Colossians 3:21

My Father has a map of the world in His eyes.
We slumber along with Him until he wakes up,
and the light hits the Earth from
His polychromatic irises.

One time, as a bedtime story, He told me,
“Sun, all it takes to create the world
is seven days, and a whole lot of faith,”

but my mortal dad never wanted a daughter,
and gave me nothing to save. I quickly learned
that the secret to the American dream is loss.

Later, he would send my heritage in a cat's cradle
down the muddiness of the Brazos river
because my melanin locked me into habits
that even unconditional love can't stand.

My daddy kisses me like Judas.
I was baptized in hellfire for three days
until he could get drunk off of my spirit.

his eyes shone like morning stars as he crooned,
"baby girl, I have no love left to give,
and I cannot afford the purity of faith,
but I cut your dreams with hope so you can still get high."

The New American

He has sunlight carved into the grooves of his face
from days when it seared his skin into submission.
I, too, have tilled the Earth of this land,
but I have yet to see the remains of this country
rubbed into my skin so raw my soul darkened a little.

He has seen the underbelly; the squirming decay
lingering at the endpoints of this great nation
festering like a paranoid subconscious.

It seems that in today's world,
infidelity has become the new patriotism.

I have never personally felt the sting of betrayal,
having grown up next to camaraderie that held my hand
throughout my awkward adolescence, but he opened
my world to the truth of the new American.

Dear Javi

I know you think that I am too idealistic,
but baby, please understand that my optimism
is all that she left me to hang onto.

I grew up learning that love is war
and victories are always Pyrrhic,

but back then,
we were too young to know that
in the face of hate. Once,
she told me she was terrified
of how much she could bleed,

so I promised her
I would swallow her hurt
until it was nothing more
than the same lump in my throat
I got right before I kissed her.

It did not take long for reality
to set in on our idealism; storm
clouds curling around our existence
like carcinogenic smoke. There was
a foreboding rolling thunder in the distance
as if the lightning was twisting the clouds
until they cried out in pain.

She cut grooves into the inside
of her thighs that my fingertips traveled
in a desperate attempt to put her together
because her life was incapable
of keeping her in one piece.

She made me swear through her tears
that the storm drains we ran through
as kids could wash away the bitterness
of our childhood maelstrom, but

it seemed only days later that she bled out her soul
waiting for God to pick her up at a wrecked intersection.

After her,
I learned firsthand that affection from men
is sometimes synonymous with the emergency room,
and it was only then that I understood
why she needed me to kiss away her bruises.

The nights I spent with an IV in my arm
were the only comforts she could afford from the grave,
and it made me hate her for dying.

Even today, I still have moments
where my heart can't help
but flinch instinctively
when you touch me.

Sometimes, when you curl up next to me,
I find myself reading the lines
you creased into your forehead
to see if I can see if your future
will leave me, too.

I know you want so desperately
for your words to be tourniquets
on my insecurities,

but baby, please understand that her brand of optimism
is all that she left me to hang onto.

Observations about Humanity

I once knew a girl with skin
as delicate as a slug. Her radiance
shone translucently in the moonlight
on nights when she crawled gingerly
over the leaves in our backyards.
Growing up, I watched my mother
rub salt and lemon into her wounds
so that it could eat at her problems.
There were times when citric acid
sank in so deep I could hear the muse
within her soul wither away.
I can still hear the chemical crackling
as my mother taught me that pain
is nature's way of building character.
Even today, I can see the acidic kisses
those corrosive stains left, curiously
tonguing grass blades and staining
the ground with her entrails.

Oh, baby, I don't blame you,
but there are nights where her pupils
shine like a snake's in my subconscious.
Sometimes, I can feel the fangs digging
into my spine; jaws twisting around
like a slivery tap at the base of my torso.
My mother told me that there is a vengeance
that comes with repression the same day
she taught me that emotional mutations
are God's way of telling you He is terrified
of your progress. Be still, demons,
for I can feel your tendrils
asphyxiating my goodwill.

Javier

There is a certain magic you can catch
in the spark of someone's eye
that I am sure, someday,
he will see in his daughter's
when she eagerly wraps her fingers
around her first lightning bug.

By then, my enervated bones
shall pave the roads his soul walks on
with the dust from my ashes,
but I still remain hopeful.

Sometimes, on a properly bright day
she'll twirl in the evening sunlight
in my old high heels the way I did.
(I'm not sure that she'll ever grow enough
to be able to step in and fill my shoes.)

He'll cradle her face the same way he does mine,
I imagine. There is sometimes a tenderness
that contracts his pupils as if the notion
of getting too close to someone was foreign.

Even then,
he'll have days where he will shy away
from the future like a doe eyed fawn
desperate to hang onto its optimism;
that gentle creature he sometimes
absentmindedly stuffs in his back pocket
that that begs him to not get hurt again
by the world.

closure: last poem to justin

Linton, I can't say I stumbled upon you knowingly.
One summer night, you breezily knocked all the wind
out of my stomach, and I was sucker punched
into falling for you. I learned, the hardest way,
how to dust my scabbed knees off and keep walking,
but I found my Heathcliff to kiss away the bruises.
I told the world I loved you because you completed me;
woke up piecing your face next to mine in the mirror,
but baby, he isn't a soulmate, he's a kindred spirit,
and I am beautifully and fully myself with him,
which I know is something that eludes your stubborn nature.
In a way, your pigheadedness is your most tragic feature,
because your tenacity is what makes you tenuous.
Tomorrow, I will patiently wait for you to finish ranting,
catch your breath sharply right in between your teeth
the way you always do right before your eyes tell me
how much my changed nature breaks your heart,
but baby, what Heathcliff's realized the whole time while
you desperately and reverently preached your doctrine
is that, baby, it hurts, but I've been the same all along.

waking up to test results

You fucked the structure of my body
until my bones jutted out at perpendicular
angles. Baby, I can't fit your frame forever,
because my soul is dilapidated
and disease flows through my veins
towards my heart. My arteries are racked
with virus nowadays as if you carved
memories of us within the walls of my capillaries.
There's a mixed joy in knowing that in today's
day and age, I no longer need to blame
blood transfusions, but I still refuse to believe
that people still adhere to the myth
that this is a gay disease. At this point,
it's venereal, not sexual, and you've
infected me with the blues.
I find no joy in bending your will
like the rusted over strings on my guitar,
but baby, this ain't a love song cause
I learned real quick how cliche that shit gets.
There are times where we discuss invincibility,
but I think you forget that sometimes,
eternity isn't inscribed upon the pupils
you gaze into; I have an expiration date,
and baby, I'm so sorry, but we're all
gonna die someday.