Tough
A poem.
—————

I can’t deal with anyone’s crap.
I got to much blood and boulders,
On my back.

Fighting back the past,
Never been able to relax.

I don’t know if anyone can tell,
—Or if anyone cares,
But I'm about to crack.

they creep up,
Bruises cover much.

Random hallucinations—
Severe pain.

No one's understanding,
—or listening.

My brain is in such a bad headache,
I feel like my insides are blistering.

Fidgeting.
Numbness.
Pain.
Fainting.

Brain making—
Random movements.
All a loss of control.

Appointments got canceled,
“WHY!!!— HOW MANY MORE!?”

When does someone call it-
“Enough!?”
  
I’m NOT….THIS tough.

I am caught, in your eye,
and I drown, in your tectonic wave.
You rattle, intimately,
for me, and shake...

You shift,
minutely,
soundlessly,

collapsing, into sprawling patterns,
into formulaic strains, of madness.
Then you madden, me, as you cascade,
into beautiful, and brilliant shades:

Your Rorschach mosaics,
in prismatic hues.
Each gemlike, facet, of YOU, that is you...

Burning out my gaze,
with your radiance,
as you irradiate...

I'd give anything...to label each color,
that infuses, your face...

Scattering trickles of light,
and roseate shapes...

as if your soul,
were a treasure trove,
of the most precious jewels.

Your vibrant emeralds...
your smoky citrines...
your sapphire blues...
your ruby reds,
and your royal amethysts, too

You twist, in my hands...
and, under the light,
I turn, and return, too,
if only to seek,
a fleeting glimpse...of you.

A man wearing only a sodden overcoat and one dress shoe
led a seasick stallion by a rope along the beach
slowly, so slowly
like their ship that descended the ghostly green.

He said to me, "No kiss of yours can replace deck and cabin,
keel and hold. No woman is as precious as the next breath."
Sadly, so sadly
he wandered away, wearing only one earring and a felt hat.

I was, then, a Multilingual Sister of the Silent Bell
and led the abandoned animal through our courtyard
carefully, so carefully
so as not to disturb the stillness with the thunder of his heart.

Wearing only a sundress and carrying one rope sandal,
I know now that summer pavers are warmer than a drowning man.
Slowly, sadly, carefully,
I flowed that day like water from the stone of Samarkand.

I felt your skin
strip away from me-
you said you’d be right back-
as you slipped into foreign bodies,
lips soft with easy dinners,
who forgot the lightbulb burning out,
the lid left rattling on the counter,
a suit of pots dented, stacked,
steam lifting from a rust-ringed drain.

That studio in the Texas Riviera
was never meant to last-
brown carpet, AC rattling,
bass beating through drywall,
neon from the Whataburger sign
bleeding through blinds.
We were two beautiful accidents
in a month-to-month, always paid late,
your sweat a spell pressed into my skin,
ankles grinding on parking lot gravel,
the road outside a forgotten promise.

And when you smiled I held you
like a chipped glass,
rim still sharp enough to cut.
The ember died against porcelain,
the glitter was swept with the crumbs.
Your armor slumped in the pantry corner,
rusted tins, lids unfastened.
You walked away, naked and ordinary,
the light left buzzing in the kitchen-
outside, asphalt slicked with oil-sheen,
my body, also, dissolved
into the shimmer of the road.

Asylum



In the madhouse
on beds of daggers
we slept like crickets
chirping to ourselves
while they tried their best
to make us cannibals.

The nuns were worse than
lawyers, praying like accordions,
tracking their sins into our soft
wax skulls, wheezing like roosters
when one of us cried, laying the greasy ribs
of Jesus on our plates.

They kept you behind
door number six. I'd go to you
with a stolen key, when the noon
smelled bright as carnations,
when the nights were
more purple than the jacarandas.

You spoke of your father
dead of snakebite,
a clockwork marvel with
his million-dollar suit of skin,
of your mother
with the viper between her lips.

I remember your kiss
astringent with reason
as bitter lemons, and the way
your hair blew back from
your dog-brown eyes like poisonous
smoke from the oleanders.

I thought these things
as beautiful as angels
whispering in the dahlias
when I was lost in the asylum,
when the doctors did all they could
to see that we ate each other
down to the bone.


April 2022

But now that I’m here,
freedom feels fragile,
and the dreams are quieter
than the fear that found me.

Her heartbeat synchronizes with my joys
Her breath aligns with my every stride
In my achievements, she find her purpose
for she has woven her universe within me

if I've scattered like star dust
just to glow in your sky
Maybe- that too
is a kind of becoming.