Paper Sun (Work In Porgress)

Today I slapped a paper sun
on the glass in my window
and addressed the whole crying sky
at the same time
in the most aggressively authoritative
voice I could muster

“Listen, Mother Nature,
I know that this is a rough week for you,
your Aunt Flo is probably visiting
or you watched The Notebook again
or your boyfriend told you
that yes,
you do in fact look kinda chunky
draped in the whole night sky
at the same time,
but you need to know that
today is a beautiful day
because I have declared it to be so.
I have bent your tears back
like Bible page corners
so that people remember
the last time they felt
so filled with warmth.”

Why do we,
as human beings,
feel the need to
make the impossible come true?

The Firefly's Letter To Lady Catherine

The first time
I met his grandmother,
she breathed
Older woman
Like dragon teeth,
Like blow out the fireplace
Cinders roaring down my back like
Spines of illicit novels.
They tell me her name
Was Fahrenheit 451
Before they tore her identity down
Like a banner advertising elections
In Cuba, circa Che Guevara.
She lived her life
In the past tense,
Gripping her morals
Like a purse
She expected you to rape
For the thrill of it.
And it's amazing
That I've never talked
About her before.

My clockwork lover,
how could you be expected to fight
such a poison,
her lace-covered fangs
Guard dog growling
That you had better watch out
For my type,
We're all alike.
Double Xs are always
Trouble on a willow switch.
She hissed that you should
shoot and aim to miss me,
because I was trouble.
No, I was perfectly polite,
my features were passable,
but she read too many spelling errors
in my genetic history books.
She wouldn't have her bloodline
clouded
by my thunderstorm of mutations.

My darling mockingbird,
I was the firefly heart
in a dark cave
that hadn't yet learned to fly,
or glow,
so I sat and let her whisper disapprovingly
about the crooked way I might one day
make babies talk,
walked away from the table
while the rest of them
crushed me beneath
their magnifying glass.
She took him aside
and told him
her loins will only produce
embarrassment on two legs.
When your children slither out
of her fertile land
like perfect vegetables,
you will see that the world is filled
with carnivores
and they'll eat you alive.
Society is a cannibal,
and you have provided them
with a meal unfit for their weakest links.
No, my child born from perfection,
you are no match for her hurricane,
no matter how lovely her stormy eyes are.

Get out while you still can.

You told me this in perfect

even
tones
as if the weather forecast held
as much hold on our future.

Our future,

which you had praised,
hands pressed together,
devout in your most romantic of religions

Love,

you are the most spiritually releasing
of all that ever shall be,
so bring me a baby not pockmarked
by her disease.
It lies dormant in her,
alley-cat aware and ever lurking,
save me from that evil eye
that I have not yet seen.

Child of pain made beautiful,

I wanted to watch you
Dive between cracks in
The pavement
For all the shame
You taste at the back
Of your throat,
Sandwiched between unrealized dreams
And built up bile
In your aortic sewer ducts.
Is my blood too thick
With predetermined madness
For you to swallow?
Our children will climb out of me,
rip themselves from my unfit body,
as they have wanted to do since
their conception
filled with love and rejection
in equal spoonfuls of sugar
taken like medicine for what
you think
is wrong
with
me.

Don't worry about
My genetic history,
Worry instead that
My rage fire
Will set your family tree
Aflame.
Worry instead that
there will be no other
porch swing arms
to welcome you home,
no luscious lips dripping in
pools of I'll do better next times,
I'll make something better,
I'll do you proud,
the next one won't be so loud
with how different he is
from every body else.

I promise,
next time,
I won't be the firefly
that shines this bright-eyed
and sad-lifed and
maybe, if I apologize enough,
you will let me
glow.

Love Letter to the City

(para Salamanca, con todo de mi corazon. Espero que puedas escucharme.)

I wish I could tell you

just how beautiful you are.

I wish you weren't so modest with your smiles

when I say that you are beautiful

at any time of day,

that no matter what you say

I will always be in love with the way

your blood vessels go in roundabouts

but never clot with angry drivers,

how the fountains that flood from your eyes

always sing with delight,

and how your whole body is draped

with activity and industry.

You are filled with so much life,

so many morning time trucks

and evening time drunks

that twilight is just a placeholder,

something to hold the seconds together.

You grip me in your old hands

and hold me to your stone chest

and say, “da igual” - it doesn't matter.

Don't worry about fitting in,

just enjoy yourself.

Let them whistle like wolves,

let them snap at your heels -

it's the culture.

They don't bite hard, and even then,

you're kinda into that.

Let them poke fun at your everyday trips

and your social slips,

it's the culture – the greater the laugh,

the greater the love,

and the whole city has a great sense of humor!

A bird, one of your old sweaty-toothed women told me,

can't help but fall in love every time

it looks down on you -

your face peering upwards is always blushing roof-tile red

and your smiles are always building-wall white,

and your curves are jealously guarded by old stone walls

that don't exist anymore – you tell me that it's over between you two,

that now I have to ask the river for your hand in marriage,

or even just announce my intentions to every single

arms-length fish I scream and hide from,

dig my feet in between river rocks and multilingual daydreams

to ground myself in what's really there.

I ask blades of grass and bridge arches, “how do you say, 'I love you?'”

They tell me, “you don't, you just do”.

Love is not just a verb,

It's the reality that everything has to be laid bare,

so now every time I bury my naked toes in your street stone skin

and sing your praises to any cloud who will stop long enough to listen,

I beg you to listen to my midday declaration,

my midnight serenade,

to fall into my arms like a wishing star

and come true in between my trembling fingertips.

After all this time, you still make me shiver

with your exotic tongue and your excited bell-pealing laughter,

I love you for every inch of back-corner street I have not seen,

for every seedy bar that you revealed to me,

for every morning waking up within you

and still loving how you taste, that gorgeous combination of

somewhere between perfect and too good for me.

You will always be too good for me.

My heart is made from every pane of glass

littering your numerous windows,

and I want you to stare into my soul

but please don't break me.

Look at me and feel my passion,

feel my eyelashes waving at you from across the room

and begging you to come over to my half-empty lungs

and breathe me whole.

You left a hole within me,

so that whenever we are finally together again,

I don't have to tell you, “bienvenidos”,

I am able to say, “te amo”.

Rib Cage

(dedicated to Sam. Te amo <3)

The day after I fell in love with you,

You sent me post cards from every single one

of your geisha-finger eye lashes,

held out your heart like a ceramic teapot

and asked me if I would like more forever.

You climbed my rib cage

like stair cases from one empty chamber to another,

formed a line that I have always enjoyed crossing

by forcing me to believe in us.

This insane reality that we are we.

If I could map out my love for you,

it would be the inside of a sea shell

because you and I have never had an ending -

we have always had that porch light moment

to spiral home to.

We've always looked at each other

and said,
"here we go again”.

Just like we did that time at the carnival

when we ran out of money and said,

“well, what the hell,

the Ferris wheel is the most fun ride here anyway,

and at least it's free.”

We had college budget love

and always ate the same kinds of

moments in time over cheap noodles,

feasted on dream-spun cotton candy,

kept ourselves going on visions

of what might become

of us.

We became the poster children of

Instant rice romance,

Enhanced our quality of life

by admitting that we were

trapped in this circular logic

in which we were both the argument

and the resolution.

You have always been my solution.

You have always played the most beautiful music

on every one of my sinews,

our heart strings so loose

yet so perfectly in tune,

and I only ever want to play beauty for you.

Feed you dinners meant for kings

and never give you any sour dates.

I will paint the masterpiece of my adoration

on the inside of your eyelids

so that when you sleep,

you will only ever have starry nights

no matter what city we are buried in.

We will be married beneath a forest

of wishes,

and I will be hung by a Christmas ornament hook

on your every word

until you insist that I have had enough bedtime stories

for one lifetime.

It's inevitable that one day I will fall,

but that day already came and went -

the day after I fell in love with you,

You sent me post cards from every single one

of your geisha-finger eye lashes,

held out your heart like a ceramic teapot

and asked me if I would like more forever.

You climbed my rib cage

like stair cases from one empty chamber to another,

formed a line that I have always enjoyed crossing

by forcing me to believe in us.

This insane reality that we are we.

You and me.

(published in Gardy Loo! Literary & Art Magazine Spring 2012 Edition)

The Language of Tongues

We are the language of tongues,

waving in the breeze like

autumn leaves

to any stranger that might dare us

to prove that we exist.

We are cease and desist letters

to any negative values.

We are the hues you can't see,

the heartfelt melodies

backed up like a Mack truck

by tiny buzzing bugs

and heartbeats that can be heard

all the way from space.

We are anything but space,

so closely woven together that people often

mistake us for DNA,

helically wrapped around each others'

belly buttons -

we are the people that laugh at

the words “belly button”,

and scream when we push each others'

buttons.

We are that kid

in the candy store's cavities,

so full of joy that we

scream like the biggest hill on a roller coaster

that leaves us blind to each others' faults

for days on end.

The day after that,

we are eighties hair bands as background music

and never the right kind of candy bar.

We are far from perfect, Hell!

We occasionally can't stand each other,

so we carve magnetic poles from our senses of humor

and lightning rod our storm systems into staying.

We are thoughts left swaying in the breeze,

seconds pulling at our hair,

fingers gasping for air

leaving us breathless,

gasping out

I

love

you

to every junkyard dog

that insists that we don't have it as bad

as he does.

We are kisses with the gloves off,

esophagi filled with thoughts never intended

for public consumption -

We are also often times more beautiful

than any starry night.

We are silhouetted branches on a tree trapped in winter

promising to come out and play in the spring,

We are something that will one day

really mean something

and guess what?

that one day is today! because

We are butterfly wings

bright as Technicolor dreams,

as promises made from moon beams

and I can still see

you sneaking sidelong glances at me.

We are the random chances that are not just chances.

We believe in falling stars,

and I will always wish on you.

We are the way your eyes shine like lighthouses,

calling my lovesick lungs back home -

We are every poem

scribbled into the backs of my hands,

writing utensil attacks that land in

the curve of every black blue and red ink heart

carving your name into my life.

We are me asking you to be your wife,

and now we are we.

Christopher

Christopher sits with his
head in his knees,
cradling his brain in
a support made from
arm bones and leg braces.
Somebody tied his attention span's
shoelaces together
so now, he can't stop
tripping over his own train of thoughtless.
He shifts and shakes Mommy's purse strings
and mumbles magic beans into thin air,
telling her about unseen galaxies and
the mean kids at school.
At this point,
she doesn't know which of his words
are her place of worship anymore -
she has lost the will
to believe.

Christopher stands with his

head in his lap
and defies gravity,
defies you to understand what he
is screaming at the pretty people.
He wants to walk like them,
but can't bring himself to stop dancing -
but they don't call it dancing,
they call it flailing,
attracting attention.

You think he wants attention?

He has enough tension
to fill the whole classroom
along with its wide eyes and slack-jawed stupor
“Christopher, are you listening to me?
Christopher, can you hear me?
Christopher.
Christopher.
Christopher.”
Yes, my name is Christopher.
It is branded on the inside of my tongue
trying to break out of my cellophane jail cell.
I can hear you rattling my rib bone prison bars
with your nicknames and your cyanide dreams
and your digital hate mail
folded up and thrown through the gaps
in my fingers
where the monsters always seem
to get through
because there is no escape
from the world wide
spider web.
There is no waking up
and finding yourself
not filled with poisonous difference,
with lack of acceptable substance

but let me tell you this.

My screams can be heard from space,

and the stars think that I am singing.
The ringing in my ears never stops,
but that is because I speak half human
and half whale,
and whales are chatty motherfuckers -
seriously, they can put any real housewife
to shame.
I will carve my name
into the palms of my outstretched desk
so that it does not forget me
when I go.
I have this fear
that one day
no one will remember me,
but even more scary,
that no one will care to try.
So I insist that at least this wooden face
will always have a smile for me
when I swing on home,
on my legs made of sun
and my head made of moon
beam me up and let me show you
how I can shine,
let me show you
the beauty in my fingertips,
how it only shines
to let you know that I am here.
I am here.

I come in peace

by piece so that you

are not aware of my awkward steps.
Listen to this cadence
and tell me that you hear
hummingbird wing beats
instead of flapping hands
and fluttering eyelids.
Listen to my heart
and tell me you hear the roar of a king,
not the stutter of defensive wounds
pouring too much information,
random facts recited fence-like against
your aim

My name is Christopher.

My head is cradled in slings
made from the hate notes
you paper airplaned over my horizon
and let me tell you
I have never held my head
higher.

Xenophobia

(inspired by Carrie Rudzinski's "Elbows".)
(rough draft - to be finished soon!)

On a cold night in February,
Your conscience whispers that
It's about time
you tell her about me.
You sit her down,
and you admire her fine
Elevator eyes as
You tell her
that I was the multi-tone secret
you played like octaves
far out of your
tree-swinging monkey arms' reach.
You tell her
about my seat-belt eyes
and flat tire soul,
about how you don't know
what's holding me together
but you don't envy whoever he is.
You tell her about
How I would always birdsong
you to sleep,
lure you into a false sense
of apple bite faith,
hide my half truths in clenched toes,
Tell her how I was always
mood ringing you,
telling you how to experience
our constant changes in climate -

Wait.

That's too much detail.
Keep it short,
scorch the edges, don't
let the smoke scorch us out of hiding.
Gingerbread house your feelings for me,
show her how delicate
our memories really are.
Let her press her candlelight tongue to my rough edges,
frosting in details that were never there,

show her how easy it was
to forget me.

Play me like that,
caress me like cello strings
and whittle a concerto out of my synapses,
reconstruct my half-notes into something beautiful
enough to wave on the holy days, too.
Tell her how you named me broken elevator,
blew my glass heart
from scratch,
how you built my oak tree
from the acorn up
and down like an ocean liner
in our perfect storm -
she doesn't need to know
how you blew me away
with your ferocity of calm,
your Sunday best dinner
tooth-picking my bones clean
as you said grace over and over
to fill that half-empty moon
you hoped would one day fill
With all of the feelings
you never admitted to -

Look me in the snake eyes
and tell me you don't find me
fuckable!

Tell me you can't see yourself living

Inside the confines of my skin box,
you feel trapped behind my canine prison bars,
Like you never asked me
to teach you how to breathe fireflies,
to hold you like a Chinese lantern
at a Japanese folk festival,
to write xenophobia
in bloody scratches down your back
and hate yourself for loving how it hurts.

Don't act like you never

wore my roar like a banner
into the ground
so people wouldn't notice me,
you hated it when people noticed me.
If you're not going to tell her that, then
make sure you
Tell her how we ran out of batteries.
Tell her my summer lovin'
watermelon grins
were never enough to hold your interest.
Tell her I was always asking to rest
my heavy misaligned head
on your holier-than-thou
porch swing hands.
Tell her how we never fit together
but then again, you never tried -

Tell her you don't know who fired

the first love poem,
you just know
it wasn't you.

Lullaby

Last night, I curled up around my telephone

and listened to the sound of you snoring.

It sounded like music,

like the metronome that clicks back and forth

but is never noticed alongside the concert pianist.

There are certain kinds of birds

that sing love songs to each other.

Their entire life brings love in,

invites it like an old friend for tea

and tiny sandwiches,

like old records that still carry classic songs

on their wrinkled faces,

like the soft-faced moon that pulls the tide in

and tucks in the beach at bedtime.

There is a reason my heart beats twice,

to let blood flow in, blood flow out;

once for you, once for me,

so that life might just be

without complications, without noise beneath street lamps

in a city that never sleeps, or crickets in grass

that might last for another year without being cut.

So many of so much, in so little.

And there are so many moments within one year,

each passing with tail lights flashing and flapping their

butterfly wings against the pitch black of true loneliness,

the ache of thousands of miles

between two halves of a whole,

but the greatest of these is the quiet hum

of the phone against my cheek

as the circuits pulse with your breath,

inhale, exhale,

your own symphony

of technology bowing to love,

allowing us to be together,

for me to hold you like a

Faberge egg in trembling fingers

like the treasure you are, love.

I have spent my life as an inquisitive child,

asking question after question after

what does it mean to be happy?

And you answered it all with your song,

with your trembling chords wrapped around my waist

and your notes left behind on my pillow to remind me to say

Lover, you bend me,

like a willow in the wind,

a pillow beneath my head.

You mend me,

like that time I busted my arm

and still wanted to clean

because your apartment is

so

fucking

dirty

but you killed my edge with,

“Baby.

Tomorrow.

Come to bed.”

I felt like warm air released

through nostrils into the night,

seeing life in shades of freedom

through your glasses on the nightstand.

You carry me within you

on my weakest legs,

in my poorest condition,

You bury your hands in my hair

and tell me over and over and over

so much in so little, so many times.

My words rarely find their rhymes,

my mind barely finds its sense,

but you found me,

you picked me up among the other shells

and put me up to your ear

to see if you could hear

the sea inside my soul,

or even just my voice.

I'm here, lover.

Let this be your lullaby.