Grandpa/Bob Alvarado

The sewing machine buzzing.
Fabric laid out. Waiting to be
made into something useful
and beautiful.

Lightly faded blue jeans
fit snugly around his
waist, punctual.

Lively as the Chile Relleno
on his plate.

Like the long curved
metal needle meant
to keep the fabric in place,
Bob holds together the many
strands of family in his life

Like the smooth roads, Bob
values specificity. Exact details.

His round eyes are like records
of his youth, spinning,
Playing memories from his past.

Jogger's Love Story

His eyes fell onto the paper belonging to
The woman whose heart he desired so much
Has stopped beating long ago.

He could imagine
As her pen wrote
Dodging the puddles of tears
That fell on her paper like rain drops
In spring:

....If not for the burn in my lungs
While we ran, perhaps then I would have said it.
As if it were warning me, to hold my tongue,
Save my breath

for myself and my own strength...

….The ground is cold but I must lay in it
As the fall leaf does,
To give itself up to the soil.
I must do the same, a sacrifice
Already chosen for me

...It was never my plan.
To meet you

Through blurry eyes, as I jogged
Hard to escape the growth.
I never meant to see...

But there you were.
Your steps beside me, steadying
My heartbeat
As if to be strong for me
When my own strength
Fell, you paced yourself
To my weakening steps.

… As if your love was unconditional
It was you who was strong for me
When I could no longer be strong for myself
Even when your love was thought
unrequited, your hand still rested
in mine, still sending surges through
my hollow body.

And now our positions are switched
you are the weak one,
But from mourning.
So now it is time I gave you strength
For I saved my last bit for you.

Ode to Writer's Block

Ode to Writer's Block

The crumpled up lined paper shows it
it is in the many black lines, swirls, and x's over those
poor reject lines

The Love that is
My love for you

On the days when nothing rhymes
Nothing illiterates
Nothing. Moves. No one.

This love is the deadendbrickwallavdexwah
screams and my heart sinks frustrated feeling
because love isn't easy
certainly not our love

And on the days you come around, we play
tug of war with my poems, with this paper,
except the woven words slip through my grip
burning my hand in place of a rope
its the nonsense sentences that pull me over the line
As you beg of me to yell uncle

You Win,
Damn, I love you.

The blank space covering my paper
you missed a spot, everywhere!
Now that's the feeling that attaches me to you
And your __ (Blank)__visits
Of white out lines
eraser bits
the 15th attempt at that last stanza
you mock me when I ask is any of this good?
Of course not, because I love you

Fiend

1. Meth-amphetamine compliments hit me like a drug
I'm addicted to you baby I'm an addict
But this addiction is unhealthy I'm a fiend
The adrenaline rush of your psychedelic charm
keeps me coming back for more
I can see
your white rock teeth shining
through your dull red, alluring
lips. They crush me.
I breathe in our connection like smoke entering my lungs
You leave tar in my lungs.
And stain my eyes red, only remembering
The painful prick of your unwillingness to commit


You are
Heavy on me like a depressant
but my heart races like I'm on stimulant
MDMA nights. Where you heighten my senses
The next morning I crash. Then all I'd like
is numbness

Wishing desperately for an intervention.

2. In my sober life nothing compares
to the pill popping pleasure of looking in your eyes
as a self proclaimed rehab champion
No one knows the withdraws
Ultimately
I relapse

Join Me in the Sky

Join me in the sky, won't you dance with me like
A pair of stars in a binary system
We can orbit each other all night beneath the moon
You can share my light as we pass like an eclipse
Together in the sky, shining in our own constellation
With you and I, as companions
Open space would never feel lonely
Cause I'd always feel your gravity
So won't you join me in the sky,
Join my binary system

<3

~ Untitled ~

There's something about the beauty amidst chaos
That lures you in like a finger inching you closer
The way smoke settles, the wavelike patterns about the scene
It surrounds you, this gorgeous fog that holds little innocence

And you think, there's something about the beauty amidst chaos
The way blood drips from brows
Falling down to mix with nature's intricate design
Together with leaves and grass that reflects
The morning light and grasps dearly onto dew

Honestly, there's something about the beauty amidst chaos
That changes your perspective
Like a whole pierced straight through

Yet arms clench closer than ever before
Hearts converge and spill unto each other
Breath beckons you closer

And it all makes you think twice
About the beautiful way your own blood shines,
Falling away into an endless river

Sweet spinning top

A top hits the table,
the forceful first spin sending it into a fearless frenzy
tip to wood gliding intimately against one another

yet after the initial pull
it finds fear in every second later
it may crash down hard against the once supportive table
perhaps to the ground, out of control and losing it all

Now every dizzy moment is spent
anticipating the end

bumping roughly against guiding hands
held up by the wooden table
threatened by the edges

hug onto those corners for dear life sweet spinning top
for any mistake could spell the end