Introducing
James Diaz
Dear Life
You no longer notice yourself
peripheral voice
communicating the narrow side
of inexperience
between 'before it all went wrong
and after it all made sense again'
you climb the slope nearest your heart
carry down the water
they tried to evaporate in you
and drink deep and heavy
until you are only two hands
holding onto yourself for dear life.
Nothing More Than This
I would put you in the belly of my heart
if I had a stock pile of nerve somewhere
if I believed that I could save us both with love
the vessel, she rocks and splinters
and cries that I know very little
about this thing called living-
and she isn't wrong,
I hold out my hand to that-
loss of clarity called acceptance
because to truly accept some things
is also to cross yourself out,
but this has been happening all along
intervals of losing self, lapsing pulses,
blinking maritime lights,
going out inside of the heart
like a letter home no one ever receives.
I sleep all night without knowing that I sleep
just as I live all day without knowing that I am alive.
Are you as mixed up inside as I am?
Have you ever taken the wrong turn all your life?
Well, I have, and I am so lost now
that I do not even consider myself lost anymore
paradox of a heart muscle, pulling in, pushing out
but no cellular memory of the event
to remind you of what happened
who you are, isn't that a strange question to ask yourself
in a time like this, falling apart and not even feeling it
when the break occurs.
Motion moves in you but very slowly
like an after effect of something
you were never present for,
and accounted, who does that,
the tallying of numbers and proportions
ill fit, loss sewn into the losing,
a history on paper, bring it forth,
while the light inside of you simmers and you need more
but always end with less, take this,
tear it loose, until the perimeters of your soul
are overflowing,
in your hands a flood, a feeding frenzy
ingesting the good stuff, the self mothering tattoo
like a new skin you grow into,
hone with compassion, caressing the knot
until the void voids less,
leaps for air, holds it deep in the lungs
never forgets breathing, and wanting to live
doing so faithfully,
inside faith living a life even after the losses have been measured and put away.
Life Beyond This Moment
Wish I could remember what wishing used to be like,
face down on the floor at 16
with Moby's 'When it's cold I'd like to die'
on an endless loop,
this must be it, I'll never recover, you thought,
yes you will, but you didn't know it then.
What's wrong with you; everything, what don't you get about that?
Wish I could remember remembering,
what nights were like when star gazing
actually worked better than Tegretol and anti-depressants,
when the answer was a loose end left loose,
when you could feel the blood pounding inside of your ears,
and it gave you courage,
when you loved too deeply, talked too loudly,
and rode down into the depths,
rose and sunk and rose and sunk a million times over,
when you first found out that pen and paper might save you,
until even the paper burned
and the pen looked for a way to puncture a hole through you,
seeping light and bruises and wonderment,
where does going go? Is there some of it left,
a tiny filament that could reignite the stars and settle the flame?
Keep it in a jar like fireflies
until you realize that you are killing them,
you've become a teenage fascist,
you don't get to decide who lives or dies
and maybe their light is connected to yours,
dim theirs and you dim your own.
The light is on and off,
seasonal, fluxing, sluicing,
impossibly alive somehow after all of the damage you put on.
Pale in compare
That body
of yours
bowled over the earth
spot
how sun eats into gravity
toes touch yesterday
with hunger
political
dry bed
bone
the Africa you used to know
borrow me this
and hit the hate against
wet earth
I will
or you wont
there are two songs here
many native agonies
sent to be invisible
this is happening right now
you feel something seismic
crawl beneath you
but cancel it out in storm
cold shell quiver
how much happier we can be
in not knowing.
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