maybe there are the unloveable who spend their moments wishing for tenderness.

i keep remembering the thoughts of me, wishing for future.

instead of loving and wishing for this.

i am homesick for the tangling.

promises

the sounds lull and twist

and here is the part where the drifting souls

collide haphazardly with the smatterings of hope

the cries in the night and the small, quiet sobs

of those abandoned by the broken hearts.

they never wanted to alarm you with their 

slow sadnesses, but they envelop you without

permission or apology

citing the loveliness of your words and the

bold claims you made in your naivety.

at the funeral of wisdom and choice

you sang a eulogy of forgiveness and 

hope; without consideration of consequence.

you became the advocate of the invisible

but would not stop to wonder if you could deliver.

I think that the fact that

you make me laugh out loud

and I understand the nuances of 

your joys and sorrows--

should be enough.

Crippled Sometimes

Are you crippled by the shadows of 

skeletons and bones, creeping and whispering in 

the crevices of you[rs.]

The lullings and hopings that you

cannot give up

The faces and voices of the dreams you promised

never to let fade.

The devastation of the leaving and the windings of roads that have no ends or beginnings, but that you cannot bring yourself to diverge from.

The temptation of letting the hurting suffer in isolated silence,

containing and cauterizing wounds that someone else made,

Yet knowing this will never be enough to silence the whisperings 

that your joy is imminently entwined with the removal or addition of some kind of joy

[perverse games? ingenuine flauntings?]

banking

how do you justify the spending of a life
the spending of the time, energy, and concern
the amount of emotion allocated per person
per room

You say that no one
can see the way your eyes light up the night.
But I am looking
and I see
that you have more than just
a way to be alive--

Come with me
see the things
you have promised to see.

No other way is worth it, can't you see that this is made for you?

Instead you rip angel wings into fine down
sifting through the remains and making them into a pillow
for your weariness.

How can you already be weary?

Be joyful, choose it.

Free.

I get jealous of writers. Perhaps more aptly, their characters, their shameless (if not flawless) display of combinations of letters and words. I walk into bookstores and mock them slightly, turning up my nose at the raised print on the covers, the way the books smell so new when you flip through them-- all of the possible adventures that begin and end within 50000 words. I pretend like this may not be what I have always yearned for-- an absolute adventure, to any ends, with no confines. I like adventure, I like change-- my roommate told me I foster it, crave it (much like the unfortunate caffeine addiction I seem to have developed.) Maybe it is not so much the adventure that I love as it is the possibility, unrestrained, that at any moment (barring financial restraints) I am absolutely FREE.

I like this.

stop it. stop all the burning. it is inconsiderate to casually burst into flames when there are so many frozen in complacency.
don't you understand the inconvenience of this?
you have robbed them of their ease, their contentedness. Thievery. Your skin is flushed, and your heart is flushed, and you are making the comfortable people discontent.

so who has the responsibility
to tame the reflections that get away
were you the one to hold and break the mirror
maybe you dropped it into a casual song
without regard for the listeners.
Listen.
Don't bother chasing the mirror images, crossing left and right and
sweeping to the side of your face.
Don't bother looking. Stop examining.
let them run.

Soundtrack of the Moment

Jose Gonzalez-- Heartbeats

Wyclef Jean-- Sweetest Girl

Jimmy Eat World-- Let it Happen

Coldplay-- The Scientist

Damien Rice- Rootless Tree

escuchame, por favor
eres mi sonida, mi sonrisa
te quireo, te extrano
nadie en el mundo me conoces lo mismo
cuando voy, vas
cuando vas, voy
donde eres
mi alma esta perdida, porque estas perdidas
no se cuando regresaras, o si regresaras a mi.

quien eres?
o, una pregunta mas mejor, quien soy?

What do you want??

You know what I want?

All of these things, possibilities they call it, opportunity, 'potential' --- Grad school, the things I could do with my life,

They talk about it like they have stock, investment, time that gradually becomes worth more the more I live. They talk about passion like it is something that is expendable, something that runs out. Hurry.

No.

I want people to be safe, before they get hurt. I want women and children to not be afraid of those who are supposed to love them, and I want innocent people not to suffer for the corruption of others who were hurt somehow. I want the corrupt prosecuted, I want them (even them) to be treated as human, I want everyone else to understand that you can't deny them (even them) this, or else bits of your own humanity begins to be revoked.

I want to jump out of a plane and land somewhere I may never be again, learn languages just so I can tell women with sad eyes that their children are beautiful, ask them to teach me how with out knowing what I will be taught, and I want to never ever 'get it out of my system', I don't want to find a husband because that is just kind of what you do around twenty--- why not marry some man when I am 82, and spend the rest of our lives listening to the wonderful stories, imagining the beautiful places and never giving them up? Why not love when you find the person, not when the timeline tells you to?

I want to cry and laugh and be completely honest, feel what hurts (pain is there for a reason)
I want to scream at you when I am angry, call you out on your falsities, have you call me out on mine. I want to live according to no formula, I want to use my mind to consider, my soul to consider.

I want to be absurd, happy, content--- acknowledging the pain of this world, the way that the people are hurting, but not let it consume me

SO they ask me, constantly, always, What do you want?? What are you going to do?? What is your one year, two year, five year life plan?

It can be hard to explain.

How
does
the
shards
of whatever
is left
come
together
and equal

the damp palms
the heart not resting
the mind not sleeping
the twisting in
my belly

the fight with my features
to stay as they should,

the music not salving
the words, the touch not satisfying


the disappearances
of intangible ties.

how do you stay whole, with the emptinesses

so glaringly apparent?

leaving is not difficult.

leaving ideas, dreams, people-- especially if there is something or someone to leave for, someplace to journey to.
the man leaves his wife for his mistress, the woman her old comfortable job for something new and more. there is that promise of excitement, of novelty, intrigue-- that tiny whisper that says you are not happy enough -- a different kind of greed.
two weeks, months, years, decades later you become nostalgic, or fight off the nostalgia self-assuredly-- citing the shiny new people, accomplishments, places and experiences as trophies. you did the right thing by giving up that mundane little place, relationship, that small town.
it took so little to be happy then, you muse, and there is a tickle in the back of your thoughts, like a small feather, and you wonder-- maybe I was happier then, in that small town
'all the world's a stage' but
maybe
if the script was never written
and the actors were all drunk before they could get into costume

I could be happy with just the stage alone.

memory

i have been careless with my life.
not necessarily unappreciative of it, but merely careless. Finding pleasure in unnecessary risks, naively embracing the possibility of death without considering the possibility of injury, or the emotional consequences of those who I have somehow been loved by.

recognizing this, this previous carelessness and the mistakes of others, i have a perpetual need to remember and recall the beautiful moments. much like a photographer might miss the actual event by focusing his attentions on capturing it, squinting into a tiny screen while the world flees around him--- i am constantly focused on remembering what i should be feeling rather than simply feeling it.

isn't the loveliest part of memory they way that it surprises you by recording without you knowing it? shouldn't this be pleasure enough?

costs (unintentional?)

feel.

every bit and piece of the way your skin feels when the cold rain hits it,

the way the heat and sun sashays around the crevices and fine lines in your face

(faces?)

damages cannot be paid for losing this.

remember.

every bit and piece you chose to gave away.

the way the hands and arm around your waist sashayed you,

(yours?)

damages cannot be paid for losing this.

not enough

does everyone get the pressure
deep in their chests, or away from them somehow
when the combination of thoughts of someone missing are combined
with the right pressures and imagery and fear
of something loss
like the air or the feeling, the pure feeling, grows and expands
and nothing will relieve the way you are to me

momentarily

wait it out, breathe. hope to make a wall keeping this at bay
but hope to God you never will.

i am afraid of
what is missing.

flavor

So, I like the dimensions of music
it gives extra flavor to the words that aesthetics cannot.

you give this as well.

sdrow:words

sdrow tsuj era sdrow eht os : so the words are just words

egap eht no sgnikram tsuj : just markings on the page
,eseht evlos yeht lliw woh: how will they solve these,
eseht: these
?erom hcum os deen taht eseht: these that need so much more?

nothing but mirrors of what is real:
still don't know?

leaving

here goes the hour
who was looking for it, was it lost?
all of a sudden it was gone, and no one knew to look

so are you, I have noticed.
look away for a moment,
and the moments add together
all of them
and quickly disappear.

kiss me, quickly, before this is gone.
before I censor you to me.

The Peddler

this is how we discuss

the war and the dying and the

children crossing borders in a desert

quietly, in a warm room, hushed voices

we sit here, holding our lattes, sipping

flinching as our tongues are singed with

chocolate and milk, cursing our misfortunes,

and feeling our soft bellies tighten with the pain.

how do we solve the problems of this world?

we decide that we are qualified for such things

we know how to satiate the screams, evidently.

dressed in corduroy and cotton, cashmere and denim

leather shoes, diamond rings, hair that is long and conditioned with

oils of the dying animals (cows and beasts, monsters and similar such creatures.)

then we tell them to believe, they do, and we cite our own God’s victory,

when it was us selling our souls.

(have we been bought?)

The peddler sells trinkets, saved souls and peace, on a golden chain, with charms.

Cows and beasts, monsters and similar such creatures.

(what was the price? did we ask?)

But he won’t stop the screams (is he responsible for the crime?) and he won’t sell us much but the leather shoes and diamond rings.

crazy words

what if one day those who have cradled the same experiences cease to be

a holder of your days anymore

remind me that

there are those who won’t destroy

thank you for

your unintentional kindnesses

art and music

are not forced to be emotionless in their call for change

they do not appeal logically, with reason and planned out rules

they appeal by revealing pieces of who we are and who we may have forgotten

we recognize ourselves in the cascades of sound and color,

we are reminded that the way the world is isn’t necessarily how it should be

appeal to them, with your colors and pianos and voices

remind me that

there are those who won’t destroy.

Where is the inspiration?

Register the

The glass of red wine, swirling (opposite and together)

The warmth flowing from you to it

The curve of the glass, cool in your hand

The biting in the back of your throat

The settling of the fog on your skin

dampening

You can’t think of

These leaving things.

Don’t remember so intently,

It shouldn’t be so intentional.

Shiver slightly

The lights distorted

In water-coated twilight

Silk and glass poems and prose

Shredding nonsense

Ebony, slip quietly

Foolish fools talk of nothing

To cover up the hidden triggers

Imaginary weapons that

Wound more than ordinary guns and knives.

You try and keep the ones that sing or scream

Under careful observation.

You don’t want to think that maybe

They have a better grasp

(It shouldn’t be so intentional.)