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.