rose in midair

and this is not a song

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 15:18:51 GMT

we are accidents of holistic timing,
you know, a bomb shelter filled with the explosive past
and day by day i illustrate my escape
on your warm walls of genuine faith

i promise not to hoard your moments or your sustenance made of glass,
i promise to be your raincoat against the winds,
though my skin is made of paper and my bones are shreds of rags

there are holes in us, i whisper,
and yet you still insist.

we won't see the setting sun tonight,
(but i pray to god,
see me.)

i hand you my broken arms and you replace them with wings

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 15:00:13 GMT

my fingers fumble across your chest, feeling for the unreachable planets that you quietly tucked away. you thread my weight together, pound by pound, ounce for ounce, and sometimes i feel like just a variation of the various terms of endearment that you have inevitably used for every woman you've loved.

it worries me, how many women you must have whispered these words to.

it worries me, how little you might think about your words and what they mean to the woman who not only listens but dissects and inspects and pleads and speaks.

do you know what it does to me?

move me,
no,
move me

not the way your feet move across the dance floor,
but like earthquakes

so that i know my geography is different, that you cause turmoil in my soil in a way that cannot be stopped
and that my landscape is different from your past

my earth is dark now, it is moist
still thirsty,
still foreign.

you are the rain, and for three weeks it has stormed

but still it is you i crave

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 18:41:09 GMT

sometimes i'm pouring through your fingers,
avalanches of weight yet the texture of grains of sand

the constellations in your eyes flicker even in immobile light
and when i look into your eyes i see your skies align with mine

we talked about how the treetops meet the sky, and
"had the price of looking been blindness, i would have looked."
i wanted to tell you that, there was this one particular night, (and now every night),
it would have been (it is) worth the price
to look and see the bricks and mortar fall from behind your eyes

the same theme

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 18:32:26 GMT

i name you precarious as you use the entire country of panama to blindfold my eyes and trip my feet because you are all i see. arms holding arms and hands reaching out for hands, i’m not sure or aware or strong enough to really pretend to be

it’s okay though because your spanish comes raining down like sheets of hail and i’m wondering when i can return the favor of your heat.

it’s okay because i’m recovering,
it’s okay because i need to learn the taste of defeat,
and to chew it and swallow it without butter or cheese

hey kids it’s time for justice but
trials are conditional and
we compare notes on survival, and i’m numbering my scars
it’s for future reference, you see.

we’re in denver and these roads are treacherous, the trees are like aching melodies that nod in satisfaction that we are so lost
but the sheets and couch mattress were worse, a jungle of springs, the tequila marinates in my head and i thought i was swimming to shore when really i’m swimming to sea

you’re lovely in sleep, your mouth gaping open and silent as a storm
you’re lovely in sleep. when i know where you are, and your vulnerability lies with me.

borderline

Thu, 09 Apr 2009 21:46:47 GMT

i believe in the nights, the curtains drawn on the reality of day

and i believe in the timid stars that (only ever so occasionally) peek out like tardy sentinels overlooking the landscape of our sleeping bodies
piled one on top of the other,
restless and tormented with something like desire, or seriousness, or the inability to distinguish the two.

the sentinels awake and disperse the silent tremble in the air,
headboard against the wall,
your hands against the small of my back
i am the jungle and you are the flat, eternal sea
undisturbed for
miles
and miles
and miles of me

this image is for me to remember, and for you to never know it existed-

this is a lousy excuse for meaning- this existential theory that conflicts with how i reach for the open palms of hands that may carry my heart at last - the hands that may carry my bags, my boxes, my things, my heavy hopes at last-
and finally understand that
absurdity beats in time with mine

i am your path untrodden
excessive foliage in all its splendor
my heart wrenches in all the green as i beg myself
don't return to december

prometheus

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 21:32:36 GMT

"and by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. the worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt."
sylvia plath.

---

my body is defenseless against you, pale and plastered to the ordinary accidents that made us extraordinarily whole

actually our incompatibility stems from the way you ask me what i'm looking at and that (to you) my miradas are questions and not answers and that (to you) people are objects from which to garner appreciation and gratefulness rather than emotion

and because of all this i promise you a painting of my lungs at the moment when they exhale in your presence,
to highlight the way they are illuminated from the edges,

and for you to see how my lungs are a cage for my heart,
and how my distracted breathing gets in the way of an already-erratic heartbeat

in this way i will point to the painting and explain to you that even chinese-tibetan cross-continent trains could not decrease the space between our shoulder blades and chests. my tongue alights upon your collarbone, igniting flames from under your chin, and you writhe with discomfort as you whisper that i'm wearing you down, that you're giving in.but it doesn't matter, because i am still a puddle of water evaporating under your overbearing heat

i collect adjectives like fireflies in a jar. i hoard them in your absence because i know how much you hate both romanticism and the packrat trait, it reminds you of your mother whom you love so much and yet you live in sparing scarcity, a bed and nothing more (i haven't seen this but so you admit, and you love tossing your pants on the floor). you have so much . space . spanning around and in you and in and out of you, growing, pulsing with the life that you are scared to live, the love that you are scared to admit and i just want to shake you and say let go let go LET GO, fall! dammit! just fall! it won't be that bad on the way down, i promise, and once you've almost hit bottom it will be like you are hovering above your body, electric with understanding, shaking with awareness, cringing at how long you've waited to feel a pain this good, cakes of concrete lining your knees

feels like fire, doesn't it?
feels like fire, doesn't it? prometheus knelt down to the ground, this is how he recognized it when he brought it to us

he let go

between worlds

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 05:02:59 GMT

minnesota.

matchbox

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 19:46:10 GMT

it’s quiet tonight and you
instruct me where i should place my head,
looking straight backward instead of
pressed against your cheek .

in the midst of our arena of love-making and hope
my gasoline-drenched legs rub against the gunpowder of her smoldering words
and one morning it was all burning,
bandits of courage, burning
bandages of poetry, burning
bees and honey
and anthologies of a mere thought named Peace
and i'm still gasoline,
lying here with pieces of past
strewn all over the ground

it’s quiet tonight and i
listen patiently to your chest
while the swords of your breath
challenge duels with the air

“Let me explain a few things,”
you offered in the dark
and in your wordless explanation you
fastened your body to my arms
and reminded me with galloping silence
that love is not always melancholy
and songs are not always sad
and poetry doesn’t always burn,
and peace can be more than thought
and breathing doesn’t always mean fighting

and if these are the nights of vulnerable hands,
let me be water this once
let me break against your harbor of sand.

this too shall pass

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 03:15:46 GMT

new orleans, april 2008

of rivers and men

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 03:29:39 GMT

i.
your army-green jacket’s sleeves sit awkwardly against the surface of my skin while
its collar peeks around my shivering shoulders

the leather couch smells like leftover fireplace ashes from winter while
the air smells like slow-coming (ambling) spring

after w(h)etting our cheekbones with curiosity, the colorado river sleeps beneath our feet.
rachmaninoff’s weary hunger rolls listlessly around in the hollow between our bodies.

ii.
i’m shaking now, like starlight,
and the ceiling fan can’t keep pace
the mississippi groans of windy wounds
while your fingers trace my shoulder blades

the day is heavy as the steamboat’s shadow drags against your belief that
“good things come in time”

it’s summer in texas.
i’ve learned to ignore this kind of heat.

yet still
your hesitant hands cradle my thighs and we lose our place
somewhere between
the hot blankets and Coldplay’s burning rhymes

tonight, my eyes stay firmly shut against the fury of your lips
there are no question marks in your eyes, and so (willingly)
you never stop to recognize the ones in mine

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 03:14:19 GMT

it always happens, half a year later or so, suddenly i find myself reeling from the heartache that comes with your absence. i spend months ignoring it, or drowning it,
and now here i am, watching perfect sunsets in midair from a plane window, shaking from the memories of the way i loved you.

unfinished

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 02:58:30 GMT

i learned the foreign language of your movement,
piecing together the grammar of your skin
your fingers traced the vocabulary of my unsteady breathing,
whispering, "if i save you from drowning,
will you promise to not to leave?"

tell me a story. tell me something real,
like the way you said my lips smelled of vanilla,
and the way your apartment smelled like peace
our breaths fiery with wine
tell me how our hands crossed,
your fingers laced with mine

surface wanderings

Tue, 05 Feb 2008 01:32:15 GMT

your voice in the mornings, thick with resolve,
"open up" you beg,
like my lips are doorways,
and it all sounds the same,

the ceiling fan above me roars against the shifting air,
and you are water, catching the light,
and you draw the shape of my fear on the backs of my thirsty hands,

i wake up clutching the blanket as if it is your shoulder,
it's the same old story,
rotten and heavy,

i'm softshoeing across the phone receiver,
i'm halfway across the state but not an inch closer,
to the way your eyes trembled at the end of november

LTLYM #3: before you leave the house

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 15:57:03 GMT

hello, march.

----

this is a project to help me feel closer to you.

--

three: before you leave the house

things that i can't leave the house without:
- a notebook and pen
- driver's license
- credit card or cash
- earrings
- lip balm/chapstick
- lactose pills (hehe)
- drinking water
- black hair rubberbands around my left wrist

and what about you?

dicen que el amor siempre llega en septiembre

Sun, 03 Feb 2008 19:55:16 GMT

when i drive in this city past midnight, my ears are filled with the tumbling echoes of broken love songs. the traffic lights change like the landscape of my heartache as i dig up the past once again.

IV.
grey blue eyes
like the
palm of wintry morning new york skies
your knuckles are spanning the small of my back like
brooding brooklyn bridges
and your voice a quiet
rumble of an
orange and green hue

your curtains of lonely hope
shift back and forth in flight
at times, gossamer like heartbeats
at others, opaque like the backs of
my ripped black tights

i think in imagery because
that's how i see
you, in a light grey sweatshirt and blaring
red scarf
running like a hoodlum down the manhattan
christmas-lit streets

the sticky and sweet
of our alcoholic kiss
backdrop of strobelights
are you sure we're more than this?

you're depressed because you're
too intelligent for our
superficial surroundings
a society cloaked in
greenbacked dreams
you're a genius,
mad by your own design
admitting addiction to the point of
becoming
blind

i'm stuck in the rungs of your
mandarin rhyme

heart for a heart
of this
second part
of
you
and i
   you
    and
      i

you and i

III.
i could have fallen in love with you,
your unfiltered incredulity,
your insufferably eccentric ways paired with
your surprisingly elegant dance moves.

can you blame me when
your green moped hummed of freedom and open skies

so i (but of course) was confused
when i recognized the caged desperation
that flickered in your eyes

i explored the masquerades of certainty that you painted over your fingers. i'm crazy, i told you. but i like you that way, you claimed.

the quiet water of the lake watches as, above the city lights, we find each other's lips.

you couldn't stop sweating at night, and the next day i awoke to tangled bedsheets and empty stares. you left me in the middle of September without acknowledging the stale dissatisfaction hanging limply in the air.

II.
drummer exploring sound,
at night i found you in front of my eyes,
pale and thin like light
through the slats of open venetian blinds
this is an anthem of migration
this is a poem for contemplation
(plus with the purpose of apologizing
that you couldn't stop me as i took flight)

I.
you showed up in the evening in front of the bus station, green sweater, hands in pockets, smiling coolly and walking warmly. it was always in another country: when we first fell in love, when we first admitted to love, when we first fell back in love.

Austin was raw to us; the edges of that love separated sharply like razor blades, and our hearts hibernated in silence. the heaving heat of distance was too much for us. i pass the streets we used to walk down. i remember getting lost in cemetaries, i remember getting lost in the labyrinth of your silent sleep. you were restless towards the end, and you never slept. every night i would pretend not to hear you get up and walk across the carpeted room to pace the bathroom tiles. i blamed myself, that the palms of my hands were too small to contain you, that my skin lacked the surface area to appease you.

i don't recall how we started speaking again. i remember sitting up in the middle of the nights, breathing hard and feeling fear for no particular reason, except for the fact that i knew we were ending. i blame my body for not having the capacity to control my lust.

i do recall the last time we spoke. nathan was in the doorway. your voice was halting on the phone. in my head i can see you, your feet barefoot, your orange beanie worn backwards, your hand holding your stupid fancy multi-function touch screen phone. your toys surrounding you like a lifeless army. you're not breathing, and neither am i. you want to do this with the least amount of effort, just like you wanted everything else.

and you want to hate me, but you can't. because you know i understand every centimeter of your desire, and you know that you will never find a mirada like the one i gave you. and as you retreat to a safer distance away from me (just like you always did), i realize that it doesn't hurt as much as i thought it would.

you don't search for me any longer. and all i can do is smile.

"i still love you, you know"

"listen," i whisper. of course, you never did.

----------------------------------------------

i)

We are hard on each other
and call it honesty,
choosing our jagged truths
with care and aiming them across
the neutral table.

The things we say are
true; it is our crooked
aims, our choices
turn them criminal.

ii)

Of course your lies
are more amusing:
you make them new each time.

Your truths, painful and boring
repeat themselves over & over
perhaps because you own
so few of them

iii)

A truth should exist,
it should not be used
like this. If I love you

is that a fact or a weapon?

iv)

Does the body lie
moving like this, are these
touches, hairs, wet
soft marble my tongue runs over
lies you are telling me?

Your body is not a word,
it does not lie or
speak truth either.

It is only
here or not here.

(margaret atwood)

LTLYM #2: passing years

Mon, 28 Jan 2008 16:15:11 GMT

this is a project to help me feel closer to you.

---

two: historical events

7 important things that happened in my life in 2007:

1. i went to new york twice
2. i went sailing for the first time on Lake Travis
3. i graduated from university
4. i backpacked Southeast Asia for 2 months
5. i broke up with Genaro
6. i started my first full time job and began traveling weekly for work
7. i attended my first week-long tango festival in Austin and i can still remember how it felt when my feet went numb with pain

6 important things that happened in my life in 2006:

1. i went to China for the first time and lived in Beijing for 5 months
2. i backpacked through the Yunnan province for a month
3. i visited my grandfather for the last time in Tainan and sat by his bedside every day.
4. i got really drunk for the 1st time when I turned 21, singing karaoke and drinking Smirnoff with my cousins and uncles
5. i got hired to shoot a wedding for the first time
6. i finished final-round interviews and accepted a full-time job offer

5 important things that happened in my life in 2005:

1. i studied and lived in granada and barcelona, spain
2. i performed with VSA for the Texas Revue show
3. i visited Paris for 8 days and fell in love with the city
4. i bought my first dSLR
5. i fell in love in october

4 important things that happened in my life in 2004:

1. i cut my hair short for the first time since grade school and put red streaks in it
2. i was auctioned off for $327 at a date auction benefiting Austin Children's Shelter
3. i became lactose intolerant because i stopped drinking milk everyday
4. i awoke to morning kisses for the first time

--

that's as far back as i could remember. or, rather, i do remember more but i'll spare you guys from my lengthy story :)

tell me your yearly histories, as far back as you can remember. even if you can only remember last year :) (or last month is fine, too!)

back when the stars hung upside down

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 17:04:13 GMT

Monday, April 16, 2007.

In the past six months, I have found that most of the time I try to breathe myself to sleep and hope that in the morning I'll still be numb enough to survive. Last night, the stars out in Westlake whispered your name as my hair battled the winds of April. The jazz floated out above the water and I thought about preserving dignity in the face of love. We get caught up in the currents of being human, forgetting that Elitism is a joke, because in the grand scheme of things we are still mere grains of sand. We blindly keep moving south of the future, while we are still both facing west. Yet we wash up on shore, twenty-one minutes apart- beaten and battered from the hailstorms of March. Even so, after missing a step or two of the nonsense dance, we look in each others eyes and know that still . ( we are capable of love. ) You fill my past with peppers and huevos a la mexicana, melons and guavas- you smooth my eyelids against the tears even when the flood has yet to end. When my cheeks are cradled against the gravity of your neck, those are the moments when I remember that surrendering to jealousy is as useful as the misshapen dent in the back door of my car. When I feel your fingers tugging at the hem of my shirt, those are the moments I remember that anger is as productive as procrastination, and tears help only to make my eyes look like pink-rimmed marshmallows. The city around us blooms with candlelight, and, trembling, we share our love story one more time.

LTLYM # one: everyday quirks

Thu, 03 Jan 2008 20:22:17 GMT

this is a project to help me feel closer to you.

---

one: everyday quirks

1. i dislike having my face or stomach touched

2. i floss every night

3. anyone who is going to sit or lie down on my bed must be showered clean

4. i like eating breakfast right when i wake up every morning.

5. i can't eat dairy

6. i will probably force you to dance with me at some point or another

7. i don't watch much tv

8. i cry at movies

9. i hate wearing socks in the house (even though my feet are always cold)

10. i like sleeping on the inside (against the wall) and on my left side

11. i take pictures of my food when i eat at restaurants

what are some of yours?

(if it helps, think of the everyday things that the person you're dating should know about you)

Wed, 19 Dec 2007 05:45:15 GMT

i know there is something more than this.
we always lived in the pages of the future, tap dancing along the wires in the sky
i see you walking gently on the edges of the city we lived in but never really knew
you immerse yourself ever more in the things that carried you
ever more distant from me
and the clouds etch murals of our story into the billowing night
my heart curls haltingly around the memory of your smell and
the feeling of our toes against the cold headboard under the morning light
i want to kiss you the way you begged to ride that borrowed motorcycle,
i want to hold you the way you held me when our love was
blocked off by yellow plastic and
under construction
and

cigarette burns along his arms, yuan fen on his mind.

Fri, 07 Dec 2007 21:34:54 GMT

"never durst poet touch a pen to write, \ until his ink were temper'd with love's sighs"

so began the night.

october 2nd

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 20:27:58 GMT

the artificial light against the mirror exhales while the rain shivers down the window panes. i am listening to gotan project and shakira ballads, barefoot and still recovering from your hazel-colored gaze.

in my sleep i solve the equations of your caresses. my eyes gloss over from overload of powerpoint and flipchart reading, and my mind is performing ochos cortados around the memory of your hands.

the layers of our pain fall away, skin by skin. i find what's left, nestled in the space between the tissue of our hearts.

it's not too late

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 20:21:29 GMT

i am running out of lifetimes

Sat, 27 Oct 2007 23:29:16 GMT

he would call this the magic hour

"...into your heart i'll beat again"
dmb

san miguel, mexico

thanks ann

Mon, 17 Sep 2007 21:26:46 GMT

"a wise girl kisses but doesn't love, listens but doesn't believe, and leaves before she is left." - marilyn monroe

midair

Thu, 06 Sep 2007 21:24:47 GMT

* san miguel de allende, guanajuato, mexico

nadie sabe que va a ocurrir..

secretly i hope that something will happen and
one day you will help me believe in miracles.