Get Some Rest

Hands raised,⁣⁣
No fight left in this particular battle,⁣⁣
Because you hide beneath the surface.⁣⁣
⁣⁣
I’ve dulled knives digging,⁣⁣
Skinning myself like a rabbit,⁣⁣
Only to find flesh sensitive to wind and touch,⁣⁣
Still, you rear your vile head, ⁣⁣
Poisoning me and others.⁣⁣
⁣⁣
I shun, I beg, ⁣⁣
I curse and rip your rotten roots but it’s too late⁣⁣
and back you go into your secret hiding place.⁣⁣
⁣⁣
⁣⁣
I have to reconcile, ⁣⁣
This time, all strategies exhausted,⁣⁣
I invited you to the dinner.⁣⁣
I let you take over and take me,⁣⁣
Smashing plates,⁣⁣
Spitting food and flipping tables.⁣⁣
⁣⁣
Hijacked and to the edge of breathless peace in death,⁣⁣
You bored as a tired child does, ⁣⁣
Curling into my loving arms as I whispered,⁣⁣
“Now get some rest you relentless fuck.”⁣⁣

Photo by Hamish Weir on Unsplash

Probity

I see you,
Your probity beaming bright on my lack thereof.
Slapping the lies I’ve ingested and built as my own.
I’ve temporarily pleased off the pain of others,
Only to be left starving and alone.
Don’t be distracted by those who mistake your presence for impairment,
Because we need you and I see you.
And although at my most weak moments I continue to mistreat and misjudge the traces of your decency,
I needn’t feed the same poison to others simply because it was fed to me.

Please Stay

Light peeking through the curtains, ⁣
I smile with a sigh of relief.⁣
Today, I can see you,⁣
I even went to the roof to admire your rise.⁣
Making up for all the days your presence fails to penetrate my pit,⁣
Not today, I can see you sun,⁣
I mean really see you.⁣
Please, please stay.⁣

Soul Retrieval

Contemptuously conditioned to stuff extremely complicated subjects ⁣
into tiny boxes.⁣
Hoarding what’s ours and hissing at anyone who questions,⁣
No, threatens!⁣
I don’t believe that some are tougher than others.⁣
Sensitivity is the nature of our species,⁣
Some of us are just better liars,⁣
Cloaking ourselves in more acceptable emotions like ⁣
indifference, anger, annoyance.⁣
Because most of us have souls that fled somewhere in the early chaos,⁣
Leaving our hearts exposed to whatever change of wind life decides to blow.

Oaxaca, Mexico

Poker Face

“Are you stressed?” She folded her arms in concern.⁣
I shook my head, “I don’t think so.”⁣
We both looked down at my nails bitten and bloody and then back at each other,⁣
Silence.⁣
The creases of my mouth began to lift and ⁣
I smiled for the first time in days.⁣

Dethaw

It’s true that the body keeps count,
And in this moment I was reminded.
I was taught that lesson of how deep it efforts to keep us safe from what we can’t bare.
And I suppose in this moment,
Alone in the middle of Thailand, 
While being massaged by a sweet stranger, 
It was time to face the void.
Silent and stiff, I watched the buried scenes of the seizure of me.
And just as the heart pumps blood out and through every vein,
I saw the poison of this event inject itself into my most innocent and hopeful powers.
This is dissociation.
What is time to healing? 
It simply doesn’t conform to our impossible standards.
Because trauma has the ability to bend time, jumping forwards and backwards.
I have to remind myself that there’s no limit to healing.
There’s no magical pill or retreat or shaman that can McFix the complexities of our pain.  
And the delays that seem long and overplayed are merely it’s premeditated punctuality.
I have to remind myself that this feeling,
this dethawing,
although at times uncomfortable,
is a hell of a lot better than the paralysis. 

Anonymous

⁣A perfect day,⁣
Almost.⁣

⁣Perfect for me,⁣
When I’m reminded perfection is false,⁣

I’m reminded that I have feeling,⁣
that stretches further than myself.⁣

⁣And just as my day marked a new beginning, I saw an unapologetic period stamped on yours.⁣

⁣Because nothing feels as real as seeing your strange, lifeless body covered by a sheet,⁣
And nothing feels less perfect than knowing your delicate spirit had to drift from the pavement of a lonely street.⁣

Table for One

When the lights dim and the noise fades,
And your juggling that fine line of loving yourself
and thinking you’re better than others.

When all the other soldiers have gone home, 
And your about to pour that drink, turn on that show, take that hit,

Remember,
Sometimes the only person left to battle is yourself.

Bandera, TX 2019

Whimsy

What a beautiful line you balance.
Taking in the world with grace,
Gaining so much wisdom from being quiet, observant, stoic,
Only to turn around and flip all that is stiff and serious, 
a jungle gym for your pleasure.
Living between both worlds,
Never hardening, only receiving.
Softening at the perfect moments and finding room in the heaviest.

Art by Teresa Moralez