9.16.21

SNAKE.S.KIN
you noticed the blank spaces, i see.
they’re saturated with the image you’ve painted of me
can’t say i know who that is anymore

i can say this:
papá painted me salt,
so i made life out of sugar.

no one is worth that unlearning.

SNAKE.SKIN

2.18.21
Another unexpected year

Not unexpected in the way unprecedented was unexpected.

Unexpected in the way mortality is a close friend, and death a well known acquaintance. In the way I add one more year to the the tally of a calendar long expired. One who promised to flat-line before it could see a third decade.

So if there’s anything I’ve learned from the baker’s dozen of this tic-toc is to live in lightness. Light enough to go unnoticed by the sandman and quick enough to dodge Azrael.

I only carry weight from the contracts of an agreeable memory. She trades old names and times for presence and fulfillment. Exchanges resentment for forgiveness and bitterness with hope.

I can’t imagine what it feels like to look ahead of yourself, and I’m not so sure I envy that. In a way — the uncertainty of survival has offered madness as a map I enthusiastically notate at every unmaned territory.

If I choose anything for my future is this:
Dead or alive, let my legacy be the one proves I grew strong
in the softest of ways.

12.19.20

BOOT.S.TRAPS
for someone who holds honesty on such a high shelf
he sure does
a piss poor job at estimating
his own height

I don’t mean this to be puzzling
not like squares your try to fill
wires on your brain cross fire between
shame, math, and impact painted skin

and yes it’s a lie
coloring it with the “pretty” answer
doesn’t make it less un-lie

to illustrate; try telling you’re mirror
you’re “okay.”

the edges of his discomposure give her away
jitterbug mania refusing to make eye contact.

I want to shake the shame out of you.

Fragility, in my opinion, is worn best with a coat of discernment.
You wear yours like a shadow.

Stop for a second and consider how a shadow feels about it. Your own, maybe. It may harbor a bit of an inferiority complex. I know, if I were a shadow, I wouldn’t want to be half of what I should be.

All that too say.

My eyes have seen enough violence, to have you stare at them while speaking half-truths. Especially when you refuse to see, their earnest.

SNAKE.S.KIN

12.4.20
all this noise
all this noise and lack of movement
makes all fundamental pleasures
even sex somehow less exciting.

At this fucking point
the Devil’s sins have reached the saturation levels with our fate strings.
meaning, it doesn’t matter whether he sins more or less.

SNAKE.S.KIN

11.2.20
color correction, foundation, contour, lipstick
no not that shade. lipstick. better
brows, lashes, liner. liner? shit, liner. it’s okay. bigger lashes.
lash glue as liner? don’t they use coffee in prison? fucking eyeliner.
pants – don’t match the lips. it’s too hot anyway. when will it rain?
i want those shoes, unassuming mustard. they’re seasoned.
that’s click-clack of a woman used to standing on her toes. she doesn’t need to, even if she weren’t working out her calves, she could still
crush you.

fine, no pants, but garter. Maybe her knowing looks need a little help today. wish i had bigger tits, more ass, more hips, less waist. where the fuck is my eyeliner? thank god for latin thighs. now is not the time to be secretly ashamed to be grateful by the fetishism white people place on my thighs. i wish they worshiped our lives the way they worship my ass. that could change. they may change. that has to change. what if it doesn’t? what if white people win again? He’s not white, he’s orange. white people fetish colored skin.
not that lipstick — something deeper, something redder. a shirt that shows my arms, small arms, small body, let them underestimate.

the shoes don’t fucking match the outfit.

10.20.20

SNAKE.S.KIN
The Melodys I never said out loud:

I mended my heart, and made myself believe I was a chapter worth reading. Then you came along and re-wrote my story. You stapled my pages together and punched holes between my words. You played alphabet soup with the origami of the stomach I threw up in drunken incapacitation. There’s been screams in my belly since that night. Booze does that to people. It makes them stupid and like it.

You’re like that. Stupid, and I liked it. I should have known when I saw the Leo in you. The one that shines all lights on your glories while casting shadows around yous so you can feel just a little taller.

Not Leo like lion. Leo like puffer fish. I should’ve pressed needle to your bubble the first time I saw you haughtiness. I should’ve known you were venom when I saw all cheeks and no chin. Have you looked in the mirror? Even your eyebrows lack definition. But that’s what loneliness does to people, it makes them find other lonely people and tolerate the reason they were lonely in the first place. Now, what sets us apart, Un-Dear Puffer-Fish; I’ve learned to love my name while you run away from yours. One of us found company in our reflection.

In this America you so love and cherish, they are all innocent until proven guilty. But not me. I am a liar until I am proven honest. Rapists cannot live with the truth: survivors cannot live without it. You’ve spent enough time in books and suds-therapy to know the verbiage, but don’t realize you wear their words like accessories. Crowd pleasing or self pleasing. Which is it?

And isn’t it sad. The question has evolved from a simple yes or no, to a “how many times? In how many ways?”

Here’s the thing. You don’t get to define yourself here. It’s pretty black and white. I didn’t want you. You didn’t listen. So, when you tell me your tongue was numb to the vomit in the back of my throat, I will tell you. “Good luck, I hope you find peace.”

Because, I’ve found mine, and nothing. Not even your denial, can take that away from me.


——————————————————————————————————————–

Give Them a Name

8 – Pollo, my brother / the neighbor made me suck his dick, convinced me it would keep him from getting sick.

14 – Ricardo, he was 22, and my only friends’ boyfriend. After he raped me, she didn’t talk to me for weeks. I tried to set my mothers apartment on fire.

18 – Thandor, North Carolina. We’d been in the cold and rain for three days. Nothing was dry. We were so desperate for a place to stay, we agreed to sleep in the mans trailer besides our better judgment. Bells and I held each other, and cried ourselves to sleep.

20 – First year in AZ. I don’t know his name. Their name? I was DD, someone roofied my red bull. Kali and Annya found me naked in the frat room. They rushed me to the hospital where they administered Flumazenil so my heart would not stop beating. They did not provide a rape kit. They took my bra and underwear.

22 – Alex, in a manic episode, left me downtown. No phone, no wallet. Three men and one ally. I came home with purple skin and a broken rib. Holly took me to the hospital, and called my mother. She was on the next flight over. They administered a drug test upon arrival. Within an hour, all results came back clear. They delayed the rape kit so much no viable seminal fluid was found.

26 – Melody. An alcoholic with an ego problem fucked me while I was black out. A feminist who says “She was asking for it.”
My best friend still blames himself for that night.

SNAKE.S.KIN

9.21.20
i still think my name’s too long
i want short and direct
a kind of looking glass
because there’s something in me that answers and understand you
the type of name that takes pleasure
without asking people’s permission
playful
it didn’t inherit the accidental seriousness of time
still inquisitive
it wants to know the limits of endurance
a name that marries past and most recent past while playing hopscotch with the future
turns deadly enmity and hate onto love and confidence
a name that understands not all bites are wolf
some are fox
dragon
tiger,
ape,
bird of paradise,
winter mornings
a name without a mask of false feeling for it can finally live intensely not at the cost of the self.

SNAKE(S)KIN
7.16.20
in regards to this past weekend
where do i put that
in the place where monsters sleep
in the drawer underneath the bed where mattresses keep their own spines
in the “i trustred” you spaces
where so many have fallen pray
hook to bait
like a child to candy
like cancer to Ruth
and here we wake up
tears to pillow-sheets stained with
really who knows what

SNAKE-S-KIN

10.15.19
disconnection from the body
exploring the new spaces within me
sluggish and invaded
what felt like a universe in my belly
now feels like the parasite that engorges
enlarges
breaking out into fits of apathy
trying to love what is temporary
an extra belly filled with
unwanted cravings
nothing fits like it did before
not the clothes holding me together
the image in the mirror
his hand on mine

SNAKE-S-KIN

9.23.19
standing on the afterthought of something
not to call it calm
dew and fog after the storm
it hurt until it didnt
now we’re digging at the dry well
begging, pleading with throats parched and raw
to go dig a little deeper
and maybe that’s the point
we either die searching for the dead
or we look up
something’s gotta give

the less of her there is in me, the more of me i remember
i don’t need filler
luke warm bullshit

everything feels too much too numb
one big lie making little dishonesties brittle at trust
i think she touched something in me
im a little less trusting
a little more muddle and doubt
trying not swallow adam’s apple
almost killed me
im trying not to let it define me