Ophelia's Bed

Little bee keeper, with bones of glass

and honey pouring down your spine.

Your existence sweetens the bitterest

tea and the black leaves at the base

predicting the end of time.

I see you and I see

the golden nectar gushing from the

throat to the lips of the man with

arrows in his chest, begging for

your love. Just one more taste of the

divine liquid to be his last breath.

And when I knock on your door there are

wheat fields set on fire and roots growing

green and red under a flaming

palette nurtured by a voice invoking chaos--

breaking the stained glass windows.

You will grab with tender hands

its ramifications on the summer air

and  the flowing waters reappearing

on the surface like a prayer to the sun-

And you’ll make a home for all of us.

The divine convergence of an encounter,

two soldiers on the battlefield soaked

by wine that poured  from their wounds and

crashed into the holy Grail only to be shared.

‘Wrap your wrist with the same

bandage as mine’ you’d say

‘there’s no knife that can break what

heals together’. And we will drink to

that while the sun sets and melts us

like wax molding-

only to burn again.

My eyes in battle, may the sound of

the bees floating inside your chest

accompany me on this long warfare.

May you soften  the gold of my shield

with your prayers and the warmth

of your words.

Because I never liked sweets or

trusted myself in the field of battle

until you stood next to me and

Dear Jamie,

I am writing from the nonexistent

attic in the centre of Paris.

I covered the walls with the art

from the Louvre we never got to see

and that you would have probably hated.

I hung the prints and set the sculptures -

I caress them sometimes and plaster

and ink prime my skin.

Dear Jamie,

‘Clair de Lune’ awakes the dust clouds:

I’m back in the room with the nine pianos.

I hear you play, I become the player.

A swinging, burning out game softened

by your fingers leading mine through the marble.

Eyes floated around us (like they did all summer)

but presences are a feeble thing and the universe

weakened under your touch.

Dear Jamie,

I explained you once how the sun changes

one specific day of summer to mark its end.

The light gets lower, like the exhausted breath

and  the very last impulse of a dying body.

i thought today how I felt its purest intensity

while you were asleep on that blanket and

how it precisely lost its magnitude

that afternoon in Shanghai.

Dear Jamie,

I hope drought never reaches our lake.

Its secrecy equaled its exposure to the world,

and so did we.

It was rotten to the core but had an idyllic face

we decided to give to it.

Because it was ours for a brief period of time and

with the fear of the first touch we

ingrained ourselves onto its surface.

The water will remain still just for us for many years

and the day will come when someone else

will timidly wet their feet in it.

Dear Jamie,

We allowed celestial bodies to keep

our biggest secret.

The shyest first touch fed by the accomplice darkness.

I’ve fallen asleep on your shoulder and you on mine

and it was like the taste of peach in a salted mouth

after spending the whole morning at the beach

(something you will come one day to understand

because we had very different summers until this one)

So kind regards from a burning Paris,

La cuenta atrás individual,

la cuenta atrás desconocida

y que a tantos afecta.

El tiempo supurando entre

las costuras, el hilo dorado

abriéndose en canal.

Un tiempo que se acaba y

que solo yo conozco.

La tinta de la piel se confunde

con las venas que gotean

sobre la alfombra.

Salvaje, embravecido

consumidor de minutos -

no me regalará el 

segundo

por el que ruego de rodillas

mientras a ti te los quita todos

sin que te des cuenta.

¿Pensarás en la cuenta atrás

cuando sea inevitablemente visible?

Será la herida que causa la consciencia

cuando toma forma bajo tus pies.

La cuenta atrás gotea

sobre la repisa de la ventana,

creando el charco que nos

llegará hasta el cuello pero para

el que yo tendré una barca hecha

con mis propios huesos

y tú una enorme piedra caliza

atada a los pies.

La memoria con sus manos blancas

me agarra las muñecas por la noche,

me tacha de egoísta y

personifica mis terrores.

Rompe el reloj de arena sobre

mis ojos, para que no vea nada

pero que lo sienta todo.

La cuenta atrás como materia oscura

se romperá a los pies de tu cama,

creando la forma de un corazón

andrógino y mutante que busca su casa.

Bajo la mirada atenta de a los

que consume el tiempo,

la cuenta atrás llegará a cero creando

un final inesperado y latente.

Les dejará famélicos mendigando un

minuto,

pensando en todas las formas en las

que se presentó el  contador

The north hemisphere has opened the

gates of the crystal dam.

Rain pouring in tiny bouquets

carried by shrikes and

watering the  early spring buds.

Rotting under the sacred land

a bunch of diaries, some books.

Watered by the April showers like

if they were seeds, their branches

are the town’s secrets.

In this little Northern Town

it seems everyone is asleep.

The creek of the wooden doors

disguises with the chirping birds

and the clinking in the poppy fields.

April showers have covered the hairs

of soon to be brides with lavender,

little petals swimming down their

golden braids.

And every April when the rain

seeps through the soil.

Dead beloveds awake with a glow.

Cleaning the moss and the dirt

from between their fingers

they reach the poppy fields and make

beautiful bell sounds

It is 7 AM in the morning.

I raise my arms to the ceiling and grab

a pair of green eyes hanging on it.

I stitch my chest (hopefully better

than last time).

Today my hair will be long and red.

I know normally it is brown but I

get bored easily and that’s the point,

right?

To be unknown to the common eye.

The translucent skin shows my

ribcage bones as the morning

sun reflects on it. Little flashes

of light like sunlight on a diamond

surface blind me while I walk and

trip at almost every step.

(should have bought a better pair

of legs and feet, these seem to plot

against me).

I see Sam walking at the end of

the main street.

“Did he sew up his fingers wrong

again?”

Damn it Sam, it feels like you want

to lose senses on purpose!”

I try to wave at him,

but my wrist gets lose and almost

lose my hand.

It happens often tho, it is hard to

sew your right hand with the

left one.

I tie it up clumsily with a scrunchie.

“Doctors recommend to always

sew your limbs with golden thread

and small stitches but remember

to let  the bones transpire.”

Well, fuck that I guess, not all of

us can afford such fancy bonds.

The streets remain empty, I see

my reflection on the supermarket’s

windows. Fun thing about

molding yourself is that you see

a different handmade mess each day.

There’s nothing like being a complete

stranger  to one’s self!

(what self tho, I could not even

describe my own original features).

A middle- aged woman begins to open

the supermarket. She has second hand

arms that don’t match her skin color and

they are poorly attached with rope

(that’s worse than my scrunchie repair,

take that, stupid advertising on TV last night)

She looks at me and smiles and welcomes

me inside. I still find it amusing how people

look at you desiring your features like

a kid staring through the glass of a store.

I look for instant, ultra-strong skin glue.

I’ll carry a few tubes for the trip and for

emergencies. I’ve learnt the wrong way

that you don’t always have time

to sit down and do some sewing when

a classmate “jokingly” steals your arm

and runs away, dumping it on the ground.

I leave the store (and a tip of 5$).

The backpack feels heavy on my shoulders

and I can feel the bones softly snapping

against each other while I walk.

(little macabre bells, in my opinion)

In the train station there’s a stand that reads

“Best eyes of the county, unique colors

now 5% off”.

As if anyone  would buy a pair of violet eyes

from a stranger in a train station.

The train arrives. I feel the dark, dense

smoke straining through the loose stitches,

traveling through my body and disappearing

from my nostrils. Obviously, I cough.

Sitting in the train I remember all the

faces I had in this little nowhere town.

When I leave today somebody will look

for the girl with a bag of limbs

I remember  dust covering your sunday shoes,

How you dried the sweat on your forehead

And said

‘We’ll never grow a leaf of grass in this desert!’

You squeezed my arm hiding under the unnecessary

Jacket and took the first step into the wooden house.

One year later Eden presented before me like a graceful

Companion each time I opened the front door.

The end of your nose kissed softly every apple

On autumn weekends, like a warm welcome into our family.

You caresed its wax skin and imagined

The steaming pie, the cup of black coffee misting your glasses.

The end of your dress covered in mud

(Maybe even some on your face)

‘Hand me those seeds, will you?’

All my chivalric attempts reduced to walking behind you

Like a ghost making sure you’d reach the top shelf.

Nothing could wear down your devotion to growth.

Sickness and winter were no rival to a nurturing passion.

And even when the red on your cheeks was due to

The snow or a wave of fever,

You held my hand on long nights in the porch.

I  remember the yellow light through your eyelashes.

It never changed, ten years and I could still notice

Every shadow casted upon your body and

The places where they would crave for a touch of your skin.

I wish I’ve had hands rugged enough to dry the storm

That destroyed our garden that fatal April night.

Hair like gold spores under the grey hounds above,

Raining all their rage on you, fading your warmth.

How could the Earth, your tenderest friend,

Betray you on such a night?

The skin went callous from all the days I prayed,

Eve’s apple decomposing in the fruit basket and fog

Straining inside the rooms and rotting the walls.

I’ve known every particle that has touched you,

From the salt on your fingers from the cone of popcorn

When I first  noticed how no beam of light

Could remain close to you long enough,

To the night the humid soil you gave birth to

When did this distance become unconquerable?

I’m the worst one-night-stand remorse,

i’m the memory drilling the back of your nape

leaving a sweet, metallic taste of blood in your mouth.

Drink me in your biggest wine glass,

I will bleed myself and pour my heart into your cocktails.

Now we rest our backs on a closed window,

we can’t bare any fresh air

because we fear it will drag every memory

or oxygenate our lungs enough to try again.

I can’t give you up and you won’t give anything back.

You hold onto it til you break it into pieces

and here we are now, sticky fingers covered in glue,

trying to make amends when perhaps we should let go.

Maybe it was the storm after the calm what I truly needed-

Maybe I needed strong, mechanical winds

and the cleaning water to penetrate the soil

and clean the streets.

Streets that at night are covered in sour, cheap white wine.

Hands that make 4 AM seem so early

while they play with the late hours as if they were theirs.

A new reality made of Chanel lipstick

and sparkling golden dresses

facing another reality made of Frank O’hara,

pacing among bookshelves and soft laughters.

Her, a boundless wave of affections

and me, the chemical reaction to every fear.

Oil on canvas printed on photography paper

and then trapped into another book,

that uneasiness of being just another copy.

I woke up in a bed of lost devotions,

crushing chests under the lost touch  of others

and I thought about permanence

Do I dare to share the blessed space

between 1 and 5  AM?

I take bullets for a countermeasure,

my heart is a constantly ignited crossfire.

A remedy in an arctic night of change,

a bonfire in which many warm their hands

but no one yearns to stay.

Sharing bedsheets and fingertips

undeniable created the grounds

for another shelve of empty jars.

I keep offering a space that I don’t have.

Dormant, ethereal but imbued affections.

Do I wreck or do I soothe?

Cursed with a heft I can’t dare to carry

and that it’s so light for everybody til they stroke it

Then it is too much,

then I am too much.

Imprecated with endless affection

and a deep love for simple gestures,

nothing rests under my view,

I’m the nourishing drop of water

and the salt barricading over fertile land.

Pleased keeper of endless gratitude

towards anyone who shares their postcards,

love is a detrimental  toxine in which I feed,

and grow

and decay.

Vivid, silky and easy to reach

then as inconsequential as any ghost you face.

Nobody delays coming back home,

no one likes an uninterrupted summer afternoon

regardless of how effortless the breeze is.

What’s left of my heart are the holes of those who left

and the silly aim of filling infinite craters,

I will call you tonight at 2 am and tell you I have held the sun in my hands. You will not respond because you will probably be asleep and I did not even dial your number but, yes, I called. I held it so close it melted my skin and like drops of liquid gold I thought they would turn me into something more beautiful (maybe something easier to love) but burnt gold covered everything and now there is no way to protect me from this river of majestic devastation.

It felt oddly familiar to know the story of each one of your eyelashes and now, as they fall and you refuse to make a wish, I secretly blow some air from my mouth and ask them if next time they grow maybe they can face in my direction. All I wanted was to know every story framed in your room (those you stare at before you fall asleep) and how warm you like your tea. Instead, i’m waking up wondering which parts are real and which are fragmented thoughts fighting desperately for a place in reality and how silly of them, reality is just a bleeding wound.

I thought maybe one day I would be so used to your hand in mine that tiny flowers would grow each time you didn’t hold it waiting for your arrival. And, my love, tonight when the storm begins under your pillow I won’t let the frozen rain soak through your bones and expectations. The fear we projected like those movies we would never watch (because I honestly hate black and white movies) would dissolve like the medicine I tried to bring you to bed each time that you got sick and you felt your heart tearing apart. I wish you could hear it but behind each one of my laughs, there’s a desperate cry and an unbearable frustration because the girl who thought she felt so much had felt nothing until she noticed she was begging for you to stay a little longer.

Do you still have the sweater I knitted you? it was my way of saying that I can create a home out of threads if you only let me know your measures and the way your eye colours change with the changes in the sky. I don't remember much and, oh. forgive me if I forget the name of your relatives but I'm too busy writing on my hand all the things that make you smile (like your favorite candy and how to capture the light stars have when they reflect on the ocean so I can hand it to you). And I’m sorry if I get nervous and I destroy our bridges over silly things but  I have never been braver than the day I told you it was numbness when it was love.

Excruciating lethargy,

the weight of your hands,

the suffocating stillness,

the calm screaming in my ears.

Excruciating lethargy,

the frozen breath that grows

in the space between our lips.

Let the ice scratch my cheeks.

Excruciating lethargy,

lights in the highway

igniting the way home.

Stare while the fire devours,

no frame can protect the forgotten images,

flames over the ocean.

Excruciating lethargy,

thorns growing in my lungs,

faltering breaths,

agonizing, silent nights

with stars like seeds.

Let the flowers grow and feed

Are you asleep? I can't... I can

feel your breath coming from the other bed.

Tell me your hands are fighting your chest

and your heart is arguing with your mind

and they are all telling you to stay tonight.

There aren't enough blankets to prevent me

from the cold you leave each time you go.

Your hands scratch and heal,

now clean the blood you left behind

with an empty promise of another night.

You and the sun, the best of friends,

and when you two meet all the pacts become regrets.

I wish my butterflies had reached your garden

before they burst into flames.

How can this goodbye be the hardest

when I wasn't even there?

We stepped in puddles, grey skies ,

we were diving into a deeper ocean.

Building trenches trying to stay safe,

foolishly forgetting the enemy is inside.

All these mirrors now reflect each time I tried.

There’s no home to crawl to

carrying this heavy heart,

I wish I could tell you I only found salvation

when you were standing by my side.

All the connections we built with bare hands

all the memories, the long nights

I saw fear carrying them away.

I hope at the end of this road I find you again,

I can’t give up I won’t give you up

you’re the reason I still believe in fate.

How can I even try to say goodbye

when I feel I’m losing you

each time we say “goodnight”.

Distance was never a matter of space,

we were far-flung, kilometres away

but  allowing stars to keep us close just in case.

You told me stories, showed me your past,

we stopped time building reasons to stay.

Now I see us crumble, you are waving from the distance

aware this could only end up in an inevitable decay.

What was the point of walking a path

that lead me to nowhere,

only because i could feel the warmth

of the idea of calling you home.

I hope at the end of this road I find you again,

I can’t give up I won’t give you up

you’re the reason I still believe in fate.

How can I even try to say goodbye

when I feel I’m losing you

each time we say “goodnight”.

So cheers to all of my mistakes,

cheers to all those times you ran away.

Let’s celebrate each time we got closer

and the bittersweet taste you left behind.

I’ll let the memories haunt me,

you will never leave my mind

DIVIDED