If you're waiting for me to chase after your shadow
I'm too stuck in my own little world,
inside my perfectly arranged home
my bed, made of sighs and warm embraces,
but you go on, become the stranger at the door
once more, as you should.
Stay outside, you broken soul.
I'm not a collector's item 
for your contemplation.
Go away, with your cigarette-burnt smiles
your lips that dance around my neck
and your soft caress across my legs,
come back only if you must.
Your tongue likes the taste of my name
only when used to beg for your pleasure.
Baby, savor it carefully
like a quick burning candle,
because it's not lit to wait for your arrival.
Show your ever-longing eyes another horizon.
My goals are not yours to reach
and your arms are not my destiny.

 

When I break I cause havoc.

I don't mean to, 

I mean to crumble 

like a cookie soaked into a cup of coffee

i mean to melt away, quietly, undisturbing,

but when I come down, I crash like an 

ancient vase left on the edge of a pedestal

I make a smashing noise and leave my pieces

scattered all over the floor.

I cut your feet if you're barefoot

I ring in your ears long after I'm finished

I squeeze myself so tight I carry the burden for days.

I hate collapsing

and breaking apart.

I hate putting myself in this situations.

 

I like children. The idea of childhood. Of a good one.

I like spending time with them, being a teacher, hearing their stories, making spaces fun and comfy enough for them to actually want to tell me stories. I do enjoy my job, exhausting as it gets sometimes. I do it and I feel satisfied, I see my kids using the resources I give them and I feel proud and accomplished. I think I'm good at it. 

I enjoy spending time with kids, even the ones that aren't my students. I see them playing and join them. I like toys and children's books and TV shows. I like hearing kids make up worlds and invest themselves in their silly little things because I do so too. I like to see them discover cool stuff. I like it when they get into things I got into when I 

I wasn't a very happy kid. I went through shit that I wouldn't want other kids to go through.

I saw way too much, way to fast, at way too young an age. It breaks my heart when I relate to my kids. When I see that they too, have been exposed to way too much, way too fast, at way too young an age.

I want to have kids of my own someday. I've been thinking about it for many years now. I know it's selfish. But I think I'd be good at it. I think I'd enjoy raising human beings in a happy home. Maybe I won't make them myself, but I would like to be a parent. Someday at least. It may be one of those psychological things, I want to bring the safety to a child that I didn't have. I want to be the parent I never got. It would make sense if it were that way, but... is it so bad? 

I don't know. I guess I won't until I get to it. But I expect it to be quite a while still.

I fell asleep after lunch, when I came home from work, in the living room sofa, next to my cat and covered up to the head with the very fuzzy gray throw blanket.

I rested.

I took long deep breaths and I could feel the tiredness leaving my body, shedding away the morning, taking my worries away and leaving me, just me, in my most Loretta self, laying down with my cat on my belly and my head in the flowery cushions.

I've always had trouble with my sleep.

I sleep too much or I sleep too little.

I sleep too late or I pass out during the day.

I think I fucked it over when I started dating a boy from another town and we would talk on the phone for hours until our parents caught us when I was 15.

Maybe it was before and that's the story I keep telling myself.

Maybe it got bad when my mom relapsed and began smoking crystal meth again, 6 years after her last rehab when my father died. Or when her abusive boyfriend stayed over and I would lock my room up and jam the door with a chair from the inside, because I may have been choked and traumatized, but I was sure as hell not letting that man touch me.

Actually my sleep started being fucked up when my dad was sick, and he had to take 10 different pills during the night and it was just the two of us and I made sure he took them all. I made tiny charts with all my colored markers and pasted the timetables with the right medicines at the right times by his nightstand and made sure he took them all, 2:30 am, 4:15, 5:20, I was up and around and fixing everything for the man who couldn't stand, whose skin had swelled up to the point of tearing, the tiny man who on his last day on earth took my hands and asked me to pray with him, for the first time in my life, my father prayed. 

I've had a weird sleeping cycle for about 17 years now. And it takes a while for me to feel rested. I struggle. I read at night, when I can't sleep. I have sex, I write, I paint, I clean.

I lay down and I look at the ceiling and I cry.

Sometimes, I'm about to sleep, to finally fall, and I remember. I remember some fucked up shit my mind had been repressing for good fucking reason and it just comes back and breaks me. It just messes me up again. 

Then sometimes, when I'm able to sleep, I have nightmares, night frights and shakes. So that's another part that I don't like and that has also helped continue the fucking up of the sleep cycle.

But sometimes, like today, I take a nap. And it's cold weather brushing against my skin, my cat purring in my lap, the fuzziest of blankets and the peace of knowing I'm safe here, in my home that I've made for myself, with my partner, in this city on the brink of collapse that just sets my mind in the idea that nothing is forever, that I have a nice sleep, and I rest and I become truly myself. Shed away from everything that holds me back. 

I like those naps.

 

Her name is Noelle, I had a dream about her,
she messes with my head, makes me worry about
the little silly things we say to each other,
is this enfatuation, is this just regular air sign teasing?

Oh, how she rocks her big dr. martens and her 
black cherry lipstick, she does know who I am,
we give so many damns about each other,
apart, in secret, in the solitude of people who've 
discovered their sexuality way too late
to explore far enough in teenage years.

She's got two tickets to the girliest jam in the planet
let's listen to Olivia Rodrigo and cry
then drink
then make out
I'm just a mid-twenty-year-old dirtbag like you.

Oooooooooooooooooo.

 

How embarrasing carrying all of these relationships from the internet. All the evidence right there in plain sight for anyone to search for. Today I found something I didn't want to remember, some exchange between a man and I. Last time we met up we acted oh so natural. Like it hadn't been a thing, you know? How odd is it. Living in this day and age where I have loved people so hard and so far away. I did love them, they did love me. I think that in any other case, in all my other relationships, we acknowledge that there was something, that it was shared. You can't look me in the eye and pretend that we never made out in the back of your parents' car outside of my mom's house on a school night. Look into my eyes and pretend that you never shared your secrets sitting on a grassy hill on a saturday morning outside our high school. You hug me hello after 9 years and we act like we never. How odd. If it's right there in the open. It wasn't my mind, I didn't make those feelings up. Did I?

 

open curtains to a stage
you and I are standing
facing each other
and you apologize
and I say I don't forgive you
and you understand and don't lay it
on my shoulders to carry
all your deception
how much immaturity you hold
only to force me to bear it
I tell you the words I need to say
you listen and understand
we walk away
close curtain.

 

takes like cherries
like muddled blackberry syrup
morning rises and so do you
all comfort and ease
my name, you call me
you smile when you say it,
it sounds wonderful,
magic word, my name,
you savor it, like it's forever
like if it's your favorite word,
you keep it, like a treasure,
rarely use it, you call me other things
you call me baby,
love,
you shorten it and make others use it short,
my name, like a piece of jewelry to wear
only on special ocassions,
you make me like it more.

 

No quiero hablar de las noticias. No quiero darle mi opinión al mundo, no quiero compartirla. Quiero quedarme en silencio, quiero leerlas a todas, quiero ver qué pasa pero no quiero participar esta vez. No es que no me importe, ¡claro que me importa! ¡me cala hasta el alma como a todas! pero hoy no. Hoy no voy a hablar. No voy a contar mis historias, no voy a revivir mis miedos, no voy a vaciarme en el discurso. No. Hoy no. Por favor no.

I got really good
at looking at my feelings.
Pain, joy, sorrow, tiredness,
I pay attention carefully, 
dissecting them one by one
what causes the feeling?
how do I rationalize it?
I give it a long explanation,
I take the feeling out of me,
pour it a cup of coffee,
I make it talk,
explain slowly, with its words
how it's happening, why is it,
I try to find logic and sense, 
but naming it clearly
understanding the whys and hows
doesn't stop the feeling from flooding me
from taking down my sand castles
erasing my dust mandalas on the pavement
understanding so well
looking at them
doesn't stop me from feeling
and that I have struggled to understand.

 

The mind is an expert at abusing the body.
How much can my mind push my vessel into doing as it wants.
It's not consensual, if my body doesn't want it.
It's not consensual if it didn't agree to be hurt.
I'm taking care of this body, the one I'm given.
I'm pushing it into a direction that is good for both of us,
if I keep thinking I could've gone further,
I could've pushed the limits,
it does sound a little wrong.

 

Whenever I make a protection spell.
a jar, a house cleansing, a saging,
I make a point to protect from myself too,
because I know myself
and I know my weaknesses
I know how much I like to intervene
in secret, on things that are not my business.
I like to add a little spice in my friends lives,
give them the excitement they're looking for,
I like to make people think a little longer about me,
not for any reason in particular,
just to feel something.
I saw my friend the other day
over at their house
and when I woke up the next morning
one of their hairs was tied to mine
not my doing
may have been theirs
but I recognized it from the hair dye
and knew whose it was
I held it between my fingers
contemplating keeping it for a little fun
and then released it out of my window
into the air it flew away
I release you from me, friend,
may your staying be your free will,
I do not tie you to me
you or anyone else.

Your hands grab me 
how I like them when they hurt,
in my terms, in my ways,
my command hidden
under the fragile idea of power,
all mine
my call
make me beg.

 La casa tiene que sentirse casa.

Tiene que ser el lugar donde te sientes tú mismo. Que llenas los floreros con margaritas y que la luz del sol entra a iluminar todos tus rincones.

La casa requiere trabajo. Requiere limpieza y mantenimiento. Requiere fijarnos constantemente en la casa y ver si todo está en orden. A veces las cosas no lo están, a veces ordenar puede esperar a que estemos más descansados, pero eventualmente se debe hacer.

La casa es el lugar seguro. No significa que siempre sea seguro, muchas cosas pueden pasar en la casa, pero aún así se debe estar en confianza de que si algo sucede, se puede salir adelante.

La casa tiene secretos. Escondites, rincones, cajitas con doble propósito. Los secretos son entre la casa y la persona. En cada habitación. Los secretos pueden ser recuerdos también, que uno comparte sólo con la casa, con el cuarto, con el recuerdo mismo.

La casa es un lugar personal, privado. Uno puede invitar a quien se le da la gana y dejarle quedarse el tiempo que quiera, pero debe ser claro que la casa no es suya, que el tiempo es contado, y que deberá dejar la casa en el momento que se indique.

La casa es como el corazón propio. Uno decide si quedarse en la casa sólo, o si salir a conocer las otras casas.

 

My friend asks me what went wrong. Why the women from before decided to leave. Why his heart remains broken. How he isn't getting anywhere. I tell him I cannot read minds but I can see him being in a better place without their pull. How he's doing better, how his job is something enjoyable and how he's finally independent and free to roam and do as he pleases.

It hurts me when my friends can't see themselves through the lense of my eye, full of true love and the best wishes. I wish they loved themselves the way I love them.

I wish they would forget the lives that didn't.

I wish I did too.

I could trust you with my heart.

 I trust your good intentions.

 I don't believe a word out of your mouth.

 Try

to find me

if 

I'm gone.

Look 

hard

with interest;

Because

I'm 

searching 

for

your face

around

the corner.

I've learned to bury things I hate deep in the ground, and I carry all the little trophies of your touch. But today, I'm gonna beat you to the punch.

 You rubbed your thigh with mine all fucking night long. As if I didn't notice. As if we were little kids. I kept pretenses as much as you. If you think you're strong, I'm three times more. My arm surrounded by your hand. You smell so nice. Kiss me like you like me for real. Turns out Johnny Cash is shy.

 

Have you hidden a secret.

Have you drowned it down yourself, trying hard to hide it with all its issues and its pains. I don't want to share it. I don't care about advise. What terrible idea to have someone else know. You hurt my feelings more than my body. Let's be quiet now, we've got a dark secret.

 

I am enjoying the weather. Sunshine on my skin, wearing open toed shoes for the first time in over a year. Life feels good right now. I enjoy the looks of spring.

I really dig it all right now. I'll leave the complaining for another time.

Happiness does suit me best. 

 

I like to believe I'm a woman who knows what she likes.

I like Frank Sinatra. I like watching the same TV show over and over and over again. I like neck kisses and the taste of coffee in my lover's tongue. I like burning incense and candles and yellow dim lights where I feel pretty. I like being told I am pretty. I like it when people notice slight things about me and tell me, I like it when I haven't noticed myself. I like making food for my friends and I like hearing people telling stories about exciting moments in their lives.

I like being drunk. I like the romanticism behind cocktails and how they're basically magic spells, with all their ingredients and intentions.

I like songs that remind me of when I'm drunk. That happy drunk. That comfy drunk. I like it when whiskey feels like a warm embrace from the inside. I like listening to Sinatra and Dean Martin, wasted on a Las Vegas stage in 1963 telling inappropriate jokes. I like Hozier's singing of Humours of Whiskey, sounding exactly like I imagine fae music would sound in the middle of a forest.

Come guess me this riddle, what beats pipe and fiddle,

what's hotter than mustard and milder than cream?

What best wets your whistle, what's clearer than crystal,

what's sweeter than honey and stronger than steam?

I like wine and wine stained tongues. I find them funny. I like how it smoothes any difficult conversation. I like popping open a bottle of Cabernet with those I love and sharing the moment. I like popping it open for myself and starting the longest skin care ritual while listening to Ariana Grande tell me I want finer things in life and that a man should leave me the fuck alone because I'm a star in space.

I like beer when it's a party and we're celebrating. The first beer I liked my cousin Aarón gave to me at a New Year's Eve party in my cousin Alma's backyard, next to a fire pit, and he recited Alan Poe's Lines on Ale and I couldn't but contain my excitement for a sip of poetry in liquid form.

Filled with mingled cream and amber,
I will drain that glass again.
Such hilarious visions clamber
Through the chamber of my brain.
Quaintest thoughts, queerest fancies
Come to life and fade away.
What care I how time advances;
I am drinking ale today.

I like funky cocktails, with their smoke and their little drops of stuff. I like trying them, searching for my favorite one. I like pretending they say more about me than they actually do, like my zodiac signs or my favorite books.

I like all booze parafernalia. Shakers and glasses, long spoons and droppers, infused this, simmered that, I like the use of garnishes and little stainless steel utensils. I like those cool ass bars downtown where they don't use blenders and you can listen to jazz. 

I like thinking about these feelings and living them all over again.
I think I just might get drunk tonight.

 

Your kisses feel like fire
all over my skin
you leave your red hot trails
and whenever I touch the burn behind
I remember vividly
how you're made of embers
that I don't want to extinguish.

I am wind that catches sparks
send them flying through the night
into the trees and the dry lands
I feel dangerous near you.

Set me ablaze, you forest fire,
we're quick to burn
intense flames rising through the skies
I see you lighting up the horizon
I bet they can smell the smoke from here.

 

In honor of my witch friend Ely's birthday, I'm making her a little something. And as your official kitchen witch, here's a recipe with magical intention.

Vegan Lavender & Lemon Cheesecake.

Ingredients:

• 2 Cups of cashews. For prosperity and communication.
• 1/2 cup of yellow lemon juice. For beauty, logevity and self-love.
• 1/3 cup of sugar. For love.
• 1/4 cup of coconut oil, melted. For protection.
• 2 tsp lavender. For tranquility, peace of mind and psychic ability.
• 1/2 tsp vainilla extract. For friendship.
• I make my crust with a cup of crumbled cookies and half a cup of vegan butter. No necessary intention in this one, just the vessel for my spell, I may smoke cleanse it if I'm feeling extra witchy.

Procedure:

1. Mix your crumbled cookies with the melted vegan butter until you get a sandy mixture that lumps together when pressing into your pie pan, I like using a springform pan.
2. Bake your crust at 180°C for about 8 minutes or until it turns a little golden.
3. Blend all the filling ingredients together, think about your intention as you add them one by one. You will get a creamy mixture, if it's too thick to blend into the creaminess you look for, you can add a little bit of almond milk to help out.
4. Fill your crust with the mixture, pop out any air bubbles that may form, then with a silicone spatula even it out.
5. Decorate if desired, I added a couple of lemon wedges and lavender buds.
6. Freeze for 5 hours or overnight.

Happy birthday, Ely. I believe your soul and mine are very old friends.

 There's bound to be a ghost in the back of your closet,

no matter where you live.
There'll always be a few things - maybe several things,
that you're gonna find really difficult to forgive.

"I've been afraid, I guess, of feeling orphaned. I'm scared of losing my mother to a disease like I lost my father so many years ago. I wasn't ready to lose him then, and despite it all, I'm not ready to lose her now. I'm terrified of the idea of being parentless before 30. 

I thought I would have at least one to go with me through it all.

I want to have a parent when I get married. I want to have children spoiled to pieces by a grandparent. I want to have a parent to rely upon when I am in shambles, confused about diapers and breastfeeding, potty training and all that crap that has to get done eventually. It's not nearly in the horizon yet,  but I wanted to feel like I could have that little support."

There's gonna come a day when you feel better,
you'll rise up, free and easy on that day,
and float from branch to branch,
lighter than the air
just when that day is coming, who can say? who can say?

She looked at me like if she could touch me through the motherfucking screen and she said,

"Loretta, dear, I'm going to let you know something you're not seeing. It's going to hurt you a lot, but knowing it will definitiely help you heal someday: You've been orphaned for many years now, you do not have parents. One because he died, and the other one because she chose to stop being your mother and tried to become your daughter. You have made it as an orphan for quite a while."

I'm gonna get myself in fighting trim
Scope out every angle of unfair advantage
I'm gonna bribe the officals, I'm gonna kill all the judges
It's gonna take you people years to recover from all of the damage

I stared blankly at the screen, feeling sore and empty, but somehow relieved.
It pains me to know how absent my parents have been in my life. How much I've had to do my own bringing up. It makes sense, all my quirks and my special ways of doing my responsible human things. I feel sad, and hurt but proud.

Our mother has been absent ever since we've founded Rome
There's gonna be a party when the wolf comes home.

 

my mom dates like if it was a professional sport
she goes all in in a matter of seconds
she gets lovebombed and she collects it all 
saves the feeling for posterity
she picks up fights when things don't go her way
she chooses men that become violent
who hit her the first chance they get
sometimes i feel she wants to fight them back
that if she were a man, she'd be violent too
hitting before speaking, never thinking before acting
she's a small woman like me
or i am small like her
she's full of energy and reckless ideas
bouncing up and down like a clumsy golden retriever dog
pawing around, tripping over her own tail
she goes around and around
every mistake repeated
like a broken record
that skips and skips and skips
every turn causing the most umpleasant of sounds
until shes's down on the ground
pushed down by herself of by her most recent acquisition
she breaks up with them
she makes empty promises i never asked for
she calls on the phone more
she gets a facebook request
she calls to let me know she's going out with the most amazing man
the record skips and it skips and it skips.

 

i'm 16 and feel melted and salty, like butter on a sidewalk,
i slide down my bedroom walls and spot my rug with stains
i become smaller by the second
drop by drop on the way down

outside my house i hear yelling and shouting
a fight has begun
it smells coppery and violent
i ponder how to run away

a fist breaks through my bedroom's window
glass comes raining down on my little twin size bed
shimmering with the moonlight
i try to recover, to unmelt and hide away

i'm 16 and i feel terrified of dying
way before the thought became desirable
i want to fix my broken window and my broken heart
unaware it will take about 10 years to heal

i stay scared
for years and years
the fear arises in the strangest moments
nothing but a sound, but a smell

i want to heal this pain from my mind
to become put-together
to no longer fear the smell of copper and the raining glass
i want to stop mentioning this incident in therapy

 

I'm getting older, and I'm getting dumber. Or at least now I know less than I did when I was younger. I used to profess, now I more like pro-wonder. I used to fear death, now I'm set to go under.

Estaba leyendo mis poemas viejitos y mis escritos de años pasados, y veo lo que está mal, lo que está herido. Sé que el tiempo me está ayudando a sanar. El tiempo, la terapia y el aprenderme yo solita. 

Escribí un post hace tres años -in the before times,- donde estaba estresándome de que cuando cumpliera 24 años ya me iba a sentir "adulta", que iba a sentir que ya todo tenía sentido y que estaba creando mi "picture perfect life" que soñaba en la adolescencia.

I'm turning 27 this year. Los del club. Los que tenía mi papá cuando me tuvieron.
Me gusta el 27, suena a que sigues siendo cool pero ya agarraste la onda tantito.

Han sido unos años bastante de la chingada para todes. Si no se me va la gente, la alejo poco a poco cuando me hacen daño. Estoy aprendiendo a cuidarme yo. También otres vuelven, como ALF en forma de fichas. Aquí están buscándome el lado. Tratando de arreglar lo que ya no tiene vuelta.
Hay personas nuevas, que me traen experiencias mágicas y diferentes y que no sé cómo le había estado haciendo sin ellas.

You come to offer every single bit you took.

The bits I used to like so much,

you now bring to me, as a present,

a return to sender,

broken, scabbed, charred,

faulty manufacturing, you claim,

after having worn them to threads.

I like what they remind me of,

I like the "what-ifs" you want me to recall

I see the ghosts of our togetherness

You used to be everything I wanted

but now... it's all I never want to have.

You are offering, open handed,

trying for them to look like they once did,

baby, I know you too well,

not even my magic can fix those broken bits.

I once loved you,

I truly did.

But now, you're mere shadows,

the darkness within seeped through.

I wanted to be grass under you

misty and cool

but you left me for the pavement 

you've been walking around on your bare feet

and you expect me to come and heal you.

March rains but April showers.
It rains like the sky is crying,
like it misses being near your face.

I think about you when it showers
about your ever loving for the rain.

How many years will I miss you
I have never learned to let go
so I expect to be calling for you
an eternity or so.

You'd be happy I like to think
if you were here and we were near
you'd be disappointed too
on my ability for patterns to repeat.

I miss you, love, with longing sighs
for worse times with better people
now that life's better and my heart is quicker
not having you around
turns me a little bitter.

March rains but April showers
may it shower me with memories
of your gentle smile and so much more.

Once again, it ought to be a long one.