He tells me it's a good thing,
how I don't cling to old ways.
Nothing like my cousin or my mother.
I hear my voice on the phone,
having a beer with his friends
and I'm startled by the monotone,
stuttering acquiescence.
I think of the Swiss lady at the cafe
who heard me and my sister's
excited Portuguese and stopped us
To say the ups and downs,
the singing quality: all tell-tale
That we could only be Brazilian.

Do songbirds sound as sweet
when they return north for the summer?
I don't know. But last week I woke up
And for a dazzling second
I believed I was back at my grandma's
Expecting the smell of drip coffee
and star anis, to hear the faint
orchestra of ***** cicadas.
I remember the time I saw, flying above,
A pair of geese. From where I stood
Their long necks looked like tails.
But how, macaws? I thought.
Flying backwards, cold and lost,
high in the Northwestern flatlands.

between slow mornings and fast nights,
dropping the masks, sweet ecstasy,
I chose comfort, soft arms, endless quiet sunsets.
it's funny:
you've never been one to pretend,
but still: you held my bleeding hand
to the light.
still, you bared your chest, golden and tender.

this bleeding, thieving hand of mine. 
I take your secrets, clinking like
pink seashells taken from the sea;
I scratch my eyes out not to see
the startling mess I've made of things,
but it's no use. I still see the fish on a string
and your terrible eyes, at times languid, submerged  
but sweeter still in their shock.

and while all those times i was yours,
only now do we play a twisted parody of ourselves.
only now i see the bitterest truth of all:
there's nothing divine about this,
we will never see this through.
there's mean and ugly, and then there's us, taking turns.
in my dreams I offer you something that is not mine to give.
and if blows fell true like kisses,
my golden boy, i'd never have to dream again.

it's one of those days
where your memory fails you
and a look outside your window
compels you to walk out the door and then
keep on walking, like you're aimless,
like you don't know exactly where
you want to end up. who you want to run into.
but a place is just a place unless he's in it --
and you could walk until you bumped
your feet against the edge of this world and
still not find what you're looking for.

today is one of those days
where i would kiss him wherever
he wants to be kissed. but i'll settle for a walk
and a bench somewhere with a pink sunset
where maybe if i just kept looking up at the sky
it wouldn't fade to black this time.

it all happens so fast
you almost look a little blue, baby
“here’s where the language barrier gets us”
you laugh now, but as you say that
your eyes are glued to the ground

when does every lovely thing break into shards?
always looking for the beginning of the end
this isn’t the way. hammer in your hand—
tear it all down, i say.
i’m done with this house of mirrors.

don't you almost feel a bit
like the guy who discovered fire?
there’s poetry before you fall asleep next to him
and there’s poetry after it.
the latter which is all worthless, of course.

turns out it’s rather comforting
to look in the mirror and see someone
other than yourself.
to see you, darling boy.

to see you.

can you tell my teeth are clattering?
taking your hand by the wrist, placing it
on the soft underside of my stomach
where only soft tissue lies between vital organs
and the negligible possibility of your cruelty,
i am letting you know: this is enough
to make the old animal of my body shake in fear.
keep your hands right there until they’re warm.
you can have this. you can have me.

will you stay after the curtains are down?
after taking their bows, i swear,
even the greats still look like people.
the well-dressed stranger in front of you at the checkout.
your cousin’s old piano teacher. and there’s a reason
why celebrity gossip sells more than the local newspaper.
here's the thing. you want to bare the darkness, the cancer;
to be loved, desperately, despite the horror of it.
but no one's ever willing to be the emperor --
you want to be the child, clothed.
tattling fingers forever raised.

it's always just been fog machines and fitting costumes.
your eyes, sharp and weary, search for a way
past the infinite charades, beyond the gaze of the winged,
half-lion abomination.
and i think i finally understand.
because your hands are shaking, too, as you tell me:
neither of us are destined for godhood.
next time, i’ll call you when i’m sick.
next time, i’ll take you grocery shopping.
tomorrow, i’ll kiss you in the morning and it won’t taste like mint.

my vision blurs and refocuses around the sight of tamed blue fire. i am waiting for the low wheezing sound of the kettle as my mind wanders everywhere i wish it not to go. there was always tea ready for me at my therapist’s office; i think that’s where it started. we used to talk about my parents a lot, me and my old therapist. i remember telling her this one time: I love like my dad. I rage like my mom. she asked me to elaborate and i couldn’t give her much more to write down in her little notepad. i wish i’d said something about how sometimes i wish oranges could grow out of apple trees.

this is one of those days. every move i make has been pre-programmed. i grab a mug from the cabinet. i place it down on the counter. i am trying very hard not to cry. the teabag bobs to the surface so i stick my trembling finger in the water, i drown it until skin turns red and sore, and i’m thinking, You know, maybe I’m not so above it all (hurried whispers, clashing teeth, the hesitant theatre we make out of our long-starving hands). Maybe i need it, very badly. but then again, i’m not bad at being in love; it’s the being loved part that always gets me.

it's funny, isn't it? the paralyzing, nauseating threat of requited affection. funny if you’re the dissector and not the dissectee, that is. ****, but isn’t that what we all want? to be seen? for someone to finally notice everything we love about ourselves and love everything we hate about ourselves? would i not rather see myself through the reflection of your eyes than my own, unforgiving? sharp bathroom LEDs can’t ever beat half-dark and candlelit. see, i know that much. but such is life. some people will walk towards the light and some people will run from it.

from the bottom of my cup, the teabag stains clear water a dark, muddy brown.

i take a step outside in the city of dust and bones.
the game it likes to play goes something like this:
every passage i uncover leads to a narrower one, and
each candle blown is a promise of darkness ahead.
it's a game of shells where my feet can never, ever
take me far enough before they outgrow my shoes.

the first rule of the game is to never stop walking.
the second rule is to keep your ears closed shut.

i wake up once more in the city of dust and bones.
where my eyes cannot be trusted; where my hands
don't quite do what they are supposed to be doing.
where, like beasts, we can only stand and watch
while the will of some ******* god is viciously carried out.
(by that, of course, i mean the same old game called

Power and Whoever Doesn't Have It;
the one with the never-ending shells. you would know it.)

in this city, my rotting city of dust and bones,
i am always irrational and stupid;
i am always the child who can't ever shut her mouth.
and here my head is turned all the way backwards:
nose always pointing towards the footprints i left
when shells turned into sand under my weight. and i wonder:

how far can my feet carry me before i know where i stand?
before the best thing about life are not its countless distractions?