She longs for the soul she once loved. She longs for the feeling of loving and be loved back equally. She’s a woman of strength and wisdom. She’s a woman of dreams and passion. She carries with her a heavy burden of all the eyes that look up on her. Of expectations. Of judgments. Of failures. She hid herself from the caving walls of her past. She loved and failed, then yet, she tried again. Tried to love but somehow holding back. Holding back what she thought she once had but didn’t. She relies on a truthful lie and a hopeful doubt. But amidst all that, she stood up. A mess of her own. A rebellious angel. But fine in her own way. Flaws make her whole. She believes in her capacity. She is a woman of flaws. Of imperfection. But she is also a woman of purity. Of courage and strength. A mess of fictional flaws she claims she has. She is a woman. A woman made of a mess. But a beautiful one.

Your ghost walks these halls

Breathes ice onto my mirror

Comments on my choice of whole wheat toast

Cradles me like a casket

Haunts me like a song

Your ghost dances these floors

Leaves words written on my walls

Laughs when I can’t find the keys

Hums like a premonition

Hovers like a head-cold

Your ghost holds these dusty bones

With creaking steps

And silent echoes

In a dream, I invite my father over for dinner. In a dream, I speak with my hands. I press index and middle finger on each hand together, then fling what they’re holding away

/they’re holding nothing/

and I’m saying, I’m lost

In a dream I flourish both hands out to my right and push myself away, and my father loads the word abandoned into the barrel of a gun

I hold up 3 fingers on each hand and the light blushes at my innocence

I am speaking with my hands, but I don’t know most words, so in a dream I clear the table by pressing my face down into the dirty plates. I pull the table cloth out from under the dishes, and it’s actually a quilt, and the food crashes to the floor, and I suffocate on things I didn’t want, and I leave my bed to stop the crying that started in the closet

The ceiling is yellowed and the walls are suicidal, when I put two fingers to temple and close the thumb down to shoot

I don’t know how to speak with my hands, so in a dream I stare into my father’s eyes. I hope that when I cry, he swallows the tears and teaches me a new way to deal with the things that I locked up in the attic

/the attic is empty shadows/

But even in the dream he agrees with the word gun, and I hold up an amber alert so that he knows that what I meant by the milk carton was that this is where I learned how to fix things

I press a bullet into his palm and a pill into my own

I paint the scene in red, I swallow the scene in blue

You would think

That my eyes

Would be desert dry

With all of the

Oceans

That they cry

i.

my seventh-grade classmate slapped me with the back of her hand, inked in slurs

and i stood there and let the words become an iron brand on my cheek.

she spits into my food: “sorry to ruin your lunch—wouldn’t want to ruin the taste of dog.”

the words on my face burn hot. i don’t move to rub them away.

ii.

i bet your parents came to america to work in a california nail salon. i bet they probably cleaned my grandaddy’s toes.

actually, my mom arrived in ellis island, and she waved at lady liberty, and i bet she didn’t know that lady liberty’s a filthy snake and a liar

i bet your parents are proud that this great country even allowed them in

yeah, i bet they are. i bet it’s everything my dad imagined when he starved, drifting in the pacific and i bet he really liked being called a yellow gangster and i bet he felt real welcome when he wasn’t allowed in some restaurants and i bet it was way better than his family’s life being threatened by some men in red uniforms back home.

iii.

i wore a face mask in public last weekend and a man told me to bring the chinese disease back to where i came from. i wondered if i forgot to wash off “alien” from my forehead that morning

he spat on me, so i used his spit to rub his slurs off my cheek

he ended up breaking my nose, and i heard the noise of my bones snapping, and it sounded like: “chink, chink.”

iv.

well, i mean, america spits on people like me and 

america spits on people who don’t really behave all that right

and america kinda spits on everything that makes it scared but

i think you know that. i hope you know that.

but it’s just, selfishly, all i can think about is me, and that

america spat on me last weekend. and i don’t really think i liked it all that much.

I don’t think this comes to a surprise to anyone here on Prose. I’ve said it before and I’ll proudly say it again. I don’t believe in god. I don’t believe in any deity. I don't believe in any afterlife. I don't believe in devils or demons. I don't believe any religion is correct.

I would explain my reasoning but I feel like beating a dead horse. If you want my reasons click on any of the hashtags below. To basically sum it up: I don't believe in god nor do I believe that any god exists. And even if a god did exist, going off what the Christian Right described, frankly I don't feel comfortable believing or praying to a self-righteous, hypocritical, homophobic, genocidal deity who ignores starving and cancer-sickened children.

#atheist #atheism #religion

I get it.

I would contemplate doing the same.

Living in that bubble of protection; the original brick in the wall that had been torn down and rebuilt- a memoir stuck in a library that the romans threatened to burn down if you stepped outside.

What we had, how we loved, it is an ode to the past. How dare anyone suggest the future when we can live comfortably in the past. So pass up this moment and relive the recording.

This is a recording.

She dreamed

in rainbow colors,

tracing

silver clouds

with gold,

but

tears painted

wax shutters

on the windows

to her soul.

Black and Blue

on Flesh;

a Charcoal

portrait of remains —

Chalk-White

outlining Ash;

she’d finally

cordoned off

her pain.

Forget him

Remember you

The hardest thing of all

To do.

Remember how

You laughed at babies

Bubble smiles

And loving Maybees.

Remember how

You shook your hair

And laughed because

You didn’t care.

Your mini dress

And golden boots

And getting drunk

Not giving hoots.

Remember how your

Smiling eyes

Would burst volcanoes

Cause surprise.

Your gentle voice

And soothing words

Would bring you love

Because you cared.

Remember dancing

Just for fun

And skipping when

You didn’t run.

Your happy voice

And gentle touch

Was just enough

And not too much.

And then you gave

Yourself to him

But now he’s gone

Left on a whim.

But you’re still here

That much is true

So now it’s time -

Remember you.