me too

there's broken glass on the bathroom floor again. i sometimes wonder if our neighbors can hear the shatters through their wall, and if so, do they care. as i sweep up the pieces i can see my reflection on the ground looking pale. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

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you always lovingly suggest i wear pants to school the next day, "you don't want anyone asking you what happened."

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i nod. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

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as i pick up the last piece of glass with my fingers i realize how fragile we all are; your temper, my body, our family. maybe one day we can keep something intact for once. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

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i wish I could say she grew old right before my eyes, but i don't believe that to be true. she appeared to inherit two decades worth of wrinkles and a slightly less energetic stride overnight. 

i have taken her aging body with a slight disinterest, until thinking of my own. when before she would rise at dawn and stay up past midnight, she now lays and rises to the sunlight, in almost complete synchronicity.  will i too wake up one morning with a new set of lines upon my face? 

will i move slower to accommodate life's change of pace? 

may you find the flowers and breeze you have always wanted.

i hope you have gained the confidence to wear your hair up like you practiced so many times before leaving the house with it down. i expect that your lips are still stained red from the beet juice you religiously drink every morning. and that you still smell of that sunflower perfume, the one that always made me sneeze. i sometimes miss your voice telling me to talk more, instead of just taking you in. 

i hope you found those flowers, and figured out that you are the breeze. 

find inspiration in the shadows.
the chords you have been so desperately searching for are at the bottom of that bottle; be careful not to drink away the melody again.

find the blank pages that you swore you would fill with ease and dedicate them to your past. find the soft tissue that you violently and repeatedly abuse, it won't be going anywhere.

find and differentiate, between darkness and shadows. don't be fooled by the night's invitation to dance and lay with her. when it's this dark in our smoke-filled corner, it's hard to tell who's who any more.

presence

it's a connection built lifetimes ago, full of beautiful vulnerability.

perhaps it's a coincidence in the crossing of our paths. perhaps my mind isn't used to all the openness my heart is willing to extend. there's a definite change in the perception of my being, my presence. there's a leap that has been taken in the trust of your words. perhaps it was a mere coincidence, but i feel as though i may have loved you before. something inside of me reaches out in familiarity and yearning. perhaps we've been down this road before, though i don't seem to recall.

there's a sweet stillness within her. 

she always knows where to place her hands and how to have her head just slightly tilted. she listens intensely, nodding in agreement every few minutes while never breaking her eye contact. there's this sweet smirk she gives when you compliment her and it makes her entire face glow. she makes you feel like there is no one else who could possibly be more important or interesting than you. 

 i wonder who listens to her stories or what drives her excitement. i've actually never asked her about herself, i don't know that anyone has.

cuts

you can pretend you've never counted, but i know those scars on your arms are actually tally marks and the exact amount is burned into your mind. i can see that every scab is a map and your bruises are invitations to sleepless nights. 

you can stop hiding all the bandaids and iodine, since we all know it doesn't do much anyway. at least the stinging is real... perhaps later you can show me the ones you've managed to keep covered. 

feel free to lose control now.  scream, get loud. it would be a wonderful change from the cold silence.

smoke

walking into smoke-filled rooms with silhouettes

you start moving closer to their flowered scents 

you sense the warmth coming off their skin 

until you can finally see their face's grins

you see the aches and pains on lit-up faces

inked, soft skin, and their close embraces

sober yet dizzy, you try to stay still

you keep your hands steady only through pure will

they finish their dance, some finish their drinks

you shake off the feeling of being in sync 

until the next night, you're summoned to come

you can keep fighting it, you'll always succumb

outside my window

i woke up thirsty and cold that night. 

i laid awake until i thought to look out and find him there. right against the glass, as if he'd been there for hours, waiting for me to wake up. i noticed him standing still, save for the wind in his hair. it never crossed my mind that this should be alarming; i possibly even called for him. 

regardless, that's where i left him. i couldn't fall back asleep, but i also couldn't get up. maybe that's all he needed, for me to know that he could see me, and always would. 

when it's mental

my heart slowly begins to race as the trail steepens. i attempt to maintain control but it bursts outside of my chest, past its allowed rate. my breathing quickens and my pores begin to perspire. there's an ounce of darkness that lingers over my thoughts and thighs, over my weak quads and smaller calves. the darkness lingers longer but then evaporates as the sun begins to set. my body becomes familiar with the dirt underneath my feet and my heart stabilizes. my breathing deepens and i begin to exhale gratitude. my body has carried me before, and it will carry me again.

inside

my mind has been my worst enemy for as long as i can remember; darkness lives within, and it always will. there will always be a battle between continuously spiraling downward into a pit of despair, and climbing steep switchbacks. every single day is a fight for clarity.

the only things that have ever saved me have been writing and running. at some point you have to stop trying to slay your demons and instead understand them, stay a step ahead of them. i can't run from them, but instead run towards them.

growing pains

i was twelve.

i'd wait for my mother after school and just stare down at my feet; both chucks with holes in them, soles about to fall off. my father would calculate our commute in the mornings as to use the least amount of gas. he too stared down at my feet and i could sense some fraction of shame, maybe disappointment. i didn't ask for new shoes that year, as i'd done the year before. i never brought up my wet feet or aching heels. i let those shoes deteriorate and fall apart, like the broken mirrors at home.

punctures

i can feel his breath on my neck while i lay there. he's biting his lip and holding a steady gaze as he concentrates on my skin. i turn to his hands as he steadily moves them ever so slightly. my skin is numb and my hands are starting to get cold yet my mind feels like it's floating. i notice a very slight tingling sensation as this goes on for a couple hours. he begins to wipe away some ink and even a little bit of blood, giving the needles some rest. his art, now permanently on my skin.

norte

they were kids when they met. he promised her a better life on the other side and the chance to make all of her dreams come true. he promised her love, children, and a home.

on the other side, they found 16 hour work days and a sun so strong that for the first year, she was always light headed. they ended up on fields that never ended and daily he would tell her that their better lives were just past that horizon; a horizon that was always too far away.

looking back, who knows if it was all better.

la luna

la luna le borró el nombre a tu querido aficionado debajo de sus suspiros. todo mientras el viento te distrajo. otra entrada mas en el diario de marisol. otro libro en la enciclopedia del corazón. la luna se burla de ti mientras se esconde por la noche, mientras te expulsa tus malditas inmundicias y te enseña a ti misma. la luna te entrega un espejo en el que vez a tu propia madre. incluso, te fijaste no en lo que pudo estar frente a ti sino lo que pudo ver sido una ilusión. tu linda luna te mata por dentro.

drifted

she knows, you have to know that. 

you must feel it in your bones and on your skin. 

you must sense it in her posture,

and in her eyes that weren't always as deep as they were today. 

you must feel the coldness of her skin that only gets colder at night, 

till she shakes and wakes you in your sleep. 

there's very little you can do to soothe her. 

now, you can live with the silence between two bodies, 

or you can let it go. 

so far away that it no longer feels like distance, 

but instead... non existence.

unsent

i found the letter i never sent you, neatly folded and sealed in an envelope with no address on it. i ripped it open and read the words as if seeing them for the very first time; six pages filled with thoughts, emotions, and scribbled-out ideas... i’m sorry i never sent it. i think it was more of a closure activity for me, more than anything. i do recognize those thoughts as my own, though i do not particularly feel i need to justify myself anymore. i don’t think you’ll ever see it.

 maybe i'll get an address next time.

in my sleep

i'd seen them multiple times before they were born, long before we knew that she could have children again. they'd be riding a horse down jasmine street, alongside my mother. it was always after dark, their bodies illuminated by the street lights. my mother would guide the horse down to the end of the street and stop in front of the stop sign. i couldn't call out to them loud enough for them to ever see me; even in my dreams my voice was silenced. i had to wait several years, but i always knew, even when my mother didn't.

making scents

and yes, we've had a few drinks, to remember all the things that we have selfishly done, so cautiously done.

and we regress and progress, to that nights we undressed all of our desires and regrets;
on top of all else you can detect, on our skin's drunken scent.
we arrive and we leave, done away with all grief of our newest and worst, actions never rehearsed. 
so yes, we've had plenty to drink, so to remember all the things that we have selfishly done, so lovingly done. to each other and more, and to those we claimed to adore.

they say

be careful, they say.

you don't want to make them uncomfortable. 

don't be vulgar or angry, or even too passionate.

differences scare people, so maybe blend in. 

maybe focus on only one cause. 

joining or blending everything confuses people. 

you can't give all of your attention to everything. 

what does intersectional even mean, anyway? 

you have it great, you should be more grateful. 

we all matter.

you should be angry about genital mutilation. 

protesting never helped anyone. 

stop offending people.

i can't fight for everyone that's down. 

i have a family to worry about and feed. 

yes, i heard you.

glass

i start making my way to bed, intending to lay under the moon's reflection. i notice her face on the broken glass that i have yet to pick up. it has been laying there against the hardwood floor as i strategically tip toe my way onto bed. there must be over a hundred tiny, broken pieces all spread out, all waiting to prick my skin sooner than later. i notice how they shine, as if the moon alone is making them brighter to catch my attention.

i see them, dammit.

still, i  leave them there for yet another sleepless night.

immersed

in the summer of my fifteenth birthday, i got home one day to find a long white dress hanging in the living room. my siblings were already dressed and my baby sister was going on and on about becoming children of god.

"today you will be baptized.", is all my mother said when she saw me gazing at the dress.

on the drive over to church, my father sped through the roads and speed bumps as he and my mother argued. i imagine this is something joyous and planned, for most families; all i managed to do was cry silently.

4am

i'm falling through this downward spinning hole that's determined to keep me up. thoughts and sounds and colors keep flashing inside of my head. the clock keeps ticking away as i keep tossing. this continues right before sunrise, right before i should be getting up anyway.  there are bags under my eyes, so dark that concealer is useless. the smoke in my head is finally so thick that there's little else i can focus on but the grey mass. it's now become too hard to differentiate between what's outside or what's actually inside of my head.

chancla

She'd tell me this story of how her mother often chased her around their home with a leather sandal. She'd run to the barn and climb to the top, knowing she couldn't go after her herself. She'd wait for hours until her father got home so he could talk her mother down. He'd climb up for her, and help bring her down. She would tell me how furious her mother would get and how she'd still mutter threats under her breath.

Just wait until your father leaves.

I never said it out loud, but I guess you become your parents.

behind the loner

we left during the night.
you told me to grab everything i could carry on my own, because we may not comeback. i couldn't grasp the severity of it, so i left behind all of my favorite books. in the hurriedness and black of the night, i also forgot a jacket; i spent most of that winter cold and shaking behind classroom doors.
the next few months were a whirlwind of going in and out of places. what i remember the most however, was my growing darkness. as we shifted from room to room, i only shifted deeper and deeper.

return

i heard he'd left a feline in the south and started making his way back west. by the end of the summer he arrived at my front door with his fur as radiant as ever. he says he's been roaming past the fields he used to viciously graze, looking for a patch to do his mending. 

but darling, there's no mending to be done. you've migrated thousands of miles and back with intentions to bandage wounds that do not exists outside of your own mind. you've come back expecting healing, and instead we've all lined up to wonder, "why now?"