be how we used to
All I can get now is through blurry,
all I can get now is through fragments.
Little pieces of you, the earth we rested
on, and the air we held inside ourselves
to feed our laughter.
Open windows and celluloid carnations, lips
against glass, and your voice travelling just to
reach me, just to pierce right through me,
carving at my heart.
All your old names and all your new names written
all over me in dark-blue ink. Ink melting, ink crushing,
ink in the confinements of my mind, hidden in a pocket
between my ribs and my beating lungs.
Lovely disappointment, lovely misfortune, how I’d love
to rest between you, but I can’t afford it. I need to learn how
to dance around you. Dance like I did before, with the same
carelessness that used to take over me in nights when everything
was uncontaminated from guilt or pressure. Just pleasure in
the pain of knowing no future.
All your golden curls, green eyes, and pink nipples
buried, bruised, bleeding, turning sandy gold-brown.
All your black curly hair and deep-brown skin
turning yellow, orange, red.
They’ve made a canyon out of you.
Water running through you, wind shaving off your skin.
Memories eroding, rotting in your mind.
Bodies weakening, dying. Flesh giving into decay.
Walking in the dark.
Words that once hurt me will always come back to me,
but let us pretend it’s all forgotten, and we will rest for now.
Let us dive into milky water and wait just like we used to.
Wash my back like you used to, comb my hair
like you used to, be how we used to.
Andrés Hernández is a student of Translation and Interpretation at the Autonomous University of Baja California. His work has appeared in Boston Accent, Forklift Ohio, Pornceptual, and several other publications. He recently presented his first collection of poems, Terapia (2017), at the Northern Literature Festival (FELINO) in Tijuana, Mexico.
