sticky sponges and dirty dishes and broken strainers and dismembered utensils and melted spatulas and ruined muffin pans and the sweet, sweet conundrum of the lowest priority competition...

Happiness is not found in the accomplishment of arduous tasks, but in the naughty, self-serving sensation of procrastination and time well spent.

Epiphany of Lameness

I spent the last two hours washing dishes and scrubbing my stove, and I had the opportunity to be introspective. And I had tiny epiphanies about myself.

1. I haven't watched TV regularly since middle school. The sound of sitcom laugh tracks and intro music--sounds that have become merely background noises-- annoy me.

2. I read required texts for fun.

3. I can't think of a worse way to waste time than by watching cartoons.

4. I like being alone.

5. I hate card games.

6. I procrastinate by cleaning.

7. I can get distracted by something and end up spending hours micromanaging something that doesn't matter.

8. I get turned on by marginal notes.

9. I found myself birthday shopping for a friend on Amazon.com. I was about to buy him a grant writing book. In only stopped because I was inspired to write this blog.

And most importantly...

10. I'm really boring.

This is my public confession. I'm what kids now-a-days might call a "lame-ass." Putting profanity aside, I am bent on making this a positive observation. Maybe there are self-help books for boring people like myself. Maybe I can join a group of middle aged parents or retirees and learn how to play bingo or shuffleboard. It might put some spice in my life. I think I'll pencil that in.

Today

wrapped in time so thinly spread
give us today our daily bread

rest with me

What is love but precious weakness
asleep or restless
let us drink the night-time sky
and listen to its music

11:09pm on a Monday night

regret me not
let not your thoughts
twist into knots
of unrequited idols wrought

all that glitters is not gold
unloose your hold on dreaming cold
enfold in revelry of bold
and do not do what you are told

Match

My candle burns low
melts into a fragrance
soft glow flickers
silence burns low
rich and smooth.
Send me your light
bright and warm
around me
I want to feel you
with my senses
over flow
over joy
over whelm me.

200 years and still
you're beautiful
hands clasped
eyes shut
silent prayer
you speak to God.
Remember me.

Time

Old cross country medals hang on nails, dotting the wall above my self. A small statue of a golden man: Best Picture Comedy, 2006-2007. A relic of high school. My senior year passed so long ago but I remember my thoughts. Four years turned like rising bread. I'm barely old enough to drive, it seems, and yet my license has changed shape and photo.

Time is slick. The prints of my fingertips reveal my identity but refuse to grip the surface. They leave marks, smears to be washed--cleaned away--to be forgotten. Like breath on a mirror.

Time is slick but I am young. I'll hold the mirror to the sun.

Sketches

Peace
a piece of parchment
smooth-blank-promising

God
mighty - unpredictable
like rolling thunder and
sweet rain

Childhood
soft and fleecy
tremulous and fleeting


Cancer
I can't, sir
not now - no pain

Acceptance
Please take this cup
I offer up my suffering

Energy
is found in peace
transfused within embraces
meant to tell you of
the love
that was enlaced
in your creation

Self
----

Pulled

stick-
click-
It's sick how
we attract
Like magic
or magnets
attract
repel
attract-attract
without tact
energize
hypnotize
pulled by poles
feel the force
soft-invisible
moves us back and forth
sharpens upon contact.
Which is north
and which is south?
I've no direction.

Sacrifice

breath-
breath-
breath-
with me
let it be
......the child is delivered now
safe from ocean sounds
Sacrifice-
the sacred cup
the search lights taken up
take this
it is in memory of me
let it be
my body
given up
a father's love
a father's dead
a child lives.
We're looking out for one another
we are children-dread eclipsed
with reaching hands and trembling lips.
Teach me to walk upon the water and hold me
in the Spring.

http://www.wwmt.com/articles/newschannel-1379407-father-nine.html

Nighttime

Ocean sounds
waves crash
disolve sand around my skin
and suck me under
--don't take me under--
...all the way
I'm afraid of the dark
There's no air in my lungs
when I think about yours
soaked, submerged.
God don't let him drown
Don't let me drown
Don't take us in the night--
we've got the lamb's blood on our door.

Confession

I used you.
I'm sorry, it's true
I thought you knew
I thought you did it too.

I used you for the way you made me feel
I used you for the words you didn't mean
I used you for your finger tips and eyes
I used you for your arms, your moves, your looks

I used you for your presence
I used you for your scent
I used you for your awkwardness
I used you for your hair

I used you for your company
I used you for your laugh
I used you for your boyish charm
I used you just for you

And though I know it's said and done
I feel I have to say
that I used you so you'd use me
in every selfish way.

An Ode

Rejection-
a bitter pill
that I have swallowed-
the dreaded draught
that even I,
willingly,
administered to others.

I shrink to think-
the damage done-
by my own hands,
the symptoms fanned:
heart complications,
bleeding internal,
trouble to breathing,
skin flushed inferno.

My director.

A crusty old man was he, with watery eyes rubbed red, and the scratchy white stubble of a beard. He had the altogether appearance that he had crackled out of a dried ocean bed, emerging from beneath shallow sand that stuck to his oily pores. His face, crevices and sun-bleached, splintered like drift wood. His mind was lost at sea.

Spark

Blink--
and you might miss
the cheek that once you kissed.

Stop the rhyming already...

I'm mad at
the static
that's sticking
these sickening
poems together.

To #5

You took me in the light of spring
you broke me in the dim of fall
and now that I have learned to sing
you think that you can have it all.

Piano keys

956.

Gold and shimmering--
I wept tears.
It was a human shape against a crystal sea
when the great light came over me.


957.

Not until the sun rises, warm and orange, gold and shimmering, over the crystal sea, can I see the darkness of the night before the dawn. I slept--was unaware--when the kingdom came.Silence crept into my vision. Shame bleed into cold. I drank the honey of the glamorous and became like the mud; heaving, hiding, hoarding--the silence--was I exposed--uncovered--unknown--a face in millions. I hid because I was naked.

Understand

Be close enough to me that
you can feel
the colors in my heart.
Be close enough to me that I can feel
the color inside you--
and understand.

Stillness

Hush blue bird
flutter not your
sorrows--
ruffle not your
feather tresses--
for stillness is inherent in
the heart when trapped with patience.
Motion is a thing of earth--
not for one in flight.

Apocalypse Now

It is strange, but for some reason, the apocalypse keeps coming up in my life. I hear about it on the radio--a multitude of Christians who listen to JQ 99 believe that Christ is coming again, soon (not a unique disposition, as Christians have been expecting such a coming every generation since the crucifixion), movies are being made about it, but most creepishly--I've been having dreams about it.

The first one was steeped in the book of Revelations. I dreamed that the world was in chaos, and amid the blunder and bustle, a man was sacrilegiously handing out large portions of the sacred host. "Who wants more bread?" Crumbs were everywhere, and arrows seared past my face as assassins attempted to shoot down the Pope. I grasped at the arrows--catching them in mid air, and breaking them in half. Despite my best efforts, the Pope was brought down by a splintered piece.

A couple nights ago, I dreamed the earth was being wrecked by giant hurricanes and tornadoes and my family was forced to flee our home. We left in the van with only a couple of our possessions. Not long after, my parents vanished, and Erika, Ansel and I were forced to act as parents to our little brother, Weston, and a baby that I found. Hiding in the confines of an abandoned house, we shrunk before multiple explosions--staying away from shattering glass and falling dishes. We were exhausted with terror--then finally, after a cataclysmic explosion that pounded the earth to its very molten core, the terror dissipated--burned away like fog by daylight. We rose to the window and beheld a calm ocean where there had once been a highway, and across the ocean was the most beautiful castle I'd ever seen. High towers, silver stone walls, sparkling mist, and a moat of clear sea. In an instant, we blew over the water as feathers in a breath of wind, and clung inside the castle in perfect contentment and shining joy.

Dear Officer 958

Thank you for issuing me a ticket at 11:27am, today. Because of you, I have learned something very important about being a law abiding citizen and a responsible adult, though I don't quite know what it is.
Perhaps the lesson I learned upon seeing the yellow-green ticket flapping cleverly beneath my windshield wiper was that I am a flawed human being. Turning the curious paper envelope about in my hands, assaulted by the bold all-capital text: PARKING TICKET, I was struck with the stench of my own humanity and found myself face to face with 21 years of baggage. Instances of fault that I had refused to acknowledge, and anecdotes illuminating the ontologically wounded nature of my tattered-21st-century-soul, danced like pigmies before my less-than-20/20 vision. I swore. And then I wept. Oh God, I am not perfect. I am not even sort of perfect. I have joined leaugue with the millions and millions of Americans who have felt the tug of shock at the sight of an isued ticket and have cut their veins to satiate the law. I am one of the soiled, one of the careless, and most importantly—one of the ticketed. I see myself clearly, now, as you must have seen me through your cop eyes—dirty, like my oldsmobile, and absently blinking like the parking meter I left unfed. Damn my careless ways. Damn my failure to feed the slots with a couple of quarters. (They presently weigh heavy in the pit of my purse.) Oh that I had fed that metal throat and listened to its tinkering swallow!

I hope the inclosed check will assure you that your streets are now $10 safer—now that you have helped to correct a potential-parallel-parking-menace. Rest well, I am a new person. Reflecting on the matter, I suppose the lesson learned upon the ticket issuing at meter #6027 was no less than a spiritual experience. I hope you, officer 958, are inspired on some kind of level as well. I have only the warmest affection for you, so thusly I shall bid you a good day, and a prosperous career.

Yours Truly,
R.M. Pineiro (Grand Rapids Citizen)

Ancestors of Fish

It is a thin line between failure and success. Indeed, it is chalk-like, smudged, transient--much like the human condition. Human. Flawed-mortal-wounded-ugly-frightening-beautiful-feeling-living-breathing-Human. I am a member of the human race, capable of pity and empathy, thusly separating me from the animals and vegetation. If I weren't divinely created by a God, I would merely exist as a bundle of accidental nerves and fibers, which somehow mutated on its own to form...me. That. Is. Depressing. I cannot accept the idea that my friends' genetic material originated from freakish crawling fish and soullessly developed over millions of years to be the beautiful creatures they are today, demonstrative of complex emotion and contemplation. The light bulb did not invent itself on accident. Neither did human beings. You can recognize, easily, who values you as a unique, beautiful piece of creation, and who merely views you as specimen of inconvenient chance. I choose to utilize the former lens.

Folly and a chase after the wind

Shouting voices,
heckling laughter
peeling and clinking like pieces of metal.
My mind is full of breezing thoughts
and scents of poppies
and petals
stuck to my hot steering wheel
fried calously by the sun,
discolored, dehydrated
as wine seeping through
my fiberous body.
I am a song,
echhoing,
soundlessly,
winding in knots that
choke me dry--
beating cadences into the air
that stack as skeletal structures
sending me into the air--
high like popping petals...
I want to drink your lips for eloqence and transform into a princess.
I need to drink
--instead--
the challace--
blood-red wine to ink away
baligerance,
my humming interest,
and lull me safe to sleep.

Hope.

Hope may be a thing with wings,
but it is also a rusty dodge intrepid
that starts again
despite its empty tank.

Blowing a Kiss

It has been a while since I've written, and yet, it feels the same. Much like a worn glove remembers the contours of your hand and the ridges of your bones. I drove home from Grand Rapids tonight around midnight, and though it's been a stretch of two years since I was a commuter student, my body remembered the stretch of road with its every blinking light and curve. The night air felt soft on my face with the windows rolled down and the radio off. I like to drive in silence in the dark and to feel the glide of the tires over smooth pavement. The road home fit my senses like a glove, enveloping my hypnotized memory in nostalgia for the incipience of college, causing me to stretch my heart strings across the random spectrum of my Aquinas years. Ah, my youth! How it flits into the past...into the future...Let us--like Chekhov--dream of what life will be like in 200--300 years from now! I hope the night air is still soft and dreams, still fickle.

Democratic Republic of the Congo: regarding current events

Say Goodbye

Fingers touching
ringing
tasting of salt-sweat
and dust.
Fingers touch
and feel
this life is real;
this is the world.

A human chain
across the earth
extending beyond flesh--
the dirt on my feet--
that carries me over
deserts.
Walking on fire.
Walking over grassy fields
exposed
as massive graves.

Children lie below me
beautiful, black, babies,
innocent and trusting
reach to me with severed
limbs
buried under shallow dust--
shadows of rust--
like etches of eyes and faces
different races
racing to secure
something more
(machetes and gore).

I am helpless
beaten to the floor.
They step on my back
pull my arms
and bind me with
wire,
cutting like fire.
I
feel
wounded.


Words

These are some words
for the weeping fathers
and mothers
whose hearts have been
pierced.
Flesh of flesh
and blood of blood,
taken by harmful hands:
thirsty,
greedy,
blinded by scales,
blinded by rage,
blinded by affliction--
chemical and human.

These are some words
for those who
call on gravity
to pull their children
back from the grave of
captivity,
who cry to God to
make their daughters safe
from rape
and bitter beatings,
who cry to God to
keep their sons free
from mental manipulation
their eyes from devastation.

These are some words
for all who say
in the dead of night
"come home"
--through tears and
tortured dreams--
"come home"
--as morning pours
like streaming drops--
"come home"
as years choke by
like heaving sobs.

These are some words.


Stain

They say it's
magic oil
that they
slick into my skin:
across my heart
--to stop from feeling,
across my forehead
--to stop from thinking,
across my back
--to stop from resisting,
across my feet
--to stop from running.
Magic oil,
they say,
will make me forget
my family,
embrace abuse,
turn away and
kill or be killed.
This magic oil
will sooth me
into this life,
anoint me from the weakness of my
child's stomach.
This magic oil
didn't
work.
Because I wiped it straight off.

Riddle: What's my name and phone number?

Raindrops flitting from the cloud splotched sky
air
chilly breath from the earth
hundreds of icicles clinging
anticipating gravity's fall
everywhere still--
light lingers thoughtessly.

Pine needles break like tinkering glass
ice
nector of the season
enter into Demeter's bliss
inch the sun's rays, tilt the earth's axis
rake the earth clean
of everything frozen.

Celine Dion Irrationally Enrages Me

Drops on the window
Ice fills the
cracks of the sidewalk
the cracks in my hands.
The mud is soft
but cold.

I wear the mud
on my clothes
across my face
in my mouth.

I am a princess.
Disheveled--
Chagrined--
to the bone.

The worth of words
seduces and eludes me.
If alphbets tasted like crackers,
I'd eat them.
Up.
I'd eat them up.

An Excess of Voice and Ghost of a Flea

Something my professor said today kind of made me sad.

He described our society as the inverse of William Blake's society in pre-romantic England. Nobody expressed their creativity. Imagination was not a prized function of society--in fact, imagination often got people locked up. Had more people actually read Blake during his life, he most certainly would have been locked up--if not beheaded. (Blake would often stop whatever he was doing and gaze into nothingness, saying he was observing something--like the ghost of a flea--and then he'd quickly sketch it on his cuffed sleeve. See http://www.phespirit.info/pictures/patchwork/p008.htm for this sketch)

In our society, my professor pointed out, everyone expresses themselves. Everyone pours out their hearts in a blog and nobody cares. There is an excess of voice.

You might see why this troubled me.

Web

A translucent web of complex connections and centrifugal notions exists between my own brain, and those other minds I have grappled with. Professors, bosses, speakers, lovers—those I've had live conversations with, but those minds, also, that have lived on, long after the decay of their actual matter. Emerson. Thoreau. Fuller. Blake. I stumbled—-mostly blind—-through the tangle of English courses and was surprised to find myself inhaling the sticky philosophy of the “Over-Soul” and spiritual manifestation in the material. Trapped in the glistening fibers of long woven articulation, I fought arduously to understand the fashion of my binds, to discover from whence it came, where it was going, and the figuring in between. (The figuring, of course, is easier to speculate at, then to actually chew. The dizzying illumination of metaphor and allusion helps to taste transcendental thought, but can also intimidate, with the overwhelming saturation of syntax).
I have learned that there is much to learn—from both minds past and present. I can remember an instance when I was 6 years old. I struggled to make light of the cryptic words on a VHS tape. I brought it to my Abuelo, who did not speak English with ease. With heavy Cuban pronunciation, he read “Charlotte's Web,” but I failed to grasp the meaning of his words. Despite our closeness in relation, our minds were separated by a stretch of sixty years and blocked by the barrier of language and a fading culture. I understand, now, the necessity of branching one's web to include the wider array of human thought and understanding, as there is an infinity of human spiritual growth. The interconnectedness of minds and relations, when knit together, may bind all of humanity into a great unification of understanding.

I'd never do elementary school over.

The lunchroom was an echoing chamber of dread. By the time the bell buzzed and my rattling nerves acknowledged the lunch hour, I experienced a mixed sensation of relief and tension. Relief because my stomach felt pangs of hunger (and had begun making those funny dinosaur roars) and tension because I recognized the tyranny of the social hierarchy—of which I was quite near the bottom. Walking into the gymnasium-like cafeteria was like a different kind of dodge ball. Rather than actual lumps of rubber pelting my bony 8-year old flesh, the battery of snooty glances, cutting statements, and cold indifference razed my sensitivity. A cacophony of voices bounced off the cement-block walls and square-grid floor—a mixture of varying levels of high pitched voices, laughter and random bellows. The social pressure smushed me like play-dough into a cowering bunny-rabbit. Clattering trays were background noises as I shrunk onto a yellow circle seat on the very end of a deserted rectangle table. Eyes glued to my squishy lunch box, I hoped that no one would see me. If nobody saw me, they might accidentally sit by me, and other people wouldn't think I'm a loser. Inside my pony lunch pail was a mixture of scents—plastic, peanut butter, cookies, and milk. Relief. No tangy whiff of egg-salad sandwich. If I had an egg salad sandwich I would zip it back up and banish it to the garbage when no one was looking. Egg-salad sandwiches meant scathing shame. Freakishness. Smelliness. Nobody—nobody­--ate egg-salad sandwiches or even knew what one was. Egg-salad sandwiches tasted good when Mommy made them at home but tasted like humiliation at school.
I felt a tug from the table signifying the weight of another human being upon a circle seat. More tugs. More kids. I felt the warmth of a body next to me. Braving a glance, I saw that it was a boy. Suddenly, I didn't want to eat my peanut butter and jelly sandwich any more. I peeled off the crust and nibbled my cookies, instead.

Some love will always be unrequited.

CLARA
I can't take it anymore. I won't take it any more. I've waited so long—I think I'm going to die. Yes, I will die if I don't do it now.
(Pause while she gathers courage and takes a deep breath)
Jeff! JEFF HARTKISS!

Jeff realizes he is being addressed. He moves away from his group of friends and tentatively approaches Clara.

CLARA
(with passion)
Jeff—Jeff Heartkiss—I love you. I love you most ardently—passionately, irrationally, and quite obsessively. I've loved you for three weeks and my heart is yours forever.

JEFF, stunned, has no idea how to react.

CLARA
I first realized it in our Environmental Earth Science class. You sit two rows behind me and three seats to the left of me. That's why I always have my mirror out—so I can watch you. I watch you all the time and I've fallen in love with the way you chew on the end of your pencil when you're thinking and the way you lean your cheek against your clenched fist when you're dozing. So many times have I desired to stroke that cheek. You have no idea how difficult it is for me to stay focused in that class when I have your god-like reflection in the palm of my hands...
(Breathing deeply, CLARA is momentarily too distracted to continue)
Until six days ago I deemed our love to be unrequited, but then, while you were walking to the garbage can to spit out your gum, you brushed up against me...you must know what that touch did to me...you must! You felt it too! I see that blush bepainted upon your cheek! You can't deny the sexual tension fizzling between us.
(Dropping to her knee, CLARA belts)
WE SHOULD BE LOVERS!
(Speaking with reckless abandon)
I want to have your babies. I have never wanted to have a baby before—you are the first man to make me feel like this. For you, I would endure the freakish process of childbirth. I see that you are blushing even more now. Don't worry, I understand, darling. I blush, too, when I think about us together...having—picnics. And feeding ducks together.
(Laughing nervously)
You are feeling so much passion right now, you almost appear to be furious. That gleam behind your eye. How peculiar. It almost seems sharp and spiteful.
(Pause as CLARA bores her stair into JEFF's eyes)
Oh my gosh...you hate me.
(Jerking with the realization)
YOU HATE ME. Jeff Heartkiss, you were supposed to return my love—by every fricking rule of romance—I was so vulnerable.

JEFF, mortified, glances about to see which of his friends were eaves dropping. He shoots CLARA a gaze of disgust and revolt. CLARA slaps JEFF across the face.

CLARA
(Struggles to understand)
Why would you not love me after all I said? I offered to have your babies. I just don't...understand.
(With strength)
You are a jerk. Your heart is stone and you are an obtusely self-centered dumb-ass if you think you can do better than Clara Casmen.
(Suddenly nauseated by his mere sight)
Get your ugly mug away from me and sulk some place else, you infectious knave.

Isn't it ironic?

The philosopher may not be paid for his education, after the degree has been granted, but at least he can watch with curiosity and fascination as the sophism of the materialistic world inbues upon his reality and collapses his availability of food and shelter, thusly proving man kind's inability to create a utopia and progressive future.

I didn't proof read this because I almost passed out.

I'm here to give blood. Aren't I brave? Ha ha, here is my arm and here is my vein! Oh, not yet? I see there are many people here...lying on their backs...with their feet elevated. Isn't this fun? It--kinda smells like blood in here. There are bags...full of blood...over there. Oh wow, isn't that nice? Ha ha, I haven't had a piercing or a tattoo in the past year and I don't think I'm anemic but go a head and prick my finger if you want to--it's just a tiny little prick, after all...Ouch...oh...wow, that uh, that hurt more than I thought it would...

Pause.

No, I'm..fine...I'm just great...I'm going to give b-blood today and get one of those delicious oatmeal chip cookies...-So, how big is the uh the needle that you are going to stick in me? Stick in my arm...in my arm...? Ha ha, I'm just curious? Shouldn't be much bigger than the needle they used to check my iron at the family doctor, eh? (This is so cool, I'm so glad I can help save lives, you know?) Oh, it's bigger? The needle is? A lot bigger? Huh. Well, isn't that...spiffy. And you're going to stick it into my skin..? And, uh, into my vain, and I'm going to squeeze this foam ball over and over again so my heart will pump my..blood faster, while the needle wiggles in my flesh and my blood gets sucked out--warm and salty from inside my body--through this needle and into this jelly looking bag and I'll see it--I'll see my own blood in that bag in front of my eyes when it should be inside me where I can't see it, and I'll be able to smell it and feel it being sucked out of me and even if I want to run away from this place where I can smell the blood and feel the needle suck I won't be able to because I'll be connected to that thing and it will rip me open if I try and even more blood will spill, this-------------

The Sacrimental Mystery of Defrosting One's Freezer

There is so much I need to learn about being an adult. For instance, the term "defrosting one's freezer" completely mystifies me. Why would you ever need to do that? Wouldn't it be a bit counter-productive?

I suppose freezers are like human beings in the sense that they can't take too much of the same thing for too long. Being set at 28 degrees 24 hours a day, 7 days a week can be exhausting, or at least subliming.

Maybe an interval of time in which the freezer is able to melt and purge its crystallized insides (which hasn't seen the light of day in God-knows-how-long) is somewhat like the sacrament of reconciliation for Catholics. After mindlessly accepting the neatly packaged stimuli of the world for weeks at a time, I, personally, come to realize that what I've internalized might be no good. And furthermore, what I've taken in may be taking up unnecessary space, becoming sticky from sublimation or grotesquely disfigured from the crystallization of my frozen world. I realize, every now and then, that I seriously need to defrost the personal freezer of my soul.

My father once showed me a popsicle that he found in the back of our freezer in the garage. It had been in there for four years. By this point, it ceased to be a popsicle and was, rather, a freakish puddle of solid syrup, which had bleed into the fabric of its unopened wrapper and encased the wooden stick in a cryogenic state.

Once it had been cherry flavored. Now, it was just disturbing.

I don't want my soul to become like that popsicle. That popsicle was scary and very sticky.

I want my soul to be fresh--like locally grown veggies lightly glimmering with the morning dew, and kissed by the warmth of the sun.

Perhaps, one day, I will learn to defrost my freezer. Clean out all the stuff I don't need, allow the space to air out in a comfortable temperature to prevent that gross "freezer smell" and to make room for the important things--like ice cream--without it being tainted.

I need to ask my self what's important to me. What do I have room for? And what can I reject that might be holding me back...

Adoration

There is a room
that exists.
It is filled with love.

It glows
Its light is soft as fire
Its flame as light as air

The flame
it dances silently
inside its frosted shrine

Satin shadows flicker bright
between the glimmering strands of light
And then stand still
and do not move
suspended golden light.

Please rest a while.
And do not move
While rapped up in this love.
Your broken heart
Your aching flesh
Are welcomed here to heal.

It is too much
to bear the rest
without rest and peace

A piece of peace
a shred of light
amid the outside's tear

A tear or two
A drink or two
Both comforts--but which is truth?

Truth is which
is here - exists
Invisible and seen
The seam that holds
this world in full
Connected souls though scarce

Please don't be scared
I know it hurts
You're broken but you're here

You've come to Me
this room of love
It's here that you can be.