Thank you. For everything.

Cecilia touched the red splotch on my polo shirt, removed it with her finger, and wriggled her nose, as the overhead light brightened with a hazy blue. She licked her finger. I was just glad when she pulled out a chair, sat down, moved closer to me, as I poured myself a ***** cran. Cecilia clapped her hands once, and then clapped them again, as the ceiling slowly morphed into a blanket of green smoke. I guess it looked more like the planet, as the smoke turned into small pockets of water blue.

She closed her fingers over my wrist and choose to look at the floor. "What happened to the carpet?" Cecilia asked, her eyes raising. "What do you mean?" I asked, looking down at my feet that were drenched in honey and chocolate. The TV crackled to life and a picture of Joey Biden appeared and he was writing in a diary. He wore a tennis hoodie, sweatpants, and Birkenstocks.

“What do you think he’s writing?” Cecilia asked, as she munched on a pineapple.

Joey put his pencil down on the desk, then walked over to the window on the right-hand side, opened it, and took a green **** sitting on his nightstand, ripped it, letting out a plume of smoke.

I shrugged and took a large bite out of of the pineapple.

“Something funny? Something serious?” Cecilia asked again, not seeming to notice the green smoke filling up the living room.

“You want my honest opinion?” I asked. The walls trembled from the hammers beating against them. A baby grand piano was being played somewhere upstairs. Outside, stray dogs were barking up a rainstorm. I tossed the pineapple over my shoulder and pulled a candy bar sticking out of the couch cushions. I felt the years of decay and melted caramel apple coating my palm, as I hunched forward, and tossed the candy bar out the windows. The dogs howled gratefully and crooned an old jazz bebop tune.

Cecilia laughed, clicking her heels together. “No, lie to me like you do when I ask you, ‘does this dress make me look fat,” she said, as Joey reached up to his bookcase and inserted his diary in between a history text book and Joseph Heller’s Catch-22. He sighed, closed his eyes, and began to talk in Portuguese.

“He’s writing something about ****. Probably because he just got high,” I said, as I put my hand over my mouth and yawned.

Joey stopped talking in Portuguese and then he got up, walked over the TV screen, touched a button. The screen went black.

Cecilia’s face was shrouded in green smoke, green as crinkled dollar bills. “Do you want to go to sleep?” she asked, stepping over the passed-out brown bear laying in a puddle of honey and chocolate.

“It’s our anniversary,” I said, moving my finger gently over a plush red box. I turned and looked at Cecilia who was grabbing my face and kissing it. The box fell into the honey and chocolate, sticking to the floor.

I bent down, picked up the box, and opened it. A paper airplane floated out and unfolded itself, landing neatly in Cecilia’s hands. She began to read it, “Dear President Obama. Thank you. For everything…”

I closed my eyes and listened to an old Louie Armstrong record playing on a turntable a foot away in the kitchen. The needle scratched. Then, the volume lowered down.

The curtains closed.

And the TV buzzed as the dogs burned each house in the neighborhood.

If I could fly I would know, what life looks like from up above and down below.
I'd keep you safe, I'd keep you dry.
Don't be afraid Cecilia I'm the satellite, and you're the sky.

Shannon, Mariah, Serena, Maria
Meridia, Midian, Sharon, Alliah
Rochelle, Camille, Rose, Halo
Trenna, Jessica, Ashley, Georgia
Marla, Olivia, Sofia, India
Daniella, Diana, Christina, Caroline
Isabella, Amelia, Amanda, Matilda
Nadine, Haley, Bailey, Francine
Eliza, Annabelle, Kathryn, Sandra
Melinda, Audrey, Aubrey, Emily
Tara, Emma, Ginny, Kathleen
Josephine, Helena, Charlotte, Laura
Chelsea, Arkady, Megan, Kelsey
Kayla, Karliah, Moana, Vivien
Kaysea, Macy, Stacy, Lorraine
Theresa, Felicia, Cecilia, Darlene
Holly, Brianna, Alexa, Ariel
Marianne, Miranda, Jennie, Coral
Korra, Daisy, Penelope, Rayne
Zoey, Cassandra, Grace, Stephanie

If the Sacred Fire of Vesta went out, it meant one of two things:
             meant
1. Rome was in danger;
                                                  meant
2. A Vestal ******, a guardian of the flame, was having ***.  
Chastity                                      and                                       fire
are two attributes that are directly correlated.  If one is lost,
the other will follow.  Trust me.  This is fact:
                                                                ­                 only ****** women
                                                                ­                   can be celebrated.

The ****** Mary,
                                the ****** goddesses,
                                                      ­                 the way **** was seen as a crime
                                                           ­        against the father, not the daughter:
                            women
                     ­         must
                            remain
                ­              pure.  

Do not eat the pomegranate seeds,
do not touch the fruit of knowledge.  A
                                                   ­                    statue of a young boy
                                                             ­              holding an apple
                                               does not hold
                                        the same connotation
as a woman holding an apple.  Offering it to a man who
could have refused.  Getting blamed for the fall from Eden.  

                           A woman
with a snake draped around her body is not Eve,
is Lilith, but it’s close enough.  They are both to blame for
all the evils of the world, so what does it really matter anyway?  Women
are more susceptible to wavering in their faith in God,
to worshipping the devil, to practicing witchcraft—

            The flames are out.  Rome is not safe.  A “******” is buried
            alive for her sin.  Lilith is slaughtering women in childbirth.  
            Babies  are  dying.   A  man  is  celebrated  for  his  multiple
            lovers.   ****  shaming  in  79  AD.    The  beds   in   Pompeii
            brothels are made of stone.   St.  Cecilia  is  face  down in the
            dirt.   Women on the same level as slaves,  if not lower.  The
                                     goddess Vesta as a housewife.

I cant remember my dream.
I cant breathe.

Her thin painter hands open the door to the stairwell, the smell of fresh paint replaces that of a spring rain.  Skipping the clean stairs two at a time, she reaches the studio.  Walls of glass flank the empty white hallways that weave in and out, remains of torn masking tape shrivel on the walls like dying flowers.  The door looks like it belongs to a prison, too familiar.  

The sun barely moved, if at all, outside the window.
Tracing the outline of his body, she let the colors tell the story.


A stroke of shadow

Walking to the center of the room, limbic resonance.  A vaguely masculine figure melts into the painting.  It's silent as he dies.  

Her feet hit the pavement.  From the familiar soft dirt path through the woods, she crosses the courtyard to the doorway of the stairwell.  Memories flood her mind under the dull lamplight amidst the rustling dead leaves.  

Moving a stone from the crumbling wall of the school, she places her letters to you beneath the rubble.

Blinding white

I'm holding the keys but I can't find the right one
and the sun burned itself down,
the rain receded into the clouds

nothing is the same


He lies down in the stream
water rushing over him
relaxing, water replaces air

everything is different now.

Blistering Blue

I can't remember my last dream.
Out of space, out of time.  Unnatural surroundings.  
Muffled screams float in from the hallway.
Golden seam of light from the doorway saturates illuminated stitches.
He couldn't remember the last time this had happened.   When he almost lost himself in the pain---
It's like seeing her for the first time, over and over.

Suddenly his hands were covered in their blood.

But I remember them,
telling me to be quiet, not to fight it.  


Blush of Crimson

I've lost concept of time,
time to be quiet
I need to schedule my time
need to go away
Ophelia covered in glass
veins like kite string
he breathed in the water
I never said goodbye.

You know that feeling like everything's the end of the world
Next to the campfire, stars carved into her upper thighs
crossed like constellations as she moved closer to the flame,
gaze drawn up
The flight before the fall

He hasn't yet hit the ground, green flannel still in suspension.  Dew collecting on the leaves slide down to the earth and surround his body.
His eyes are already closed, a moment of vulnerability.  Still on the surface, cold blue water saturates his cuts and seams.

For the touch of a vanished thought caressed the back of her mind, like birds balanced on a live power line.  Digital ripped walls, lights leading to the intervention of the other side of the ghost city, building brick school, and infinite nowhere.  She lit her candle in the studio, watching the wick burn down and melt the wax, a ring of liquid growing from the center.  Strange to drown in heat.  It seems there's a wall of glass between her mind and this supposed reality, without any sound but her breathing and the occasional crack from the slowly burning candle.  She mixes her paint and doesn't think about anything.  The sun sets and rises and sets and rises again.  Sitting in the same place, the candle frozen in perpetual burning.  The room was clean.  And she was painting.  And the birds on the wire gently cawed against a white sky.  The echo returned to the blank room.

I remember that night she stopped answering my calls.  She doesn't pick up anymore.  Curled up in the doorway scrawled with tick marks from when we grew extra inches overnight, phone clutched to my chest.  I looked up and saw old Chinese fortunes folded above the doorway, hot tears spilling down my cheeks.  A feeling of helplessness, guilt.  If she answered I would have driven up there, taken her home.
It was 2am when I left.  I grabbed the keys from the counter, my coat, some chocolate, and a book.  walking to the car, I could see my breath suspended in the air.  Frost coated the sides of the windshield but I didn't stop driving.  I forgot my mittens.  There was a foot more of snow as I ran towards the old door to her dorm, yanking the handle hard enough that the lock slipped and I didn't need an ID to get in.  Warm stale air enveloped me as I gazed over empty security desk under fluorescent light.

Muted Undertones

The painting took up a whole wall of the room.  There wasn' any money to frame it, so it would have to always stay here.
Sunlight leaked in from the window like a steading dripping faucet against a clogged drain.  Her hair was turning blonde again, like when they were younger.
Humming, she was
remembering his hands
as they gripped the wheel loosely
at 5am in the morning
reflective and
coated in glass
in the back of
his black pickup
the sun slowly
bled from behind the clouds
dripping like honey
illuminating blonde
eyelashes,
the dirt on
the windshield.
warm golden
air filled the truck
as he turned the heat on
one hand on
the wheel
the other
reaching backwards to
twisting metal,
broken limbs.
Connected below
the surface
of broken glass.

In between the falling leaves, she whispered 'see you' and kissed his eyelids as he fell asleep.

Neutral Tones

I knocked on her door.  Her roommate answered.  He hadn't seen her at all that day.  I've grown indifferent about my own problems.  So I walked in her room and picked up the scissors from the corner.  Put on her coat for her.  Walked her through the snow to the car.  Cecilia sat between the driver and passenger seat, hand in mine.  I wish I could heal her arm through our layers of jackets, taken some of the sadness away.   We didn't say anything as empty pavement and trees passed in every living moment.

I was thinking about him.

Occasionally we touch, but only in passing.  Shadows, we cover from the heat.  

Ridicule gnaws at these connection, scrapes paint strokes until the threat snaps, the pillars bow
And we take shelter in the cleansing water.  The clashes of flesh.   The segregation of interactions for fear of having ours be known by anyone at all.

(But still they talk, recite the script)
'Cecilia tried to **** herself and her clothes need to be washed'
(Look now, do you see it?)
'It looks like her soul
left her eyes'


Purple Haze

I knew it was a nightmare.  It's stuck to me.  These alien emotions; like a sickness or a burn, interdepartmental rhythms of my brain I'll never fully grasp... not artistic or poetic.  or anything fake and useful.  Just nebular, inhibiting, distressed.
I'm always trapped in something.  A heaviness.  A natural declining, dissipation, entropy.
A brutal and sterile resistance, inviolate and soft to the touch; a lapsing despondency.

He was the sea that he drowned in.  And he was the riverbed in the trees, too.
Swept in whirlpools and ripples and age rings, whispers of fallen leaves in the lucid water.  
Silenced by hushing rage of stone cut rapids.


Ultraviolet Love


He's not seeing normally.  Through the rippling surface her face is reflected into a million moving pieces.
Lines of tape surround his body, they shrivel in the heat of the sun.  This is not natural death.  There are no birds circling overhead, the stream continues to trickle over the rocks.

I drove her home from college started to run a bath.  The hot water faucet turned all the way.  I put my feet in, trying to avoid eye contact with the parallel lines.  Familiar to what i had stitched before.  Pale blue - green water kissed our skin as she closed her eyes.  

We are not creatures of visible light.

i'm so sorry
my dear little darling

that i couldn't protect you
from the flame and the cold


maybe you could come home
and live here with me
in my closet
and you could make my dresses smell like your cute little perfume bottles
and your sweet deoderant sticks

i miss your skinny body, holding you in my arms
girly
you were my daughter
my mother
my sister


don't ever let anyone tell you to stop being you

There is this deadly eater

Which eats through even sweating

A sneeze gives it sharper teeth

To chew the human from inside

Merging blood is its travelling aeroplane

Pleasurable kissing its smooth vehicle

We're lucky the air begrudges it

Or it will wipe us all out

Lovers must be shunned

When they are caught

Because love can't protect

It's  wicked claws

It laughs at hand sanitizers

Because it is stronger than weak bacteria

And waits on death to get more flesh

One cannot be too careful

It kills even hands with experience

So stay away from handshakes and hugs

And be wary of high fevers

Ebola is real

Don't joke, don't laugh

No drug is known to conquer

So stay alert and stay alive.

  Amoafowaa Sefa Cecilia (c) 2004

"A" is for Abuelitos left back in Mexico who are
Heartbreaking knowing the moment,
they see their children leave home
to cross a dessert they might ever cross.
Heartbreaking knowing once they do arrive al Norte
decades might pass without seeing eachother.
Heartbreaking knowing that they might not get to know
their nietos because their salud esta muy delicada
Heartbreaking knowing that their would be a chance
of someone dying in either side
and wont be able to say the last goodbye.

"A" is for Abuelitos left back in Mexico who
I have never got the chance to meet.
Abuelitos who I loved since the day
I saw pictures junto a mis padres
Abuelitos who I share sangre y caracter and face feautures.
Habra un dia donde nos reuniemos como la familia que somos.
Pero hoy escribo un poema en sus memoria.
Tambien para los abuelitos que me siguen esperando,
Los quiero mucho y sean fuertes

In memory of Memorio Covarrubias y Cecilia Martinez.

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Chances popped

With me on your table

To prepare as you pleased

Be with as you pleased

And eat as you pleased

But you decided the dustbin was my home



Mouths surrounding were indifferent

Knowing not my worth but staying safe in case...

The housekeeper looked and picked me

He decided I was too good a food to be eaten

So he polished and gave me wings

Now he reaps my worth



What you used to give him was peanut

I give him a hundred times what you have

And plenty smiles, now you seek to guard his gate

And find a way to steal me

Too bad my loyalty never wanes

So you have to deal with it



You might want to look

Look keenly like your life depends on it

Before you dispose of anything, anything you are offered

Lest you lose what could make you you

As one you deem worthy takes your chance

Legally and shines in your stead

   Amoafowaa Sefa Cecilia (c) 2014

The rebellion has gone too far;
it has hurt us cruelly
without truthful reasons.
Oh where are you, Cecilia?

Just wake up, just silence
while we run away,
because finally it's our chance.
Oh where are you, Cecilia?

When everything's ruining
we have to start over
... existing.

When everything's changing
we have to start over
... waking up.

The Sacristy

A pastoral palace
A haven for servants of God
A prep room for the clergyman.
A probationary clergyman,
At his knees in prayer before the lord.

Roars of thunder rattle the room,
Clashes of lightening illuminate,
Through a stained-glass window.  
He is alone,
Father Bernard Benedict,
At the mercy of the lord.

Bernard

Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned greatly,
Questioning his own fate,
never before today.
I am full of fear, Father.
Terrified of what will become of me,
if my betrayal of you progresses.
I’m scared of what won’t become of me,
if I remain loyal.

Father, all I know for sure,
is that I’m very confused,
And I need guidance.
It is a sin to deny thy lord,
in any circumstance,
but it is my own twisted irony
to have doubts and...
To have doubts,
And yet seek your guidance...

The Voice

And just what kind of doubts are you having,
my son?
What is it that you seek?
Confide in thy father,
As you are my child,
My dearest little one.
Unleash your desires,
Unravel your pain,
Lend me your soul.

Bernard

…Father?

The Voice

Yes, my son?
My son,
I’m here.
Speak to me,
All ears are wide,
Wide and open.

Bernard

It is you, isn’t it?
May I see your face?

The Voice

I’m afraid that is not possible,
I’m afraid it is not so.
I do apologize,
My son.

Bernard

Why?
Is my wish not your command?
Is it not your mission,
To aid in my suffering?
Why is it that I cannot see you?
Why is it that I cannot experience you?

The Voice

Because I don’t exist.

Bernard

Just what kind of a game,
Just what kind of a game are trying to play?
Father?
Manifest yourself!
Allow me to lay my tearful eyes,
Upon your entity.

The Voice

...If you insist...

The Storm
Wooshing,
Roaring,
Angrily little clouds,
Zigzags of electric,
Blowing window shrouds.

Maroon Man

Howdy do,
Father Bernard,
Hiya,
Howdy do?

Bernard

Who…
Who are you?
Who are you,
And how did you…
Do?

Maroon Man

I’m him,
I’m him,
He,
Who is I.

Bernard

Father?
Son?
Holy Ghost?
Of any, all,
And everything at most?
Dressed to the nines,
Maroon and Red shoes,
That shine?

Maroon Man

Him?
Him?
Oh, please,
Heavens, no.
I’m merely that,
Other him,
You know,
He who should not be named.

Bernard

It can’t be,
Possibly,
Can’t be,
He,
The monster in my nightmares,
The monster of my dreams.
You’re not…

Maroon Man

Carrying a pitchfork?
Hovering with horns?
I left such things at home.
Silly little stereotypes,
Little legends in the books.

Bernard

What is it that you want from me?
What is it that you seek?
I’m merely faithful to my lord,
Not you, that man,
So foul,
You reek.

Maroon Man

I want to talk about your plans,
I want to talk your pain,
I want to talk your suffering,
Your losses and your gain.
Unleash your lonely grievances,
Unload your pesky thoughts.

Bernard

I don’t condone your evil,
I don’t condone your sin,
Allow me to my thoughts in peace,
And never tread within.

Maroon Man

No,
No,
Of course, you don’t condone me,
That’s why you’re so conflicted,
Struggling and buckling,
about your future,
spreading the good love of faith,
because you’re dead-set on,
not disobeying the almighty.

Bernard

Why,
Oh why,
Why is it that you’re here?

Maroon Man

I’m here to merely guide you,
I’m here to simply help,
My son you haven’t yet seen,
The things that I can do.


Bernard  

I don’t need your guidance,
Not your friendship,
Or your help,
Banished from this House of God,
Exiled from this home of holy.

Maroon Man

Don’t you?
Do you?
I hear you’re at a crossroad,
You need guidance,
You DO need guidance,
correct?



Bernard

Not from you,
Never from you,
I’d rather convert or follow none,
Than worship the likes of you.

Maroon Man

Why is that?

Bernard

Because you’re wicked.
You’re ghastly,
You are the symbol,
of all evil.
You are the reason why there is suffering,
and death in this sinful world.
You construct hate and pain,
and spread it like a virus.
You are a virus.

Maroon Man

Flattery will get you nowhere,
Father Benedict.
You’re merely reading,
A resume,
An eternity of achievement.

Bernard

I don’t care what you have to say,
I can’t indulge you,
I won’t indulge you,
To indulge you,
Is to lose me,
And to lose him.

Maroon Man

From what I can tell,
you’re uncertain of your faith.
Isn’t that correct?
Isn’t that so?
Tell me I’m wrong.

Bernard

No,
Not at all,
Not entirely so.
I know what I believe in,
I know what is so,
I just don’t...

Maroon Man

Just don’t,
what?
Speak!
Release what it is,
That has you in such shambles.

Bernard

I just don’t know,
I just don’t know,
if I want to devote my life,
to my faith.
My faith,
My faith,
Where’s the faith in me?
To devote this life,
To everything,
In terms of he?
I feel this way,
And ache this way,
Knowing full well,
That I will burn in hell,
For feeling this way.

Maroon Man

What is it that you have to sacrifice,
in order to become a soldier of Christ?
What is it that you give,
What is it that you gift?

Bernard

Time,
Time,
And life after time.

Maroon Man

Time, yes,
But there’s more to it,
than just time,
What else are you risking?
What is that you sacrifice?
We both know the answer to that,
We both know it true,
You’re risking freedom, you see,
if you pursue a life of pure faith,
you will never know what the beauty of…
pleasure is like.
Freedom is pleasurable,
isn’t it?
Pleasure,
Fulfillment,
Taking that first sip of bourbon in the morning-time,
Taking that long drag from a burning cigarette,
Truly knowing what it’s like,
to make love to a woman,
feeling every bit of passion and pleasure that…
comes with it.
You lack character in this world
and that’s because you are
unfulfilled.

Bernard

You...
You see right through me,
You see right through my pain,
Every ounce and every air,
Of all that I fail to obtain.

Maroon Man

Even he can,
He isn’t stupid,
He knows these are things you want,
But is he allowing you to do so?
No,
his words forbid such action.
Why?
Because,
all he really wants is recognition and obedience.

Bernard

You lie,
You lie,
and you lie,
You can’t possibly know,
what the lord truly wants.

Maroon Man

Don’t forget,
Don’t you ever lose sight,
I once fought alongside him,
the same way you are now,
and look where it got me,
once I realized that there is more,
more to it than just spreading peace,
and tranquility through him.
True peace is in pleasure.
He hates pleasure.
He craves order.

Bernard

And what makes you think,
that I want anything more than,
peace and tranquility?

Maroon Man

Because you wouldn’t be doubting,
your path to priesthood,
if you didn’t desire the very things,
He tells you not to desire.
Even desiring is a sin, you see.
To him,
desire is greed.
Take some initiative for yourself,
and humor me.

Bernard

I can’t.

Maroon Man

Why not?
You can,
Don’t you see?
I can show you.
I can show you,
Fruitful things.
I can show you all,
That he forbids.
Remember the girl?

Bernard

What girl?

Maroon Man

You know,
You know what girl,
Don’t tell me that,
You don’t remember,
The girl.

The Photograph

A framed image,
A portrait of beauty,
Her,
Gorgeous blonde locks,
A lovely little maiden,
Her,
God’s crafted angel,
Dearly Departed,
Cecelia.

Maroon Man

Cecilia,
She is why you are doing this,
aren’t you?
She died,
Tragically,
Overdosed, even.
A talented musician,
who got wiped away,
because of her desires.
Like blowing out a candle.
You think it was me?
You think it was me,
who took her away from you?

Bernard

Yes,
Yes,
I blame you,
You,
Foul old you,
You’re the reason why she’s gone,
You are the cause of pain.

Maroon Man

Wrong,
Wrong,
Wrong again, Bernard,
It was him, Bernard.
He who forbade,
Pleasure,
Mortality was her punishment,
for seeking such pleasures.
It was him, Bernard.
It’s much too easy,
Too easy to pin the blame on anyone,
but the true culprit.
It’s no coincidence,
that I’m here this evening,
Bernard.
I’ve been watching you,
I know you inside and out,
Better than you know yourself.
Do you now trust me?
We’re waiting, Father!
(beat)
Just as I thought.
You know that it’s better to have loved,
and lost,
then to never have loved at all.



Bernard

****… you…

Maroon Man

Profanity,
Profanity,
Is profanity not a sin?

Bernard

Why are you doing this to me?
Why are you here?
What is it that you aim to accomplish,
Foul, ghostly beast?

Maroon Man

If you’d just humor me,
If you’d just listen,
If you’d just dip your toes,
Into my point of view,
I can give you it all.

Bernard

What is it,
that you’ll do,
if I indulge you?

Maroon Man

You can have her,
She would be yours
for all eternity,
You can have everything,
you desire.
Only if you come with me.

Bernard

Can I talk to her?
Can I hold her?
Can I smell her scent?
Can I taste her lips?
Can I…

The Action

Maroon Man smiles,
Maroon Man nods,
Maroon Man grants,
And twirls his fingers,
At invisible atmospheric dials.

Outside the window,
Stood Cecelia dressed in black,
Bernard sniffs a soulful tear,
His love and lust had come for her,
It had unapologetically come back.

He raced outside the holy place,
And wandered in the fields,
To find his lovely little,
Cecelia May,
Waiting for his warm embrace.