Me quiso enseñar a no pronunciar ternuras sobre las piedras
Decía que los poros eran traicioneros y que me comerían viva si intentaba acercarme a sus gritos
Yo, sin miedo, desobedecí
Yo, sin miedo, entendí
y sofoqué aquellos cantos designados para la preservación del alma en su nido
Me quedé sin miedo, ciertamente, receptáculo vacío al borde de la furia
Ahora hablo con lo espeso de los montes
Hablo con los pasos de los muertos, con el río de los gestos acallados
Las vértebras de los días enredadas en lo desparramado de aquel amor
Usamos palabras que a medias conocemos para decirnos lo que ha quedado
Y después de tanto sol enmudecido, qué ha quedado,
dime tú
—————————————————————————————————————–
A leaf sways helplessly on the branch that breaks. Disappointment is but a splash of tiny dots across the sky, choreographing sadness on the lapels of the great abyss. I shrivel. My bones are connected to the earth, and the earth to the fallen fruits on the ground that seek out the heavens in vain. No one knows where to set their gaze, scattered grace fading into the impossible. I collapse. And reach–.
________________________________________________________________________
I’ve let you believe
you’re the better person
but you haven’t liked that
of me either
I think of the train tracks right
across your window
I think of them as a steel river
resisting
against all movement
as I resist the temptation
of having a certain feeling or two
tell me what to do
which to my rational self
I like how those trees
and that stony path
make up the long way home
for you
My eyes used to own
a similar view
in that giant city where I felt
invisible and forsaken
an odd little play
happening for no one
my desire the only audience
that could have possibly
gone wild
I miss the sound of your
keys against the metal door
you’d open for me
to come inside
Inside me, a tiny flame
waiting for the night
to sit on our laps
while we smile
not knowing what to do
after fucking everything up
We ran out of schedules
and sidewalks and
boxes of matches
just to become
wilted dreams to each other
a couple of sad muses
weaving up the worst stories
watching trains turn to trees
turn to stones
thinking we understand
________________________________________________________________________
un dolor de muela a las 4 de la mañana no te define
no lo hace una canción vieja
ni tampoco el licuado guango que te arruinó el día
ahora repítelo diez veces, mil
domesticarse es un acto comunitario realizado en completa soledad
y se realiza
aprendes a no alterarte demasiado
a hacer cosas por tu bien, cosas que el animal en ti no quiere hacer
te acicalas de cierta forma
trabajas de cierta forma
procuras de cierta forma
amas de cierta forma
te aburres de cierta forma,
y ya no lo mencionas porque se toma de todas las formas posibles y amenazantes
cuando tú solamente querías escribir
lo que dejaste pendiente tiene sentido cuando intentas rescatarlo
cuando intentas comprenderlo para sobrevivir a ti mismx
sabes que nunca has seguido el guión al pie de la letra
te has batido una y mil veces en el mismo corazón puerco de lo conocido
la adrenalina para hacer todo mal pulsa recia, fuerte
clavas las uñas en esa noche en la que te prensaste de un cuello por demás felino
entendiste aquella escritura sobre la pared
viste todo lo que eras y todo lo que podías llegar a ser
no huíste
te domesticaste
tomaste tus cosas y todas tus esperanzas, y te fuiste en la primera corrida del día
a cazar torpemente, como es tu costumbre
cuando no te define nada y aun así sueñas con la puntualidad del reloj
la alimentación sana
la amistad sincera
la atención médica
los intereses perfectos
y todo aquello que sigues sin entender pero que buscas
porque así es la vida en esta vida
de intentos, cuentas y silbatos
y tú sigues sin saber cómo es ser tú bien
realizarte a solas
para el bien de todos
a pesar de ti
________________________________________________________________________
it’s not that immaculate:
the walk, the promenade
the frothy border at the
edge of earth and sky
a film replayed a few times
for the lack of memory
of your mother’s hand
pleading you not to go
her fingers crisp
like they could snap
if you pulled away too hard
the day was made for others,
you thought, the bricklayer,
the bookkeeper, the student
who actually reads, you in your
new outfit, delirious in your
hope of a new set of futures
you’ve forgotten the purpose
of rosary beads, the chair that
has learned not to wait
next to your mother’s bed
symbol of nothing but of
your bent efforts gone astray
down the road, the river
bank counts your steps
you never memorized
the name of that strong-billed
bird not looking back at you
nor did you ever learn
what a pinch meant
when it went into your
mother’s pots and pans
the walk is long, the stride
steep, and it makes no
difference in the grand scope
of things, the landscape
a train of colors, blurred,
like you: finished, untouched
________________________________________________________________________
the fly is a confession
of letting
something rot
to expect is a sad
companion you think
will understand
sometimes we’re hurt
sometimes we hurt
ourselves
in ways we need
meaning for
there’s a reason why
flies roam around
the head
there’s a reason we
echo the uncomfortable
buzz of being
silence is the ultimate
nurturer of fear
but we won’t have that
if it doesn’t mean we
can hide or pretend
how much of a difference
will it make to wait
the frustration of holding
out a barren hand
________________________________________________________________________
to survive getting what you want
requires a decision from you,
one that will enable you to believe
there were too many obstacles
for anything to really come full circle;
if it happened too soon or too late,
it doesn’t matter, so long as it didn’t happen
by what you would consider
a sensible standard, a reasonable choice
sometimes I wonder how much we are able
to devise from plain sight
language doesn’t know the truth of your
behavior, nor does it care if you pushed too
hard or if you didn’t lift a finger;
it knows you will call out to it, feed it like
you would a dog conditioned to receive
what it can, grateful even for imperfection —
it knows what tricks to perform, and it
will deliver them obediently, to you
sight is supposed to make everything clear
and tangible, and yet…
there’s something about our eyes, our sight,
tho, that marks tragedy harder on our backs
we want to see but we’re afraid to look;
we want to look for but we’re afraid to find
that tiny piece of information we’re
eluding in order to be right and to feel right,
even if everything is clearly wrong — a tree
rotting through every branch and every fruit,
standing tall, surviving, but barely
________________________________________________________________________
I had a lot to say
but never found
the right moments
for it all
the streetlight nods
a tar-black puddle
shines back
I strip my feet from
restraint
2:24AM
________________________________________________________________________
You’re leaving my body,
not quietly, tho
I laugh at the sound of that,
what it’s like to feel
I’m that haunted
Energy stuck at the palms,
soles heavy with electricity —
not the kind that makes
for heroic gestures,
or merciful actions,
much less fit for great love
It’s more like the echo
of all that went wrong;
the lament of decaying
as a house in silence,
afraid of its own walls
closing in, as if that
imminent collapse had
nothing to do with
being two stones thrown
in opposite directions,
afraid of edifice,
too quick to run away
from making each other
burn
________________________________________________________________________
your name doesn’t know my name anymore
it knows someone called april or may or june
i don’t know
i’m from july, but my name is not a month
my name is a series of radical
misfortunes i like to call experiences, to save face
we’re in august now
and i’m drowning in silence, pained
it’s far too early, tho, to know where things will go
where all my emotions will land
what will remain nestled in my heart
after the steam of the broken cogs cools off
seven has become an unlucky number
as july has become an unlucky month,
or rather, they’ve become signs
a divine plan twisted enough to know
what i’ll become after calling your name when
i shouldn’t, knowing i won’t hear my name back
your lips angry at me for using my lips
to call upon you, upon your wishful absence,
wishing they didn’t,
________________________________________________________________________
Sometimes the tough part is knowing you have to put your heart into things. Something good does happen when you brush your teeth. Something good does happen when you are able to leave the door untouched because you can resist the urge of acknowledging it when you don’t need it. But sometimes you will need it. To cross a threshold is a step into decision. An entrance or an exit mean the same thing on the grounds of possibility. Probability works differently. Like clean teeth in a smile, in a speech, in a kiss. I might have been asking the wrong question. I might have been standing for too long, sitting for too long, moving for too long on account of thinking into the future, into the nonexistent, a severed delusion of the present. Each morning asks things of me, asks me for ways to contort myself so as to move ahead, tread with care, with caution. But I never seem to answer correctly. Does driftwood need to trust? Does it need to pray? To be found? To be turned into ink? I’m in another picture, another scene entirely. And perhaps fetching one’s mind and putting it into one’s heart is the tough part. But the tough part to what.
________________________________________________________________________
weird how stuff turns out
we go a little crazy sometimes
a little beyond ourselves
we come to love the unlovable
we shower moments with hope
we forget the ground
we forget who we are
where we’re supposed to go
we don’t even know what
we’re doing
we talk about what hurts
with someone who is also
hurting
and they vomit their pain
verbally
while we materialize
our own pain with their pain
oh so real
overturning our insides
as bile onto the floor
the image of each other
breaks
and breaks us free from
each other
we stop looking for
a book to connect
or a bed to share
and search for rest elsewhere
in our own spaces
in our own worlds
in forgetfulness because
it’s all been too much
we go a little crazy sometimes
and it’s ok, we tried not to
we tried to make
the impossible meaningful
and we must go
each on our own way
not a little crazy anymore
but well aware that beyond
ourselves
is none of our business
especially when we remember
who we are, who we really are
away from voids
and lovable
where better love awaits
________________________________________________________________________
One has to get ready to write. To have words again. To have words for the swaying of a flower stalk, the swaying of a noose, the swaying of all that news we ultimately might or might not want to know about. I fix a fig on my tongue, crush it sweet in my mouth. Chewing, observing… Where does it all go? How do seconds become thought? Emerged… This pen is black. It runs smooth on skin and paper. It feels soft against my urgency to navigate from syllable to syllable. I no longer dream of chances, and yet I take them all the time. The dead weight I carry around has a name and expiration date on it. It likes to be remembered from time to time, just when there is enough void for it to be summoned needily into life. But in essence, I forget everything eventually. I’ve learned the way of detours and time hops. One raindrop, two raindrops, a thousand raindrops hit and glisten on all rhythms. The words I want to know blossom then, one after another, without much of a trace of forged days. It’s a miracle they mean something, miracles in their own right. I take a few and slip them into my pocket. And then I’m ready, once again.
________________________________________________________________________
an expanse of the transparent, odorless, tasteless, with pebbles and sand.
fill in the gap.
a) waterfall b) coast c) lagoon d) pond
a) port b) shore c) beach d) bay
my students explain the differences to me.
“like, you walk along the coast. the port is, like, for ships.”
my part is explaining what parts of speech can go before and after a noun.
“and remember to fill in the answers on your answer sheet, too!”
telling students how to fill in gaps. that’s what i do.
they go to the beach on holiday. they swim and go on water rides, get tans and forget about their homework until it’s absolutely necessary not to. that’s what they do. my students.
***
every body of water seems to be waiting. a visit. a definition of itself. we assume it’s waiting because we assume we are to discover something there. a postcard view. our selves. a joint. someone else’s tongue. an answer to a problem we inevitably go back to when the waves and sunset are replaced by the usual stuffy commute and too short lunch hour.
no beach is actually waiting. a beach is not a place, not exactly. it only seems to come to exist when you need it.
***
i’ve been to the beach two times, according to a pair of photographs.
a beach in lázaro cárdenas. pigtails and a little round belly in a kid’s bikini. the 80’s did that, of course. i was probably 3. the beach looks too brown, too rocky, too dirty, but i suspect 80’s film did that, too. i’m standing solid on the sand, facing the sea, my hands on my hips, a lifesaver under my left arm. “i’m going to conquer this place”, it looks like i thought. i hope i did do that, as much as a 3 year-old could do.
the second is just my feet in the sand. everyone is swimming or on colorful towels, gossiping with friends. it looks like it’s about to rain, and i am alone, watching someone who has stopped loving me swim clumsily in the immense lake that belongs to my childhood summers. and winters. and to my perpetual nostalgia for the gray city i was born in. my feet in the sand, my keratosis pilaris on the small screen. “i don’t belong on the beach, not even on this one”, i know i thought, just not with those words, or that sigh, not quite yet.
***
this is the beach.
walter benjamin lived in grunewald
i got there on the s7, by accident
fairytale greens & blinding sunlight
my story isn’t history’s
la manzana sobre la mesa no dice nada
se come sola mientras me ve pasar
buscando calor en la mirada apagada
de todo aquello que me saborea triste
my fingers taste like metal. a doorknob. the mere sight of endless railings. the subway.
my aunt’s eyes, little and sweet, like my grandmother’s.
she looks up at what the nurses are doing, stares at the patients.
she turns to me and says something intelligible,
but then she says it a second time, a third, a fourth, and my heart breaks.
her mind is wandering off to all the past she had always felt so much nostalgia for,
jumbled up now, a strange mosaic.
but sometimes she’s focused and hears the screaming from another patient in another room;
she mimicks the wailing and let’s out a cackle.
and that’s when i know she’s not off somewhere, she’s there, with me, her usual humor wide open, so crass and wicked.
i slap her on the head with a plastic folder and whisper to her to shut up.
she looks up at me. we both roll our eyes and giggle.
my coughing today had the texture of keys. i felt my throat rough, as if my entire insides wanted to slice their way out.
i saw my aunt yesterday, from afar. i wasn’t allowed in to visit her. some procedure shit.
i waved to her from just inside the door before being asked by a nurse’s broad back to please kindly get the fuck out.
my aunt looked up, her cute beady eyes lighting up her whole face. an instant smile.
two instant smiles.
she can still recognize me.
violent rain. it pierces the air and everything moves against its will.
everyone runs for cover. i clasp onto my umbrella and stay still.
the sky is made of steel.
a man is trying to sell his cellphone. his wife has just died. he’s crying.
i feel everything gray against my tongue.
the sky slips slowly down my throat.
it is a gun. the sky is a gun.
there’s nothing to do.
today i go inside the hospital room. the lights are out. every patient is sleeping, including my aunt. i look down at her, at her heavy breathing. she’s sleeping. sleeping, like when we shared our bed during late afternoon naps, or when i would come back from someplace and find her on the couch waiting for me between snore and slumber. she’s sleeping, and i bend down to kiss her forehead, her cheek, my fingers caressing her bright motherly skin. she stirs a little but keeps sleeping, keeps dreaming. i leave the room, happy that she looks so placid, so at peace in deep sleep, sleeping, like i remember her sleeping. i smile. i don’t want to say goodbye. i quicken my pace into a run. i wish she could just keep sleeping on like that. i wish we didn’t have to say goodbye.
a window stare. his coffee cup sighs. it sits and waits. i sip, outside.
saberme en mí. desear recibir cartas del universo que no me saquen la lengua, ni el pene, ni el peine de lo que me pasa. buscarte en cada ventana. imaginar que no me muero. suspirar ante el fuego. dejar escapar el alma en canto. bailar furiosa el pasado. patearte las bolas. besarte muy fuerte. correr como loca. reírme todita. sacudirme tu parálisis. enunciar todas las piezas que me conocen como soy. reinventarme vertical. desatada, como siempre. pero, a destiempo, como siempre. trial and error. trial and error. trial and error. mal.di.ta. se.a.
Today’s failures were strictly planned. Essential. Especially the parts where I am to accept and heal and grow.
How we love to tell ourselves the same stories over and over again.
So we talk. About other things. About being happy in what we know. About being unhappy when we don’t understand. Which is often.
The facts I know might not apply to everyone.
I am lazy.
You might not be.
The best view of any place is on a boat.
You know I’m wrong
and you think of how beautiful
your city looked
upon landing at your local
airport a few nights ago.
I like reading into fire.
You like reading in bed.
My secrets are taken in capsules.
And so are yours, but we don’t talk about that.
So, again, we talk about other things.
I wonder how many words are wasted in not knowing.
This morning felt like destiny. The wrong kind. With car horns honking and cruel-looking eyes. The cold. The queue. What’s present, what’s absent. Incorrect numbers. Red in the face. Not the right blue. Paradise is Maui. Or the Bible. Or a power outage that will please let me go home an hour earlier, just this once. But that’s not happening. All the other things are. In their own way. To whom they may concern.
I pout.
Today’s failures were strictly planned. Essential. Especially the parts where I am to accept and heal and grow.
How we love to tell ourselves the same stories over and over again.
Let’s talk.
a veces hay noche. hay volantes. hay carriles. hay párpados pesados. hay la necesidad de llegar viva a casa. y es cuando te veo. te veo claramente. en la distancia. humo de cigarro. café entre las manos. pasos descalzos. silencioso. siempre a solas. siempre adentro. esperando. esperando todo. esperando a todo aquello que no soy yo. y rompo el escenario. rompo al conductor. rompo su plática. su puerta. el cristal de su puerta. el siguiente coche. el siguiente carril. el andén del metro. el vagón del metro. la siguiente acera. la que sigue. rompo los edificios. las ventanas. los televisores. las charlas. los cuerpos. los vacíos. rompo las esquinas. los postes. las calles. subidas. bajadas. las iglesias. los hoteles. rompo todos los lugares que te resguardan de mí. rompo la noche. me rompo. y llego. ante ti. sin filo. sin aliento. sólo mi presencia. entera. patética. y te miro. y me miras. y ves cómo se me van los ojos hacia ti. hacia la cama. hacia el escritorio. hacia las sábanas. hacia el cuaderno. y de pronto me acuerdo de que nunca sé por dónde empezar contigo. cómo romperte. cómo rompernos. cómo romperme de regreso a mi lugar en el asiento trasero. esperar llegar a casa. en la noche. al sueño. lejos de ti.
no. 58
esta casa tenía número telefónico de cinco dígitos. tenía siete camas y una cuna. tenía un perro que yo no conocí, uno que lanzaron al río y felizmente regresó.
la calle es emilio carranza. hay otras calles: mina, allende, melchor ocampo, cuauhtémoc, muchas más de personajes históricos que ni por la secundaria logro recordar.
en este pueblo todo es “allá arriba”, “allá abajo”, “allá por”, “ancase”.
mi abuelo tenía una casa mejor, “allá arriba”. tenía tres hijos y cuatro hijas. tenía a mi abuela. tenía un mal vicio, como todos los hombres de este pueblo de horas lentas y botellas. en una borrachera, perdió una apuesta, su casa de “allá arriba”, y llegaron a ésta.
esta casa pobre, chiquita, de vigas de madera y suelo de tierra, vio crecer a 11 nietos. mi kínder estaba “allá abajo”, al final de la cuadra y a la derecha. para entonces ya había domingos de concha con chocolate y en familia con chabelo. las paredes y pisos vestían de colores. la mayor parte de los adultos se habían ido al otro lado y las idas al banco hacían que supiéramos que todo estaría bien. mi abuelo iba por mí a la escuela y yo me le adelantaba corriendo y jugando por la calle. llegábamos a sentarnos a la mesa, a comer juntos, todos platicando, mi abuela siempre en chinga, mi tía siempre riendo.
ahora, 30 años después, la casa tiene un segundo piso y mucho silencio. seis camas, vacías. aquí se regresa para que unos se despidan y otros mueran. soy la única que regresa para hacer ambas. visito cada vez que alguien se nos va, y también cuando me aniquila la ciudad, cuando me empieza a fallar el cuerpo, la cordura. aquí se muere bien, se descansa bien, pero yo sigo inquieta. aún no sé si estos rincones puedan sostenerme de alguna manera, así, siendo como soy.
el número telefónico ha aumentado con dos dígitos. anoche escuché a un gato maullar afuera de la recámara en donde me estoy quedando. pienso en que una casa puede contener muchas historias, muchos giros, muchas vidas.
hay más calles en este pueblo cuyos nombres no me sé. siguen ahí, como puntos suspensivos.
aún hay cosas
que no sé soltar.
el control, por ejemplo,
la lengua, el culo
y sus demás secuaces.
a veces me pregunto
qué han significado
todos aquellos intentos
de espectro,
las búsquedas bruscas
y sus verdades ondulantes,
los minutos vueltos días,
los días vueltos nada,
esos abrazos de susto
que con sus letras vivas
se quedan atorados
entre brote y polvo,
entre ayer y mañana,
entre los nuncas
y los siempres
que creemos existen.
pero ni el mismísimo
descontrol es capaz
de arrojar respuestas.
sólo somos nosotros:
simples preguntas
malhechas hurgando
en donde no hay.
i.
no fue hasta hoy en la mañana mientras me bañaba que me di
cuenta de las selvas que ocupaban el lugar de mis axilas.
pensé en el rastrillo pero opté por pintarme los labios de
rojo para afrancesar la situación — el descuido también
merece tener su momento de glamour.
ii.
la seriedad que domestica se llama agotamiento. la seriedad
que libera se llama de otra manera pero lamentablemente no
recuerdo su nombre.
[y ya que estamos en ésas, ¿sería posible pedirle a la
lluvia que no mimetice? para chubasco, ya tengo suficiente
con mi propia confusión…]
iii.
desaparezco de los párpados para afuera. cancelo mi cita
con los espejos. no hay nada que ver si la ceguera lo
impide, y depender de un sólo sentido para sobrevivir es
bastante mezquino.
Speaking in tongues or parading gimmicks on a leash,
I circle around my words, galling shards between my toes.
One tear might as well be two. Or more. Or many.
I am used to asking the wrong questions.
Does courage come in a box?
Will it make me pretty?
Can it tell the future?
I curl the lint in my pockets deep into my fingernails,
Heartbeats folded frantically into a messy response.
Last Sunday’s map of a city I knew well,
Showed streets difficult to walk through,
And bodies of water that no longer exist.
A song on the radio belongs to my mother,
Who was buried on a sunny day,
With the same doubts as mine.
Evening falls upon corners the clock insists on exposing,
Each door I’ve left ajar stands ablaze but forlorn.
I am supposed to be someone else by the end of something,
If only that something were a clean name again.
i.
Sunday is more like a month
It happened this morning
Hibernating into life
ii.
The wrong shoes, the wrong hair
What will the future look like
No time, I run across the street at yellow
iii.
My father used to buy the newspaper
It never had the funnies, though
Just dead bodies, severed politics
iv.
A drop of mint tea on the page with your poem
An accident, I hope you won’t mind
I’ll lick one off your lips later on anyway
v.
Nature and its unfamiliar names to me
Those larkspur (?) look softer than the sky
This thought, rain sliding down over every color
vi.
A flame hums under the oldish kettle
Night is a fluffy towel over my shoulders
You’ve found your keys, you’re in, you smile
vii.
We’ve slept too deeply but I’m awake now
It will be another morning for you soon
Outside, silence sways steady, pitch-black
viii.
This was a song, how could I’ve forgotten
A half-eaten waffle, a sunny kiss goodbye
I pull up the comforter and listen
蝶 (or, 15 strokes to become)
in english, a compound noun. butter. cheese, milk, cow, dairy, fat. fly. wings, buzz, velocity, fuzz. verb. fuss. insect. fuss. ear. fuss. slippery. fuss. cholesterol. fuss. fuss. fuss. fuzz.
generalities.
specifics: scrapbooking; crafts; lisa frank merchandise; hair accessories for girls; bad tattoos; the word ‘metamorphosis’.
i hate butterflies. those.
***
nabokov and my days at uni. nabokov and lolita. nabokov and everyone’s nabokov. my interest wasn’t really there; it was in his index cards. nabokov and his nabokov. nabokov and his index cards: over-intentional, wordy, overflowing with pen drips and zeal, trying to be contained in a small hopeless slip of ruled cardboard… it’s no surprise that someone with such a particular interest in the aesthetics of classification would ultimately produce an exquisite collection of scientific illustrations, of butterflies, no less.
***
my mother comes from a state in mexico famous for day of the dead, organized crime, and the arrival of the monarch butterfly, in winter, for hibernation. thousands of hectares of firs and pines covered in orange and black, clusters of butterflies swarming in furious tiny whirlwinds while the rest sag millions of branches quietly to the ground. the power in all of this makes me feel literally nauseous. i could not handle the sight of it if i had to face it. i don’t know why. it’s their home. like me sprawled out on my bed typing this. something about it is grotesque, too messy, too natural. it’s marvelous, and yet it makes my stomach churn.
***
butterflies were thought to be a form witches took to steal milk left uncovered.
my aunt once told me about her father’s mother, a woman dressed in black, severely religious, severely cold to her grandchildren, because they were poor. they would be sent by my grandmother to visit their grandmother, to keep her company. they’d get hungry during their stay, but she wouldn’t let them near her food. when she was out one day, my aunt –the youngest and most mischievous of them all– took a pot of milk that was on the kitchen table (or raw cream, i can’t remember) and finished it all. well, not all, just enough. but not enough, really. probably just a taste, a sip. her brothers and sisters had been taught to know better. but she did it. she dared. a taste, a sip. even if just a taste, a sip, in the name of her siblings, a huge smile on her face, i hope. she smiled when she told me about it, anyway.
some stories work the other way around.
***
match correctly.
a) break a butterfly on a wheel ____ fluttering felt in the stomach when nervous
b) gaudy as a butterfly ____ a person going from party to party without care
c) butterflies in one’s stomach ____ cute, fancy
d) a social butterfly ____ all for this?
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but every time i happen to catch glimpse of a single butterfly in the air, i get inexplicably excited. it’s the only time i am able to see the butterfly for what it really is and not the word, not the caricature, not the metaphor or the effect or the stroke. a butterfly is always a majestic sight. the real ones, though. i don’t know what to call the rest.
Underneath our steps,
calendar days make us stumble,
serving as thick reminders
of their ever-growing greed
Further out, winter crawls into our ghosts,
shakes the wrong words out of them,
leaves them bare,
past iron, past death
The night swells back into its foundations
I am standing, however,
pressing against an invisible war
The hiss of the usual
rough around the hundred stones,
ornaments of my nature
and my rustic sense of hope
A landscape is near
I cannot see the risk or the real,
only a red sun that ripples
high above an insurmountable frontier
Infinity gleams through my hands,
and I, an impossible net,
keep myself wide open,
unwritten, possible
no sé hacerme invisible. tampoco le estoy contestando a un exterior. es la terquedad del monólogo hasta sus últimas consecuencias. es perder la noción de lo que es sin buscarle reemplazo. no hay conciencia. no hay trasfondo. la percepción se distorsiona y los filtros rechinan demasiado irreales. la boca hambrienta de las ausencias es incapaz de sentir furia — sólo calla, espontánea. no percibe formas ni sentido, ni fondo ni interpretación. es como estar muerta? es como verlo todo? entre dios y la locura, la lista de absolutos se retuerce y expira. sólo queda la vastedad del universo, y con él, quedo yo.
sample this, a script for the innocent
deep topography otherwise forgotten
all lands rest before the next heaven
something stops to speak inventions
how to crawl into corners, how to sleep
how to tamper with verbatim
curiosity has its own moods to stretch
one body touches another, we reconsider
our dreams are the last vowels to break
nothing knows itself after the first force
except the score of ivory memories
intact through our eyes in dying light
Teresa Mestizo 