Hyena Spots

Keep running, child

Keep running, child, for they can only
shackle those who
stand still.

Fan the fires of your violent youth, for
there is grace in
your craving,
harmony in
your desire.

Hurl the crown of complacency to the
bloody gutters of
ordinariness and run,
child, keep running.

Tread quick but heavy:

Carve your name into their memories
with your wild
butcher knife smile
forever twisted in
the anthem of instinct.

Leave the trail behind you lined with
the smoldering carcasses
of your conquests
their lifeless lips
forever twisted in
the melody of your fire.

Oh, how they will beg and plead, some
even flaunting their
gilded chains.

But you, child, you know better, for

You are a hyena who knows nothing of
the leash,
whose symphonic
sledgehammer laughter
shall forever ring
beneath merciless stars
who know nothing of
agony, nor bliss.

You are a wild horse neither bridled
nor blinded,
the horizon heaving
in a periphery
blurred by tears
shed for nothing
save the wind,
the steady staccato
of raw hooves
crushing concrete to gold.

Keep running, child, on towards the horizon
for perfect
freedom
awaits you
behind
that elusive, flaming crest.

Anonymous asked: Your writing is beautiful.

Thank you. You’re too kind.

To Pluck Feathers

“Only unfulfilled love is romantic.”
-Woody Allen

Romance dies once you realize
that the one
you love
is human, too.
Just like you.

Until that sorry realization
occurs, well,
ain’t it hunky-dory.

Every one of her winks
closes
your throat.

To make her laugh is the
pinnacle
of creation.

In the slightest of
her gestures
even a vagrant
like you
can find
the solace
of home.

And Jesus, when she has you,
through clenched
teeth you beg
her to carve
her name
on your back.

When she has you,
you lose all fear,
even of death.
Even of ordinariness.

Then time passes.

And as it does to
all else, it
slowly suffocates.

Even your love,
the one so pure, so true.

Even your love,
grows tarnished and worn.

All the fights
and the farts
grind your heart
on a
cheese-grater
until all
that’s
left is a
calloused nub
that thumps.
Occasionally.

A bitter angry lonely phase
will come and
remain for as
long as it takes for
the loneliness
to soften that
calloused wad.

Until you are tender enough
to fall for
yet another
angel, only
to pluck her
feathers.
One by one.

Sin Besos

His lungs were aching from all of last night’s smoke. He lit one only because he was unsure of what to do with his hands, himself. His gaze fell upon the wooden ripples of the terminal’s roof supported by enormous yellow arms outstretched as if in surrender. In the distance, framed by one of the obtuse arches of the terminal’s roof he could see the four towers of Madrid set against an unusually cloudy backdrop.

Puffing lightly on his cigarette, his thoughts turned to their walk through Puerta del Sol just an hour before. The square was wet and shining after an early morning drizzle. Street-cleaners in bright green and yellow uniforms swept up all the crushed Mahou cans and crumpled wads of protest literature, their long shadows striping the rain slicked plaza. The pedestrians scattered through the square were either rubbing the sleep out of their eyes on their way to work or young fiestadores staggering down the steps to the Metro to sleep the new day away. It was 8 a.m.

‘It feels so foreign,’ she said.

‘What does?’

‘We’ve never seen Madrid at this time of day.’

He had wanted to comment on her word-choice. He had wanted to say other things, as well. Instead he just nodded and adjusted his posture, throwing his shoulders back into a pose of feigned self-assuredness. The only audible response she received was the hiss of the plastic wheels of her two suitcases rolling behind them on the wet slabs of stone.

When he smothered his butt atop the trashcan, he turned to look at the four towers once more. They made him think of gravestones. He then chuckled quietly at his propensity for melodrama as he shuffled back in to the terminal.

It was easy to spot her strawberry blond hair, done-up in a tasteful bun. Looking how she looked, one could never tell that she had been out dancing until five the night before. She was still standing in the queue and did not see him as he made his way past her and all the strangers orchestrated and coordinated by straps of black vinyl.

From the wall he was leaning on he watched a pretty Colombian mother dancing with a stroller, the infant inside it giggling all wide-eyed and dumb. A trio of old Portuguese men with smoke stained beards laughing and hugging. A Dutch couple with immense packs strapped on their backs, their hair tied back in matching, greasy blond ponytails staring up at the gate listings.

He watched the other strangers pass, listening to the soft, orchestral amalgam of foreign tongues humming under the high ceilings of the terminal. He wondered where the strangers were going, where they were coming from. He wondered who was waiting for them.

‘Hey,’ she said, materializing beside him.

‘You ready?’ he asked.

She shrugged, nodded once without looking at him. They began walking towards the security check-point, the heels of her black boots clicking on the marble floors with authority, direction. Their procession was wordless, a certain sense of finality silencing them. She along with her clicking heels stopped at the gap in the vinyl straps.

‘And what about you?’ she asked.

‘Hm?’

‘Estás listo?’ she said, her accent harshening the grace of the language.

He managed to smile. They hugged. They said their thank-you’s. Their good-bye’s. He asked her to tell everyone back where she was going that he sends his regards. Since they were neither European nor lovers no besos were exchanged.

Finally, they exchanged sad, corner of the mouth smiles and she began to weave through the vinyl-guided lanes. With all the turns and lanes of vinyl vacant, her winding back and forth seemed ridiculous. Taunting. They didn’t know whether to look back at each other or not. He watched her walk a few yards, then turn, walk a few more, then turn again until at last she reached the stacks of plastic basins and metal archways and young people dressed in an authoritative manner, with plastic badges on their chests and batons at their hips. She placed her black boots and her purse and her coat in a plastic tray.

Once she passed through the metal detector she looked back and smiled. They waved once through the glass and across the distance. Then she was gone.

His feet were cemented where he stood, where he had watched her disappear along with all of the comforts and familiarities of where she was going and where he was from. Her presence over the last two weeks had poured upon him. The constant burden of being a foreigner, the silent alienation, had been flung aside and forgotten during her stay. As he stood there, his boots sinking into the marble floors of the terminal like wet concrete, the weight of the aloneness crawled back up his spine and situated itself upon his shoulders.

He stuffed his hands into his pockets and sniffed once. He refused to let himself cry over her departure, for they were not lovers and he sure as hell wasn’t European.

After a minute of huffing in place, restraining all facial twitches and blinking hard as the weight settled back into place upon his shoulders, he finally did it.

He succeeded in freeing his left foot from the quickly setting mold and gave a little Charlie Brown kick with his heel, the impetus which managed to float him down the channels of marble and glass and steel and down the escalators and through the ticket booth and down another escalator and onto the train back to his apartment where no one was waiting for him.

Having spent the majority of his childhood and adolescence in the weightless purgatory of joint-custody, the concept of home had always been elusive to him. Home was simply a place to lay your head and keep your things.

Ma’s place. Pa’s house. Never home.

Trudging into adulthood, he had thought he’d maintain this mentality all his life. It kept him free to roam. It kept him safe. Safe from the constraints of complacency and commitment. To have a home was a surrender to ordinariness, a forfeit of the freedom that only the absence of a foundation can allow. Those waiting held the shackles of love behind their backs.

But as the train pulled into Chamartin and the bases of the four gravestones passed by to his right all daunting and dumb, he began to reconsider.