First Love

Sometimes I’m smothered by the ache of missing you
And I love you so much I weaken, bones become brittle,
My bed, the white sheets, become a wide ocean
In which I’m drowned, again and again, by the same vengeful tide
My head, submerged, as if pressed by a mighty hand
That only lets go every five seconds or so
Long enough for me to gasp, and swallow more salt

They once shared one language, our bodies
Our limbs knew to be firm, our calves and shins like magnets,
Entwined like strong ropes, or constellations
These arms that once held you
That once knew how to fold to fit your frame, harness you like lassos,
Are now but twigs, scattered by the seaside

Our breasts once knew the weight of each other,
Like colliding mountains
My mouth, which once suckled your plump fruit
And nourished from the nectar of your tongue,
The bitter liquor of your substance,
Is now but a cavern, from where my whimpers echo,
My chest, a hammering board

And these hands that pulled your hair, clutched your nape

This skin still smudged by the resin of your flesh
My fingers, once colonizers of all your caves, your rivers
Now rule no empire

A Graduate's Wisdom

The romantic life of a starving artist and budding writer:

To be a budding writer requires passion, which means telling people that you write on your free time, which also means facing the question: “so why do you write… just because?” with dignity.

To be a starving artist means to waitress, and still be able to say “the world needs more art. Art will save us,” and try to believe it.

To be a budding writer means to get horridly drunk, and wake up the next morning with the conviction that it was all for the sake of experience.

To be a starving artist means to watch all the movies on Netflix, with the firm believe that it was meant for inspiration.

To be a budding writer means to carry a journal with you everywhere, and have it full of grocery lists.

To be a budding writer means to have a constant rush of ideas… sometimes, and to sit before the computer for two hours, having written only two words.
To be a starving artist means going to an empty bar to write for thirty minutes, before you get too tipsy to focus.

To be a budding writer means to dedicate an hour daily to nothing but writing… and cigarette breaks, and trips to the bathroom, and occasional texting.

To be a budding writer means to wear glasses before writing, even if you have no problems with farsightedness.

To be a starving artist means spending three hours in a bookstore, and coming out empty handed.

To be a budding writer means to tap hard at the keys to see if the sound stimulates thought, or to have your roommates believe that you’re working hard.

To be a starving artist means to practice what you preach, even if you don’t know what the practice entails.

To be a budding writer means to wake up one morning, spend an hour and a half working on a good paragraph, and smile.
To be a budding writer means having a collection of journals that embarrass you, yet still loving them like a mother. 

To be a starving artist means constantly reading about other young successful artists in history, and then about the old ones.

To be a budding writer means feeling complete euphoria after the piece is done.

To be a budding writer means reading your piece over and over again, and liking it more each time.

To be a budding writer means reading your piece over and over and over again, and disliking it more each time.

To be a budding writer means starting again, and again, and again for the rest of your life.

There's nothing like the pleasure of having a glass of brandy and a cigarette after a stressful shift. And other simple and natural pleasures, such as watching a squirrel run on a power line, or watching it eat nuts from the leaf of a late summer tree. Or listening to the sound of an airplane, or that of the passing cars on a setting afternoon. It is then that I know that life, in essence, remains the same. That shit is still ok.

To My Friend

We sought to touch the moon
Cupped hands held high
Swinging from stars
Like monkey bars

Our skin still smells of beer,
Red wine, stale sweat,
From nights we thought perpetual,
Stealing from taverns, sleeping on trains
Two drifting butterflies, frail as tendrils
Plunging like swan divers,
Ignoring the high tide

From nights of running wild,
Like careless cherubs
Bruising our knees, scraping our elbows
Drugged on art, drunk on breathing,
Always challenging The Time, The Time, The Time
Two vagrants swaying
To the cadence of young spirits

Our city will outlive us,
Its sky will shimmer silver
When our wings have torn and rusted,
Its luster, like ceaseless lanterns,
Will glow when our pores no longer swell
With passion, and our voices
Start to croak

And the fevered flesh will frost,
And my blood will dry like paste,
And age will abate the hunger,
And the perennial quest,
And I will crumble knowing nothing
As absolute as friendship

The Time has finally come
Fulfilling its belated promise,
Severing the stem from the root
Like a child plucks the petals
From the most beautiful of flowers 

Transition

They say that Time cleanses
Wounds, like waves lick the shore,
But my chest is charred by memory,
My flesh has scars like carcass
Seething from within the skin
Like fresh blisters, or splinters
That won’t surface from the tissue
Of my fingers

I cannot see fishes in this sea
I said
It is black as oil and thick as night
I said
Don’t you know the blind must be led?

And I have found no oysters
But shovels to carve the ground
With holes as wide as bodies
Of water, where I lay my dreams
To drown

There is no warning to treason
But I forget
Life cannot be fought with reason
But I forget 

A Poem for the One

We Fought

With our banners raised
High, like flailing flags
Extended arms
Rupturing the sky
Brows soaked in sweat
Tears thick as raindrops
Shoulders, like boulders
Rubbing, close
Like marching men
Wounds gashed, infected
Deep as bomb craters
Anthems, arrhythmic pleas
Like dehydrated hearts 

We meant to occupy

Not bend or bow
Before pellets or pistils
Nor crack or cry
Before bombs or batons
But attack with books,
Veins gorged with verses,
The prose in our palates,
Spitting meter and rhyme

We are sorry

If famished faces offended
If our boots, layered with dirt
Perturbed the sensibility
of Liberty Square
But our troops did not know
Marble, it knew mud
Did not know
Castles, it knew fences 
We knew
Failure, not chances
We knew
Pain, not romances
We knew
Hierarchy, poor circumstances
Not opportunity
      
          not democracy

So we fought
With wits for weapons
We occupied
Like squads in war
And we are not sorry 

The bars won’t take us
We've crawled too far
But found no destiny
Or promises in gin

We look up with bleary eyes,
Where the stars rest aflame
In the pendulous black shadow
But this night cannot protect us

Tremulous angels,
We left our history with strangers
And danced our fright with jazz,
Sweet baritones of sex

We sat on rooftops
Where life could not escape us
Where death could never take us
Exchanging verses with the moon  

I drink to youth
I drink to you
I drink

We lost our map to paradise 
While we drank our hopes from bottles
Burned romances with cigarettes
Let them wash away with rain

And now we tremble bare
Bodies blistering with Time
That holy con-man,
Father of pasts gave us nothing

We lost everything, tragic gypsies,
We fucked the future like fiends
Lusting like drunk harlots
We lost everything

I drink to youth
I drink to you
I drink  

Our heads rest on our shoulders
Our eyes lifted like martyrs
To that vacuous eternity
But this night will not protect us

And now the bars won’t take us
And now we pray to death
But we were not believers
Blasting, burning like volcanoes

We lost everything, dear children
We are remnants after fire
We lost everything