I watch youI observeThe acts of powerful siege against who you won’t dare let yourself be

Lies come far too easily, for someone so young.

And, there I amBiting my tongue from the sidelines

I wonder how your body must feel,To be in a constant state of abandonment.

I don’t understand how you wallow in it

Perhaps that’s why you keep your distance—You know how quickly the two of us can smell it,Pick up on the subtle notes of discontent.

Your carefully crafted world of make believeDoesn’t stand a chanceWhen your feet touch the wood floors of a place you grapple with calling home

Shifts right and left,Trading long gazes for glances,Maneuvering around truths for muffled acquiescence,of a life you settle into.

But your presence lingers when you leave—Heavy and longing and beautiful as your face

I miss you so much, on occasions it takes me back to the Great War.and there I am, mourning people that still breatheMore than anyone should.

I know love and releaseI know the truest meaning of don’t take it personally

I have been molded to be a keeper of loving unconditionally—When they lie and leave you for deadI know that’s where the love resides

Praying on my knees, night and day,For a dark-haired girl to return

But this time, not to me,But to herself.

Butterflies floated through the air on my walk this morning Through the neighborhood you know so well—yeah, it misses you too

We both cling to a knowing,A whisper: she’ll get there.

But not with usOn her own.

I love you today, tomorrow, and every second in between…

For now you keep your distance.

I watch myself unravel and recoil

Trying to place a name—

Compunction,Shame,And at times…ignominy

That uncontrollable shake the body makes

involuntarily

from the memories of each and every horrible mistakemadeby no other hands than the two that belong to me.

Oh, yeah, all the allowing?

Too many years of better judgment taking a backseat

As though I don’t have full autonomy over me

Somewhere in me begged to walk out the door or claim morethan what this poor man with burnt ashes lay at my feet

As though I belong here amongst the scraps from the floor I polish myself,makeshift beds that belong to someone else.

Selling myself for free— in fact, paying them to use me.

Each one telling me-to my faceI deserved so much more, while I let them violate me.

They are all an afterthought to my days now

I pour myself—all of my selves—onto the pages,in hopes of not bleeding unintentionally on anyone close to me.

I seek out the safety of virgin-white, crisp pages,whose only dutyis to absorb the blunt force trauma of that day's scream.

The pen and paper—a trusted security blanket.

Except this time, it won’t be used to cushion the furniture in the moving truck,only to fly off the freeway, never to be seen again.She said it was okay—I was getting too old for baby blankets anyway.

I would later realize that blanket was the last thing the other family wrapped me in.

So I crawl to the warm refuge,where it can be held no longer for fearof the scattering shards boiling up and over.

The page praises and taunts,assures me that nothing is off-limits.

No need for cordial tones or niceties,no benefit of the doubts or excuses for all the families.No one is safe—especially not me.

There, I cry and thrash in agony,revisit all the scenes.

They welcome any opportunity for me to live life twice—to wallow a bit in hopes and dreams

that never came to be.

The way his fingers graced the finely tuned keys pulled some kind of apparition out from underneath

A hot southern summer blues of a memory—but I know it didn’t belong to me

Rattles and echoes of distant ancestors reside in my body, their blood pulsating through me,their experiences imprinted somewhere subconsciously.

My mind wanders to

German Jews on trains—there is a break in the tree

and I can’t help but wonder

how many might still be listed as family.

I think of Black slaves in the fields and a woman in fear

of the French men in suits who take pride in their catch of the day.

A torn dress soiled in unimaginable duty-

but it’s how we got here.

All of them, a thread of my lineage.

I think of Spaniards in small towns, praying in candlelit churches, a blue glow upon insurmountable dreams.

A green-eyed woman boarding a ship for promised land called Mexico and the Indigenous people met. A trade of European village life for spices and a wild freedom.

They all belong to me—my blood is imprinted with stories.

I wonder if I somehow pay for the debts of their days or reap the good karma they may have accumulated?

Sometimes, in the middle of the night, I jump up to find a woman—perhaps a grandmother coming through,yet another mother’s mother I never knew.

She haunts me on occasion, or perhaps she is attempting to be a messenger, unsure how to make her presence ever-present

to a child who could not place her face in any room. But I feel her blood and choices and taste a familiarity in gumbo and chicory coffee you can only buy on Bourbon Street.

I pause on a sentiment from a Rabbi I heard recently, words inscribed into my very psyche:

"The day that you were born is the day that God decided the world would not be perfect without you."

When Everyone Has Gone Home

Is that the hardest part?

Mounds of dirt settle and sink back into the earth.Gravestones gradually collect dust.

Perhaps that’s the hardest part?

Pieces of their lives—represented in cups, jeans, and trophies—

All sold off,Given away to charity,The last bits rummaged through on the curbside of the old house.

Surely, that’s the hardest part?

The endless lists have all been checked off.Rings and notification dings have all but evaporated over the weeks

Grass starts to grow over top.New birth follows loss.It’s the circle of life, after all—ready or not.

It feels like this is the hardest part…

You fight for the last moments with brooms and mops in hand,Battling debris locked behind countertops.

Left with yourself now in the deafening silence of it all.

I know this is the hardest part

It’s the realization that it’s not just the loss of them—but also the loss of you.

Catching a glimpse in the mirror of someonewho used to look like a girl you once knew.

Lingering longer still,searching through the years you let your life slip away—in and onto the someone else’s that piled up.

The silence is defeating.Truth screams out in the night.

This, this right here, is the hardest part.

This is the season of finding you.

My body is twisted to the left,Torso on a bolster,Head stretched out in some impossible position—Criminal for adults, but natural for babies.

There is something in the smell of a yoga studioThat nearly lulls one to sleep—

A drop of Far East essential oilMixed with the earthy wood floors,A tinge of sweat lingering as an afterthought.

Eyes droop heavy,Lids barely open,Lashes blurring what little vision remainsIn the dimly lit room.

Veins and age—signs of life.

My face inches from my hand,Breath heavy with achesThat belong to pain I've carried for 38 years.

I eye the small hills of blood tunnelsBeneath smooth olive skin.

God this vessel has a story to tell,It’s been here, there,And everywhere in between.

I think of clenched fists and white-knuckled grips—Of survival,Of clawing for second chances.

Handshakes and hand rubs,

The sweetness of a newborn’s cheekAgainst the side of an index finger.

Wooden spoons gripped in palms,Masa under fingernails that - don’t belong to me

Items from every season of lifeArranged and rearranged on shelves high and low,Praying to catch the plates and bowlsBefore they hit the floor.

Shards of glass and splinters,Remnants of rusty nails—They’ve left their mark,Like the scars of words spoken from venomous mouths

Recollections of the exact fingersThat caressed the lips of a lover.

And the same fingers usedto wipe tears from your own cheeksWhen they’ve left.

The diapers changed, the snack plates made.

The scrubbing of walls and toilet bowls,The frantic clean-ups of rooms in disarray.

All evidence of a life well-lived,Held between two palms and ten fingertips.

I allow my mind to take me through a journey that tells the story of being chosen. Some years, the thread is thick and easy to follow; pain matching the crimson red of that thread—even now, there is an ache in my hips that pain belongs to.

Waiting to be chosenWaiting to be lovedWaiting to be acceptedWaiting for a proper familyWaiting for a mother that is saneWaiting for a father to come backWaiting for my body to fit into places, spaces, men, lives, jeans, and blouses

I’m too old for this s**t, and the gig is up.

Looking back now on the events, it was the last time I waited to be chosen by anyone.

It was a declaration—

Made silently to all the bleeding parts of every version I had ever shapeshifted in and out of—

On a busy street packed to the brim with life—children and mothers and brothers and husbands & wives all decked out in pink on a Sunday in October, where the cold is just now touching the air, and the body can finally feel the chill of a very welcomed Fall approaching.

My phone rings incessantly. I try to ignore it through the photos I’m capturing and the people I am hugging.

I finally call back, phone tight to my ear while my free hand plugs my exposed one, in hopes of drowning out the life behind me.

“He wants to see you.” She doesn’t even greet me with a hello…

Initially, her words felt like I was winning the family lottery.

My eyes jaded, couldn’t see then the truth of the painting.The truth—he had won, and I was his golden ticket.

He remains the ashamed receiver.

Perhaps that’s why he sends flowers by the dozens over the last 14 months. Even now I have to reserve cabinets and shelves to store all the vases of their remains.

Now I wait for no one.And release the aches in my hips—A pain that belongs to versions of me that no longer fit

that no longer exist

I’m told that’s me on my first birthday,I’m told that’s my grandmother holding me

A moment captured in time—she in her prime,joy upon her life,the baby that belonged to the apple of her eye.

Wrapped in white lace like a cherub angel in the arms of grace,held by a woman who would go on to bebrokenfrom the loss of me—and of a life she prayed, day and night,the rosary,to be more than it ended up to be.

Piñatas lay at my feet, somehow becominga staple at every partyshe threw for me,1,000 miles from my first one

And in my imaginings, I like to believeshe is on the other side of that moment I see,sharing laughs with a whole family,cooing over me—

the angel baby on her hip in the next moment after this,as she wipes the bit of milk that escaped my lips,where she asks the party guests to be quiet a bit,for she just put me down in my very own crib.

Where she was present for more than just the birthof her daughter, who would go on to bethe spitting image of her father who represented hurts and pains and irreversible truths.

It would be three years before she’d returned,shifting this perfect image once captured in time,distorting the precious lightof a grandmother’s eyes—upon a granddaughter whoencapsulated every hope and dreamshe, herself, never knew, she could be.

Why do we stay longer than we need to?

Longer than we should?

Staying past our welcome and well past the fun—Of life, of love, of places and spacesWe never won…

Mythical trophy of reassurances—of “good job” and “well dones”

If we’re lucky enough, in our elegant design of martyrdom, we might just find Someone to reward us with validating words

As we lick the wounds from

Being nearly burned and charred, until our insides all but fall apart,Bodies sit like a badge of honor—because, see,It’s someone else’s fault.

Like there was no other option, no power to choose—Like all the red flags and warning signsSomehow eluded you.

To the tragedy ahead—Should we stay just a little bit longer?

Waiting for our happily ever after.

But we’re well past the expiration dates.No, we don’t get to change that fate,To bring dead marriages back to lifeOr rusted friendships to magical sparkles of light

You’ve outstayed your welcome. It’s done.

Move on—quickly,With a walk with a run—damn, sprint if helps

Be grateful. Transition in peace.

If it’s for you, it will return.And if it doesn’t—you learned.

I know it exists.I haven’t felt it in human form just yet.

I hold out and continue my work,Making choices to abstain fromRelationships of all sorts—Particularly ones labeled stepping stones as suchTo the greatest love story ever felt or touched

Because these days, I have become hers, and she, mine—The keepers of our own light.

But I know it exists.

An extravagantly peaceful love.When I think of you, I touch my lips,Scarlet heat boiling up from all the places of youI have yet to know, discover, and be acquainted with.But I know it exists.

A man who couldn’t fathom a tear shed on his account,And if liquid gold ever fell upon my cheeks,He’d quickly retrieve it,Placing that moisture upon his own face—For close is never close enough to him.

And Spanish guitar is the backdrop to our days.

We welcome seasons of rain,If only to cry, to shed, to be made brand new again.

And we quarrel, and we play—In Rome, Geneva, and Spain.

We exist in places where breath aloneIs our private ecstasy.

Yes, pain resides, as it always does,And we take it in—Lost jobs, birthed babies, gravesites.But we never let pain win in the end.

Because here, in this life with you,that really exists a place for two, souls to meet—To face all sides: good and bad,evil and blind,Where we fall apart and build back up.

But in that same extravagant love that brought me to you—And I will muster the words on my deathbed,When it’s all through,That I’m glad I waited patiently for you.

Lips burn in a sacred, unexplainable intelligence that…It really does exist.