Two empty cages looking for their nightingale; words from which belief has flown too late against the night of the world hanging out toward me: its immanent body suspended in emergency across the burning precipice of sky— my body, the symptom of its burning, like a mirage swung open— I am wedged into these inaccessible earthworks and pressed like an enormous question— “merely to know and let you go”: no body is a tragedy.

Fluir, fluir, fluir Coexisto tal lluvia. Flow, flow, flow, I coexist like rain. Conecto con todo lo que está y al mismo tiempo no es visible Un ser que no buscar ser visto… si no ver hacia adentro. Connecting with everything that exists and at the same time is not visible A being that does not seek to be seen… rather seek within oneself. Lluvia, agua soy Como agua fluyo, Como agua voy y vengo. Like water I flow, Like water I come and go. Enseñanzas ancestrales, guiándonos sin ninguna fuerza Nadxielii, sangre zapoteca. Ancestral teachings, guiding us without any imposed force, Nadxielii, Zapotec blood. Mientras más busco, menos me encuentro. The more I seek, the less I find within. Vivo en las memorias de Pinotepa y Oaxaca, Sonriendo con colores de alegría y nostalgia, Viviendo la vida a través de los olores de mi tierra. I live in the memories of Pinotepa and Oaxaca, Smiling in colors of joy and nostalgia, Living life through the fragrance of my hometown. Lluvia, agua soy La naturaleza es maestra, Coexistimos en armonía y de pronto olvidamos que solíamos existir separados. Nature becomes our teacher, We coexist in harmony and suddenly forget that we used to be apart. Rutinas diarias que sofocan, de lo único que podemos estar seguros es de que todo cambia. Daily routines that keep us from breathing, the only certainty is that everything will change. Manos en el corazón, Corazón en el cielo. Hands on heart, Heart in the sky. Joyas de oro de Monte Albán y jade para recordarnos de dónde venimos. Monte Alban gold and jade to remind us where we come from. Ojos cerrados para sentir, Manos cruzadas para despertar al alma. Eyes wide shut to feel, Overlapping hands to wake our souls. Ancestros que viven, sanan, conectan y crecen en mí. Curamos todo aquello que nos impidió vivir. Ancestors that live, heal, connect and grow in me. We heal everything that stopped us from living. Curamos años de opresión y vergüenza, Curamos resentimientos y traumas generacionales. We healed years of oppression and shame, We healed resentments and intergenerational trauma. Cosijo, nuestra madre tierra te llama Lluvia, agua soy

Good Mexicanas are afraid to take up space Our Catholic guilt always reminding us that Eve was created from Adam’s rib, We are raised to be as small as possible Bred to serve our fathers and brothers and tios; Then our husbands Our womanhood is defined by how subservient we can be Because in our culture A woman who isn’t controlled by a man is dangerous A woman who has a mind of her own For one brief moment Eats fruit from the tree of knowledge And doom us all I think of Eve often She gave us war and famine and disease And art and love and literature Did she really doom us? Or are we just afraid of women who think For themselves

Sometimes toward evening When the sun is giving up When I have cleared the dinner table And my husband sits in the library His fingers stroking the curve of a pipe And my children sleep upstairs Their rosebud mouths buttoned and silent I leave the house, the apron, the dishes Leave the lighthouse on the hill Toward the grass and shore and shadow To stand at the water’s mouth As it opens wider, wider The moon pulling it closer by the teeth And wonder what it would be like What would it be like What would it be like What would it be like { inspired by "Lighthouse Hill" by Edward Hopper }

The red brick building of my body has infinite rooms: upstairs, I slick against a lover. Downstairs, I eat until my stomach swells. Outside, I present a photograph of what the world wants from a woman, but between the legs of a wife, beside a sleeping child who may or may not one day enter the brick building of my body, I undress alone then peer out at the bush I planted myself in the yard. One day I will climb the steel ladder of my body, step onto the roof, that is always in progress and float away.

For all that we know, we are the snow. We are what we should be, transcending boundaries and being free eternally. The abstract ashes of the past bring a brittle clarity of what should be. For all that we know, we are the snow.

"For the woman looking at their tomboy reflection We are never just a phase to grow out of Capable even when others try to diminish our equality We are more than gender or biology We are compass So don’t lose your way Our button-ups & bow-ties Replaced the expectations of heels & made-up faces See, I made-up with the withdrawal from self Found comfort in the construct of masculine so I no longer view dresses as a threat Its too many days the giant in me looks down at my feet Speculating how little I am While this little me sees a version much too big to embrace Its spending too much time looking at the wrong things These projected ruminations my insecurities reflect But I know I am enough I have had enough Been enough when I wasn’t seen standing at feet This enough is woman looking at their tomboy reflection in a phase not to grow out of but in to This, giant on the horizon waiting to arrive"

If I were to paint a portrait of my mother She would not be sitting in repose Like some saint or goddess Hands folded, skeletal, across her chest. After 150 electroconvulsive therapy treatments, After years of overmedication, After years of misunderstanding and After years of trying to be normal. Rather, confused and wide eyed like a Baby. Sitting on a couch looking at the Piles of dishes and laundry that will be Done “later.” Sitting in the seat of a plane with tickets To the wrong destination. An escape Hatch that doesn’t open. Phones that don’t pick up, and a silent breath. In that portrait of my mother, I see myself Trying to hold it together for a few more Weeks. To make it through the hardest part, The part before the breakdown. She sits on a piano bench, hands extended And shaking from emotion. Can’t get the Notes together, they come out jumbled And her voice cracks. But for the grace of god. But for the grace of god. But for the grace of god. But see, I don’t believe in god. So who’s grace do I get to wait for? Easing the suffering of others is its Own grace. And if I could show this portrait to her, What she would say? I don’t Know. There isn’t anything left unsaid except I see you, Mom.

Identity is a skin! Like frogs we shed and devour that gory placenta of what was Born again, naked and new, we testify our true self in the cleansing rain and thunder we steal from the gods the power of death and resurrection Identity itself is ours to dissolve and solidify again and again and again in myriad form Solve et Coagula The mystery of transition The power of renewal All is Being And Being is beautiful

i ghost on every party before i get there. i’m afraid maybe i’m a ghost and everyone’s afraid to tell me. i’m the death of the party. a bundle of frayed nerves beneath my skin. i’ve picked up worrying. i worry all the time. broken thoughts on a loop- i stay busy so my mind doesn’t have time to kill me. these days i identify as something in-between. i identify as anxiety attack. a high-functioning breakdown. a cat on its last life. my chest is full of doom. can barely leave the house, can barely watch the news. i am sick like the world is sick. i miss people who have forgotten me; myself most of all.

The passionate lover The royal bombardier The jacket was full of blood So I cleaned it with snow The baptized scientist The habitable fear You should remember What I told you I know Ghosts of the prisoners past All live in your soul Look in a silvery glass All covered in coal

To find yourself, first you must slough off the costumes collected over the years. Scrub and scrape your skin. Amputate each limb, then keep carving until there’s nothing left. Put the pieces it in a pile. Soak it with gasoline, and set it on fire. The flames will burn, turning it all to thick, black smoke. At first, the haze will blind you, but as it clears, you’ll see behind it— bones. Search each fragment. Look for bright, clear skies, joy burning like the sun. Clean these carefully; they are precious. Some may need repairs or reinforcement. Pour into them what they need. Seek out the missing puzzle pieces. Build each vertebrae carefully. Don’t rush this. Stability will survive, will stand up to trouble. You may feel rough and hard, but search for softness. You’ll find it sleeping, having slipped through cracks. Coax it out into the open. We don’t have to be what we were or what we are or what they made us. Who you are is who you are. Can you see it? Can you feel its edges? Bear its weight? Does it lead you deep within? Does it ground you? Or does it send you spinning out to space—detached, untethered, distant?

i started sewing myself together last night, darning the holes i keep tearing in my skin, reattaching my limbs, fixing all my broken angles, stitching myself together with the miles of thread i stole from the one craft store in the one street town where I grew up, bandaging my wounds, patching my body with faded family photographs, pages ripped from diaries, stained cotton shirts and jeans with worn out knees, and the fallen leaves and flower petals i’ve been saving and pressing between the pages of my favorite poetry books, mending all my fractured seams with the different types of stitches i learned in my fifth-grade sewing class elective

Who are you? Emerged from a cocoon more vibrant and colorful and happy You are a beautiful stranger I grieve A metamorphosis too gradual to see if watching in real time You’ve shed everything you were before Now that you’ve bloomed I reacquaint Even the smell of your skin is alien You’ve studied how to act and talk and walk in this new body “Am I pretty?” you ask and I say “Yes” Infinitely You shrink yourself anyways “How do I look more like a butterfly?” you ask But I don’t know. I’ve only ever been a moth. I lose you again when I watch you fly south. But only one of you visits me in my dreams.

I have chosen the pink dress. I have been terribly good. I have made myself so good, sweet and chattering and a girl and so ready to be known, held to the light, and handled kindly that at the vanity this morning, I did not notice that I have once again begun to vanish, my dress-hem, my hands. Imagine me, at the party, needlework and sateen, papaya-pink. Thinking myself seen. In my pretty dress, that anyone could look and understand what I am. But I will come home. And as I undress, I will look out into the cold clearing-house of the evening where the pink in the world is pinched out like gnats from the fruit bowl obliterated while the moon crawls upward, and the vanished women creep out to cover the dark plains and call, come and see

I am smart I am good I am strong I am precious I am kind I am beautiful I am enough I am stupid I am bad I am weak I am worthless I am fat I am disgusting I will never be enough

Post Falls, Idaho is six hours and thirty-six minutes by car, less if traveling faithfully south on the western outline of the state (impossible in actuality due to a lack of roads that track that outline) from the city of Homedale, Idaho, where my grandparents lived when I was a child. Homedale was not a city of tourism and nostalgic truck stops like Post Falls, and the only falls to be found there were of a more personal nature. Homedale was a city of working poor that saw themselves as separated by race rather than as unified by economics. I can imagine that many of the people of Homedale dreamed of road trips to places like Post Falls. The city of Post Falls was named in honor of the majesty of the rivers and mountains that surrounded it. Homedale was named Homedale because someone drew that name out of a hat. My grandparents lived on a farm but they weren’t farmers. My grandfather was a career Army man so I assume he must have been retired when I visited him and my grandmother as a child of ten in the summer of 1988. Was that the case? Did my grandparents retire to, of all places, Homedale, Idaho? It was a hot summer the only time I ever visited. One for the record books, I heard. I remember eating big red tomatoes warmed by the sun, plucked from the plant and sliced and salted and served on tea plates in mid-afternoon. I remember walking the fields around the house with my grandfather, picking blackberries off of overgrown vines and popping them into our mouths, bursting and sour. I remember a movie theater parking lot beaten by the sun, full of teenagers headed to or from one of the two movies available to them in the summer of 88 in the city of Homedale, Idaho, and I remember being shocked by their language and wondering if I would ever be cool. I remember foolishly being embarrassed that I was at the movies with my grandparents. If you had asked me then if my grandparents were in love, I would have told you yes because they were married and because I was ten. If you ask me that same question now, as a woman of 40, I will tell you that I don’t know. My grandmother was devastated when my grandfather died a decade ago. She has been half of herself since then, and I imagine will be for the remainder of her life. Isn’t that proof of love? Ten year old me would have thought so. But as I came into my teenage years I began to hear stories of my grandfather the alcoholic, and of my grandmother as a homely seventeen year old who married the only man who offered. The mythologies of childhood are far removed from the realities of womanhood. Those blackberries off the vine gave me food poisoning and bloody diarrhea and as a result I spent three days at the age of ten in a diaper, laying in sweat in the back of a van with no a/c traveling from Homedale, Idaho to Modesto, California to visit more family, sipping, of all things, a baby bottle full of grape juice because my grandmother thought the sugar would be good for me but she didn’t want stains on the upholstery. She and I are no closer now than we were then. Has she enjoyed her life? I don’t know. Was there a time in her life when she thought, “This is it. Right now, at this moment, I am perfectly happy.” I could ask her, but I won’t.

Wear it like armor, right? Before the explore, expand, understand of enlightened people forgets that third step and becomes conquer, subjugate, erase. It starts simply. Rainfall less than expected, reasonable discourse. Debate me, you coward! And who knows when the balance tips. Now there is no rain, no crops, no pride, no Baba Yar. Starving we clutch protective amulets. Terrified we huddle under rainbow blankets seeking a return to just a few years back when maybe things weren't perfect but we had enough to eat, we had enough to hope. Trying to understand, like playing an instrument on your shoulders. We hear a single note, so the notes are fine. But when you learn to understand, you can play something beautiful in it's own self. To play it at right angles and with a very deep voice. And then maybe actually be enlightened. And the rains will fall and we won't be seen as absurd demonic caricatures, but just people.

and as it sways it catches trapped and strained moving sharply it winces at the structure the passerby closely follow their own footsteps to and from wherever and when the wisp reaches the wire they hardly glance oblivious until they too become entangled in the rigid pathway their own doing it glances back at them a narrow strand strung around its limbs tensed and looming it longs for space unwilling to part with the unencumbered growth it resists the category the definition the simplistic construction what they've built stands imposing cutting fixed and rendering it almost motionless almost spent almost broken almost

Do not believe the negative words you write over yourself Whatever noise the fluttering birds in your head are creating It’s is easier to hurt yourself than to love yourself It is easier to blame yourself than to appreciate yourself It is easier to allow someone to hurt you than to yell for your worth Through the dark haze believe in your ethereal gaze Realize that you shine bright, realize that you are a light that leads others Craft your rage and show the world your revolution Light on and lead on. Si se puede.

I am privileged expression, free to light candles and ignore the pain of color, or defy the acts of brethren who tread carelessly upon the thin lines of history and hate. He is the summation of choice, goodness grieving for purpose, charged by love to minimize struggles and find a hand to share, a despairing optimist blind to a father’s ideal. We are inspiration incarnate and persuade violence across time; self-treason is the mantra of destructive enrichment by mortal gods in search of meaning. We are dangerous innate delights, courageously corruptible, with dreams that cannot die.

My body is not my identity My body is beautifully fractured A work still in progress My body is a flesh prison Made for someone else’s life I am Frankenstein’s monster Awakened from a long slumber I am a man in his prime A life just beginning They call me a hero They call me brave But I am just a man Seeking freedom, truth, and life Just like you Instead of death I am reborn And in that restitching The magnificent fragments Tell a story A story I will write Until I rest for good.

I am not your Venus. I am no slender sliver of petal pink flesh shucked and served On the half shell For you to devour I am a thicc thighed goddess These rolls you’d rather I hide Churn and curve Like the ocean tide My stretch marks and spider veins you so despise Bloom across my dimpled skin Like ribbons of seaweed Even though you cast me aside I rise Thick like smoke, rock and salt A primal perfume that stings your eyes And makes you choke You balk at the meeting of my thighs But my chub rub is merely the shifting of tectonic plates that creates new continents.

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My eyes weep for the suffering your tortured soul endured - Nigel Shelby My lungs gasp choking back screams of resistance in hopes of compassion - Eric Garner My fingers bleed clawing at hardened hearts for a freedom never realized - Emmett Till My feet firmly planted in the soil of native lands baring strange black fruit - John Hughes My resolve quacks under the weight of systemic erosion of hope - Barak My mind unable to dream, rest, or manifest visions of black prosperity while living a daily nightmare - Martin Black bodies Black hearts Black minds Black love Black strength Black magic Black Resilience It’s CP Time

What if all there was left was this seashore and the sand sticking to our bare skin and hard sunlight bouncing off of jagged forms in the middle distance? What if the last music on Earth was the cacophony of the waves and the thumping bass of the tide and us, huddled together like harmony in the cold funnel of last light, free and defiant as dissonant notes?

i was surrounded by silence it was cold on my bare feet the edges were serrated majestic the beauty i walked on ice i walked on ice i walked on ice i walked on ice i walked on ice

Listen to the silence of the dead. If they could still speak, what stories would they breathe? The fever of poetry The drunkenness of beauty The horror of vulgarity The madness of glory These fleeting spirits Now etched into the secret rings of trees. Memories carve a path through the shady grove To a secret meadow Where old vines wind… Yes, We’ve carved out monuments to these fleeting moments... But are you listening? And what shadows are cast if we burn these monuments to the ground? Will we feel a scorching heat, or a comforting warmth As they burn away? Burn brightly Illuminate Tread lightly Listen to the silence of the dead Their ashes will enter into the heavens.

There is an open wound on the US Mexican border An administration who rips children from their mothers Bodies become battlefields Thousands of miles and death on the horizon You leave everyone and thing you know The other side looms, hope glistening on the horizon, And men come forward and rip your child from your arms Mothers without children, it might not be physical death. But it feels that way Our immigration system, a modern day genocide.

what we buried in the field. The black dog was not yours when you arrived here but she is now. I promise I keep secrets too. Tell me, how do you hold the light? How can you hand me stars like you’d hand me a cup of water or a mirror or a blade? What if I were weak like a man? What if I couldn’t stand it— tortured by the sublime? Tell me again—say it— that when the storm comes you’re taking me with you.

Something strange happened in the middle of the night We’d laid down for bed and we turned out all the lights Your breathing slowed down but I’d yet to close my eyes I was studying the valleys and planes of your midnight lines All of the shades and colors that appeared before me came to my surprise I saw you vibrant in the grey and subtle where your body lie

How heavy is womanhood? It weighs more than robe layers. And now that vulnerability is present, do you see me now? As your eyes rest on my landscape, I wonder who will teach you wisdom? Now that I have the world’s gaze, can you hear me? No? How about now that their hunger is louder than this anger? can you hear me now? still No? What can I do to be understood? My eyes are up here, And I’m screaming. If you can’t hear me now, You’re in for an unpleasant surprise. And your girl’s patience is running out.

Mira el cielo My great grandma left the mountains A cruelty ingrained by its facade A leathery nomad with hope Working towards freedom and finding bitter wisdom A rosy statue unchanged by her daughter’s love Her great daughter left the mountains And having eaten ants made of honey She’s a hymn singing itself Abandoned in a river’s valley A fighter floating to the ocean, both Lovely and divine Her great daughter left the mountains Buried in farmers’ fields as a child Battered and abused, she clawed Crawling through and past her righteous anger We grew up together learning to move Like sunflowers A Texas breeze between summer and fall My aunts and sisters, daughters and friends My lost loves Mira el cielo Every midnight water reflecting starlight As they leave the mountains for the sky

I bring my babies to a riot because there's no going back, no other option for us. I bring my babies to a riot because we are too starved to stay home. I bring my babies to a riot because neither nothing nor no one in this world will protect them like me. I bring my babies to a riot because we deserve bread and roses too. I bring my babies to a riot because my infant, my child, and myself all labor: My infant who labors for air, My child who labors for food, And I who labor for rent. I bring my babies to a riot because if we don't find freedom here we won't find it anywhere. I bring my babies to a riot because this revolution is for them. Let the old world fall away with my age, And let my children's world flourish with bounty.

I am part of a cosmic system and I am completely my own being separate yet woven into the fabric of the universe I am made of star stuff but I cannot answer why you and me exist Across the vast expanse of the cosmos there is mostly empty space and mystery Why do I exist? Who am I supposed to be? Why I can be anything I want to be as a speck of dust that is barely noticed by the universe-at-large

Hello? Who’s this? Oh, hey! It’s been a while! How’ve you been? It’s so good to hear your voice. I’ve missed you, you know. Remember how we used to talk all the time? How we’d check up on each other? Do you have time for that right now? Good! Because I wanna know how you’re doing. Like, how’s that big idea you mentioned last time we talked? Any progress on that? Yeah? Uh-huh. And… And what about that thing you were struggling with? I know that was hard. Did you ask for help? Sometimes you gotta, you know? Hey, I want to remind you that I’ve always thought you were a wonderful human. No, it’s true! I see you. You’ve always been stronger than you give yourself credit for. I’m thankful to know you. Anyway, I’m glad we talked, but I gotta run. Let’s promise to check in more often. I love you. Take care.

In beginning, She laid the foundations of the Earth. Pillars of granite anchor four corners. The delicate balance of man’s fragility. Purity. As weapon. As control. As prison, as stake, as claim. Wielded—for ownership over the egg. If it’s turtles all the way down— just another convenient way to neglect that Life is carried on the backs of women. Fairy-tale constructions—porcelain goddesses, shells, pedestals. It’s shells and shells and shells and shells. Seashells to make pretty, shelled peas to be useful, shelled expectations for making good wives—because, even one, whom can find? From the threads of our vessels, we weave new flesh for beings to embody— garments knitted through divine conjuring. Our placentas. Only the Creator’s love is unconditional. Such is real purity—used as pedestal, made into prison. All who subscribe to this invented uprightness gain their mirrored praise while yielding the base of their root power—the Source of Life’s origin.

“Queer ecology is transdisciplinary and interdisciplinary and “uses biology and evolution to contextualize non-normative sexualities, adaptations and presentations” where “there is intimate experience in boundaries, their construction and deconstruction” “Nature restructures boundaries.” “All seeds develop from male and female parts of the trees producing fruits” “Some Trees can reproduce asexually by budding” “Plants with perfect flowers,…are essentially bisexual, as the flowers contain both male and female sex organs” “There is no real division between animals and plants. We try to classify the objects into groups, according to the closeness of their relationships, but we must always remember that these hard lines are ours, not Nature's. We attempt, for purposes of our own convenience, to divide a whole, which is so bound together that it cannot be separated into parts that we can confidently place on different sides of a dividing line.”

My body, like the hills, ripples and rolls, through, around, and over, in dynamic transformations. My emotions, like the rhythms, collide and coalesce, into one song of impetuous frequencies. My spirits, like the colors, hue and illuminate parts sought and unseen in dynamic transformations. To focus on one part would simply not suffice. I'm a Gestalt of all these pieces corporally entwined.

This is my body. Your call cannot be completed as dialed. Please check the number and dial again.

A woman clean of received wisdom is how Joan Didion described Georgia O'Keeffe. A woman clean of received wisdom and open to what she sees.

What will become my name when I become a giant. What if I wear nothing but bark. A tree, the people’s shadow, the loom over loam. Who says the earth was solid like bedrock or soft like the melt of mud. Who wouldn’t learn to plant their feet deep until there is no tug when I pull? Why not root here, let my arms branch & reach for a language fit for yearning: constellations. What will my lineage say when you cut me to a stump. What dog will stay with me when touching the sky felt distant, a memory? Chocolate flowers’ bloom, tell me what does the sky say now when our days grow darker, when we wonder what kingdom will remain?

What is more sacred than sound mind and body? Tell me who are we? Galloping towards Ghandi? Swallowing wallowing hollowing Past gender-ing through glasses filled By hand and moisten by finger swinging bottle keys Pandering our personal understanding Plumbing under the sand and beneath the grandstand How to harmonise brass and woodwind Dissonant of Juxtaposition Beyond show me the getting to know me Better than I know my favorite color Favorite band Favorite positions to land Redolance of Just a po musician What holds this womb which molds this man To get her What I thought we would never understand outstretched hands Grasping still mellifluous Balance command Still Harmonising we stand Locked Rather Hinged To a planet and each other Celestially hung by our Crown Eye Throat Heart Solar Sacral Root No need to walk in each other's boot For the same sun crowns down to our sacred mother's father's Mother Groot The same water And puzzled rock the same pursuit Bend your gender And understand that Equation balance Is all that which life constitutes

Try something for me. Stand with your left hand on your hip. Stick that hip out, far, so far that your right heel comes off the ground. How does this feel to you? Bold? Provocative? Perhaps dainty? Would you feel any different if you were carrying a giant axe in your right hand? Also it’s 1895. I don’t know how that affects things for you. Sometimes when I’m at the grocery store, and I’m using one of those hand-baskets (you know?), I might need both hands free to wrap some produce or something. My instinct is to hold the basket handle with my arm, in the crook of my elbow, but then I pause. Is a man supposed to carry a basket that way? Does that motion make a statement about gender politics, and is that something I want out of my grocery trip? How often do artists use poses to make statements?

I paint my face in eggshell white Complete the look with a color wheel red wig I paint my presence with a broad brush Depriving myself of the intricacies which make me a mosaic I’m nervous of being seen that way I’m scared I won’t make sense someone will stare at me like an abstract piece in a museum and say “I don’t get it.” So Every night I wash the paint away Brush out the red wig And prepare myself to wear the costume another day Because being anything but for show would suggest I belong Like this world was meant for me too