i remember breathing

 I remember a marine biologist telling me on a tour how whales are conscious breathers, how they choose to come up from the surface to breathe in the same way we make the conscious decision to eat so that we don’t starve. I remember the splash of each spout on the horizon invoking a powerful sensation of resilience that I envied. I return to this memory, and it brings me back to conscious breath.

I remember wondering why our body isn't always breathing on autopilot, how it is for most of the day. With the same unconscious care of our smooth muscles contracting and expanding without our mind explicitly spelling out the command. Each organ moving with invisible memory, sleepwalking throughout the night. Wordless whispers are exchanged in the secret language of breath, a slow constant radiation of life feeding the trees empty calories.

The choice is always there, to control my breath, and yet consciousness only finds me when I am suffocating under the weight of choice. This feels like a metaphor for free will in a way, or perhaps the human condition I can’t manage to diagnose.

I remember I am breathing in the silence of the night, when the whistle exhaled from my nasal cavity echoes off my sinus walls, ricocheting against my skull. I count each breath like sheep, each exhale taunting me with white noise reminding me that I am awake. I cannot remember my last breath before I go under the blanket of night, and this too upsets me. How breath blends from choice to compulsion. 

I intimately remember the absence of breath. Life without breath was a paradox I was quite fond of, though I cannot grasp the reason why. I reminisce, holding my breath under pool water, pretending I am dead, a limp jellyfish swaying my limbs beneath my arched back until I could feel the carbon dioxide press heavy against my chest. I counted the seconds until chlorine stung my nose, instinctually inhaling absent air.

I remember learning how to inhale smoke, which was the first time it didn't bother me to consciously breathe. Wrapping my lips around christened glass was the only time I could reach depth in my inhales, sucking in the artificial life force I mistakenly identified as consciousness. I remember drawing chalky breaths from my desert dry mouth sucking in the ghost of my mind’s rest. I inhaled and inhaled until my memory went blank, and I could no longer remember breathing.

I remember when I lost the choice to breathe. When I thought I took my last breath, and no matter how hard I sucked, I sank further and further into suffocation. My chest a popped balloon deflating with each hyperventilating breath attempting to pump life into its rubber. My trachea, a broken straw bent beneath the weight of anxiety, wheezing from my diaphragm. I remember thinking back to the whales, and watching my twisted tail attempt to kick up to the surface for one last breath.    

I recently remembered how to breathe in a room dominated by the stench of sweaty skin. I recall switching to inhaling through my mouth to avoid the olfactory tickle of body odor. My knees bent before me, planted parallel over the soles of my feet where my toes gripped the foam of the mat, and I opened my rib cage to the sky. The pink fluid of my lungs overflowed over the brim of my bones while my belly stretched to its full capacity. I remember sucking in the salt of tears subconsciously rolling down my face for the simple fact that I wanted to remember this breath.    

confession

Each night, as my eyes close,
I push open the church doors
and bless myself with holy water
accumulating in the corners of my eyes.
Behind those four walls,
my temporal,
paired parietal, and occipital lobes,
I waltz into confession,
though I haven't physically been in years.
Guilt brings me to my knees,
where God watches me from the sockets
of my eyelids,
where He lay woven since my first communion.
When I used to recite the National Anthem,
mistakenly documenting it as prayer,
slurring along its repetition as my repentance,
hoping to alleviate the shame that pushes down on my ribs,
stolen from Adam’s chest.
I confess to what consumes me,
apologizing for the warmth I find when laying
my heart against a woman's womb.
Yet, in the same breath, I express gratitude
for the love that fills me,
divinely gifted by no one less than Him.
I plead for forgiveness
for all of the skepticism I let scrape away my faith,
and I bow my head in sorrow
for all of those whom I disappointed
in finding my own peace.
I swear an oath of silence that I press deep
within the indents of my skull.
And when I open my eyes, I genuflect out of the pews,
Father still sticking behind my sockets,
my ambiguous guilt forever guiding me back to God.

iridescent girl

My iridescent girl,
you are impossible to reduce
into something words can pin down.
Your true nature lies in the pearly belly of the oyster,
calling me to crack open and explore its luminous insides.
I see it in the twinkle of the diamond that studs out of your nose,
glimmering a hypnotic glow that pulls me in closer and closer,
until there is blood across the sheets
when my nose snags against yours.
And we are laughing at our reflection,
your hot, sticky blood creating a sheen across our skin,
glossed in blood, sweat, and tears.
And I try to capture the precise color of the moment,
but it is gone,
shifting across the moonlight.
I wake up to your opalescent wisps of blonde across my chest,
twirling around each silky strand with tenderness.
I wonder how it can exist as so many colors at once,
and I know I may never have the words to understand you,
nor the ability to capture your fluid light in my cupped hands.
But I experience you with full clarity,
feeling the rays of your shifting warmth
as they fleet through the gaps of my fingers with tender transience.
I will treasure you in my temporary possession,
polishing your skin for as long as you reflect my light.
My iridescent girl.

salt

I beg your sweet face to

evaporate neglected years

let the tears dissolve like morning mist,

unveiling the ancient salt that stains your cheeks.

Salt, a mark of sorrow,

and yet, in the same breath,

it heals wounds,

stinging both an offering and a promise

Every drop, a memory,

every sigh, a prayer

may it wash away the weight of fears

you've carried like stones in your chest.

You refuse my touch,

but my hands remain open,

and still, I love you

like the sky loves the sea,

endlessly pulling and releasing.

Swallow your apology

it tastes like regret,

let it dissolve on your tongue

and fall

leave it to the earth,

where it will be forgotten.

You recoil, as though love itself were a betrayal

your chest pulls tight,

skin drawn taut like the strings of a broken bow,

but my hands stay open,

waiting for you to return.

The taste of salt still fresh on your lips

I pull your hips closer to mine 

Where your exhales are recycled 

by my lungs hopeless expansion. 

I want you to feel loved

Not sorry.  

read me

Can you feel me infused in the ink?

I am absent,
only words on a page,
paradoxically present in your space.
It is not enough to feel you,
to penetrate your flesh with mine.
True intimacy lies between the lines.

Are you literate in love?

Love feels right when written,
when adulterous eyes are guided
down lingering lines.
Let your subconscious undress my syllables,
consuming your internal dialogue
with the monologue I script inside your skull.

Do you understand the metaphors I liken you to?

Your vocal cords rest
while your heart strings are tugged,
unraveling love embedded in a song unsung.
Yet the tune rings between your ears,
an invisible melody caught in your canal,
pulsing along to your heart’s hum.

Will you read me?

Pick apart my punctuation
sensual skepticism translating my true intent.
Trace each period pressing down,
mushy indents into my heart,
where each cavity reserves space
only to be read on the page.

prism

i lie with women

while lying to men

thinking of the other 

while tossing in bed 

i shut my eyes tight

basking in ambiguous skin

the light illuminates 

duality’s disappointment

futile flesh

concave or convex

serves its purpose 

in shortening my breath 

i crave to connect

but feel isolated 

between oscillation 

dueling for my attention 

bidirectional tug

my heart split in two

hushed by a label

limiting my love 

they pray on my confusion

hoping to heal me straight

a prism of light,

fractured only in their eyes

ill continue to distort 

the normative noose

that aims to silence

this continuous hurt 

sorting through the white light

basking in the invisible 

colors, kissing my skin

i lay with the silence

of absent resolution

breath

In my dreams, your hair is longer,
your lips still soft.
My hands start to wander
down your chest,
but there’s no heartbeat
just an empty, cold cavity.

I press my sternum
against your breast,
transferring my heat,
hoping your breath will return.
But you lie there like a mossy stone,
collecting my life over your frozen bones.

I doubt you still think of me,
but you remember my love
ravenous vines intertwined around your hands,
faithlessly holding on,
forming around you like fingerless gloves.

I tend to grow in cold, absent places,
devoid of light and nurture
the familiar torture I’m native to.
You remind me of home,
where I curl beneath your stone
and hopelessly grow.

Your mountains collect snow
this time of year,
and I wonder if the frost
will finally let this love die.
I’d rather be released,
like new seeds escaping in death,
than continue depleting my oxygen
to feed your breath.

selflove

love birthed from 

immaculate conception 

radiant heart of an open kitchen

welcoming travelers in, wanting nothing in return

yearning for reciprocity but soon you will learn

you are self sustaining 

nourished by the silent song of solitude 

love is strength engraved in ink down your spine

strangers trace down in translation

their false assumptions only bring you gratitude

for the fact you contain multitudes moreover

than the human mind can unravel

only you know the depths traveled down

roots to uplift petals blooming 

into the fruits of your labor

sweet tropical juice drips from your lips

each time you are reminded by

the capabilities of your gifts and virtues

that spontaneously secrete from your soul

you are evidence that from neglect, internal light is born 

whisper these words

when you wallow under the weight of the impossible

tuck your brunette curls behind your ears

hush the fears that aim to silence you

as you embrace your passion to persevere 

for you are a force to be reckoned with

a warrior whittled by the whimsical

revealing your soft underbelly in rebellion 

with sensitivity slithering through your veins 

you are loved

birthday

frosting licked lips

sweet butter creme 

sprinkles on top

party city candles drip in anguish while awaiting my wish

flame flickers 

my eyes have grown old

strained from screens and stars

my eye doctor gifts me the word photopsia

in this blurr

whirling voices consume me

congratulating me on another year 

i've felt sixteen for half a decade of denial  

how long can i squeeze?

the lust of life out of the

lungs i breathe

hyperventilating  

desperately sucking for youth that escapes me   

until my age is an absent excuse 

for my teenage blues gnawing

at my hips that have widened 

and my breast that have flattened from starvation

this day of decay 

tucks my brunette hair behind my ears

and whispers words of salvation

pearls of wisdom birthed from frustration

home

Bless us, O Lord

I return home smaller each year than the last. My grandmother tells me how i've shrunk when she wraps her arms around my ribs and squeezes. My eyes have sunken into their sockets and I am reminded with each scrutinizing gaze from my relatives. They shove money into my pockets and pray for my nourishment come Christmas.  

and these thy gifts

I pick at my plate and pivot my gaze every few hours, searching for a dead man. I expect him to walk down the stairs, taller than the years prior. His lanky arms cloaked in cashmere, materials of maturity juxtaposed against his forever baby face. He sits frozen behind memorial photos and I wish I could punch through the glass to pull him back into my reality. I am reminded not to talk about such things. There is safety in my silence. As if that could suffocate my grief.

which we are about to receive from thy bounty

My brunette hair bobs against my slender neck. No one noticed how I cut my hair, nor the masculine style I arrive in. I deny speculation of any suitors, though the blonde hair of a woman stains my eyelids. I wish to be uncomplicated and palatable for the thanksgiving feast in which my identity is served and picked apart.    

through Christ, our Lord

My youngest sister fingers through her Bible. A cross dangles down my décolletage, and I flip it between my fingers to imitate faith. I feel their disappointment in me. A distance growing beyond ligation, and I linger in this pain. I am a stranger in the home I was once welcomed. Paranoid of relatives who refract my demented reflection back onto me. We join in prayer that I recite with empty rhythm. Behind my words, I longingly beg that I can somehow be embraced again.    

Amen

again

i am a fool for second chances

helplessly hypnotized by rose tinted glances 

twirled around by your manipulative dances

only to spin out of your grasp nauseous

dry heaving your betrayal onto cement

left wasted again by your lament 

you try again

scavenge up what love you can amend

pry open the door to my heart with the appeal of being friends

i am naive enough to welcome in a stranger

dumb enough to not bat an eye at danger 

redirected love feels better than anger 

there is nothing to gain

in the word again

i count my losses and scrub out your stains

i mourn the lost time 

and stitch up the holes you carved inside

a plant i watered just to watch curl up and die 

again, you come back to me 

begging on your knees 

prodding my heart, pleading please

second chance, you expect a third?

repeating patterns i never deserved 

again, i will never return

kiwi

bird in search of sky

your wingspan consumes clouds

blinded when too high 

instincts intertwined with greed

grasping at the infinite 

until failure bleeds 

prison is perspective 

incarcerated inside a dome

birds eye view, two feet land alone

nesting into Neverland 

 cracked speckled-sparrow shells

hatched a new hell 

dangerous heights

humbling arrogant wings 

into a faithless flight 

wind resistance whips while

high altitude wipes the oxygen 

from expansive lips

crash landing

friction suffocated by soil 

heaven spoiled: grounded by gravity

bird in search of a cage 

where safety is ensured 

and rage is contained 

you crave control 

in the comforting ways 

lying in your limited domain

collapse of your wings

aids in the aversion

of harmful things 

rested in human palm

impossible to differentiate between desires

when you are finally wanted 

you traded your wings 

for the gravity of belonging

to earthly beings 

behind metal ribs

you peak through the bars

beak pecking between the chasm of choice 

an illusion of noise

where entropy expands 

born with wings not hands

unable to grasp

the mystical

mist of wet winds

you chose this simplicity

you chose to observe 

you chose to be a flightless bird

entropy

entropy engulfs me 

bending and distorting my soul into its smallest conformation 

it’s more stable this way 

more favorable inscribed in my notebook

can chaos be controlled?

taunted by variables and formulas 

all meaning is exiled 

when graphite strikes an x= 

i plug in neat numbers

and am fed functions of pi

and words are worse than numbers

they too have error between syllables 

between the synapse of neurons 

unable to connect my precise meaning 

substituting numbers with letters into a more complex equation 

my identity is indivisible
an unrestricted domain I find myself making brackets for

explaining my words 

across different worlds

never to be truly understood or heard 

 i knelt to the thesaurus as my theology

only to stand up an atheist

lost in translation 

screaming empty words with frustration

the limit of language similarly approaching zero 

i am left defining the non differentiable

staring blankly at a page

saturated with numbers only a calculator can compute 

etched into a world of binary code

i refuse to simplify into zeros and ones  

        diabolical dialect

my neck constricting in a noose of ill-fitting idioms

i fail to pronounce my feelings

with the formula to flick my tongue correctly

complexities are left gnawing inside of me 

though they are mute, their teeth still bite  

inside this vessel i suffocate 

grasping at grammar

sinking my teeth into solutions 

i am unable to derive 

entropy expands, i am left boiling inside 

rings

she washes her hands with her rings on

collecting green and blue hues

between her bruised knuckles

with logic she seems to refuse 

but i can't help but admire

how the tarnishing metal 

mirrors the seafoam green

that laps the shores of her dilated pupils

my fingers lie naked, unadorned

due to the strangling sensation 

of unwanted stimulation worn

cracked calluses accumulate 

between my webbed fingers like warnings 

she entertains herself by twiddling her thumbs 

rolling each ring off

placing it on a new numb

between rounds of exchange 

she spares the generosity of some change    

her horseshoe gallops around 

the neck of my middle finger

sterling silver that mocks my gold

i hold and twirl her around 

letting our differences linger       

while the faucet splashes and sings 

i baptize my own fingers 

decorated with her rings  

i am reminded how her lack of logic 

births beautiful things

spit

i love licking envelopes 

and your lips are no different 

all to achieve the bliss

of tasting my own spit 

my morning breath 

reads blank to my blind nose

I can only taste myself 

when my eyes are closed  

when your convex breasts

connect with my chest’s concavity

your tongue in my mouth 

digging for cavities  

when we pull away 

with wet lips 

i am left with the tangy

aftertaste of my own spit 

i savor this saliva 

that you sweetened with your own 

my tastebuds pulse at the thought 

of feeling known 

as the spit settles 

matting down to your soft skin 

i inhale us together 

letting my true self in

trick or treat

baby it's halloween and you can be anything  

this year like all of the rest

i am a glorified whore

what costume could induce more horror?

than the tight stockings suffocating my thighs

while strangers salivate over my sweet disguise

gluttonous hands grasp elbow deep in my bowl

taking seconds and thirds until

their stomach are swollen and full 

there are razor blades 

spliced between chocolate kisses 

slicing the gullible tongues

of those fooled by my impersonation of love

i once cosplayed as your bride

your mistress

your mother’s daughter in-law

all to have my costumes torn to shreds

while you sought out my true identity

lying naked in your childhood bed. 

and when my all wasn't good enough

i went back to playing pretend 

baby you say,

you can be anything, except

the styles that give you meaning

so put a bag over your beautiful face

and scream 

the script I wrote to control you

as my whorish play thing

(happy halloween :3)

thief

my compulsions compel me

though i lie, cheat and steal of my own will 

my thieving hands are guided by an act of God

or some higher power that I cannot control

little things i never needed

find their way between my fingertips

where i relocate them into my possession

picked and praised by my obsession

they won't be missed 

perhaps I am saving them

from dust and neglect

with me they are worshiped and better kept

maybe i want what I can't have 

the elusive control of loss

i can't thieve from convenient stores

or ripped tags in shopping malls

something was stolen from me

a brother whose blood i shared

perhaps in my grief i reach for him

desperately thieving for a breath of fresh air

though i am left suffocating with guilt

in a pile of pointless things 

my hands dripping in red

waiting to be caught and punished again

black opium

i bask underneath the diffusion of black opium 

the perfume particles drift down 

cascading from the dusty origin of light

it smells like my eldest sister’s red hair

somehow straddling the multitudes

of bitter almond and pink pepper  

i genuflect beneath Saint Laurent 

with full faith and taste of licorice lingering  

tickling my olfactory senses

while tricking the nose blind

seduced by the fragrant top notes

where underneath my true odor lies

managing to mask the stench

of my rotting insides

churning with the cannibalistic urge

of self destruction and neglect  

whose ravenous gurgles and growls  

are drowned out with the distraction of compliments

i feel a fraud

strangers breathing beneath my neck

intoxicated by the scent laced between intricate threads

of my perfect facade I have deliciously dressed  

and they would eat me too 

if I had anything real left

ugly duckling

born scrawnier and runtier 

than the rest

lowest of her pecking order

her head hung

arching below her neck

ugly duckling

obscure strange thing

she survived off of crumbs

transforming into something

supposedly worthy of love

beautiful swan

strangers swoon over her slender neck

carved from starvation 

and time spent

enduring clipped wings that flew fine

the pond ripples around her signature  

while she peacefully floats 

pretending she is plastic 

so that others may stay

and praise her porcelain pain

the murky mosaic of water

shines back her silhouette

there is no recognition of reflection 

behind the eyes of the deformed duckling

whose flesh filled out with beauty before her

she can taste what she cannot believe 

in her svelte seduction 

though she is hungry

for truth she wasn't raised

to perceive  

benadryl haze

I have lost track of the daze

I simply float throughout the weak

Cleaning up the mess I maid

I am making myself sick

I don't know any other way. 

I traded my last five cents for cough suppressants

Sweat pores from my sticky skin

Begging me to heel before beginning again

I know nothing but numb

kneading my temple between pointer finger and thumb

I stare at the white, board out of my mind

Imagining the birds that flu over 

Leaving me behind

Nothing is fair

Apart from my ghostly complexion I hide

Half past and I still haven't eight

my declining body weights, for a site of substance 

To fill my stomach whole 

Serial breakfasts bleed into the afternoon dull 

When the knight comes

I hear the creek flowing through the door

I beg for a bedtime story to be red

Praying to escape once more

He feeds me another spoon of tarte cherry dye

And while I sleep, I am momentarily released 

from the suffocating anguish of being alive.