The poem can wait. Living is the first draft to master. Sitting down to write comes later. A poem happens out of order, When the door is ajar and the Muse is asking what is for dinner. Whether the stove is on depends how much fire you can walk through. Memories are sleeping, hungry giants. You decide what stays, what goes. The point is— you have a purpose, long after the poem is finished, long…
The hum of the razor next to my ear sounds like an army of wasps taking formation at the front-lines of my overdue edge up. Each follicle of hair turned Agents of Chaos. But at least I am growing in some small way, silver linings in the darkness. My brother Brent used to cut my hair for every important event of my teenage life. We had the routine. He’d cut. I’d clean the hair and help hold the…
This is a love poem for my fiancé, Adela.
When I missed you, when we weren’t together, I would write down sing lyrics that made me think of you. Each a different melody of longing, a little soundtrack for my loneliness. That was years ago. And just the other day, I stare at you from across the room of our home I watch you exhale on the front porch Dusk before us, the faint echo of the wind chime b…
In the hallway of the Men’s bathroom at the Round Rock Roller Rink, I left my hand print on the right side of the wall. I dipped my right hand in green paint. It was a birthday tradition for anyone who had a party at the Roller Rink. Underneath your hand print, they write your name and your birthday. It was too much power for the 9-year-old in me. You can put your hand on any wall inside the…
Every night, I see the Oak tree across the street Towering over the houses and the power lines, pumping light into my heart. After all, I am a machine. Meanwhile, the Oak was born where it stands. I know how different I am from that which is rooted into this earth. We are both shadow makers, though, the Oak was here first. Elder Oak. All light is a lesson, though, we are different students. I…
Jessi picks up a crayon with purpose. Every color is her favorite color. She talks a sing-song of thoughts under her breath, washing the white paper sky ignoring the lines, she orbits around with color after color, determined to create. I ask her, what she created and she answers, This is what I created! I laugh and tell her to keep going. It is Saturday afternoon and Jessi is the color of joy. We…
At 55 miles per hour, a head on collision between two vehicles has enough force applied that both drivers could die on impact. A quick death, I suppose is a small mercy. I did not die, though everything in life ingrained the expectation that no one is that lucky. It was a Sunday in Giddings, TX, the day I should’ve died, but didn’t. Think impossible. Think inescapable fate. And I escaped. But the…
To pause Netflix when / your loved one takes a phone call / is an act of love.
“I move with the trees in the breeze / I know that time is elastic” – Fiona Apple, I Want You to Love Me
The world is not ending. It’s still here for now. I agree though, its end seems unfathomable— Separated from the soil, collecting tidbits about the coming extinction, the fate of the Glaciers, the disappearing honey, flowers I cannot name, all the forgotten scents saying goodbye to the clean…
I never had the patience for baking Probably had something to do with the need for precision, consistency, the undivided attention one must offer for goodness to rise. Stuck at home for over a month I decide it is time to bake to acquire the essentials, what’s required, no matter the purpose. At Costco, I buy 25 pounds of organic all-purpose flour. ALL-PURPOSE.
And can I just say, what a…
Teenage me walks across an empty field on a summer day. Nothing but God’s green, stickers, mosquitoes and Texas heat. My shadow is a guitar solo covered in sweat. Jimi Hendrix’s guitar. My feet travel a rambunctious soundscape. My feet are tired time machines. My father showed me Purple Haze. I’m walking backwards. Is it tomorrow or just the end of time? Either way, I’m pressing play. Muscle…
All day, we wait for the roast to fall apart in the most beautiful way. I teach you how to sear chuck roast in the Dutch Oven. The oil pops a righteous song We two-step in the kitchen. I tell you to trust the process. A textbook sear appears. We’re nearly there, my love. No need for a recipe, I know where we’re going. With a little patience, Dinner is on the way. Tonight we put our trust in the…
Strawberries, blueberries, apples, lemon juice and orange juice, sugar and slow heat collide. I witness the alchemy of time, what happens to sweetness in the fire. A watchman over the flames. Bearing fruit until it reduces into itself. When I say I create, I want you to hear homemade. I want you to think of my hands like a door, open and ready to work.
Taking our groceries to the car, the Saturday sky looms like a bully like Houston on a hot spring day. We put the groceries away, efficiently escaping the rain’s sudden arrival, just a second faster than the downpour. We missed the touch of a storm, and I praise serendipity with good timing from my driver’s seat, reminding myself that even the tiniest miracle is its own kind of chaos— a silent…
Take IH-10 West. Do not leave at 5 pm. Go when the sun lowers. 71 West is your exit. Drive five below for the first five miles. Stop only at Buc-ee’s in Bastrop. Do not get swallowed by the big blue sky. Do not take the toll road. Take the long way home. Call your mom an hour out. Call your mom a half-hour out. If mom is sleeping when you arrive, kiss her on the cheek. Tell her you’re home.
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What kept me going was not all the words I said out loud, or in my head, but the silence I had to make something out of all these years. Where I go in my mind is not always a hero’s quest, believe you me. I’m looking for meaning before the metamorphosis of the past. I know what it is to outthink my bones, turn them into a battleground Turn myself into a phoenix returning to its ashes Or a clap of…
Keep going.
Let me set the scene. April in Houston. Days after a storm. Blue sky and easy light slips through the blinds, fills the room like a river. A blue-jay lands on the fence outside my window. I’m overcome with the need to exclaim there’s a blue-jay outside! Amazed, at the phenomena of a day. The blue-jay flies away before I think further. Dusk is here now. Going on a walk with Adela, the fresh air…
Spent the morning staying in bed while Jesus rose from the dead.
Growing up, Easter Sunday was such a production. The basket, the outfit, the pictures, the church functions.
Now, pictures of my little cousins hunting cascarones in their front yards, the confetti cracked on their good clothes.
Smiles big as a Resurrection Sunday feast at a loved one’s house. For me, it was grandmas. Lockhart, TX.…
In the sixth grade, if we got up early enough, my mom would take my brother Brent and me before school at Round Rock Donuts, with enough change in our pockets we didn’t have to walk into the morning empty-handed. we bought donut-holes by the bag the orange icing, its own little sun— it is the perfect bite. A ritual, I would come to learn, are small blessings on a schedule. Back then, in the…
