wrong season

there were times where
I excused the way you
treated this in the
gospel that you were born
in a different hemisphere
and we had all of our
seasons reversed
you see, you kept saying
you met me during the “fall”
when in reality
it was the sweetest, warmest of
springs, blooming effervescently
out of our pores and cavities
and I continued to make
myself believe that
the only reason you
could not take care of our
short but vivid romance
was that you thought there was
nothing to water

today I have this pain and I don’t know where to put it

I store it on my mouth opening it as big as I can

and let it rest on my throat warming it up

until it felt like a lump I couldn’t swallow

that wouldn’t let me speak or scream or sing

so I had to pull it out like a cord

and it went on and on and on

I felt it on my stomach covered in my gastric juices

I wonder how it got there

I guess it grew up all this time inside me

it went to my blood til it gave me bruises

in places I didn’t hit myself before but they were still there

I tried to hold myself together ’cause no one else would

I gave myself a hug to put the pieces back in place

but the pieces never fit quite properly

I had to think of new ways of arranging myself

I became a new person to my own lense

I used to think I was naturally a sad one

nostalgic and melancholic, always clinging onto the past

I renamed myself as an inspiring force

fearless and restless

I made another city my identity

I embraced my avoidance as well as my emotionality

I decided to be perceived as an enigma

and down all of it there it was

just this same old pain

I had to break things

I had to break things
to find a crack of light,
I had to break things
to get some oxygen inside
the sealed cage I was in
where the version of me you loved lived
I had to break things because, somehow,
I couldn’t just blame it on “life”
I needed a real responsible for this
one that wouldn’t pass the guillotine
one with more lies on her sleeves
I had to break things to survive
to stop our memories from eating me alive
to forget that you loved me more than the rest
to remember it came with a hundred tests
that I was never able to pass
no matter how many pirouettes I would perfom,
how many codes I had to crack
trying to hijack your form of loving
almost tore me apart

I had to break things before leaving to stop us from trying
to make the wound bleed dry
and you wouldn’t be surprised if you rationalized
that this was the only form of bandage I could provide

I had to break things to realize
I was not the person you thought I was
the woman of your life
and the worst was not deceiving you
but deceiving myself

I used to dream about bubble-wraping you

tie you with laces made of foil,

keep you inside aluminium paper to contain the warmth of your living body

I used to dream I had enough power to protect you from the outside world

and believed I was smart enough to also battle with your inside thoughts

you’re not even made of the same flesh I am, in a way, though you are

but I still feel every time you get stung or scratched

and I’m left in the dark wondering how could I not see it coming

I have been crafting inside my head every possible outcome for you

have been creating the perfect life where nothing ever harms you again

only for you to push me away and be left to your own resources

and I know I know better than this and you are your own entity

and you will live the life you were meant to and become the human you are supposed to

but if I had a wish tonight I would make a pocket inside my chest

and force you to live in it

forever

Prayers

I’m at an abortion clinic and no one is beside me.

If I was a believer I would say God is holding my hand right now, but unfortunately I’ve only thought of him once in my entire lifetime, and it was indeed during a time of need. Since he is as proud and selfish as every other human, he did not respond to my plegaries. He is not with me now either. I am alone.

All the other women in the room are with someone else, either a friend or their moms. I hold my phone on my shaking hand and I can’t for the sake of my life stop texting. There’s quite a few people writing me and asking me for any news on how is it going, but no one is here. Not even my sister or the person who put me in this situation too. I had many moments in my life to reafirm the unwavering loneliness that leartn to take place inside me, but this might have been the breaking point. I knew for a fact at this moment that I was alone in my life. That I had friends and a family, best friends even I would dare to say, but none of it mattered ’cause I was alone. At one of the most traumatic moments in my life, which doesn’t fall too far from my own responsibility. I knew I put myself in that situation and I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I dealt with it the moment I could and with unclenching teeth, but I thought it was somewhat unfair no one was holding my shaking hand. No one could make the time, no one could take me home and cover me with a blanket while I cried. No one wanted to see my suffering, not because they loved me but because they didn’t want to be involved with it. It was not going to go away, and no one wanted to look.

In those moments where I was forced to see myself in pure humility and honesty was when I realized I was not scared of being alone anymore, I could count on myself, I was not going to fail me. I failed me once when I put myself in this hospital room, it would be the last time.

I took care of the blood for weeks and I didn’t see anyone but the person who harmed me for months and whose name I can’t even write down without wanting to throw up. He is no longer anywhere near me and when I think of all that blood coming down from my interiors I want to believe it washed away every single drop of dirtiness he once put inside me. No one came to visit me either, and I was too weak to put up a fight. I stayed silent for the first time in my 23 years. I stayed so silent I thought I went mute. I couldn’t remember the sound of my voice, my laugh, nor my screaming. It was too quiet and it almost made me turn into stone. I say almost ’cause there was still this fire inside me that could never be put off; somehow I grabbed what was left of my flesh and close my fists with all the strenght I could endure and I made it out of an endless tunnel that wanted to drag me and drag me and drag me. And when I came out my life was not brighter or promising, it was just still and unphased. No one cared about what I went through. The world kept moving and no one’s life stopped when mine did. I was alone. And it was a relief.

ripe feelings

It’s been more than a year since the last time I’ve seen you

You dropped me at the airport and took a bus home at 6 am

It fucked up your sleep schedule

But the worst part was waking up to an apartment without me

No matter how much relief you think you felt

This morning I woke up and remembered you like bananas still unripe

You used to buy them almost green

And as I ate mine I thought I hated them like that

I needed the sweetness of the maturity,

The taste of the decay and knowing it was almost going to waste

But you were never a fan of that

I bet you know this or at least you can imagine

But I still check your online wardrobe from time to time

To know if you still live in the same place

To look at your hands for a while, see if there’s new rings

Or marks I should be aware of

And I have never been the most normal person

Sending a text asking how you are was never my style

I just stalk you on the strangest places to make my own conclusions

Follow traces of things I believe are indicators of any change

And burst into your life with the weirdest message I can think of

Light a candle and hope you will reply

Most of the times I receive silence and I keep going pretending I didn’t do it

Every time I think of you and me I realize how different we were

Even in the smallest things

And I wonder how we found the room for so much love and yearning

In the middle of a constant battle

snowball

I tried to write you a poem
or write a poem about you
I thought words would flow naturally like they do
when I truly love someone
when I have a massive grief I need to get off my chest
but I couldn’t

I wanted it to be about
one of your bad taste playlists
the romantic one
it features only one of the songs I gave you
and the rest are all past stories that didn’t end good either
is there an ending good with you?
when you are reckless and impolite
when you neglect everyone’s feelings but your own
when you pretend to know what you want but then you never know
when you leave people to their own good
and expect them to greet you with a smile
when you’re confident enough to come back and apologize

I have pictured you listening to it in the dark
walking home leaving footprints on the snow
those squared shaped horrible buildings that make up for your hometown
the tram hitting you maybe,
but I know better than that

And the thing is
I gave you such a big part of my last year
I made you a main character and let you pause my life for months
but when I tried to write about you
I did not know what to say
you weren’t inspiring me

I know you’ll say I’m hateful
and vindictive
and that I do not know how to quit
and what was that thing you said before leaving?
that I’m holding onto the hope of us
when we only had some weeks together left?

But you see
I never held onto any part of this
I knew you were never a safe bet
and the only reason why I stayed
was because I needed to know
I needed to feel
what it was like to love someone so similar to me

no te puedo sacar de adentro

cierro los ojos y trato de recordar que estás lejos

no entiendo porqué te siento tan cerca

me mintieron cuando me dijeron que la vida es perfecta

así como es

o quizás yo sea muy terca

y quiera atentar contra lo que pase

y cambiar todas las reglas

y quiera poner mis condiciones

y obligarte a estar,

a quedarte,

a que no me decepciones

a aceptar que yo sí lo haga

porque también soy egoísta,

y estoy desesperada

por volver a sentir que no nos puede tocar nada

que flotamos por sobre los demás

porque nadie nos entiende,

nadie habla nuestro idioma

que no es tuyo ni es mío pero es nuestro

lo inventamos el día que me bajé del avión

y me metí en tu cuerpo

The Story of a Ghost

As a ghost, she felt happier.
She did not know ghosts could feel things, but she did; maybe it was an exception due to
the magnitude of her emotions. She realized it felt so much lighter, not just the whole
floating, no organs or flesh thing, it was just significantly less heavier. Things would get to
her in a new way: they would pass her through like they used to before, cutting her body in
half and separating the skin for a while until they accommodated, but now they would not
stay inside. They would come and go, come and go, and there was absolutely nothing she
could hold onto.
The only thing left was feeling that brief instant where her boneless structure connected
with the /things/ and feel some type of nostalgia for what she left behind. Ghosts could be
nostalgic too. In fact, most were.

I called you last night
to say “I love you” a thousand times
I thought maybe you’d hang up
but you stayed

I once opened up
about some things I wasn’t proud
I shared secrets and my true wounds,
I spoke about blood, murder and wombs
I was scared you’d want to run
still, you stayed

I’ve been cold, and hot, and stone
I’ve been soft, but words like claws
and I’ve marked your skin afar
I’ve said things that are still in your mind
Some of them I’ve already forgotten
some I like to pretend I didn’t say
and even after seeing me rotten
you embraced my true self

I could say, you stayed

now days are long and nights go by
and I can hear you breathe through the line
I worry and fantasize in equal parts
and yet I don’t know what you’d feel like
or if home is anywhere near your side