moon

the moon shines above me, illuminating every one of my thoughts. she magnifies my fears while her stars silently surround me, always lending an ear. i wonder if she speaks to them, if she calls them by name. does she confide in their light? does she seek warmth from their flame?

i wish you would speak to me like you used to. 

i would tell you what a beautiful mess you have left me to become, always believing i was the only one. but you have many lovers, sweet moon. so i have saved my sighs for the rising sun.

abuse

there's a circle of events present. i find myself in this roundabout that i had no idea existed until the same scenario played out again. here i am, sitting in the very same table that i left four years ago. i am having supper alone and for very much the same reasons, until you arrive. hundreds of miles of difference and here we are. in the same table. the same meal and at nearly the same fucking time.

after a piercing silence i think, maybe i can get away from this once and for all... never look back. perhaps we can even get rid of supper altogether and never eat again. i can always find a different way to feed my soul with the inconvenience of our shared truth. but it's dark now and i'm outside, jumping into the cold water by myself. you would think we have grown accustomed and maybe even found some comfort in this. in recognizing the routine of having no one to keep me warm afterwards. i sink deeper and deeper into the water and still, you're inside. no amount of screaming or calling out will bring anyone or anything forward.

my heart begins to beat slower and slower after the jump. it has mellowed out to a single soft pulse barely recognizable to my own chest.
tell me, love, will the moon be witness yet again to another hopeless night? will she remain still as she watches the same blood spill again and again and again?

i look to her, find me floating, sweet moon.  do not let me overdose on this idealization of love. do not let me attempt my own ending to this tragedy.

i float through it all without drowning.
once i dry off i pretend it never happened and i go back to climbing up the same mountain. i find myself at the top again and my heart begins to race once more.

find me at the top and join me, i call out.

perhaps there will be more on the table this time around.
maybe the coincidence of it all is but a mere error in the loading of data onto this day.
perhaps the similar dance had left me all too cautious and conclusion-seeking.
perhaps the silence has been much shorter than i have made it out to be and all i need to do is try again.

perhaps i want nothing to do with change and i will recreate the same damn thing that has happened time and time and time and time again.

here i was.
here i am.
here i will be.

and  my mind and heart will be sealed off and my emotions will be so pleasantly delivered that when i set fire to your soul, you will have no idea where it came from. when i combust in your mind you will be too drunk with my name to realize what is happening. make no mistake that i have written the starting page and the last ones. i have numbered them all with red ink and have bookmarked the fall.

allow me to lead you into that room with the supper table, we both know how this ends.

\ˈbrau̇n\ \ˈskin\

lil niña by yoli manzo

in the early years brown skin came accompanied by a spanish accent and a loss for the right words. it came with insecurities and a deep desire to be lighter and more capable of conversing and laughing at the jokes i could not understand. i spent countless afternoons in front of the mirror covered in my fair-skinned mother's white face powder and a few brief moments of pretending i was someone else.

one hungred

it's one HUNdred

one huuuungred

no, no, no... you have to say it right or they won't respect you, my father would belt.

in class i would sit cross legged amongst my peers and watch them present their show-and-tells. my teacher's last name was the spanish word for heron but she couldn't understand a single word i said so i wouldn't make a sound. i desperately tried to soak in all of their words and match them to their expressions. i would sing along to the ABCs and for an entire year could not figure out where the letter elemeno was on the alphabet wall. in the mornings i would follow along to the pledge of allegiance by making sounds that i thought matched those around me. i felt like the class's pet parrot with no idea on how to process these feelings.

all i wanted so badly, was to belong. to let my father know that everything he went through was worth it. to honor my parents' sixteen hour work days. to be the reason both felt they had made the right decision. i wanted to be their american daughter.

it didn't take long in retrospect for me to be fluent and almost accent free by the time i was seven. the thing is, my skin was still brown, and truly always will be. nothing will hide or mask my roots and nothing can come close to making up for the feelings of isolation; nothing should.

i cannot keep wearing my skin as a layer. for though it shouldn't define who i am as a human being, because of what it's brought me, it does.

i am beautifully brown. beautifully unapologetic. beautifully human.

pounding

he handed me the heaviest of five drums and as i began to place its harness over my head he asked why i was so drawn to it. i paused as the weight of it settled upon my already aching chest and back. i paused long enough to close my eyes and remember.

     the rooms were often dark and unoccupied, the walls bare and depressing. everything was always still and quiet up until it wasn't; until something would make the volume abruptly blast with crashes and screams and shattering mirrors.
     when i was younger, the only thing that would distract me from the sounds of breaking glass was pretending that my pounding heart was a bass drum; the pedal hitting harder and faster as the seconds slowed down... the breaking glass mere cymbal crashes. everything around me was orchestrated and if i could get myself to play along, i was no longer a victim, but rather a participant.

i opened my eyes and tried to smile as he handed me my mallets. 

i guess i just like trying new things, i answered. 

i took my mark. i looked up and around in search of faces i knew i would not find. 

my heart, still pounding. but this time, i was the bass. 

what it was

i come from dry summmers and broken windows.

chipped paint and full bookshelves. 

i come from empty rooms, loud nights and shattered glass.

i come from akward hugs, long laughs and a teal pick-up truck in the drive way. 

i come from an early drinking age, pink toe nails and uneven fringes. 

i come from memories and broken promises, forgotten "i love you"s and an unset curfew. 

i come from dry tears and a broken family started by two lovers who fell out of love. 

i come from that which is a part of me, and forever will be.

recollect

we were on the roof overlooking 2nd street while the wind was carefully caressing our backs. after hours of words that were meant to be lyrics and drinks that should have never started, we just smiled silently. that was always when i knew to pull back. once the laughing would stop and the gazing began, i'd guard up. that very moment was the last time you would ask.
could we truthfully start this? could we invest in longevity and publicize our writing's muse? could we wake to each other and know our goodbyes would be shorter? could we start being vulnerable and make a life out of this piano's chords?
the answer was always no.
two self destructive creatures could never last long enough to not burn down the city. i didn't fear our differences but knew too well our similarities. our taste for darkness was too elegant; our love of selves was too demanding.
"i just thought that you should know, it's never one thing at all."
and in moments where i would unfailingly turn back to you, i have since then refused.
you always said to trust your gut.

apple picking

how did you know?
how could you have possibly seen my lips in such a shade of red, years ahead of our lips departing? the hopeless romantic with blue hair and torn vans wrote everything down. he wrote stories of love and loss and of an endless search for our souls' true partners. he played every chord with purpose and direction, though i didn't see it back then, nor do i think he did either.

i hope your dreams have continued to manifest themselves in truth. i hope you know the extent of such claims and poems; of such beautifully written passages and chords.

[can you write out salvation, sweet love?]

he used to write about an apple tree standing tall and alone. about my shoes that matched the color of the fruit and my lips the color of the juiciest of them all; but I hadn't even started painting my lips yet.
he wrote of bruises and fruit with damaged skin. words of dissatisfaction and disinterest in what was already fallen or within a hand's reach. of the need to find an apple the color of my lips.

well they're indeed red now, sweet boy. and i have climbed in search of that very apple with an almost complete disregard to my fear of heights. i have fallen abruptly but not at all how i imagined. my mouth drips with sweet fruit juice and my hands and chest remain sticky with love and joy. my heart calls out and continuously gets answered and met with love. from here, i'll pick up the writing.

eve(s) has dropped

it was by his side that i lay, in a fetal position, with my chest burning. i could hear the screaming so clearly and the faint crying even clearer. i could feel the pounding of the walls inside of me as though my very insides were being shaken.
i begged for him to call someone, to go downstairs and do something. i whimpered as my memory took me back to being twelve and everything spinning around me. i vividly remembered the shaking ground, the burning legs and shattered glass. i remembered the bruises on the neck and scars on the legs. but he said it was none of my business, that i couldn't know for sure.
please, i said. we can help.
i got dressed and ran outside barefoot, the cold concrete an immediate relief to my burning body. i ran downstairs but halted immediately at their door. standing there with no real plan, no ideas, just emotions. i peered through their kitchen window, tears dried-on by the breeze. their dark living room offered but a meager insight into the truth within their walls. i could barely see her left leg as she lay across the hallway, motionless.
the crying got increasingly faint as she fell asleep in the hallway and i stood there, watching like some twisted guardian of her safety.
i watched the sunrise off of sawtelle and slowly walked back up to our unit, as if sunlight itself would protect her from harm. though fully knowing that sometimes those scars never truly heal.

substitutions

"substitutions are never fully accounted for"

and just like that he turned around and walked away. if he would have
looked back he would have seen the contorted look upon my face, the
cold stillness left behind. but he didn't turn around, didn't see,
doesn't know. i stood there, upon the mass of loneliness, only
wondering what this meant [what he meant].

after what felt like hours i began to walk towards a stream of
thoughts, unaware of whose they were. my body began to feel weightless
and unattached, unreal. the ink in my body sank deeper and deeper and
all i could think about was the hunger for more needles, more ink and
more color for the skin i could no longer feel. i started reminiscing
all the vibrations created by every punture.

what insanity, everyone must think. selfish girl, locked within her
own thoughts. what mind games she plays over herself.

"but substitutions are never fully accounted for" i will say as i
smile and get up. i turn around and begin to walk away as the sun sets
and the waves begin to crash. everyone that was there while the sun
was at a high remained sitting, watching me pass on through. eyebrows
raised, some mouths dropped.

i look back at their stillness and looks of wonder and i whisper,
"tell them my heart has been shot down, but it's still beating..."

trespassing

we were working on something; a math quiz or reading exercise. he walked up to me and grabbed my left breast with his right hand. just like that, with the class surrounding us and mr monroy in his corner desk. he smiled and said,

"you need more ounce to the bounce."

the boys behind him started snickering and as he walked away he got high fives and slaps on the back. i remember him turning his head over his shoulders to look at me. i looked at his dark eyes and knew right away that he didn't see anything wrong. that's what i was there for.

i don't know that i was exactly sure how severe this was. i sat there with my friend alejandra next to me. i didn't move. i didn't laugh it off. i didn't say anything. alejandra told me it was wrong, that i should go tell on him. she said that no one should touch me like that.
he walked up to me again and said,

"if you tell the teacher i'll tell him how you touched my penis."

"but i didn't..."

"he doesn't know that."

i walked up to mr monroy with my head down. i tried whispering despite the fact that the majority of the class already knew. i told him what happened and he sent me to the counselor's office. i walked across campus while he got to stay in class. i sat there in a tiny and cold room while she asked me again what happened.

"were you following dress code?"

was she suggesting i provoked it? in a hurley pullover?

she called the principal over and then they sent me back.

that was it. thank you for playing, you can go about your day now.
he was called into the office but came back shortly. he smiled with a low gaze when he got back and every day after that. he didn't get suspended. he didn't get detention... no one checked up on me. my parents were not contacted and i never told them.

somewhere in my head i started twisting and questioning whether it could have been my fault. if my teacher, counselor, and principal let it go, what was the point?

"it could have been worse."
"you were just kids."
"boys can't control their hormones."
"you turned out fine though."
"he was probably just dared to do it."


none of those are acceptable. no matter how young or how old, no one has the right to touch my body without my consent. i should have been heard, helped, ask how i felt and what i was thinking. the parents of a ten year old should have been called.

this happens in schools, at work, on public transportation, in your own home, and it is not okay. it is not acceptable.

rise up. fight. teach.

gracie

 the leaves move gracefully as they rustle through the front yard. the same wind that has kept her up all night, now softly brushes her hair away from her eyes as she shuts them one final time tonight.
time.
it becomes non existent as the smoke fills her lungs and she slowly drifts out of consciousness. time and time again the same scenario repeats itself.
time.
seconds and the ticking of the clock. minutes and the very drops of water that she could hear leaking from her studio's kitchen faucet. time and it's painful reminder that she is still here. will be here. will stay here; because where else could she go wandering off to unless she allows the smoke within? unless she allows herself the softened hours to drift within her own mind of tangled thoughts and insane spins. hours that could never turn to days because there was never enough smoke, never enough room to fully become transparent in a world so dark.

 so, the drift begins and she is calm. she starts off gradual as she floats over the sleeping sunflowers and whispering trees. her skin tingling from the present numbness now begins to feel the night's cool air that carries just a hint of jasmine scent. the moon still high above her and hundreds, thousands, of bodies laying down below her.
 she is light and clear minded, mellow and relaxed. all that could possibly be wrong or go wrong lays still below her in a magenta fury, only hours away.
 deep breaths and shaving of minutes leads to a deflation of sorts. she floats lower and lower until her feet can touch the ground and her skin burns again. attacked by heavy eyes and a pounding headache she lays down on the grass once again and awaits sunrise. awaits the sun's warmth that so graciously pushes away the burning tugging of the night's vicious anger. awake again to face a day of disappointments. a day of minutes. a day of truths.

lips that don't belong

lips that don't belong
unwanted and unsought they made their way into a dark room of innocence. betraying generations of relationships and closure. betraying the sickness that brought them near, they attacked.
maybe the room wasn't dark, maybe it went dark after. perhaps the head boiled over and overheated and vision was lost. the stars came out early and spun around the entire room.

anger. fear. helplessness.
strength. power. fight.

lips that don't belong
should stay that way. they should coward in fear in a corner of a lonely house knowing that they will be hunted, one way or another. knowing that they shall remain cold and chapped and to themselves.

lips that don't belong
though the head you are attached to is wanted, in all sorts of gore-filled vengeance, you will live on. for my story is her story is their story is yours. because i am tired of it. because my stomach turns and my head pounds. because the thought of simply existing in the same state makes me want to set it on fire.

right to live on
in peace, in love in security; of oneself, of your partner, of your neighbor.
the right to live above it and never in fear, never in shame, never in the dark.

adieu

there is but a single beating heart currently present in this room
she stands aside and upright, bidding adieu to her last june.

her breathing has become shortened and rhythmically in time
her hair fixed over neatly, lips glossed with a red sparkled shine.

while looking out the window with her last gin and lime in hand,
she mutters the last hail mary her beautifully broken self can withstand

she had prepared for loneliness, her entire life built solely out of pain
now death watches gleefully, before her very last breath he does claim.

migrating memories

There are roses on the coffee table, right next to the empty bottle of wine. The entire room is motionless while it gets progressively darker and the sound of outside life eats away at me slowly. There has been a nagging tug that has taken shape in words and colors and scents; no clear melody or rhythm to it. 

It's probably the weather, maybe even the lower dosage of stimulants. 
Or it could be the bull. The bull who will begin to migrate in the days to come. 

The bull with his furious passion and aggressive lips that taste of whiskey. 
The same bull that led me up a twenty-story building and pushed me off. The one who charged full force onto another chase while I still lay half naked on cold concrete. The bull who smells like a sweet summer night when laying next to you. 

The past is always romanticized; more often than not, reminisced. 
There were plenty of intoxicated nights to last a lifetime and plenty of half remembered words that were spit in front of cabs and doorways. The city bridges were witness to too much and my heart to not enough. There will be a form of closure in this migration, though not certain for who. 

The rain will continue to pour and the sun will continue to kiss my skin.
Nothing and all will be remembered because nothing and all is still mine. 


Rest assured, the bull will still roam.
With me, or without me. 

salted

i try to recall every word that you speak

because every word that you speak is so sweet

and i try to recall - as i walk through the darkness - 

of the abandoned promenade streets

my head is spinning with the spin of a few drinks

and every drink is a new spin - on the words i can't keep - 

so i stumble and i wonder, how you stumbled home

i stumble through the night, cold and alone

I found him one night; alone and shirtless with two open wounds on his back. He had rough dark skin from days spent out in the sun, roaming in his own despair. In all those years, I never thought of asking him for his name, so I just called him my dark angel.

Despite the bloody mess of his back I couldn't help but notice his hands. Long, strong fingers and veins that appeared to glow under the moonlight. His touch would eventually make my heartbeat race while  my mind buzzed with incomprehensible thoughts. Colors would blend into grey shadows and all I would clearly sense after that would be sounds and smells.  

He told me he was in love with the water. "The waves have carried me to you." He'd whisper. He could never really tell me how he ended up on my side but I trusted him, trusted his smile, his shoulders. Night after night I would wait as the sun finished setting, knowing he would arrive shortly after. Days and weeks passed and I fell deeply in love with my dark angel. I might have manifested his appearance but his decision to keep coming back was his, I think. 

Perhaps I jumped too fast.

Maybe it was the way his lips tasted of salt and how it strangely reminded me of blood. It could have been how I could finally sleep without the sheets covering my feet whenever he was there. Or, how my hands fit perfectly into his, and how they never felt too hot. Regardless, I jumped. Jumped into and out of bedroom windows and out of closet doors. I jumped and fell away from the bruises and the scars. I kept falling faster and faster, away from every punch and broken mirror. I jumped into a wave of constant crashing pleasures and desires. I jumped into what I had envisioned, wanted, and created, long before I ever met him. 

The dark angel roams. However, he has other window sills to trace with his long fingers. He will forever claim the sand and waves in my mind. The smell of the ocean will be his for as long as I can hold onto and every crashing wave upon my shore will be followed by a sigh of anticipation.