Catrina
One day I found her walking with my grandpa.
She wore long, silky dresses and cherry lipstick
Her eyes dark voids of love bid farewell to him
And I stared at her for a long time, almost a lifetime
“Dime, tell me, do you want to dance?”
I accepted such dark invitation
Dance, oh dance!
Please don’t touch me
Just keep moving to this rhythm
The rhythm of “Llorona”
She kept smiling offering flowers to me
Cempasuchil, just like her perfume and her breath
She smelled like coffee, sweet bread, tamales, and mole
She finally sat, and I offered her tequila, she gladly accepted.
“Dime, why do people think I like to carry a scythe?
I like to dance with people
I like to see them smile
I like to see them bid me farewell after a long talk”
I tried to look into those empty eyes of her
She only seemed pleased
She never complained
I knew her job
She carried many people on their way back home
I said, bonita, why do you have such task?
She smiled again, and said,
“Life is not cruel. The ones who are cruel are all of you
You dare not live your lives
You dare not live your lives because of money
You cut each other with words sharper than a scythe
You spent your lives thinking about the future which does not exist
And you keep thinking about the past which is already dead (giggles)
You dare not love because you hate all of those who harmed you
You dare not love because you are afraid to love again
Yet you dare blame me when I come to pay a visit”
I undestand, flaquita, my petite lady, I replied.
Here’s is a rose for you.
She said, “Thanks. But roses are only
for the ones whose hearts are still beating
Cempasuchil is for the ones
who are lost in their way to Heaven
They’ll be more than glad to receive a flower like that.
Now, Señora mia, my lady,
Why are you always smiling?
She said, “Why be sad when one is resting?
There is only joy in knowing you’re going to Nirvana, Sky, or Heaven
It does not matter where you’re going or where you are from
Your journey here is over
You’re starting another one
Take it as if you were moving
Plus you don’t have to carry any boxes or luggage
Only a sack of sins and joys
Now, perplexed, I only saw how she stood up and
Cracked her knuckles and neck
and began to sing
With such a splendid and sweet voice:
“Life is a candle
Hidden in Tajin
Quetzalcoatl carries it
Mictlantecuhtli watches
Anubis guides you and weighs your soul
While mighty God in Nirvana awaits
Life is a candle and when it gets weaker,
Inside the temples of Tajin
It is time for me to blow it off
And guide you through this path
This is the path where lovers meet
This is the path were lovers’ love never dies
That’s the only love from me my dearest children
La Catrina awaits for you...
In the temples of Tajin
And now is time for you to come.”
As she stopped singing such sweetest song,
I took her hand, and walked with her
Is time to come, is time to smile
The candle goes off...
DA 2015
We dream in color while living in black and white
Dreams cast a wide net
Capturing desires
Pieced together
A puzzle that doesn't fit
A lush delirium
Of the seen and unseen
Known and unknown
Presented to tired eyes
Waiting for dreams to come true
When we know the truth
Fantasy will never be reality
Because our minds won't let it be
Lost in her own little world
She replaces her blood with fine wine and pills
Slowly dripping inside her heart
Shriveling her insides like a dying rose
Withered and sagging
Dark are the circles under her eyes
Deep are the valleys of her skin
Cigarette smoke is her only halo
A false promise made to a fallen angel
Who sped up the hands of time
Bringing her closer to her dreams long forgotten
Lost in the outskirts of her mind
Following a path never meant for her to travel
A lost soul journeying toward her end
But refusing to let go
Wait For Nothing
Wait for nothing
Don't wait for anything
Life simply happens
However, you are the one to give it course
We live our entire lives waiting for something
But we don't realize that
When we don't expect anything,
Circumstances and destiny were the ones
Looking for us
Wait for nothing
Don't wait to obtain something back from others
Just wait for nothing
Take responsibility of your own actions
And never disturb the flow of others lives
Unless it is for love or natural death
Wait for nothing
And live the present
The past is dead and the future does not exist
There are more than a thousand reasons to say
Anything happens for a reason
But reasons don't mean anything
In a life that is already taken its course
Everything is predetermined
However, this does not mean that you're following a script
You are allowed to improvise
You are allowed to make this a comedy or a tragedy
Please don't make it a drama
Make it a journey
A journey to Nirvana
Through the mountains or the beach
Escape Samsara
In the end, you'll know what I meant
We never look for reasons for something that happens
In the same sense we don't look for death
Or we don't decide to look for someone to love
But any of those always end up walking by our own stroll
Wait for nothing
Enjoy what you have
Write poetry to love
Read poetry to live
Make others read you poems
Teach them to read them once you're gone
Life is poetry
And life
Waits for nothing
It already happened.
DA 2015
The Rivers Where Roses Bloom
I invite you, dearest friend
To come with me to
The rivers where roses bloom
It's a complicated path
We all must follow
But we always end up there
Once you find yourself there,
Be careful, for where water runs
It leaves a trace of thorns through all its caudal
These rivers run eternally
Always welcoming visitors
To get stained by the blood
of those who happen to
touch the thorns
Their waters had left crevices
On the hardest of rock
They leave Mother Earth
Exhausted by their humiliation
In Spring and their triumph in Winter
They never stop flowing
Even in the calmest of the days
Their thorns seem to be
Uneasy and every drop of
Blood always end up transforming
Into more fragrant roses
Symbolizing that their sadness is unique
It is lustful, it is dangerous, so let it out.
For when you're invited
To the rivers where roses bloom
There's no chance of coming back, for you'll
Be dragged by the current
Ending in the biggest waterfalls of nostalgia
Surrounded by the velvet bloody petals
That every lover and sinner
Had touched.
DA 2015
From then on I have always been thankful despite and inspite
I am taking you back when I was 12. I was a member of an organization that goes to slum areas, orphanage and the likes to do some charity works. We went to this orphanage called Hospicio de San Jose. There was this girl, she has no feet and arms but she still has a wonderful smile. I was quickly drawn to her. She told me, "I'm still lucky because despite my situation, I'm alive and there are people like you who helps us."
Nothing has ever replaced that feeling of pure happiness and warm in my life.
She Blew the Lads (A Kiss)
“Girls will be boys and boys will be girls
It’s a mixed up muddled up shook up world.”
Lola, The Kinks.
Those lyrics spun in circles in her head. They danced with the other - the perfect couplet. She smiled a pretty smile and drew on her eyebrows. In front of her was an array of beauty products but she didn’t need any of them. Her face was gentle but well drawn, her lips pouted when needed, and elegant when in repose.
She pushed her hair into the shape that she wanted. It was long and brown, the colour of dairy milk chocolate. She had spent years grooming until now finally she was happy. She pushed her tits together and blew a kiss at the mirror. On her hands she pulled long white gloves and on her feet she slipped sparkling white high-heeled shoes. She stood, twirled, and looked over as someone knocked at the door.
“Five minute warning.”
She walked towards the door and opened it. A man was knocking on other doors, doors with stars on. Her door had the biggest star of all. She tucked, tweaked, and straightened up. She was ready for the lights.
The stage was empty. It was waiting for her long leggy legs to strut and stride. Eager men waited in the shadows sipping hard liquor. Most come alone because they are bent but straight. No one can know of their predilections. But late at night no one judges because everyone is to busy being themselves.
Booze loosens tongues and zips. It leads to groping in the toilets and later head holding in the wee hours. It leads to pissing on walls, car door handles, and on unwary trouser legs. It leaves you where you really want to be and that’s the bitterest pill to swallow. But in the dimly light corners, in the dark secluded recesses, the men sat and watched the empty stage. They were waiting for her.
And on the stage she appeared. The lights dazzling just like her smile. She thrust, she splayed, and she seduced in equal measure. This was the kind of place where you could look but not touch, you could lust but not fuck. The men were free to fuck one another but they didn’t. Most were after breasts, most were after an illusion, and all knew where they would find it. She was on the stage.
Her name was never something they asked. They wanted no link between their day-to-day lives and her. She was their dirty pleasure, their secretive escape, and she was the only thing that made these men a group. In life they came from ever corner of society. That’s the thing about late night strip clubs. There is no class. Just eyes and naked flesh – an illusion, not honesty.
But she was special. In her dark brown voice she sang love songs. She could sing ‘em fast, she could sing ’em slow, and she moved her hips with a rock and a roll. Her dress came off easily and she glided around the poll. She took dollar bills in her thong’s waistband and she batted off the hands that were too curious. In her head she was somewhere else, dancing for more than just money for the bills, but in reality she was in a sweaty strip club dancing with the worst truth – she was the star.
She finished her performance and left the stage. She went back to her dressing room. She removed her wig, her makeup, and her high heels. In their place she put on her clothes, the clothes that she felt she could walk home in. A subtle dress, a long overcoat, and a bob cut wig.
Outside of the bar she stood. The pink lit triple X sign blinked from a busted fuse and rain dripped on her face making her makeup run. Streaks of water were like chinks in her armour. She lit a cigarette and walked off into the nigh, her low heels providing a sombre clack clack.
The rain formed tiny rivers in the drains and slowly they flooded and overflowed. She pulled her overcoat in tighter and sucked the last of the smoke from her hissing cigarette. She threw it into the drain and the current battered, twisted, and overcame the filter tip. Pieces of spent tobacco and paper mingled in a deconstructed mess and then were sucked down, their essence destroyed.
She walked on. Dark alleyways and forgotten city corners twisted and turned as she made her way home. Ahead of her a group of lads stood drinking cheap cider and smoking marijuana. She moved into the gutter to walk around them.
“Faggot.”
One of the young men called after her with a word that physically hurt her. She tried to pass them but they pushed her over. There were lots of them and only one of her.
She tried to stand up, her breathing heavy but not as heavy as theirs. They were hunters, children bored and left up far too late. A boy picked her up and looked straight in her face. Her makeup was all but gone, her wig was hanging haphazardly, and she had lipstick on her teeth.
They stared at each other, both, in that moment, in their own way, honest.
“I’m not a faggot.”
She said it with defiance but defiance is always dangerous to those who feel challenged. The young man pushed her to the floor.
They hit her. She tried to cower in a ball, she tried to ride out the violence but she was overcome. They threw words like punches.
“You like dick in your ass?”
“You’re disgusting, you make me sick.”
But not one of them had ever been brave like she was now. They were showing the depth of hatred, they were showing what it meant to be a Nazi, to be a fascist, to be a racist. Her makeup was running but she wasn’t.
“Yeah I've been fucked,” she cried. “So what?”
They kicked her over and over and over again. They hit her, they spat at her, but she would never be broken.
She blew the lads (a kiss).
I’m Here
I'm here brewing stormy clouds inside my head.
I'm here holding thunder within my chest.
I'm here shaking the ground under my feet.
I'm here with running streams providing me with immortality.
I'm here with a body bearer of the universe darkness.
I'm here without the big bang spark of love.
DA 2014