“It’s our anniversary,” Angie murmured as her eyes fluttered open, fixing on the brick archway above her. Her voice echoed softly through the dim space. For a moment, reflex took over—she reached for her neck, grasping quickly, hoping this was only some wild dream.
But the world sharpened instead.
The smell of damp stone and dust.
The cold, unmoving air.
The gentle weight of a chain resting against her collarbone.
And on that chain—
“…the ring.”
She pressed the metal between her thumb and index finger, as if it were something she could still warm by holding.
Angie pushed herself upright and leaned back against the wall, taking in the St. Patrick Basilica catacombs. The place was still beautiful—quiet, reverent, heavy with endings. Every year, she returned to this exact spot. The place where she and Ben had met during a candlelight tour.
A strange place to fall in love.
Stranger still to return to after death.
This was where their love learned how to live.
Her ending happened elsewhere.
But beginnings imprint deeper.
That was why she came back here.
Angie died seven years ago—only three years after meeting Ben. And though death took her body, it didn’t erase the life they built together. They loved each other fiercely, absurdly, as if the universe had made a clerical error and let two halves of the same soul collide too soon.
They met right here, between two cardinals’ tombs, the moment Angie’s shoe betrayed her. The Velcro gave out, and she went flying—face-first—into Ben’s Old Navy blue-label sweater.
“Can you walk?” he asked, annoyed and startled.
“Apparently… no.” She lifted her ankle, showing him the dangling shoe. She tried a hop. “See? Tore up from the—well, not the floor up, but close enough.”
Ben smiled despite himself. His warm brown eyes met her storm-grey ones—and her eyes smiled back at him. Fully. Kindly. A softness he didn’t know eyes were capable of.
“Sorry,” he said. “I’m being a dick.”
“Thank you for apologizing,” she replied. “Are you having a bad day?”
“Think I’ve had a few,” he laughed weakly.
“Do you want to talk about it? It’s okay if you don’t—we don’t even know each oth—”
“Would you like to know me?”
She paused. Then smiled.
“Yes,” she said. “Actually… do you want to get coffee?”
That coffee became the first of many.
Hands found each other.
Lives unfolded.
Angie and Ben were in love long before either of them admitted it. They made plans easily, carelessly, believing time would behave itself.
For a while, it did.
Plans for the wedding came together smoothly. The reception plans followed. The years they spent together blurred into a continuous warmth—bright, consuming, deeply ordinary in the way real love often is. They argued sometimes. Small fractures. But they never lost sight of one another. Every day still carried the same spark that had drawn them together in the catacombs.
People like to say the honeymoon phase fades. That it’s just a trick of novelty.
But not for them.
For Angie and Ben, love felt like a long, unbroken thought—something luminous, stretching forward without a visible end.
Ben planned the surprise carefully. Angie had always wanted the small patch of grass near the pier—the place where they’d shared their first kiss—for their wedding reception. It was an odd request. Nearly impossible.
Ben made it happen anyway.
He guided her there blindfolded, one hand wrapped securely around hers. When they reached the grass, music bloomed behind them—her friend’s band covering the song they loved most.
“Are you kidding me?” Angie laughed. “What—oh my god, what’s happening?”
Ben removed the blindfold.
“Remember when you said this place was impossible to get?” he asked, arms folding around her as he tried to stay calm.
Her body bounced with joy. Her eyes filled.
“We got it, babe.”
She screamed—pure, unfiltered happiness—and broke from his arms only to launch herself back into them, kissing him breathless.
“Is there anything you can’t do?”
“Anything we can’t,” he said softly, kissing her back, “we’ll figure out together.”
She swayed against him as the music carried on, humming the words under her breath.
“But I somehow
Slowly love you…”
“Angie?” Ben murmured.
Her steps faltered.
Her weight shifted—wrong, sudden, heavy. He adjusted instinctively, reaching for her face.
Time folded.
Her lips whispered, “a way.”
Her eyes rolled back.
Her head fell.
Ben’s knees hit the grass.
The music stopped.
People rushed forward.
Phones came out.
Angie’s nose began to bleed. Her breathing turned wet and uneven.
No one called 911.
They recorded Ben holding her as she died of an aneurysm in his arms.
“It was our wedding anniversary,” Ben said later, at the eulogy. “We were planning—”
He couldn’t finish. There was no ending to reach.
After the wake, he asked Moira—Angie’s closest friend—to stay behind. He handed her two rings, each threaded onto a chain.
“We never got married,” he said quietly. “All I want is to spend the rest of my life with the woman I love.”
Moira stared at him, grief and horror colliding.
“Oh my fucking god, Ben—are you okay?”
“I just watched the woman I love die in my arms,” he said, breaking. “The least I can do is marry her. Grieve her properly.”
Since Moira was ordained, she performed the ceremony.
She placed Angie’s hand into Ben’s.
Then Ben’s into Angie’s.
“Angie,” she said softly, “do you take this man—”
A pipe banged somewhere in the walls.
They froze.
“And you, Ben?”
“I do.”
Moira lifted the rings—to the sky, to the floor, to the center—and placed the chains around their necks.
“By the powers of earth, time, and all planes between,” she said, “I pronounce you husband and wife.”
The year that followed hollowed Ben out. He lost his job. Sold the apartment. Moved back into his old place. Smoked too much. Drank more. Wondered if it would’ve been easier to follow her instead of surviving her.
By the next anniversary, he wandered the pier drunk and alone, drawn back to the grass without knowing why.
As night fell, people came and went. Eventually, there was no one.
He cried.
He cried as the scent of her perfume slipped into the air. As he felt the gentle press of a hand against his face. He remembered the moment he swore he could feel her soul leave her body.
“A husk,” he muttered.
“Hey,” a voice whispered. “I’m not a husk.”
Ben opened his eyes.
Angie sat in front of him, wearing her pale dress. The ring rested at her throat. She looked whole. Alive.
Ben choked on his breath and scrambled backward in terror.
“How—how did—what are you—”
“It’s our anniversary,” she said gently.
“Our wedding anniversary,” she clarified. “You had Moira perform the ceremony. Remember?”
At first, she told him, waking in the catacombs had been terror. Screaming. Panic. The realization that she was gone. Dying hadn’t just been losing her life—it had been losing him too.
“I don’t know how this is happening,” she said, tears welling. “It’s like you made a wish. And I came back.”
Ben crawled toward her slowly.
“Can I… touch you?”
She guided his hand to her chest. He felt warmth. A heartbeat. The rise and fall of her breath. Her birthmark. The ring.
“Is this permanent?” he asked quietly. “Do we have time?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “What matters is now.”
They kissed—saying everything they couldn’t yet put into words. Longing. Ache. Trauma. Love.
That night, he took her home.
They spoke for hours. Held each other until sleep claimed them both.
At 7:05 a.m., Ben’s alarm went off.
Angie slept beside him.
He smiled. He couldn’t wait to show Moira the miracle.
When Moira arrived, he grabbed her arm.
“You’re taking the day off. You’re coming with me.”
She pulled back immediately.
“Ben—are you okay? Like… really okay?”
“Yes,” he said urgently. “Please. Just come with me. Coffee. I need to show you something.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Once I figure out you’re tore up from the floor up, we’re going to the cuckoo’s nest.”
“I think once you see what I see,” Ben said, “you’re gonna think we should go together.”
Moira followed him, uneasy, back toward his apartment—just a few blocks away—completely unaware of what waited a few floors up.
Orpheus, Or The Violence Of Looking Back
A melodious swing drifting through wind,
born of Dream and Calliope,
came to touch her delicate cheeks,
wipe the tears from her face,
and meet the divine—
Eurydice’s soul.
A blush brushes the surface
of her tender skin,
revealing the soft fall of young
love.
A first love.
An only love.
Something so rare, so unseen—
untouched,
uncanny upon Gaia,
as though it could not possibly
be.
He plays beautifully at their union,
her movements finessed with every note.
She dances with the air,
disappearing into each pluck,
each ping, each sound—
into the trees.
Consent begins to dissolve.
With the sway of hips
against the long blades of grass,
the crowd moves hypnotically
and suddenly forgets
how to see.
The music forgets how to sound.
Eurydice realizes she has lost herself
in the arms of a strange man.
He lifts her—
eyes hungrily grazing her body.
What do you wan—
Before the thought can finish forming,
he lowers his face.
Thunder folds into her,
shaking her sense of place.
He whispers,
to know your ache.
The earth holds its breath.
Suddenly—
as quickly as the stranger takes Eurydice,
a snake bites her ankle.
She screams.
The crowd regains its sight.
Orpheus hears her cries.
When she is found,
the stranger has vanished.
Eurydice is dead.
The snake coils beside her,
as if waiting—
guarding her body,
keeping her unharmed,
though it was
the very thing that killed her.
It watches Orpheus as it slithers away,
its stare almost threatening,
almost judging,
as Eurydice is slowly dragged
into the Underworld.
Orpheus travels past the Styx,
into dark, murky crevices
where he meets
Hades and Persephone—
against their will.
He petitions them,
begging for the love of his life
to be returned
with one song
to pierce Hades’ unrelenting dark.
With Persephone’s persuasion,
Hades agrees.
The lyre plays.
Orpheus sings.
The Underworld fills with light—
a glory known only to Olympus,
if only for a moment.
Moved by feelings long unfelt,
they grant him his love
under one condition.
Hades smiles gently at Persephone,
wipes the tear from her face,
remembering the years of life,
the pain endured—
all that she endured.
Her resilience.
“As you wish, my love,” he says,
pressing her warm, floral hand
to his cold lips.
She turns to Orpheus.
“Eurydice is yours, my dear boy.
I have placed her behind you.
Do. Not. Turn. Around.
You will hear her.
You will feel her.
You will want to look back.
Don’t.
Don’t even speak to her.
Your love brought you here—
against everything.
With a lyre and song,
you moved us like moons pull tides.
If you fought darkness to reach her,
you can walk through it with her,
knowing the only way to protect her
is to look toward the light—
toward Gaia.
You must trust it.
You must trust her.
Trust love.”
He nods.
The Underworld opens.
Something—
someone—
takes his hand.
A cold touch.
(Be.)
He shivers and walks forward,
holding the hand behind him.
Don’t look back.
The light of Gaia is near,
but the path is violent, mischievous.
“Orpheus, why won’t you talk to me?”
“Can’t you hear me?”
“Please— I’m afraid.”
He cannot.
He will not.
Not until he is out.
Not until he is free.
Yet with every step,
his spirit aches—
because it sounds like her,
feels like her,
smells like her.
It is Eurydice.
Her hand is cold.
She is afraid.
They are so close.
What if—
just once—
he looked?
To see if she was whole.
To know it was truly her.
To kiss her once.
To tell her he loved her.
Grass brushes their feet.
The exit nears.
Her hand grows warm.
“My love…” she sobs.
He turns.
Reaching for the tear on her cheek—
She is gone.
He gasps.
Breath fractures.
Panic.
(Be.)
Orpheus walks on,
propelled by shock,
burdened by pain—
losing the only woman he loved
not to fate,
but to disbelief.
He forgot her trust.
Her faith.
She never spoke.
Never questioned.
She followed.
Held his hand.
Closed her eyes.
Let herself be guided—
as instructed.
“You have to trust him.
That love.”
(Believe.)
She did.
Orpheus will never know
how deeply she loved him.
How completely she trusted.
He will only know devastation—
born of immaturity, insecurity,
and the need to see.
Something in the darkness
he should have already known
was as real as the hand
touching him.
(Believe.)
He will let others numb him,
disembody him,
to dull the pain of love lost.
But nothing will sever him
from the love he failed—
his sweet Eurydice.
Orpheus walks on.
Not forward—
but emptied.
The world receives him again,
grass underfoot,
sun on skin,
life continuing as if nothing sacred
has been broken.
But something has.
Inside him,
the music rots,
spoiling down from his skin
into the soil,
seeping into the depths,
playing its mourning songs
into the Underworld—
where Eurydice cries her loss
in betrayal
against Persephone’s kind bosom.
Above,
Orpheus tells himself stories—
that love was cruel,
that gods are tricksters,
that Eurydice slipped because she was weak,
because fate is careless,
because the world conspires.
Anything
but the truth:
He did not trust her.
He begins to fracture.
First, the song leaves him.
Then the will to touch.
Then the want to live among bodies.
He wanders.
He refuses women.
Refuses warmth.
Refuses flesh.
He speaks only to trees,
to stone,
to absence.
And absence answers nothing.
They come for him quietly.
Hands that are not divine,
not merciful—
but human.
They do not hate him.
They do not love him.
They tear.
Arms first—
the hands that once played the lyre,
that once held Eurydice’s
without ever feeling her trust.
They rip them away.
He screams,
but the sound means nothing now.
His chest is split—
the place where belief should have lived,
opened and emptied.
His legs are taken—
the legs that walked toward light
but stopped short,
that chose sight over faith.
Piece by piece,
his body is unmade.
Yet—
he does not die.
What remains
is his head.
Eyes intact.
Mouth intact.
Memory intact.
Still thinking.
Still knowing.
Still remembering
the warmth of her hand
just before it vanished.
The river carries him.
He cannot close his eyes.
He cannot forget.
He sings no more—
but his mind sings endlessly,
replaying the moment
he turned.
The blade of realization
cuts forever:
She trusted him completely.
She did everything right.
He failed her.
Eternity is not fire.
It is awareness.
To exist without a body—
without hands to create,
without arms to hold,
without a heart to justify—
only a mouth
to repeat the truth.
Only a head
to know
that love was offered fully
and refused.
And the world listens
as Orpheus floats,
still alive,
still conscious—
a monument
to disbelief.
Author’s Note: I began thinking about this version of Orpheus and Eurydice after watching The Sandman. It made me reflect on how many versions of Greek mythology exist, and how we’re always—consciously or not—choosing which ones we believe in most. This poem is a blending of the versions I could stand behind.
One of the things I’ve always loved is the story of Dream and Calliope creating Orpheus. In The Sandman, Dream technically could have returned Eurydice to his son—but doing so would have violated every code he lives by and ignited divine infighting and war. And ultimately, that fight was never Dream’s. It was Orpheus’s.
Orpheus asking his father to fix what he lost has always struck me as childish—less about love, more about unresolved power and entitlement. There’s a reason I didn’t include that aspect here.
I also wanted to reframe the snake.
Snakes are often given a bad reputation, but in my culture they represent strength, fertility, and the connection between realms. To make the snake purely evil never made sense to me. In this version, the snake is Gaia—protecting Eurydice, not harming her.
Gaia has watched Zeus take women without their consent again and again. This time, she intervenes. Death is not punishment here; it is removal. Protection. A chance.
With Hades and Persephone, Eurydice has that chance.
The version of Hades and Persephone I draw from is inspired by Lore Olympus: a relationship rooted in devotion, patience, and trust. Hades could have made the decision himself—but instead, he defers to Persephone, because he understands that love is proven not through control, but through trust.
That trust is the test Orpheus fails.
In almost every version of this myth, Orpheus never makes it out with Eurydice. Something always compels him to turn around—to doubt her, to doubt himself, to doubt love. That repetition raises the question: Was it ever true love at all?
This poem is my attempt to answer that—by giving Eurydice her own truth.
She trusted.
She loved.
She stayed.
The gods were not cruel.
He was simply not ready. - Evy Gonzalez Ronceria
Mio
(In this piece, the mirror becomes a gallery. Mío is an act of self-curation — a quiet defiance against every gaze that once claimed ownership. What was once painted for others is now sacred, deliberate, and hers alone.)
———————-
Me maquillo
con una paz.
Respiro profundo,
tocando mi labial,
sabiendo que ninguno
me la va a quitar.
Esto es pa’ mí.
Todo para mí.
Soy una obra de arte.
He esperado tanto tiempo
para ponerte en exhibición,
sin temor, sin pensar
en los demás.
Sin miedo de que algún hombre
vuelva a posar sus manos
sobre tus lindas pinturas.
Ya no.
Todo esto.
Todo lo pinto para mí.
Y nadie me lo quitará sino yo.
English (translation / companion version)
I paint my face
in peace.
I breathe deep,
fingers on my lipstick,
knowing no one
can take this from me.
This is for me.
All of it, for me.
I am a work of art.
I’ve waited so long
to put you on display,
without fear, without thought
of anyone else.
No longer afraid
that some man will reach
for your lovely paintings.
No more.
All of it—
I paint it for me.
And no one will take it away
but me.
Here Come The Falls
She awakens in a vice of shadow and air—her breath twisted, lifted, siphoned away by the unseen.
In the dark there is nothing. Yet she knows this nothing: a weight settling over her like a blanket she never asked for—warm, steady, looming.
A tear slides across her cheek as her fists curl, straining against an invisible bind. The weight holds fast, pressing with an intent older than her name.
“Move.”
A gasp escapes her. The grip loosens. She spills free of its intangible limbs, her skin alight with a thousand needlepoints of pain. Her palms trace slow, soothing circles over her arms and legs. Sitting up, she takes in the black—thick, endless—until her gaze drops to her feet.
Just beyond the mattress, her Italian Greyhound stands rigid, barking soundlessly—at her.
Before her hand could reach him, he bolted into the abyss. Her eyes fixed on the direction he ran, and with a sinking feeling she began to follow. Suddenly she tripped down invisible steps and gasped. Her feet caught on ground that felt wet, almost breathing.
As her eyes adjusted, all she could see and feel was a dark, warm brown hue surrounding her, a beat thrumming within and through her body—almost celestial.
Little by little she walked, sinking into some places, falling through others—sand or water, she couldn’t tell. It felt like the sands of time—or something. She didn’t know, couldn’t understand. Familiarity and fear pressed against her, threaded with calm.
She felt like water pouring into a plastic cup, recalling a drink poured into his hand. How she wished she could pour herself as gently into his fingers, touch his fingers—she’s touching his fingers…
Touching his fingers… everything stills.
“Close your eyes.”
She closes her eyes. The room vibrates, singing in a language only familiar to her in REM. The aurora borealis shifts in constant waves, and within its movement she sees his visage. Through the watery sands she walks to him.
She says nothing. Here exists only this space—the emotions, the past and present, the histories, the finite and infinite. She holds him close, giving and absorbing in a lovely loop, mending and sewing shut the little pieces left open long ago.
As she continues to enmesh with him, their bodies becoming one, she feels this: home.
“I’m home.”
A crack. Her eyes open. She sees herself as a child outside a glass house, nose bloodied. Her head lifts from his chest.
He’s gone. She runs, the crack widening as water begins to fall from above and rise around her, locking her in. Darkness consumes her as the glass shatters and cold liquid floods in, swallowing her at the pace of a typhoon. She chokes, drowning, swallowing the flood. Darkness floods her eyes, liquid filling her ears and lungs. Nothing can hear the suffocated…
Sound.
Sound.
The sound of a bark. Jasper’s bark. A gasp escapes her.
Her eyes flutter. She mutters in pain, jaw loosening as she spills to her side. Her palms trace slow, soothing circles over her arms and legs, cradling herself.
Slowly sitting up, she looks at her reflection in the dark window, though no reflection truly looks back. She gathers herself in her arms as if holding another body. A whimper slips out, soft and breaking, before she whispers—
“Oh… I miss who you were, before I knew.”
Cenizas
Donde hubo fuego, cenizas quedan
¿De cenizas se puede hacer fuego?
Hm.
No.
Pero de ellas puedo dibujar
La memoria.
El recuerdo.
En esos grises, negros y blancos,
Sin perturbar,
Hubo una llama ardiente
Que daba calor,
Que daba luz,
Que alumbraba alguna vez
Esto que llamábamos hogar.
La memoria es lo que quema,
Y sin darnos cuenta,
A veces,
Nos quemamos.
Oigo tus palabras
Y nado en tu mar de letras.
Me envuelvo en el sargazo de tu voz
Y me recuerdo; me hago recordar
De ese instante,
De tu cara pálida y cansada,
Pero sonriente,
Diciéndome mil y mil cosas…
Eres una grabación en mi mente.
Y en la soledad
Más oscura,
Primaré “play”.
El tiempo sigue.
Todo es tiempo.
Amaré a otros.
Pero lo que vi en tus ojos al mirarme,
Jamás se replicará
Ni en dibujos de cenizas.
Entre Parentesis
Cuando me abrazas (when you hold me)
Sin pensarlo dos veces (without thinking twice)
Pongo mi cabeza debajo de la tuya (I put my head beneath yours)
Tratando de oír tus pensamientos (trying to hear your thoughts)
Pero el pálpito de tu corazón (but the beating of your heart)
Ahoga el sonido (drowns out the sound)
Y mis oídos quedan hipnotizados (and my ears are hypnotized)
Por el ritmo sincopado (by the syncopated rhythm)
Empiezo a sentirme somnolienta (I start to feel drowsy)
Y sacudo mi cabeza (and I shake my head)
No quiero hundirme en tus brazos (I don't want to sink into your arms)
Pero
Sin quererlo, lo hago (without meaning to, I do)
Y en tu camisa de rayitas me cuelgo (and I hang onto your pinstripe shirt for dear life)
Mientras caigo (as I fall)
Digo palabras amortiguadas (I say in muffled tones)
‘Corazoncito lindo, solo tú sabrás cuánto he amado yo a este man en las palabras que él—’
—“What’s that, babe?”—
“Nothing”.
‘En palabras que él nunca entenderá.’
Exhaust
I stepped outside with my dog and began to put her coat and leash on one freezing Saturday morning. My downstairs neighbor was nestled in a broken-down grey Hyundai Elantra, attempting to fix it for the umpteenth time. Exhaust fumes pumped out from the rear and filled the air, and I said with a bit of a chuckle under my breath, “You know, it would be really funny if he was trying to kill me with all these fumes.”
Then, almost with perfect timing, his car kind of sputtered and spit out more fumes. My dog moved away from the tailpipe, but I stayed in my mind and started coughing, thinking, “Hmm, honestly, if this car were more perfectly placed—like IN the garage and not out here—this would be good enough to knock us both out. Quite frankly, this fossil fuel I’m ingesting is impressive. I could literally feel myself slowly going here. Wow.”
The more the fumes filled the air—like a smoke machine bought for a kid’s sweet sixteen in the late ’80s—the more I envisioned these weird scenarios in my head with this death trap of a car.
..Like really, if my neighbor wanted to… he could SAW this entire thing. Like…
————
I'm trapped in this little boxed room with a little TV set cleverly placed in said boxed room, which is filling with noxious gases because, of course, the damn fucking car is there.
I go to the car and see the keys aren’t there. And it won’t turn off! All the while, this dark, dank-ass room is filling up with gas, and it smells rank as shit. I turn around, and through the smoke I see some janky, large-ass clown shoes, and I begin to shake in fear. Suddenly, the TV turns on and he shows up with a silly Jigsaw mask and his hoodie on, smoking his blunt:
“I want to play a game.”
I’m panicked and annoyed.
“You see my car? It’s on, and the air is filling with the exhaust. Alright, over there—you see that? It’s a knife. And to the left of it? It’s a dead clown, and in his stomach there’s a key to turn off the car. You got about a minute… if you don’t get it, the room will fill with exhaust fumes and you’ll die for real. But if you get it—congrats! The car turns off, you live to see another day, and I may just save you some of this blunt...”
As he takes another puff, I freak out and panic, coughing frantically, because I realize the room has no doors and no windows, and I’m stuck with a bloated dead clown. My phobia really starts setting in—hard.
“Um, how well did you plan this, my guy? I mean, truly—how well did you think this through?”
He blows out smoke and kind of Suspicious Fry.gif’s me, looks around, and says,
“I think pretty fucking well, if I do say so myself. Let’s begin our game.”
My eyes begin to dart around frantically as beads of sweat flow from my brow to my cheeks.
“NO! NOOOoo HOo—HOw do I get out of the roo—YOU ASS—THERE ARE NO DOORS HERE!!!”
And that’s when he would just drop everything, unmask, and de-blunt.
“What? cough… ahhh, shiiitt… I only figured it up to the dead clown part. My fault—hold on...”
And then the minute is up because like—one, he would forget to stop the game and take too long to figure out how to get me out, and two, I have the gusto to open up a dead body, but a CLOWN? A CLOWNNN? NO! NOO-UH!
———-
I began to laugh and felt a little dizzy. Still in the fog, my dog stared at me from a distance, wondering if I truly had a death wish by how close I was standing to the tailpipe of the Hyundai—and at this point, so did my neighbor, who had been trying to get my attention by knocking on the glass and waving his hand in a “WTF” manner.
As I slowly took in the full scope of the ambience, I realized the outside of the house had kind of disappeared into fumes, and only we and the car existed. And in this situation, the fog would be kind of like an “ohhh, mysterious, kind of cool, kind of romantic” type of setting—for a novel, a movie, a Lifetime special—but no, not here. This was puhretty bad. I was sucking in this air for a while, straight from the pipe like I was begging for the sweet release of death or something...
And maybe I was. I don’t know.
I’ve struggled with suicidal ideations most of my life, since childhood. And although many of my ideations are more along the lines of “Help me, I want to hang from the door,” or “Anna Karenina, NOW,” standing near a tailpipe and comedically thinking of ways to end it definitely pales in comparison to wanting to stand along the edge of the tracks and throw myself in front of whatever train, making some poor unfortunate soul late to whatever appointment they had.
That desire, that burn, that ache... was painful. And sometimes still can be.
However, those little comedic thoughts—albeit a definite sign that I am exhausted (no pun intended) of being on this timeline—are so much more welcome than what I would see for so long in my life before.
It’s more digestible.
Maybe not as digestible as fossil fuel, but hey—some of us will take even the smallest tastes of death in whatever way we can get it.
But now I live out of spite.
I live in spite of death.
In spite of me.
El Cuarto Rojo
La inseguridad
Es más difícil
Pensar que todo este tiempo
Que pasamos
Cultivando
Una comodidad
Tierna lealtad
Cuando en ti confie
Mi dolor
Mi historia
Mi piel
Que en ti por fin pudo encontrar
Su modo de callar
Pudo encontrar
Encanto…
Fui solo un hueco
Para llenar
Una conquista
Ay pues…
Que pesar.
Que peso
Que me creo
En esta mente
Cuando todo está bien
Cuando todo está calmado
La inseguridad me dice
Lo que muchas verdades
Me han dicho.
Muchas veces
La costumbre
Es difícil de sacudir.
Más dicficl
Que el saber lo que tengo
El saber
Lo que soy.
Lo que veo en el espejo
Lo que siento en mis fibras
Si disliza por pequeñas voces
Detras de una cortina
En un cuarto rojo
Y cierro mis ojos, como si apagar las les apagara el sonido.
Les apagara la memoria.
Yo se lo que tengo
Yo se lo que tengo…
Abro los ojos.
Y en esos momentos
Es cuando más me detesto.
Maracuya
Coquetear
No me nace tan fácil
Como un beso.
Como hacer una taza de té
Hacerte un plato de arroz con pollito
O envolverte en mis piernas,
Reirme contigo.
Mimar
no me nace tan facil
Cómo cogerte de la mano
Escuchar tus problemas
Sonreir por verte la cara
Desear morderte, tomarte,aguantarte
Hasta donde pueda.
(Y quedarme con las ganas de bailar contigo a a ver si de verdad puedes)
Ternura
no me nace fácil
Pero contigo si se
Que algo me nace
De tratarte suavemente.
Me siento en mi
Cuando estoy con ti
La calma
Que me deja revolcarme
Contigo.
Quiero que
Me beses
Me muerdas
Me amarres
Me lleves
Al punto
Que me olvide
De mi misma
Que nos volvamos
Añicos
Enmarañados entre pieles
Y
Falta de pudor.
Que nos tratemos
Suave
Cuidandonos donde
Antes nadie nos haya cuidado
Entiendonos
Donde antes nadie
Nos haya podido
Coger el tiro.
Hay cosas
Que no me nacen
Tan facil
Pero por ti
Cariño…
Me inclinaria
Suavemente
Revelando
Lo que nace
De mi cuerpo
De mi alma.
Para ti.
Solo prueba de lo más profundo
De mis labios
Y veras.
Khaled
Alma de mi alma
Khaled
Su nombre significaba
Immortal
Y eso es la transición no?
Cuando su piel tocó a la madre.
Cuando su cuerpo fue entregado
A nuestra madre
Quillo en esta muestra de odio
Ha recibido tantos de sus hijos
Sin querer
En multitudes
De rios carmesi
Se mezclan con sus lágrimas de lluvia
con su piel hecha de tierra y mar
Con su cabello hecho de cielo
Y estrellas
Que se estrechan y se conectan
Al infinito
Una paz
Qué encuentras
Ya en el rostro
De el difunto
Khaled
Una paz
Que debio tenir
No robada
Y hecada
Hacia el infinito
Hacia su immortal
Khaled
Alma de mi alma
Pandora
Pongo todo separado (I place everything in separately)
En su tiempo plazo (In term and time)
En espacios callados (in its quiet spaces)
Donde pueda concentrarme (where I can concentrate)
Donde no puedan dañarme (Where I cannot harm myself)
O (or)
Donde no puedan dañarte (Where they cannot harm you)
Danar (harm)
La imagen (the image)
O la realidad (or the reality)
El espejismo (the mirage)
No lo se. (I don’t know)
Solo se (what I do know)
Que hay una intensa (is that there is this intense)
Necesidad (need)
De proteger (To protect)
Protegerte (Protect you)
Protegerme (Protect me)
De mi (from me)
Asi que (So)
A (get to)
Prender candelas (turning on the candles)
Apagar mis ojos (turning off my eyes)
Y mirar acia Chia (and turning onto Chia)
Que me guie (that she guide me)
Que me muestre (that she show me)
Donde poner (where to lay)
Todos estos divinos cofres (all these divine safes)
En sus divinos (in their divine)
Sepulchres (sepulchers)
Mama (mother)
(Reso yo) (I Pray)
Que nada salga (may nothing leave)
De su debido plazo (from this sacred place)
Que todo quede en su calma (may it all stay in its calm)
Que todo descanse en su paz (may it all rest in its peace)
En su memoria (in its memory)
Y que quede donde tenga que (and where it needs to)
Quedar. (stay)
Ayo…
Y (and)
Alli. (There)
La siento (I feel)
Una pertubiensa (I disturbance)
Como estrellas pequenas (Like little stars)
Cayendo por los lados (falling from the side)
De mi ojo (From my eye)
Perezoso izquierdo.(The left, the lazy)
Es ella. (The lazy)
Pandora
Que se guía por la luz (She is guided by the light)
De la luna (Of the moon)
Buscando (searching)
Lo divino (the divine)
Que yo escondi.( that I have hidden)
Tan curiosa (how curious)
La maldita sea (the damned)
Maldita sea (damn the day)
El día en que te conocí. (in which i met her)
The Spoils
Her lips taste
Sour
The skin above her right rib
Bruised
The blackness of her roots grow
White
And she seems
Expired.
“Not really”
She says.
“I’m just
Tired.
Of these overdrawn carriages and falseness
The constant force of societal bliss.
Ha.
Is this is what I have missed?”
She says
As
Her body is left to
Spoil.
Cronos
He was told
He was destined to be overcome
By his children
So instead of embracing
Those ugly darlings
He consumed every single one.
If they stayed inside
-He said to himself-
He would have control
He would be able to protect the ones around him
From the burdens of himself.
No one would know what he held inside.
Oh, but those ugly darlings
Kept boring into his world
And that poor man, he just kept eating
Like an involuntary glutton
Until his body was too pregnant with them.
One day,
Without even a small warning
One ugly darling punched their fist through his mouth
Knocking his teeth
Breaking his jaw open so wide
He was dislodged.
A rapid of them fell out of him
With such a force
That the people he so tried to protect
Were now made to take the hit
Of all that he had inside
He watched
As they drowned in his miasma.
And he could no longer do anything to stop it.
He was told
He was destined to be overcome
By his children.
And there he laid
The maker of his own destiny
Had lost control again.
Looking at the mess he made
He felt embarrassed
By the pain he had caused
Yet still, he knew himself
It was only a matter of time.
Looking down at his hand
He stared at the shriveled darling
Slipping through his fingers
And put whatever was left of it
In his mouth.
Fill
So far so far so empty in this part.
I poke my finger in the dent, harder, harder...see if it could fill the void where maybe I thought you could, he could, she could…
But now here’s the thing.
It's only a physical act; I will only press against the cavity until it's sensitive, until it's tender and red and even then, even then it will not stop me.
Unbearable constant, necessary motion in me.
Bold finger that keeps prodding will bend and bend until it hears a crack; an uncomfortable ripple that breaks the barrier of concentration of what I was trying to attempt.
The repetition won’t fill this depth.
Breath
Why fill what is meant to be dark space?
Does the moon fill her spaces?
No.
You fill yourself upon hers.
You turn your head towards her gaze and absorb — how much lovelier she is with all her fractures; all her lonely parts displayed.
She is to be beheld
But never to be held.
So far so far so empty.
Right.
Here.
Poke.
Poke.
Poke.
True Faith
We were sitting at the dinner table and my brother begins talking about him. “I never trusted him”, my brother said. “There was just always something about him…”
I remember when I was a little girl, going to church and there was this priest who would always be friendly to me. He would talk to me, put me on his shoulders, play around with me. He would sit me on his lap, and sing to me, or hold my hand. Every Sunday I went to church, and every Sunday he would be there, and after the services, we would talk, and it would always be the same.
As I got older, I remember it no longer being fun. Feeling uncomfortable near him. That something wasn’t right. I don’t know if it was my slow discovery of who he was, or how he was with me, or the result of just coming from an abusive household, and just not trusting people. I don’t know what it was. All I know, is that I began treating him horribly. He would get near me, and I would push him away from me. Sometimes, this would make him try harder. And this would make me angry, and sick, and I would yell at him to stay away from me.
One day, I found out he had gotten cancer and had been undergoing chemo, and I saw him less and less. I felt more relieved, though in the pit of my stomach, there was always this constant fear that he would return and I would have to see his face again. One day, I walked inside the rectory to put back the wine from that days mass, and there he was; that priest, crestfallen, taking a swig from his own personal collection. I stopped, and nearly dropped the glass bottle.
Everything stopped.
“Come here”, he said to me.
I stood still. He got up, and put his flask aside. He walked towards me. He took the glass bottle from me, and smiled. I looked down at my hands, realizing his fingers were gently grazing mine. He smelled of alcohol and sadness. I didn’t know the scent then, but I know it very well now. “Thank you”, he said. I quickly put down my hands, and put them behind my back, and began to scratch my left hand with my right, roughly. “You’re welcome”, I said, “I have to go now.”
As I turned, he gently grabbed me by the shoulders. I felt the hairs stand behind my neck and the nausea start. I felt like I was going to faint. “Sue… I wanted to show you something.” I stayed frozen. At that point, I didn’t know what to do, or say. I just listened. “Will you come with me?”, he said. I nodded. I don’t know why I did. But I nodded.
He removed his hands from my shoulders and went in front of me and began to walk out of the rectory. “Are you coming?”, he asked.
I did. I began to walk behind him, planning a million ways to run away from him. The church was void of people. It was empty and quiet. I followed him out of the church, and into his home that was directly up the hill behind it. I had many chances to leave. I had many ways of running, of getting out… I even thought of grabbing the loose brick near the statue of St. John and hitting him with it, and running away. But couldn’t. My fingers kept plucking against my skin, my cheeks burning like a furnace, as I said to myself “you could kill someone doing a thing like that”… then plucking harder because I knew deep down that maybe I wanted to.
He took me into the greenhouse. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. My hands dropped slowly from my back to my sides, revealing that they were peeled at the cuticles and knuckles from my scratching and blood had begun too peer around the edges and the creases. My mouth fell open. The smells were intoxicating. All these different colors; these purples, these whites, pinks, blues, reds. All the beautiful flowers. I had only seen this many at a cemetery.
So much beauty, and there he was, this dying priest, that I had, for many years, mistreated. Mistreated because of something that was done to me…something I wasn’t yet prepared to understand or explain to myself. Mistreated because of my gradual loss of faith, and mistrust in everyone and everything around me.
He grabbed a pair of garden shears and cut me a flower. “This is for you. It’s a Jasmine.” He smiled as I took it from him. I examined it, and twirled it between my cracked fingers. “Thank you”, I said. I smiled as I dipped my nose in its soft, fragrant petals. “Did you know that every flower has a symbol?”. I shook my head as I nuzzled my nose further into it. He started to walk closer to me, closing the gap between us. “The Jasmine is the symbol of love. I won’t be here for very long. And before I go, I wanted to tell you that… I love you, Susanita. Ever since you were a little girl… I wished you were mine.”
I stopped smelling the flower. I looked up at the dying mans face. His eyes were filled with tears. My shoulders dropped, and my head tilted as I looked for something in those eyes. There was nothing there, but a man with little time left; a man who in this time chose to love me, and I had rejected his love. The love of a father to a daughter.
I wrapped my arms around him, then. I could feel the jolt in his body, from the shock. The unexpected warmth from this young girl. He then, let his arms slowly wrap around me. For a moment in that embrace, we both were cleansed of all the guiltiness we had felt. Of all the things we had thought. As I held his waist his hands wrapped around me tighter as his left hand lowered to the small of my back. I felt him push me against him more as his head slowly fell against the nook of my neck. His nose pushed away all the hairs that were covering it, until only our skins were touching. He inhaled deeply. His head moved upward and his mouth slightly opened.
I felt the slight wet of his spit. Not a daughter.
At that moment, I could have sworn every plant in that room had died, and the room had become most unholy. He breathed deeper, as I felt something rising pressing against my stomach and his right hand tighten the back of my neck. The creepy feeling came back. The dark feeling. The angry feeling. It was real. I needed to move. I needed to move. I needed to open my eyes and move.
I opened my eyes. I saw her. La Virgen. The judgement. I couldn’t let her. I couldn’t let her judge me.
I pushed him away. He looked at me, startled. “I have to go.”
I don’t remember much after that moment, except running. I remember running out of that house. Running out and screaming internally. I could feel him watching me…standing there, watching me, as I made my way farther, and farther away. It felt like he was burning me with his eyes. If I turned back, I felt I would see him behind me. I wanted to make it home. Make it back to a place that was safe. When I got to my house, my mother saw the Jasmine crumpled in my hand. “I was with the priest, he gave me this”, I said as I let go of the flower lump and walked upstairs to the bathroom. I closed the door. I closed my eyes... Everything was black...
He had disappeared for months, only to reappear during a service one Sunday. By this time, he was in a wheelchair, and completely weakened. He looked like a skeleton, and had no hair left on his head or face. I was singing in the choir, when the current priest had announced to the church he had come for a visit. I hid behind the taller girls, and sat, as everyone went up to say hello to him. When the taller girls left I was the only one sitting in the choir area. I could feel something crawling on my skin, as I looked up. I could see him staring back at me. Everyone talking to him. Everyone saying goodbye and wishing him well. He only stared at me. I felt violated, I felt that his eyes would stay with me forever. I ran out of the opposite entrance way, and threw up in the garden he used to tend to at the front of the church. The garden I used to play in. Those flowers died.
So did he the next week.
A few months later, I attended church with my mother, and a new priest came up to me right before service began.
“Sue”, he said “can I talk to you?”. I nodded, got up, and walked with him. He said, with a very pale face, “I was cleaning out some of the Fathers things from the house….and I found this”, and he handed me an envelope, with his hand slightly trembling. “I think it belongs to you.” I took the envelope in my hand. I opened it.
It didn’t belong to me. Not anymore. It belonged to him. It was a picture of me. From my first communion. I remember he took group pictures, but since I was the one to place the crown on the Mary statue, I had taken one alone. I was posing with Mary’s crown of flowers. I turned it over to the back. “My love”, it said.
I suddenly felt the urge to vomit over the row to the left of me. My head was spinning. I could feel my body sweat, as I could hear him speaking to me in my head...
“I loved you… I wished you were mine”. I felt his face against my neck once more. He was there. In the pews. In altar. In Christ. I felt it. It was disgusting me.“Wh-wh-wh-ere, did you find this picture?”, I asked the priest. “He kept it in a drawer…”, He said, with a face that spoke much louder than my eyes were ready to receive.“What was in it?”, I asked. My eyes began to water. The priest looked down and walked away from me. “I have to start the service”. I stopped breathing for an instant. I feel the muscles in my stomach tightening as my hands crumpled up the picture and envelope. My teeth clenched. I slowly closed my eyes. It had dawned on me, that in his cleaning, he had too seen, something he couldn’t un-see. The same things that I could never un-see, un-feel, un-recognize... things that he would never tell, to anyone.
I put down my coffee mug, and looked outside the window of my 10th floor apartment, and sighed.
“Yeah,” I said to my brother, “I never trusted him, either.”
Bound
There’s safety in it.
When he walks you home.
It feels
Just like daddy
All those years ago.
The warmth it
Wraps
Tightly around wrists
And neck.
(Pulls you in)
When he...
It feels...
Can you even lift your head?
The warmth in it
The plastic veil that
Wraps
Gently creating little vapors
From your mouth.
And all you see is the movements
Of breath.
Quick--ahahahahaha
Slow--ah eh ahhh ehh ahhh ehh ahh
Then,
You can see
Him.
There’s a safety in it.