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I’ve loved you
I’ve dreamt you
I’ve built gardens of words around you
Cultivating them so high and wide
They made a fortress of maize
Reaching the unending sky

I’ve shucked stalks of juicy corn
Until my hands were white in pain
Each kernel was a sonnet
and ode, a thought
a song of longing for you

I’ve slept walked you,
Rubik’s cubed decoded you
Splatter juice caress
Express a verse about you

I’ve fled to lands far apart
And rivers old and fragile
Captured with the comfort of my third eye
Simple gifts of land and words,
So you know how much I adore you

Tonight a kiss
My head a bird’s egg
Nestled deep in your Mayan
thorax full of caged desires
My hands weave course
invisible hairs of your chest
My body stirs
giving your soul its room

I fall asleep
in Dali dreams
Wishing your lips still consumed me alive
Wishing the fire burnt bright
Wondering if you really enjoyed me
As if my eyes weren’t moist enough
from the last farewell
I order a retreat of memory to its furrow

I kiss goodnight
the cold side of my bed

E. Andrade, “Forbidden Words,” is one of Portugal’s most famous poets. “All is fire, all is desire.” –EA

Brown like my sun baked skin
Caressing adobe mud bricks
Printed prickles of his personality
Painfully etched
On my brown, brown skin

Brown in pecan shade
Corrugated bark fray
In mucky gray
Wrinkling and aging away
It’s time that betrays

Brown in burnt passion sienna
Topsoil soupy pressed
fertilized dog deeds
And burnt cold winter’s weeds,
Running down white washed pavement
In aerial view of the Mississippi

Brown like
The cocoa, the tan
The khakis, the sand
The bronze and the brass
Asking me,
Is it okay to remember?

I’m having such a hard time forgetting
I guess that’s what longing is,
ha, longing always feels so brown

I want to run up and kiss him, hug him
Tell him that everything will be okay
Sooth his worries like he once did for me
Kiss his anticipations away,
Everything will be okay

I can’t sleep. My feet are cold. I wonder if he knows.
I am not sinking but unloved feels like
the depth of my heart will never end
5 months work lost, undelivered, unchallenged, unwilling, unworthy, a disappointment
Worthless for human being/artist/mother
Yeah, I know they are just words, but they hurt so much
Why did I always surprise you at work?
I gave my family, talent, time, heart and emotion and it meant nothing
You hurt me where you know it hurt the most
I passed on that opportunity, wondering how you could do that to me,
When I would never do that to you or anyone else?
Wondering, why your pride keeps you happier than me
Asking God to make me weaker and more fearful and succumbing to you,
so maybe you’ll like me, so I can lightly trace your eye brows with my thumb again.
I feel like such a fool.
It is the human drama
But no one is at fault, right? Right.
I’m setting the words,
offloading an image,
vomiting an emotion,
unloading a burden
sending any baggage back
emailing the picture of us in pink dew roses,
Setting everything free,

so I can love a gain.
Not everything is what it seems
It’s still cold outside.

Recuerdas aquel di­a en el parque
Cuando el sol con panza cólica
Estallaba sobre el prado
De irradiantes verdes?

Ese dí­a solo nos pensamos
Nos miramos
Nos besamos
Y yo con mi insolencia feminista
Aborreci­a afeitarme las piernas.
Agarrando una punta de tela,
Te mostré.

Tú miraste.

Yo seguí jugando tiernamente
Acariciándote afectuosamente
Llevando un filo de pasto
Entre arrugas, gruñidos, e imperfecciones
de mis pie hasta la rodilla,
Te gustan o no te gustan?

Tú miraste.
Luego tocaste.
Después sonriendo aclamaste, “Me Gustan!”