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.

dorian grey's reflection

We drew ourselves with a shaky hand,
and the pencil shavings tremble next to the charred paper
because there is an honesty in the perfect uselessness of art.
I am no master. My sketches are drawn with charcoal
clutched between trembling fingers, and I paint
the same way I love; with a desperate, reverent fortitude.
There are days where I sear the profile of your face
into the backs of my irises so I can remember
what it looks like when you are happy to be with me.

Your muse entered my system like an allergic reaction,
and my poetry is anaphylactic shock. I want to carve
your inability to trust and tolerate out of your soul
the same way my knife grazes the sides of the woodwork
that I swear, someday, will be able to convey
how much I care about you. Baby, I can't promise
I'll stay interesting forever. My looks will peel away someday
the same way that the flames curl the edges of my old portraits
when they curiously lick them, but I burned out long ago.
Your skeletons are packed like bags in my closet by my artwork.

free writing

I find it difficult to quantify the amount of wide-eyed hope
you cause my subconscious to prance around with.
She dances, fluttering from euphoria, tangled amidst
optimism that you paint on the future. Relax, you said.
There are moments where I admit that I want to apologize
for being a worrywart; the lesser regions of my cerebral
cortex gnaw at the base of my spine on bad nights,
and all I can do is tremble and hold you. Your skin is soft;
the warmth of your cheeks rub up against the nape of my neck.
Daylight will wash over us soon, darling.

My clumsiness seems to astound you occasionally.
You watch me stumble over condolences insincerely,
but I can promise nothing except the most earnest
desire to see you smile. I enjoy running my fingers
over the cracks that break on your cheekbones like dawn,
although I feel like it's been ages since I've seen
the light glimmering through your artificially mature,
sometimes cliche windows to the soul.

Occasionally, I wake up wondering if you're still there.
You exhale roughly and straighten up your back
in your sleep, stretching your spine so that I can tap
into the reservoirs of your disease. I want to run (away)
my tongue all over the abscesses and search vainly
for the cure within the muse of my soul, because
our toxins could write a beautiful self-destruction
worthy of a Graham Greene short story.
Today is a day where I find something tragic
about us written within the confines of a comedy.

ol' army

I choke on old habits like calling you 'babe'.
There are nights when insomnia plagues me
and the only salvation I can cling to are late night conversations
we have about theology on rooftops.
You get up early in the mornings to run, but you don't mind,
although you tell me you miss bearing the flag of your faith,
holding it above your head like some lost beacon for hope.
I am sure you miss tradition as badly as I do.
There are those among us too new and doe-eyed
to remember anything but construction tearing us down.

I have become accustomed to pacing your corridors
alone at night, staring out of windows that are barred
just in case someone decides to build character
through defenestration, but I must confess;
I am tired of watching what I love crumble before my eyes,
and there are days where I am tired of missing brotherhood,
but tonight, all we can content ourselves with
is setting this town ablaze with the sunrise.
So much for camaraderie.

(I know you can't help but wonder,
and I ask you to quell your fears; he treats me well.)
Though you may worry that he will break me,
not much can match the way your steely resolve
once grated against my willpower. While I value you,
I must confide in you that I no longer miss it.
I have outgrown your love in the same way the bricks
we used to walk under, hands intertwined, all eventually fall.
Until then, we can do nothing but part ways at Sully.

Nietzschean Musings

Babe, you are the reason I lost faith at age twenty.
For some, that's longer than they'll ever see in their lives.
There were days where I trudged through salvation,
blinking away the early morning dewdrops of benedictions,
but the broken-grained bread is not enough for me to survive.
We had a good run while it lasted, but I am too tired
to wait for eternity to save me.

#14 - Sentimental Values

Our songs no longer hold the same sentimental value,
because my essence has learned to sing a capella without your presence.
I ain't ever gonna find meanin' in the bottom of these bottles, baby,
and my soul is yearning for some deeper meaning
in between the last rites read over your (un)conscious body
as if there was a higher power sent to save you from yourself.
I have been starved of affection, groveled and begged,
licking the floor you walk on just to get a taste of salvation,
but there are no circumstances that allow forgiveness
to be granted to the same steely blue eyes I see in every one of you.

#13 - Aurora Borealis

I find it annoying that I am always
drawn back to your northern lights.
Although you carry pretenses of being a godless Yankee,
I find myself being reminded by God
why I should keep faith in people
in your starry-stuck irises.

This is not the first time I have fallen for you,
and I can only wonder if I will pick myself back up.
We inhale carcinogens together nowadays on the same stair-steps
you dragged me up so you could take care of me.
Others have thrown their backs out trying to help,
but you simply bruised my spine.

I wonder if you remember the time
you asked me if I wrote poetry about you;
my lines will always connect us
as thoughts of you crease my forehead.

#11 - Whiskey, Football, and Walton

This is a toast to all those fucked up warriors
I have linked limb and heart with. There are days
where we are not rich enough to fill our cups over
with anything but Sunny Brook,
but by God, if camaraderie had a price,
we could burn down this whole town with alcohol.

There were days where I met brothers
shoulder-to-shoulder on the bleachers of Kyle Field,
screaming out hearts out for our beloved 12th Man,
and I will forever remember 3rd deck fondly.

But even the best armies have skeletons
when they finally clean out their closets.
It would be untrue for me to state that I felt no remorse
watching those I bled and sweat for stand so coldly
opposite a burning stack solemnly, the light flickering
and bouncing off of pots so worn down, on a good day,
I can see the reflection of my soul. While I cannot
hold much of a grudge for being the bastard child
of Bonfire, I am not the only forgotten fishbuddy.

# 12

I have days where I pity you; where I want to lift up your lack of empathy and kiss it so you can learn what it's like to feel.

I can hear you thinking. The cogs in your head creak due to their lack of use, and although I am aware that hate comes naturally to you, it still pains me occasionally to watch how much you have to struggle to learn to love. You are not inarticulate, simply reticent.

Every time I watch you try to piece together a sentence, I want to run my fingers through your hair and kiss your forehead for trying to empathize with another human being, but the world does not give rewards for accomplishing what was supposed to be your duty anyway.

#10 - Food, Beer, and Bonfire

I have learned to be a girl of simple pleasures.
There is a simple sort of joy that the frightful pace
of the 21st century still can't capture in the peacefulness
of cracking open a beer on your front porch.

Perhaps it is simply my Southern upbringing,
but I have learned to truly capture the soul of a family
with the heartbeat that resides in the kitchen
of the comfort food that is fried everything.

Most importantly, I have learned to love
the camaraderie of my network; built
wedding cake style, tied together
with wires and stacked together with kinship
and built characters - and characters to boot -
that is my beloved Aggie bonfire.

#9 - Toys, Drugs, & Candy

I am exhausted by my struggles against the 21st century.
Nowadays, the flurry of technology that bombards us
makes us so attention-deficit to the zen of silence
that white noise has become comfort by comparison.
Our toys have become more advanced,
but we have devolved into relying on
soma to artificially drug us into a feeling of peace;
of xanax bar solutions to other people.
We've created our own social hell
by prescribing ourselves medicated solutions
we consume desperately like candy.

#8

my heart is young and has yet to hurt.
although my grammar is nascent,
i am already conscious enough
to evolve into hope for growth
there is a love that has a finesse
beyond anything your structure could embrace
because i preach tolerance
of your clenched fists so I can erase them

#7

my belly is swollen with the blue moon
and tides lap at the toes I dangle in the waters
but there is a maelstrom that looms,
sitting gently upon the line of the horizon,
drifting slowly and refusing to falter
even in the face of my excuses and denials
and its tremors will shake my frail structure as i whimper,
insisting that you cannot steal my optimism from me

#6

I want to embroider your brevity into my skin
with stitches made from ink and a tattoo pen
because the good vibrations you send my soul
racked my body so harshly my spine was broken
like a back-arching second Coming (and maybe
that imagery is heretical, but even God can see
that neither of our lives have been kosher
doctrine since the first time you kissed me.)

There are days where you make me tired
because the fight against your faith to the sky
suspends me so close to the sun's rays
I melt in your presence like Icarus.
Your love has enervated me; made me sick
of standing up for myself in favor of
a quick solution I can patch over your eyes
like a precipitate so you can love me blindly.

I write you poetry in my dreams.
If it made a difference, I would give an eye
to exchange for your i-egoism;
but all you do is create a schism
that catches me by the throat until I lie
six feet under your body that catches me
in a chokehold so precipitous I'll scream
till my vocal cords are frayed wisps
whispering about your denigration.

small town talk

I want to write a found poem out of your reticence,
but I find myself holding back my love for you
because I have no pretensions about our diction
painting grandeur and magniloquence.
Our hearts both grew up in small towns,
and I was quickly overwhelmed by city life.
You chuckle at my metropolitan tastes,
but in the end, you know the boot heels
of my soul is just as worn down as yours.
There is a fight in all of us to be had.

---

I can taste your tears
when my lips brush the corners of your smile.

It's as if tragedy had gently laid her hand on your forehead
weary with Victorian morals to quell your fever.

I wish I could improve your morale,
but society picked up our old love story,
blew the dust off the cover, and left it where it lay,
forgetting chivalry in the attics of our daydreams.

We have slept there together many a night;
our fingers still intertwined,
though I struggle to feel the bones
underneath your exhausted skin.

There are days where the pages
become so swollen with my aspirations
I wonder if we will burst into flame,
but there will be no rebirth for us when I perish
because Eternity forgot to inscribe my name on her doorstep,
so all I can do is wait for you to come to.

Once in a ...

Your blue moon irises graced the skies tonight.
The lunar lady swelled up her hopes and aspirations
so that your eyes could overwhelm the night stars.

There is a gentleness that the world
does not often see from you
when you allow your pupils
to contract around your apprehensions,
but then again, you are a creature of rarity.