no longer in love

*Note: This poem is a collaborative piece with my friend Fernando Izaguirre, whom I met at the National Undergraduate Literary Conference in Ogden, UT this past April. He is a very accomplished poet and has been published many places - keep an eye out for his work! One of my favorites of his can be found here. Thanks Fernando, I look forward to writing more together!

My love, I gave you space to breathe,
Window seats and wall-less walkways -
We built this house together,
Full of rooms with pictures of us,
Images that stagnate, forever,
Collecting the dust of our dead cells.
We crashed heads one morning -
Bickering about toothbrush ownership became
Skulls bleeding out like tissue in a carton box,
Made of synthetic fibers,
Wiping counters from end to end,
Leaving behind stained debris.
Needless to say, we are no longer in love -
A word that keeps everyone still,
Stopping the arms of clocks from swinging in the right direction.
Removing the frames from the walls,
Suddenly everything goes in reverse -
The first day I met you,
Walking down Relapse Avenue,
Giving you a smile that made you say “Hello.”
But this time I decided not to,
And there you went, my once-upon-a-time,
You go away - the images fade ever after.

leaning in to loneliness (bikram meditations)

Maybe I’ll always have this sadness.
Maybe I always have.
A heart that’s honest
never stops loving, never stops longing,
never grows out of being lonely.
I’ve always had this sadness in my hands,
a nostalgic film shrink wrapped to my skin.
Day to day I assign these feelings to passing situations,
people, circumstances that are always changing
but never changing is the feeling of weight
a heaviness in my very heart
thick air in my lungs
a parched throat and I keep drinking
the water, the bubbles, the nicotene, the THC
won’t quench it. Prayers precede more tears
and for a moment there is relief
but it’s with a solemn nod, an understanding
that there is no ongoing lightness
and the sadness taps back into my soul
with a foamy head spilling over the sides.
There’s nothing more lonely than sleeping
in a bed with a friend who won’t hold you.
And so it’s reassigned to someone, something new
whether or not the facts are true
it always brings me back to you.

so much love bound up in these cells

They say
when you hug someone
there’s an energetic residue
that remains on each body
an often involuntary exchange
of the subatomic particles and waves
that comprise us -
making me, me; and you, you.

So it seems that these boundaries are blurry
Hugging is dangerous business
Kissing still more
as saliva, hormones, even viruses get in the mix.
And of course, the ultimate act of surrender
plays out in the exchange of DNA
miraculous life creation
alchemy mixing our cells in bodily fluids and tubes
to react and reproduce
someone new.
And it all starts
with a hug
or even a handshake.
You’d better choose wisely, they say
whose hand you hold
when you say, “I do.”

There is so much love
bound up in these cells of mine -
it’s not just the rational whole
of my mind or the passionate role
of my heart or the spiritual center of my soul
that loves you, no.
Each individual cell is set spinning
vibrating, dancing to the music
the rhythm and melody
that travels unseen in the air
the hands of God that
hold it all in place and
aids in the exchange of love
each cell imprinted with this longing:
skin cells to contact your skin cells
my tongue longing to feel the contours
of the roof of my own mouth as it forms
the words I love you - my throat to sense
the melodious phonetic qualities of your name
the tiny hairs that no one but God can see
deep in the dark canals of my ears
want to wiggle with the words of your response
your irreplicable voice, those waves
at that precise frequency and shape
my retinas want to reflect your face
brain cells bursting with
all the things to do and say
each muscle preemptively tense
in the premonition of your passionate grip
limbs longing to tangle themselves in you
even the dead cells of my hair resurrect
with the longing to run through your fingers.

Won’t you come, oh won’t you come
and encompass me
and the afterglow of this fire show
will light the way for all to see
that there really is love in this world
after all.

i am a glass

I am a glass, filled.
The sugar, ice, and tea
are already inside of me.
The spoon comes in, starts to stir
these ingredients.
Condensation drops slide down my side.
Your hand holds my gently curved,
cold, hard side.
The spoon is laid on the table,
your hand still clutching,
lifting me to your lips
for a long, refreshing drink.
My side softens to your grip,
the heat of your hand,
molding, then melting like the ice,
folding, until like the sugar
I dissolve into the liquid,
the watery tea pooling
in both of your now cupped hands, pulling
with lips into your mouth
and swallowing down your hot, smooth throat.
I am a glass, consumed
by you.

memory banks of your past

I forgive you for not needing me.
I forgive myself for thinking I needed you to(o).

Roughly removed from your future
Suddenly withdrawn from your present
I'm deposited in memory banks of your past, only your past.
Hurt and disoriented - it happened so fast.
We still live in the place where we were best friends
And my footsteps echo like strangers behind me
Your ghost lingers in my shadow beside me.

Our brains inhabit separate bodies
But when our minds embraced, mine was changed.
I cannot erase the memories we made
My human nature ceaselessly craves
Continual contact, repeated exposures
to the very same images of your face
in this place we both deeply know
or undiscovered spaces we'd continue to grow...

I forgive you for not holding on
And I forgive myself for not letting go.

I'm accepting that we were never right for each other
Yet grateful for the chance to know one another
A wave and a nod when we're just passing through
The other hand holding someone else's, more true
Moving on doesn't make this less real
Just means that it's over and it's time to heal.

lovely for you

This city (a small town, really)
with the tall trees calling me
drawing me here over years, yes, years
of calling, me not knowing what
this place had in store but
you've restored me here, and
here I am while the waters are
flowing, reflections are showing me
who I am today. And I pray
Lord, let me make a difference here,
and let here make a difference on me.

Pieces that pulled me apart were
pulling me here and
pulling me near to you, I see
clearly now in this sky blue view that
you knew me, truly, all along. And my song is
Lord, let me make a difference here,
and let here make a difference on me.

The stars tell the story of my journey, and
my soul is being made whole, re-made with all
the pieces back in place in ways I forgot to fit
together in the stormy weather. I never noticed
"lonely" and "lovely" are only one letter apart.
Said I never noticed that
"lonely" and "lovely" are only one letter apart.

And my heart you've been integrating the
disintegrated fragments I feared had dissolved.
Turn my "n's" into "v's" and Lord
let me be lovely for you. You've
turned my "n's" into "v's" and
recreated me lovely for you, restored me, brand new,
free and complete. And my heart beat repeats,
Lord, let me make a difference here,
and let here make a difference on me. Said,
Lord, let me make a difference here,
and let here make a difference on me. Please,
let me make a difference here,
and make me who I'm purposed to be, I plead,
Make me who I'm purposed to be.

Sonnet for Emilia

“As Desdemona takes her final breath,
I cry out as by shock and grief I’m wracked -
I, Emilia, rage at my mistress’ death.
With fiery tongue, I scathe Othello’s act.
His weapon turns on me, in his gripped hand,
For proving that my friend was not a whore -
Now fearlessly defiant will I stand
For her pure soul, for appetites before.
Yet horror grips me when I’m made to see
That cursed handkerchief I can’t give back -
That was the role I played in Iago’s scheme.
I’ll do my damnedest to set things on track.”
Nevermore to do her husband’s bidding,
Dies at his hand, to her dear friend lies singing.

(Since this was for a creative project assignment in my Shakespeare class, I'll also include my write up, in case you're interested:) While I enjoy trying my hand at all kinds of artistic skills, I identify as a poet more than anything else. I first studied sonnets when I was in middle school, but I didn’t get so much out of them then; they seemed stuffy, rigid, obsolete. Honestly, this semester was the first time it clicked just how beautiful and powerful Shakespeare’s sonnets are. My own writing consists mostly of free verse or some kind of pattern of my own design, so I thought writing a sonnet would be a fun challenge. I chose to write a sonnet for Emilia because she is my favorite character of all of the plays we read. There are other more complex characters or funnier characters, but Emilia is the one I identify with the most due to her fierce loyalty that is sometimes compromised by her desire to please everyone. I love the parts where she stands up for women in general, and then for Desdemona in particular, but I also sympathize with her betrayal with the handkerchief. I tried to pack a lot into this one sonnet, so I hope it is successful. I wrote a first draft as it came to me one night when I was trying to sleep, but later noticed that my rhyme scheme was incorrect; it was a little tricky to fix, but I think it still works. I liked the idea of letting Emilia speak for herself, but I thought the concluding couplet would be better spoken by a different narrator, so I put the bulk of the sonnet in quotes. In a way I’m responding to Sir Thomas Wyatt the Elder’s “Whoso List To Hunt” by this reversal - in his sonnet, the quoted portion is the couplet, and the words are not even the woman/hind’s own voice. I also tried to only break the iambic pentameter when it would make sense for emphasis.