RANDOM: The Truth About Post-Dating My Blog

That truth being that I do it, I write this crazy late and then change the date so it appears to have been written 'on time'. This particular post you're reading right now was in fact written today before the time I want it to go live, but the one for Monday, April 7? I'm writing it after I schedule this one. I don't even care. It's how I'm running things over here. Now you know.

That said, Bad Bunny did a great job at his Tiny Desk performance and I just want to make sure you all saw it.

But also, here's my favorite video from this latest album:

I love this song because, well, it's beautiful and melancholy, but also, it reminded me of this poem I wrote once:

How do you not run out of new things to say?  

I fell in love with someone who was on vacation 

He was observing fake routines— Breakfast-gym-coffee-tours 

That I’d mistaken for his true self. 

He’d sit at the bar reading classic Poe 

And presidential biographies, and I 

Confused posing with intellect 

He sipped red wine quietly 

Ate steak neatly 

Smiled at toddlers in the hotel lobby; bent 

To pet dogs on his afternoon walks 

And I took his actions for truth, when really, 

He was playing a part. 

He was playing at: Leisure Man TM 

Who: doesn’t check his bank account before splurging 

Is meticulously coiffed + dressed on a Tuesday 

Appreciates the finer things 

Likes himself 

I fell in love with someone who was hiding from another life. 

He pretended to listen and care and know 

What it meant to love and be loved 

He began sentences with, “Perhaps a better way 

To look at it…” to mask half-cooked theories and advocacies 

For a devil that never asked for his help 

He retired every night at 10pm, ‘to catch the evening news’ 

And never asked for too much— 

I confused him with a proper gentleman 

From another era 

But, in fact, I fell in love with a man who’d 

Taken a break from reality 

And here we sit. 

Not knowing what’s true. 

Except—this is the bed that we made, 

And we lie in it every night.

You're welcome.

Love & Balls,
Jaded
-----
en mi vida fuistes turista
tú solo vistes lo mejor de mí
y no lo que yo sufría
te fuiste sin saber el porqué

Love Is So Short, Forgetting Is So Long

Papi is dying.

And that is perhaps the hardest sentence I've ever had to write. But my Papi is dying and I'm here, again, in this place where nothing seems right and everything is unfair.

I have not become anything yet. He is leaving me before I can show him what I can become. He is leaving me before I can pay him back for giving me life. Before I can learn to be brave. Before I can learn responsibility. Before I can make it up to him and to Grandma, and I can't stop it. I have no power here.

I am still selfish. I want him here. I do not want to let him go. After him, there will be no other man that truly loves me, unconditionally. I am not ready to live in a world without him. Who am I, without him?

What happens to me on the day there is no one to respond to my pleas for bendiciones with, "Dios te bendiga, mi reina"? Do my blessings end?

I don't want him to hurt, to suffer, but I want him here. With me. So I can say, "I am here. I am yours. Don't leave me. Don't leave me."

Papi is dying and nothing seems right and everything is unfair.

I wish I'd known the last time was going to be the last time. I would have never let go.

...I would have never let go.

If You Don't Mind...

i'm gonna bathe in this love you've left behind by the bed
i'm gonna use it to rinse my hair; maybe soak my tired feet
maybe soak my tired soul

i'm gonna carry it in a Tupperware in my purse
feast on it on my lunch break; maybe add some pepper
to taste

i'm gonna sit it next to me on the sofa and watch
our favorite movie with it; i'll pop some popcorn and we'll
eat and laugh and

if you don't mind

i'm not going to tell anyone i still love you

*smooches...offering this contribution to Throwback Thursdays*
----------
I don't even remember for whom I wrote this. I must not miss him anymore, whomever he was.

I Fill This Void

with food.

So much food that it rises up into my esophagus
Teetering at the back of my throat
Threatening to spill out of my mouth

I fill that void
with sex.

Anonymous, no strings, fake names sex
Leaving in the dawn in a cab sex
Never call me again ever sex

I fill this void
with whiskey.

Shots lined up at the bar like chorus girls
Kicking their way down
Jazz hands scratching at my liver

I fill that void
with danger.

3AM alone on the platform
Taunting with my indifference, my apathy
Daring someone to come at me

I fill this void

with you.

*smooches...digging in the crates for Thursday*
----------
this bad poem totally describes my 30s. totally!

10.01.97

behind my lids
images of dancing tree limbs
and tumbling leaves
flow through like silent films of
Autumn

i watch, serenely, smelling
the breeze, feeling the scents
on my cheeks, waiting for the intermission
trying to remember
where the concessions were being sold

*smooches...just trying to make it through the week*
----------
I figured you wouldn't rightly care if I posted a fall message in the middle of a heatwave

What A Conversation We Had

We shared a stolen glance;

In a ball gown and black tie room,
a crowd of diamonds and stilettos
and champagne,
our eyes found each other
and smiles followed
yours with slight dimples and creases
mine with sharp edges and adoration.

Silky whispers caressed our ears
a meshed chatter fluttering by
nodded at, ignored

Only your laugh lines hold on to me;
their aged wisdom traveling from
lip to chin, across your brow-
and your smile, I fall into it
like Alice down the rabbit hole

I follow your smile
floating and weightless;
I am airborne in your presence
I can be anywhere, anything
transformed and reinvented

The air kisses my cheeks
chilling the curves of my skin
ruffling the layers of my dress
and when I touch ground it’s
your smile that envelopes me
holds me like a warm blanket
in winter, plush and comforting
and soft—I wrap myself in it each
subsequent night

And then I am on the Sears Tower
looking down at you waiting for
your smile to catch me
I want to fall again
I want to stay in your glance

Across a ball gown and black tie
room, with champagne glasses
and stiletto steps
our eyes found each other and
smiles followed.

And you noticed me.

*smooches...wishing John Paul Cusack the happiest of birthdays*
---------
next week we'll go back to inspirational Fridays. promise!

Birthday Vacation Countdown: "Something About--"

--your stance, your presence
holding grinding melodic tones
infusing me with rhythm

your sweat dripping, dangling
off the ends of each curl

your fingers dancing over
chords; their swiftness a
grandeur before me

I wait for that gust of wind
to expose your face, deep
into the riffs and progressions
I close my eyes and I can see it

Your music..
You...

are those your bedroom eyes?

do your lips taste sweet behind
that cloud of smoke, with ashes
scattered about your feet?

do you sway that way
when the lights go out?
if it were just us in a room
with no eyes?

just another cool cat in a top hat?
with something about him?

what would our song be?

*smooches...remembering how we became one eight years ago*
-----------
Irene remembers; she was there when I got my first tat :)

Spring Poem

It's blinding me...

a warmth in my room woke me to the
delicious fear of a bright yellow
something, something so radiantly loud
that my face sought refuge from the glare

silently, peeking through my fingers,
i saw the drapes were open,
leaving me bare...exposed...weak
desperately shielding my eyes

helpless, I tossed my pillow
at that blasted window, scaring
away the chipper singers who had
begun to compete with the alarm clock

and like an angered Zeus who’d
lost his thunder, I sprung out of bed
still dizzy from sleep,
frantically wondering:

What happened to the snow?

*smooches...observing the swiftness of time passing by*
---------
I swear just yesterday it was Christmas!

This Is What Happens When I Can't Sleep (12.10.06)

i crave detachment

i want you to swoop in,
take what you need from me
and leave
i don’t want poetic mutterings
or lingering kisses
i want harsh roughness,
the kind that leaves a mark
on my soul

i want you to pick me clean
of feeling and emotion
leave me shaken,
alone in the vacant corners
of the room
with nothing
of comfort or peace
for miles

i want you to rape my mind
and yank tears
from my eyes
i don’t want the shelter
of your arms
or whispered promises
i want lies and betrayal,
the kind from which I won’t
ever recover

i want you to love me fiercely
and then throw me
away
laugh in my face
and tell me I’m nothing,
nothing, nothing
until all I can hear
is the sound of your voice
saying it

*smooches...remembering a particularly bad time*
---------
I'm surprised y'all never had me committed!

At Night...

...is when I notice you're not here

I reach out for you
from the corners of my room
only to have the memory of you slip through my fingers

I stumble around in the dark
trying to follow your scent
only to find myself up against these four walls

At night is when I am aware
of all the silence outside my window
and the noise inside my head

And that neither one will tell me
where you are

*smooches...getting it all out of my system for the week*
---------
I hope I haven't been too much of a downer; it's been a rough week!

House Keeping: A Jaded Poem

I'm in the process of deleting and consolidating the 50 trillion blogs I maintain, and intertwining them here. From time to time you will see a repost from those other blogs that you never, ever visited (hence why I'm shutting them down) so in essence, it's all new to you, right? Enjoy, bitchezz!
-------------- 
we were a tangle of limbs the
morning you left
echoes of screeching tires sang
along the parkway below our window
and last night’s fried platanos were still on the table, forgotten.
you stole a kiss from me that morning. as I
stared at the sword encased above your desk
you mumbled, “What are you thinking about?”
“Montauk,” I whispered. “The waves at Ditch Plains.
And the roach spray we bought at that 99-cent store in Miami. Remember?”
you planted another kiss on my face to hide
your lapse in memory. You didn’t remember any of it.
still, my face found a temporary comfort in the curve of your neck, your cologne still lingering with our last trip together,
and we both let sighs escape from our lips.
we were a beautiful mess that morning: me the girl from Brooklyn with too many memories and you the boy from Yugoslavia with none, waiting to be tidied up.

*smooches...showing you some of my writing versatility*
-------------

this is a poem produced as a result of attending the Acentos Writing Workshop at Hostos Community College... in this assignment we had to create a poem using ten words that were written on the board (seen here in bold).