heart break

written in collaboration with victor sotomayor

in a long enough timeline the greatest passion expires. . .
when my heroes are guilty of secret crimes,
when my last card is, ah, i was loved once.
when i dishonor the dead who, in death,
give more life than i: they don’t
have the privileges i have, but

see how they enlighten everything
while i make it all more stupid.

mesmerized by neruda, morrison, and poe,
listening to the beatles ad nauseam, and
those books patiently await: they sit
in my car collecting dust
along with my dreams
and hopes. this

poetry of mine won’t measure
up to the standards i’ve set. i

raised a bar so high, made it impossible to reach. now,
an abysmal distance between us: i feel you though
we’re far away – i distance myself, detach my
emotions to avoid getting hurt; when we’re
lost, we need something to show: most
hope for that much. but i,

i hope for poetry to redeem all, then
i repeat myself till my heart fails:

i run out of poems: my muse, tangled in spiderwebs
of my own making: i suffocate her, i choke her:
her voice echoes within grey cubicles,
phone signals, white noise: and so
my body shuts down, starting
with my eyes: everything

becomes shadows in shadows: what light i give
to others, i keep none for myself: yet i still

feel it in this chilly, black night:
i feel it sitting with me:
my light, this poetry,
though now just
a memory:
this

skip in my
heartbeat.

:
:

~V & A

adulthood, rebooted

what others like about you
most is the first thing they’ll loathe:
understand this and be my friend, even

if your life, instagrammed
a stone’s throw from me, is like
a souvenir from a vacation i can’t have.

after every magic trick we’re left
behind by those we should count on
most: our angels – they love us and then

they don’t, and that’s that. and so
we’ve grown above old watermarks:
love, monogamy, movie-worthy endings.

to get anywhere we must, by nature,
leave something behind, and there’s no promise
there’ll be anything to absolve us when we get there.

:
:

~A.