It’s not fun to time travel
To wake up 
In a room 
You don’t remember choosing
Hoping you’ll burst 
Into flames 

Scattered 
Your free will 
In the bathroom 
Self-respect
In a parking lot 
Count the bruises
Like a calendar 

You don’t lose yourself 
All at once 

Every day
Casting spells 
In bottles 
To make panic attacks 
Sound more like laughter 
To make liquor 
Taste more 
Like magic

Wondering how 
I clawed my face out 
When did I start plotting
For ways to 
Make myself go blind 
To make saints 
Out of shots 
Shots out of ashes 

The irony
Of drinking 
Flammable water 

Maybe 
I’ll bust
Into flames.

Ask a man how he’s doing

Watch him 
Tell you the weather instead 
Break down the forecast 
For the week 
Hiding anxiety, anger 
Pain 
Behind a sunny day 
Behind clouds 
Behind a clear sky
That is tired 
Of trying to translate 
Silence 

Watch him 
Teach thunder 
How to shape 
A fist
How to swing 
Into a storm 
Into a blizzard 
Into a cyclone 
Into silence  

Watch him 
Die of loneliness 
And call it

Strength.

I don’t know

when’s the last time

I felt safe in my body



There’s constant reminders

Of normalized inequities

Of standardized absurdity

Of ignorance



Constant reminders

That my flag

Is a battlefield

In this country



Mi latinidad

Is weaponized

Deconstructed

Into specks

And soundbites



I’m tired

Of this spectacle

This magic show

Where brown bodies disappear

In broad daylight

Where politicians

Perform moral theater

Staging grief

So thoughts and prayers

Become eulogies

For the inaction

Of a broken system



Ghosts in uniforms

Drag bodies 

On the pavement

Parading pain

And slashing any sign of dignity



I can’t keep up with the names



I forget

That chalk silhouettes

Are this country’s

Favorite past time



Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was murdered

Alex Pretti was murdered

Joan Sebastián Guerrero was murdered



I can’t keep up with the names



We’re digging graves

In a land

With open caskets

And half buried

Corpses



Let me melt

In this 

Melting pot

Lose myself

Between blue lines

And eagle shields

Maybe I’ll remember

What safety feels like

Or I’ll become rain

Acid

Scorching

Flooding

These whitewashed streets

Exposing all its cracks

All its bones

All its dead

And all its murderers



But water recedes

The storm blows by

And I’m still

In this body

This dark skin

That most days

Feels like a target

That most days

Feels like it’s waiting

For yellow tape

To make a monument

Out of it



I am not safe.

Joe Pambele, named after Joe Arroyo and Kid Pambele, two Colombian heavy hitters.

Those that met him will tell you that he was the sweetest boy. Big slobbery smile. Silky eyes like honey.

He never really understood his size. Always bumped into things, tried to squeeze into spaces too tight for his frame. Tried to sit on everyone’s lap as if he wasn’t 100 pounds.

He lived a full life. 15 years where he was loved and cared for and spoiled (mainly by my grandma, who would sneak him some plantains and chicken always after lunch).

He was the sweetest boy.

The thing about migrating is that the place you left doesn’t stop moving.

A few years go by, and suddenly people start aging. Places start disappearing. Things start dying.

You can’t stop it. You can’t change it. Distance doesn’t hold anything, it doesn’t pause for no one.

It makes you grieve from over here, thirty four hundred miles away, while new developments go up, trees get chopped down, and everything you knew slowly makes its way underground.

I lost Luna four years ago. I lost Joe today. Soon it’ll be Melo, my other dog, my grandma, my cat, my mom.

Until all that is left is pictures of what life used to look like.

I wish I could’ve said goodbye. Actually, I wish I didn’t have to.

Rest easy, Gordo ♥

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