Abu used to say that “love is work manifest”, perhaps he got Gibran’s quote wrong (“Work is love made visible.”), or maybe he just made it up, who knows. My father worked hard. And according to his quote, if his calloused hands or the amount of mud on his boots was any indication at all; then he had truly loved. To work is to love.

 

Love is work

 

I knew a boy who loved to take in lost things. He cared for them as best as he could but he was not consistent so they all eventually perished. The sheep, the ducks, the puppies, the fish. Then there was the horse…

She probably died hissing

No, maybe quietly, just after the thud of her shivering brown coat

Hitting the ground

She should have run when she had the chance

She probably died at 3am

While he was dreaming about setting traps

For stars

She tried

She tried

She tied the rope around her own neck

She tried

She tripped

Thud

Shiver

Hiss

Brown Coat

Cold Earth

The foal was doomed anyway

Because no one knew it was there

It slid out of her easily

Like a bullet from the barrel of a gun

Like the saliva out of the side of his mouth at 3am

When I heard the news I knew

I knew that I was going home

I knew that it was the last time

He would bring horses to my heart only to abandon them.

November 27^th, 2016

 

Love is a doomed horse

 

I know a girl who ran as fast as she could at the first opportunity she got. And then she was always running… headlong into her tomorrows as if her yesterdays were barking dogs at her heels. I never understood why she wouldn’t slow down, why she refused to gift herself with the present. She never believed me when I told her that all the dreams that would ever be dreamt were already dreamt; and that when we sleep at night our minds choose the ones that our hearts are ready for. At least that’s what I believe, and if she slows down maybe her heart would be able to receive the dreams that she was chasing. She is still running, that silly girl.

…. she and the boy-who-made-the-horse-die, used to catch crabs with a straw hat and curry them with dumplings while everyone else was eating long-water frijoles. They carved out their own trails on an unforgiving island; paths that I imagine will forever remain a part of their geography of love. He eventually used the memory of those paths to deceive her. But before that, long before that… they danced and they danced, they vowed to stop eating meat and become Rastas, they drank pineapple wine from the old lady on one of the streets off of La Avenida de las Americas. They loved like every tomorrow was promised to them. It was dizzying. There was never such perfection in a mismatch.

 

Catching crabs with a hat

You and I

Dreaming about

Never ending

Forever spending

Every breathing moment together

 

Trapping dreams with our bare hands

We had it

Once

But you grasped too hard

And broke a spell

And I keep finding empty shells

 

Daring the moon

With eyes wide open

A million cups of tea

A bicycle

And a metal token

How can this not be

Love?

 

… she always wrote poems for the boy-who-made-the-horse-die. In them, she was always dancing and he was always the fire. She was always thirsty, and he was the water. She was always bound and he was freedom. She was always longing and he was near. She was always drowning and he was “like her last breath of air.” She crafted those lines more devoutly than she prayed until she found herself over and over begging him to stay.

Love is a prayer

 

… she and the boy-who-made-the-horse-die had unfinished paintings and unfinished sentences. The longevity of their love could mostly be attributed to her ability to endure pain rather than their compatibility. And she endured it well… she loved him like an endless sunrise until the perpetual noon bared their souls to each other.

    She used to close her eyes for a long time, hoping that if she was quiet enough, centred enough, withdrawn enough, that the cells in her body would remember how to avoid pain. Eventually felt like a century… and her eyes opened to the realization that her stillness was not enough. That pain would always recognize her.

One day she decided to seek out endings for those unfinished sentences, she searched and found the words scattered, and like broken shells, unsure of their purpose. She strung them together with the last bits of thread from her weary heart. She had hoped that he would see the words dangling from her neck and utter them back into their yesterdays. He did not… but just stared blankly over her shoulder and through the window like he used to do on the train.

 

To love is to endure

  So she wrote her last poems for him…  

You could only love me “dearly” from afar

Too close and I would remind you of the battle

 

Your scars,

Just under the surface of your skin now

Would begin eating you from the inside

While leaving you intact

 

And all I could do was love you… from afar

Too close and you would remind me of the time

100 fires blazed in our hearts

Cien fuegos

Cien promesas

Cien sueños

 

From afar clarity reigns in you

And like a benevolent queen

Oh how she softens your heart

Tempers your breath

Cools the soles of your feet

Dampens the raging fires… for a while

 

I wonder if for you

My memory has a smell

As yours does for me

I wonder if you grasp it like your last breath of air

I wonder if you burn through the chapters of your life

Like an insatiable prayer

My dear.

*************************************************************************************  

I loved you like a little girl loving   .    a     .    sorry    .     thing   .

I loved you

Gave you my wings

Flesh for a ring

 

Oh how you used your breath to trick me

Sorry thing

 

You never heard me fall

Tears ignored

NEVER heard me call

Above the din of your fears and laws

 

Even when you felt small bones cracking under the weight of defeat

You pressed on

Daring fate

Your eyes were a gate that ///////////////////////////////// shut out

Your sorry heart

I tried to kiss them open

To let you back in…

But little girls shouldn’t play in the cold

Especially without their wings…

And a horse in the wild will always be a beautiful thing…