I cannot let go

I cannot let go, you tell me
pointing at the photographs
behind where you spend your time
head first in the notes,
I cannot let go, you tell me
of the ghost that was her,
my mother who died in an accident
twenty years ago

over the sting

My scorpion, you inspire me to write
in secret about the times I have held your hand
without the sting over my skin

this flesh, like a leaf

A strip down
like a leaf left over
like meat, this flesh

Calamity

There is calm in calamity
the way there's a pip in an olive
lodged right in the middle,
felt at only when bitten into.

No appetite

there is no will
you tell me after I nudge you

to eat, to drink
even to live

this is a deep hole that you've sunk in
there is no one to claim

parentage reasons
you hear of wired words hanging:

triggers, envy, exhaustion
fatigue, lack of color, heavy eye-lids
unmatched skies, refusal of entry,
change, chaos, relaxation

the set continues
while you've lost the appetite

to even breathe
call it desperation, some say

but it is all in the gut, I answer.

open questions to love

Is this punishment
that the way you move
impact my vision, love?

Surpassing heartache

Too long we have been on this road together;
you and I

we passed on another
on a cold winter night

we walked with awkward feet
colliding first into each other

too long have we been on this road together
but tell me how do we surpass

all the heartache that is there
with just a simple photograph

of you in a museum
smiling at a complex painting

folding into your hands
all the errors of my past.

you come up

You come up,
like the treasure found at the end of a box

you come up,
like surfacing for oxygen

you come up,
like a word in a dictionary, looked for not found

you come up,
like a wind floating by quickly

you come up,
like the end of a choir

you come up,
like a sentence out of place

you come up
in stories, like a heavy character

you come up
in memory like its companion

you come up
in red and blue bruises

you always come up

A wedding, unnecessary

There's an air that surrounds you
when you sit wrapping the night like a shawl

- that there have been silver linings, yours copper
- that there are smiles and expressions of love, yours void
- that there is another way to pick roses, yours is to plant
- that there are memories made between the laughs, your phone saves coversation
- that there is a new beggining

the night, cold wraps itself around your shoulders
when at the wedding you sit to think
of different ways to spell love
without slashing your wrists open by its glass.

When I'm sick

When I'm sick
my mind is at its sharpest in math

calculating distances without touching
 on the times I shivered like a leaf

near the black board with the thought
that a pit of numbers will take me down

my dreams are different now
they are closer to touch

salty on my tongue
yet it remains a sharp brain in math

and a poor lung.

Chores

The pan's lifted out of the fire
no burnt, the food filling stomachs

the sheets dry with the tinge
of the sweat that lined them for days

the boots all sparkling clear
of the dusk walked over in the streets

there is so much order in the house
where does this silence come from, then?

for my birthday

The ink poured
out of my hands
ruining all the paper you gave me
for my birthday

Sunday, olives

The ladder positioned between me and the tree

tells a hundred stories 

of running away to hide in branches 

where only the imagination would find me 

scrawling a plan on torn pieces of paper 

pretending its animals skin 

that I am a queen from olden times 

fallen into the recent age by chance 

this is childhood, now older 

with the tree in my hands 

instead of me in hers 

picking its sons and daughters 

how much have you both grown! 

like your life is of no value

You point at an empty frame I haven't hung yet

asking 

what would an empty womb use it for?

Freedom is restricted

close your mouth
put tape over its corners

tie your legs together
with a stone, send it down a lake

put your hands to other use
than typing on a keyboard

avert your eyes
from areas marked with "caution"

cut all buddings of feather
growing between your shoulders

this is natural, a redefinition
of you being free to be restricted too.

too much excitement is not good for women

because the rational cannot compete with the tender 

because the excepted cannot grant way for those unable to beat misery 

with the back of their hands 

because like little glitter you cannot box smiles 

because there are things needed at the house 

because the washing up will stay unwashed 

the dishes dirty, the kids unfed

because it replaces the heart with a butterfly 

because it is not acceptable 

because it preludes to bad things 

because it requires energy 

too much excitement is not good for women.  

wedding rings, not needed

No wedding ring
on her fingers

incapable of loving
herself first

maybe it is not about
loving what's inside for once

maybe all this love
has to be splayed open

for the world to see it.

Look at the birds flying south

Pointing to the birds in the sky you said 

look at the birds flying south 

an act of migration 

I said, it was a dance 

a murmuration,

an act of togetherness 

into an open sky, 

into the sunset the birds 

move together 

next to me, you were silent 

your eyes on the horizon 

its beautiful, you whisper 

I'll think of birds now 

of glorious sunsets 

when I think that you left

fifteen minutes after the birds flew

Not the world ending

In simple few words, you say
the world is not ending

your face under the birds of paradise
framed well with the notion

that the world lasts
the distance between two eyes

it will not end, this world
because of loss

because of a few tears I've shed
while you were sitting across from me.

to get to you

To get to you
I'd have to cross two oceans
I am not a great swimmer
I am also afraid of sharks
I am scared of the high tide
I am captured by the night

to get to you
I'd have to let go
what I have built slowly
an empire of bonds
writings on long summer nights
dancing bodies that excessive love
the difference between the moon and the night sky

to get to you
I'd have to give once more
without expecting to take anything back.