snow globe

Red, rosy cheeks and bare trees
Glowing lights and jangling keys
Frosted panes and white snows
Windows lit by candles in rows

The sky above, a clear blue
A crisp breeze slices through
Cold breath hangs in light air
Snowflakes gently tangle your hair

Cinnamon smells and striped gloves
A warmth in your smile that I love
And in your eyes, a shine so bright
All the more awake in this wintry light.

Disclaimer: I don't particularly like this piece much but I felt I had to get something out about December, so I did.

carnivale deux

The sickly sweet smell of cotton candy
oozes through the putrid sound of carnival games.
As if in slow motion, the bright bulbs light up in a row,
red blue yellow,
calling me, enticing me, alluring.
The surrounding din seems to muffle itself
and the scene ahead begins to twist
hurtling towards the ground
as it quickly turns dark
and I hear the sharp sound of half a breath
seconds after it escapes my throat.

bookshelves

The smell of print and ink and worn pages
greet me as I walk slowly through the columns of books
tracing my finger along their spines
My eyes glance quickly between titles, across authors
Near the end of that shelf
I stop to pick one
And right then and there
I fold onto the floor
crack open the honey-colored pages
and quietly begin to disappear.

hands

The setting sun lights up
Tiny handprints,
scattered along the window,
that mark the moments
when a child's ungraceful steps
depended only
on a sheet of glass
to keep stay upright
-- slowly, slowly
it begins to crack
and we all fall through.

ticket stub

Carnival remains scattered across the grass
trampled by a thousand running feet
pulled by the flashing lights of the carousel
and the ferris wheel
and the look on your face
before you turned away
shut everything down
and left me with only
the torn stub from our trip
through the House of Mirrors.

polaroid

Your long, straight hair,
brilliant in the rays of light
outlining pastel white clouds,
whips behind you as
your delicate, joyous face,
(bright eyes, sweet smile)
turns in quick excitement,
you and your laughter
dancing on the air
running wild in that
rusted orange sundress
through the tall, leaning grass
in echoing silence of memory
and long gone.

crash landing

I can't let myself stop
to think about it
because my head
will float in the clouds
for only seconds
before my engine stops
and I plummet down
for a crash landing.


"May angels lead you in."

The way your eyes crinkle as you slowly display those glittering whites,
I wonder if you can still see what you're smiling at.

the list

Seeing my name beside
His and Hers
Yours and Theirs
sent a shiver through my spine.

How could I
ever be worthy to call myself
one of Them?

When would I
be enough to rightfully claim
that spot?

I will live if only to know that one day
I will belong
among Them,

among Us.

blinkers

Every human being steers a car with a flashing blinker: a bright, guiding light ticking to some uncoordinated beat. Staring out the windshield, you can watch the individual lights wink at you, each on its own, sometimes coinciding with the lights beside it, but only for a moment before blinking to its own drum again. Following directions, you switch them on at the next turn. But these directions are unclear and that street comes out of nowhere and you swerve, without a light, without a warning. You send a bolt of confusion and startling reaction through the drivers behind you. They question your capabilities on the road. But that turn was unexpected, even though you knew it was coming. Suddenly the straight street you'd been staring at takes a curve and you slow down to keep up. You tell yourself you are in control. You don't even know where you're headed.

¡revolución!

A hazy cloud settled over the valley below us as we stared into the dark expanse. The glowing sun set beneath the clouds in a deep, burning red. Bursts of light scattered around the city, sending showers of red sparks through the air. Smoke covered the dwindling city lights. The sounds of gunshots penetrated the air, seconds delayed after the crackling lights. We waited in dark and silent anticipation for the fire to come closer and clearer. Alarms rang out through the streets, rushing to the rescue. We held our breaths, then gasped in awe of the sky exploding before our eyes. The cry of a baby broke out and parents shushed their young children. Louder explosions began to echo in the hills around us. Our hearts jumped at the sound and we reached to cover ears, to protect from the harsh sound of destruction. The fires brightly lit our faces before turning into ash and blanketing us in darkness once more. And yet the Fourth of July doesn't hold a flame to Disneyland's 50th.

summahtime

Can you imagine the colors?
Strong strokes of soft greens,
Hard blocks of brick reds,
A light, golden shimmer
Slowly tangling your hair.

A gentle warmth glistens on your skin,
As the waves of glittering sapphire
Swirl around, entwining you,
Pulling you under.

A sudden gasp of life,
A break into the surface,
The shadows beneath let go.

Feel the breeze carry you,
Tugging at your airy dress.

Up, up, and beyond.

class ring

She stepped into the small restroom in the back of the coffee shop, heading straight for the great porcelain bowl of running waters.
The sink, kids, the sink.
She took off her ring and set it on the left ledge of the sink. As she turned to pump soap on her hands, she noticed a small diagram under the standard, "ALL EMPLOYEES MUST WASH HANDS BEFORE RETURNING TO WORK." She laughed quietly to herself as she studied the pictures illustrating to her exactly how to cleanse her hands, all the way up to the hand-drying and paper-towel-tossing. With a smile, she shook her head at the pictures. You have got to be kidding me... She took one last look in the mirror before turning around. As she opened the door, she noticed a middle-aged man heading straight for the bathroom. Great, standing between a desperate guy and his utmost relief. She held the door open for him as she walked out.
"Hey, you get your drink?" she called to her friend. "What about the Danishes?"
She walked up to the cashier and asked for her previously requested two cheese Danishes, please. She grabbed the paper bag, called out a thank you, and walked outside with her friend.

* * *

Hours later, bathed and relaxed, she sat at her desk, lurking around online. Unconsciously, she began to rub the skin on her right ring finger. Feeling a change, she looked down at her hand, noticing a lack of hard, shining white lustrium. She glanced quickly to the right side of her desk, again missing the silver ring. Hmmm... She walked down the short hallway to the bathroom and checked the drawers, thinking she might have taken it off before she showered. No, I don't remember taking it off then either. She walked back to her room, frowning at her desk, willing the ring to appear. Slowly, her gut began to sink as she realised where the ring really was. A flash of a white public restroom sink cross her mind.
Not again, you idiot! Ugh, how am I supposed to get it back? It has to be back there. Why would anyone steal it? It has my name in it. It's worthless! To them, at least... Oh God, how could I be so stupid?
She sat in quiet nervous agony for a few minutes as she waited for her parents to leave. After they had gone, she went up to her brother and pleaded that he take her down to the coffee shop. She told him why and he let out a low hoot. "Good luck finding it."
"Thanks, so encouraging."
As they sped down the winding hill, she sat in total silence, complete stillness. She was too nervous to fidget. When her brother parked, she quickly jumped out of the car and sped towards the shop. She waited in silence for a few minutes behind the counter, not wanting to interupt the employees. A tall, thick worker turned around and asked how he could help her.
"Have you seen a silver ring? I left it here in the bathroom this morning. Did anyone turn it in? Or find it?"
"No .. Did you check the bathroom?"
He led her back to the restroom. Her eyes stayed fixed on the level she knew the ledge was on, where she would find her ring. He opened the door slowly and moved out of the way. She held her breath as the sink came into view .. completely bare.
They searched for a long minute, moving the trash can, looking in the corners. She quietly turned on the spot, glaring into every corner, trying to frighten the bathroom tiles into exposing her treasure. Nothing.
"I left it right there on the ledge. It's my class ring. It has my name on it."
The employee apologized again that they couldn't find it. She cursed under her breath before looking up and giving him a small smile. "It's okay. Thanks for looking though."
As she slowly walked out of the store, she heard him asking all the other baristas if they'd seen a ring. She chewed the inside of her lower lip as she trudged down the sidewalk back to the car. As she got in, her brother asked, "Any luck?" She mutely shook her head and stared straight ahead.
They sped up, merging onto the freeway, and tears slowly welled up in her eyes. She kept her window open all the way, allowing the strong wind to blow her hair around every which way. Her hair slapped wildly around her face, blocking her already blurred vision. The flapping hair spread the chilly tears across her cheeks as she closed her eyes and let them run.


[If anyone cares, she told her mom late at night that she'd lost her ring. Her mother was quite upset. In the morning, while the girl slept in, her mother called the coffee place and asked if they'd seen a ring. Upon checking, the employee on the phone discovered a small, silver ring set with a black onyx stone in the cash register. A few minutes later, the girl awoke to find her mother standing over her, asking her to hold out her hand. The girl sleepily smiled as she stretched out her fingers to receive her awaited gift.]

lemonade stand

We're driving back from Target, through the winds and turns of the hilly roads. As we speed through the trees, a boy standing on the edge of the street begins to wave a sign at us. I follow him as we drive past, glancing quickly at the other boy and the table he sat at.
"Oh, they're selling lemonade! Can we go back, please?" I plead with my mother. It is hot but I'm not terribly thirsty. I just want to stop and make those boys smile. There's something about knowing I've made someone's day that fills my own day, makes me smile. That in that smile, theirs and mine, we somehow felt life. Real life.
When we reach an opening in the road, my mother u-turns and heads back to the boys, mumbling about how she must be doing something illegal all for a cup of lemonade. I laugh and look out for the lemonade stand.
We slow to a stop as we come near the boys. I roll down my window and smile at them. They must be about 11 or 12 but don't quote me. I'm terrible with guessing age, estimating time or distance. Basically, don't ask me questions concerning numbers, thanks.
"Hi, can we have one cup of lemonade?"
The thicker, blond boy sitting at the table says sure and pours me my craved cup of yellowy goodness. Both boys have wide smiles on their faces that light my own face as I look back at them. My favorite.
"How much?"
"A dollar."
"A dollar?!" my mother exclaims, teasingly. "What is this, La Cañada pricing?"
The blond boy answers, "Yep" with a laugh.
"Do we get a discount for coming back for you guys?" Just give them the damn dollar. "We just passed you, you know."
The dark-haired boy, still in his school uniform, comes forward to the car and I smile at him as I hand him the dollar and he passes over the small styrofoam cup. I say thanks and, still smiling, he nods but keeps quiet. He turns back to his friend and says laughingly, "A whole dollar!" We're their only customers. He runs back into the house. My mother and I wave at the blond boy as we move forward and turn back.
Zooming back up the hill towards home, I take the first sip of my lemonade. It's thick and entirely undiluted. I wince, then smile at the sour taste of the unsweetened, pulpy juice.

tout le bonheur du monde

I won't even try to repay you for fear of making a fool of myself, but happy birthday. But mostly, I want to thank you for being alive. So maybe I should thank your parents instead?
Can I be cheesy now and represent the 90s pop fangirl inside me? Yes, yes I can, because honestly, my love is all I have to give. But just in case that's not enough, here's a song I did not write. If I could sing, I'd sing it to you. If I could play it, I'd do that too. Just seems like I'm a little lacking in all aspects today.

Refrain:
On vous souhaite tout le bonheur du monde
Et que quelqu'un vous tende la main
Que votre chemin évite les bombes
Qu'il mène vers de calmes jardins.

On vous souhaite tout le bonheur du monde
Pour aujourd'hui comme pour demain
Que votre soleil éclaircisse l'ombre
Qu'il brille d'amour au quotidien.

Puisque l'avenir vous appartient
Puisqu'on ne contrôle pas votre destin
Que votre envol est pour demain
Comme tout ce qu'on a à vous offrir
Ne saurait toujours vous suffire
Dans cette liberté à venir
Puisque on ne sera pas toujours là
Comme on le fut aux premiers pas.

{au Refrain}

Toute une vie s'offre devant vous
Tant de rêves à vivre jusqu'au bout
Sûrement plein de joie au rendez-vous
Libre de faire vos propres choix
De choisir qu'elle sera votre voie
Et où celle-ci vous emmènera
J'espère juste que vous prendrez le temps
De profiter de chaque instant.

{au Refrain}

Je ne sais pas quel monde on vous laissera
On fait de notre mieux, seulement parfois,
J'ose espérer que cela ne suffira
Pas à sauver votre insouciance
Mais à apaiser notre conscience
Aurai-je le droit de vous faire confiance...

{au Refrain}

http://platea.pntic.mec.es/~cvera/hotpot/sinsemilia_bonheur.htm

so worrisome

I'll smile when I'm happy. I don't know if you'll be there to see. I don't know if there will ever be anything to see. But hope springs eternal. Supposedly.

Just be thankful I'm breathing.

hi! my name is

At the art gallery, my name’s a painting.
But that’s just a cover.
I am
endless, boundless, hurdling,
illuminating, warming, bright
Playful Tripping Light
and Shadow of Worlds
Splatter me and Paint Me Soft
Falling Into Time
But right now
You only know me as

statue

Frozen and captured
Just in the moment
A thought
Gently wrinkling my mind
Never to be forgotten
Nor relieved
While everything around
Surrenders to the tides of change
I stand the same
As the day I was born
Surviving times yet to come
Now and forever poised.

guilty

I feel bad posting things I haven't written recently or wrote specifically to post but I feel even worse that I barely update at all.

thanksgiving

The next morning, we must have been driving to the funeral home. My aunt drove while my cousins and brother sat quietly in our own thoughts or headphones. I was shaken from my reverie when my aunt called us all to here and now. She told us to keep remembering our grandfather, to keep his life living. She asked me to send her the family tree I’d been trying to dig up for a school assignment. I apologetically told her I was missing both Sido’s grandmothers; I’d never gotten the chance to ask him because he’d gone on a tangent about his father’s and grandfather’s lives. On the phone, he had sounded so happy and animated telling me his family history, my family history. I didn’t want to interrupt him to ask simply for his two grandmothers’ names. That phone call was the last time I talked to my grandfather. I like to think I told him I loved him at the end of the call. I don’t know if I did but I’d always had the feeling I did because I remember thinking I didn’t say that a lot and I don’t know why I’d said it then. Was it an involuntary goodbye? I always believed that phone call was God’s gift to me, as was the fact that I hadn’t gone to Mexico. God was saving me from the overwhelming guilt and pain I might have suffered because I hadn’t said goodbye to my grandfather when I last saw him in September before I left for my cousin’s wedding. And I can only imagine how I would have been reeling the morning after he died if I was actually in Mexico with him. But he was always so distant; I don’t know if I feel much of a difference, even now.
My aunt continued talking to us, asking us what we remembered about our grandfather. I did not want to answer this question. The only thing I could think to say was that he’d taught me to play solitaire and always smelled like the pipe he smoked. I felt so clichéd and inadequate, a terrible granddaughter. I don’t remember what my cousins said. My aunt started to cry as we spoke. She then asked us if we talked about him and we all assented that we did. But we didn’t really talk about him; he was our new found connection to the world no one wanted to explore – the afterlife. But my aunt kept questioning, asking what we talked about. Her voice was so hopeful, waiting for her nieces and nephews to please her, satisfy her in any way. My cousins and I looked at each other, each waiting to see who would speak first, spilling the words my aunt wouldn’t expect to hear. After a few second of silence, I spoke up. “Well, we talk about him and what happens to you after and what we remembered of him…” I trailed off, not making any sense in the first place, why bother to keep going? My aunt was crying in full by then and I still felt so inadequate. I’d failed somehow.
...
My grandfather lied quite peacefully, grey and drawn, waxy and completely still. Yet I kept waiting for him to stir, flutter his eyes, lift a hand, and sit up. To be alive. I stared so determinedly at his face, willing him with every fiber in my being to wake up. That’s all he seemed to me, asleep. My eyes were so focused on his face, making sure not to miss the twitch in his cheek, the crinkle of his brow. These small movements happened over and over again, in my mind, in my eyes, on his face. I could have sworn he moved. I so wanted it to be true. My aunts were crying, patting his hands, touching his face, leaning closely into him. I don’t know if I touched him. I think I brushed his sweater but I couldn’t get any closer. I was afraid I wouldn’t feel him breathing and all I would find was cold. If I didn’t touch his death, it wasn’t tangible. I don’t remember crying either, just watching and waiting. I waited with all my heart. I waited so long.

But it didn't matter to me whether he was alive, just that he wasn't dead.

after shower

I wiped away the mirror
to see a sliver of what I used to be
what I wish to be
clearly, more clearly
Trails of water danced across my face
leading in zigzags through and around
But this is only one small clearing
and the steam clouds my vision again.

makes me wonder

Give me something to believe in.

clockwork

Pricked by the needle
that slowly makes its rounds
to the beginning again.

Too, too fast.

foreign

The best part of it all is that it all means so much to me, but doesn't make an ounce of sense to you. Watch me go.

choking

It's lucky I can Heimlich maneuver myself or else I'd probably be cold right now. Good thing my family is so quick to act - he stood across the kitchen telling me not choke, as I choked. Telling me to breathe, as I choked.

"Are you choking?"

I coughed up in the sink. Thanks for your assistance.

happy birthday

For the first time in a while, I am both comfortable with myself and my surroundings. I'm not consistently scowling. I feel a positive air around me. I fit. Oh, it feels so good to fit! I'm excited and happy and calm. I love my friends, I love my family, and - dare I say it? - I love myself. Today, I do. I look good, I feel good ... It's like I finally got over whatever lump I was struggling through. I'm an age that I am not fighting against. I've been waiting for and dreading this moment for such a long time, the day an unreachable milestone. It's here and I smile as I walk by. I've never been as happy about a birthday in a long, long time. Thank you. To all my very different, colorful slices. Choo, choo.

5.45am

I give up. Where's that voice gone away to? Lost behind the turmoil, trying so hard to fight against the storm. I haven't heard that voice at all. Not yet. I don't need it to come from outside. That won't help at all. I've built myself up too thick against you all. I don't believe a word you say. I'm shaking against the flood; my walls won't stand much longer. They've been crumbling, crumbling, crumbling. One look sends me unexpectedly, rapidly falling back into the dark. I never imagined I'd be here right now. The song tells me to keep singing, but I still think I've failed. Still shuddering. Still wondering what's wrong with my structure. I need that voice. 'Stop clenching your jaw. Stop biting your lip. You're not over.' I am, I am, I am. But I can't wait to hear it sing to me, softly leading me back to where I belong. Wherever. Take me with you, please.

"I think I'll die another day,
There's so much more to know."

veritas

Real truth - is there a fake? - plays behind the brightness of a smile. It shimmers in gold, perfect and whole. It has lasted through the years, unscathed, battering through the dark. It sits inside and out beyond the fence. It's in the passing of a word, but mostly in a laugh: loud, clear, and sparkling. Glittering upon my ears, it makes me smile to hear it. It rarely comes when you call - perhaps because we're always calling the wrong way. It might disguise itself behind a muffle, but we hear it nonetheless. It's hard to keep inside when it wants so badly to come out and play. It's in the bold, barefoot run across the forbidden grass and the breath of air sucked in after. It's in the whisper of a secret shared behind tiny, cupped hands and the giggling gasps that follow. It's in the pure fantasy of a tree house adventure, sprinting through the gnarled brown of bark and wild forest overgrowth and the high shriek of joy piercing the sunglow. It's in the outburst of happiness, let loose in the wind, rushing down the freeway, giving way to the brightest laugh, widest smile, truest feeling of utmost light. How many times do we get a glimpse? We have forever to find it, sitting there in plain view, waiting for us to open.

A truest truth makes sense to me, you, her, and them. In cow french, 2057, yesterday, above, and in the dark. It passes from one to the other, unbridled, free. It's in the stars and the sun and the pebble and the ocean. You touch your shore and I'll touch mine. Can you feel it? It moves, slowly crawling into our crevices, over our toes, making us shiver. The tide pushes forward, pulling us nearer. We sway, staring into the expanses of forever. Take a second to blink, and dive in.

dinner time

I didn't want sauce. I changed my mind after I tasted the fish. I got water to wash down my food. I gagged behind the wall, where you couldn't see.
I asked for a smaller piece the next time. Did I not like it? Of course I liked it, I just wasn't hungry.

The house smelled of fish for days.

today

I came here to read.