Bandaid 1

I feel myself slowly peeling away

Away from you

Tight plucking pulling away

Each tug a wincing stab

To follow each careless action you rubbed into the wound.

Like underestimating my desire

Telling me your want of another while keeping me hungry

Pluck pluck pluck

I impassively listen

While pieces of me are ripped right up

Like a rat escaping a glue trap

You in the other house - oblivious.

Tug tug tug

Careless selfishness

Your own needs superseding mine

You offer no compromise

Slowly the numbness sets in

The fervent desire softens to a dull ache

Rip rip rip

Miraculously

I feel nothing

Nothing at all

I must be healed.

Nothing Left

I have emptied my veins slowly
Into the bucket you left beneath me
(Waste not your sustenance
While supplies last)
Drip drip drip
Ever weaker
Waiting to be fed
No transfusion came
I have bled myself dry.

Soul contortionist extroardinaire
Dumpster hobo
Pockets turned inside out,
Empty and useless
Sad and odd
No currency exists to fill them
That you haven't already pilfered.

I have given you all my words
All my screams of love and anger
I have given you all my songs
My soul in a melody
My laughter for your drive home
My moans, my sighs, my panting.
I have given you all the sounds of my being
While awaiting your reply.

I have thrown my body into your wake
For you to ride like a wave.
I have faced you unabashed
All my emotions lay bare
All the while you are a speck
Too far away to be seen and
Giving so little care.

The only thing I have not given you
Is coming to you soon
As I lay dying from all my wounds
The insults and the disregard.
My furious flame is dying down
My passion falling still
My once bright skin is growing dull
My lips are wearing thin.
Your feeding is now nearly complete.
You'll have the last of me soon.
You'll have the thing you haven't had.
You'll have my last rebellion.
Keep it as a parting gift.
You've earned it.
I leave you with
My silence.

All the women are done.

All the women are done
Done smiling through the hurt
Done gracing the disgraceful
Done adorning your eyes.
Done with the closets
The closets where we hide to shed bitter tears into shame filled pillow cases.
The closets where our self loathing hangs on display.
And, the closets where the numbers hide
On pieces of paper
On your phones
In your pockets
Else, lining up in your brains.
The same brains that forget milk and diapers and garbage bags.
The women are now accepting
Forgive-me-nots.
Keep your patronizing chocolates and numbing wine.

All the women are loud now.
"Shush!" no more.
The women are loud
By necessity.
The women are loud from all the fear.
The women are loud from all the years of
Shoving down their personhood.
Years of invasion
Invasion of personal space
Invasion of dignity
Invasion of self regulation
Invasion of uterus, of work and of thought.
Invasion even of the right to protest.

The women are done.
They are done, my man.
Start the apologies and the bribes because, buddy...
When you next look at them,
The women will be done.
You may be done too.

Six

Woke up feeling a six.
All those feels dropping like a stone,
Fantasy losing its sheen.
Sober reality shook me whispering,
"Walk this off. It isn't real."
This is how it goes with pleasant dreams
And fun island getaways.
But then you try to find a melted clock
In the desert while riding a tiger
Dressed as Marilyn Monroe
And you realize it's not even worth the effort.
Where's that man who couldn't make it to you?
Oh right. Now you remember.
You're a spoon without a spoon.
Get up.
Wash your face and get pretty again.
Time to do the walk of defiance.
Head on parade.
Heart in a box.
Lock it up.
Walk.

Descarada

Me muero y me levanto
Me caigo y me reinvento
Mi piel se pela imperceptible y se reemplaza:
Milagros de la naturaleza.
Como tú.
Que vives allá con otra
Más me llevas atada a ti
Con cadena frágil e invisible
Como la seda de la araña
Que es tan bella como lo es fuerte.
Yo, descarada, deleite al saber que me llevas
Escondida en tus bolsillos.
En nuestra esfera no tenemos leyes humanas.

Somos superterrestiales.
Yo te alimento con llamas que te tragas como un hombre sediento en el desierto.
Tú me regalas arcoiris y puestas de sol
Que hacen de mi cuerpo una aurora.
Después me admiras con el candor de un orgulloso Creador
Como si yo no había existido antes de tu toque.
Y pues, sabes bien que hemos nacido juntos,
Casi gemelos,
Tu mano en la mía,
Guardandonos secretos
Que murmuramos entre besos,
Con caricias, con lenguas y manos,
Con miradas de almas antiguas.
Así fue que entendimos
Que la naturaleza es suprema;
Porque nos permite existir conectados
Tú allá, yo aquí;
Muriendo y reviviendo
En los momentos cortos que unimos
Nuestro aliento entre suspiros,
Tremores en nubes de hierbas.
La tierra dando su permiso
Y la luna su bendición.

--Celia Castro

(for Asher)


============= Translation ===================
Brazen

I die and rise up
I fall and reinvent myself
My skin sloughs off imperceptibly and is restored:
Miracles of nature.
Like you.
Who live over there with another.
Yet you hold me bound to you
By a fragile, invisible chain
Like the silk of the spider
Which is as beautiful as it is strong.
I, brazenly, delight in knowing that you carry me
Hidden in your pockets.
In our sphere we follow no human laws.
We are super terrestrial.
I feed you with flames that you swallow like a thirsty man in the desert.
You give me rainbows and sunsets
That make my body an aurora.
Then you admire me with the candor of a proud Creator
As if I had not existed before your touch.
Of course, you know well that we were born together,
Almost twins,
Your hand in mine,
Keeping secrets
We murmur between kisses,
With caresses, with tongues and hands,
With the gazes of ancient souls.
This is how we've come to understand
That nature is supreme;
Because it allows us to exist connected
You there, I here;
Dying and reviving
In the short moments we are together
Our breaths between sighs,
Tremorous upon clouds of grass.
The land giving its permission
And the moon its blessing.

-- Celia Castro
(for Asher)

Negra

Todo lo que tengo me lo dieron o me lo robé

No me pertenece este traje

No me pertenece esta casa

No me pertenece este hombre

Todo es ajeno o extraño.

De mi no queda solo un hilo

Un hilo negro que me jala hacia el centro del universo

Donde la bella obscuridad y el silencio por fin se rendirán a mi

Y ahí tendré algo par llamar mío

Algo de quién podría ser parte

Yo negra entre las estrellas

Negra entre el sol y la luna

Yo bailando invisible

Como era cuando vivía

Pero entonces era un martirio

Y después en el nuevo horizonte

Será delicia-

Delicia negra

Sueño

No aparecías debajo del árbol azul

Cuyas ojas

Como tus ojos
Flotaban y

Como espadas de hielo penetraban mi pecho;

Olas fuerte me tumbaban,

volteandome violentamente 

Hasta caer como por un milagro

En un baño de luz caluroso

En la forma de

Tus rizos negros y gris-

Nubes extrañas anunciando tormenta.

Pero yo contenta y contenida

Sabiendo que esa tormenta me caería bien.

No me perturban tus caricias mientras duermo

Esas delicias no se dán ya en las horas soleadas.

Solo cuando duermo me visitas -

En formas poéticas.

=============================

You never appeared under the blue tree

whose leaves,

like your eyes,
Floated softly down...

Yet like blades of ice they penetrated my chest -

Strong waves tumbled me down

turning me violently

until I fell as if by a miracle

Into a warm bath of light

In the form of 

your curls, black and gray;

Strange clouds heralding storms

while I remained happy and contained

knowing that your storm would suit me fine.

Your caresses do not perturb me while I sleep.

Those charms aren't available when the sun is out.

Only when I sleep do you visit me - 

In poetic forms.