“God created war so that Americans would learn geography.” ~ Mark Twain

Author’s Note: Thanks to a local art collective (formerly known as Volume, now S.P.A.C.E.), I have had 3 photos, 2 poems, a 2-D collage & a 3-D collage displayed in exhibitions at various art galleries around town. It has felt incredible to take my secondary medium (visual rather than writing) to new heights as I continue to evolve & grow as both artist & creative spirit…

I don’t worry what being anti-war will do to my career, because I’m a human being before I’m anything else. Being anti-war is as American to me as apple pie & baseball are supposed to be, even if most citizens of this country would disagree. What I mean is that being openly, oftentimes loudly, against war is the only way I’m able to label myself an "American without losing my lunch to the nearest trash can. While some enjoy a sense of pride in saying where they come from, I feel profound shame… I believe many citizens do, at this point, if we have been paying attention to world news & our behavior on global stages. The United States is one of the biggest bullies of other countries that has ever existed, & our recent performance has been tantamount to a childish tantrum.

By declaring myself a pacifist, I’m establishing that I’m also against capitalism, imperialism, nationalism, & any other extremism for which war is waged... I’ve felt this way for so long that I can’t even remember when I started feeling this way, what my initial reasons for becoming one were, or why I felt the need to label myself. I called myself an environmentalist as early as age 9, when I first learned about endangered & extinct species—but, for most of my childhood, I felt humans were the problem & that only nature needed our protection. Yet, at some point in my adolescence, I began to understand that humanity was a part of nature & that some human populations were significantly more at risk than others… (Of course, I also learned how devastating war is to the planet!)

When I was an undergraduate, I came across a book by Vandana Shiva & was introduced to the term “ecofeminism” for the first time. (I later had the real pleasure of attending a lecture by her when I was a graduate student!) This helped me draw parallels between the way people—particularly women—are treated with the way our planet has been pillaged, plundered, & polluted over the course of centuries... War encourages this extraction mentality—which is deeply rooted in misogyny—that has plagued the West since Industrialization, & foolish empires have risen & fallen under the rule of leaders who would’ve conquered an entire continent if they could. When I was a graduate student, I discovered the teachings of Peace Pilgrim, & my perspective shifted yet again:

I finally came to understand that every single individual must make the effort to achieve inner peace for us to ever be able to achieve any lasting world peace. 🕊️

But this realization hit me like a ton of bricks because I realized the work that needed to be done was the same work I’d been avoiding… Working on myself.

That meant it didn’t matter how many meetings I organized in solidarity with others, how many protests I attended, or how many times I talked about the importance of peace… If I couldn’t create peace for myself or carry it around inside of me. At age 24, I saw the mountain I had to climb & it loomed before me, looking steeper than ever. I was a bundle of raw nerves who rarely felt a moment’s peace on a good day—so how was I going to ground myself enough to achieve something even remotely close to inner peace? I had spent so long looking outwards, focused on rearranging the furniture on the exterior, that the interior had been abandoned to my numerous anxieties, biggest doubts, & worse fears. In short, it was a mess. I was one of the messiest humans I knew.

That was the beginning of a full decade of therapy for me, which included a ton of trial & error with a dozen different counselors—half of whom told me there wasn’t anything they could do for me, & a handful who were overpriced hacks trying to sell me more talk therapy. Inner peace turned out to be even trickier to reach than I initially thought it would be… I tried everything from changes in diet to exercise, a fair amount of drugs & stints of sobriety, more than one religion & spirituality, health gurus, self-help books, pilgrim quests, psychic readings, & even more esoteric means. It was like an obsession… My search became increasingly desperate, until I spiralled & lost myself in it for a few years, then had to return to myself one painstakingly slow step at a time.

It wasn’t until I was in my mid-30’s & living overseas that I found a therapist I felt comfortable enough with to agree to try medication. I’d become fluent in a foreign language, which was the only way I could even talk to this therapist, & was diagnosed with the first (of six) conditions I was struggling with. A light flickered at the end of that long tunnel… It was dim, but it was getting slightly brighter. A few years later, I would add marijuana & daily meditations to the mix. My moments of peace began to expand into mornings, entire days, then several weeks of feeling peaceful. It has only been about five years so far, yet I reached several months of peacefulness recently… At age 40, I finally feel like I’ve become a stable enough person & partner to actually call myself at peace.

Last August, just two months short of my 40th birthday, I had another collage exhibited at a gallery here in town. This time, the work was a 3-D piece made with found objects & featuring two toy soldiers aiming their guns at flocks of golden butterflies united by a single thread that mimics the path of the bullet. I titled it “Don’t Shoot” & hoped it would present a straightforward message about my stance on weapons taking innocent lives. But what I didn’t include in my artist statement—displayed for the audience to read next to my work—was anything about what it took to get to this place inside of me… The place from which I can regard all life as valuable, yet not fall apart at the mere mention of violence. It is a place from which I can create meaning with my entire being.

Though it is not a permanent state of being, like I initially believed, mindfulness flickers in & out of my mind as minute observations or little moments of zen. 🧘‍♀️

I’m still learning to resist the temptation to capture these moments in a haiku or by reaching for my camera… Learning to simply enjoy them quietly instead.

If I made it this far, it is thanks to poetry, even though I already know writing poems is going to be a more modest part of the process going forward. If you made it this far, it is doubtless thanks to some kind of art or creative practice into which you’ve woven ancestral memory & channeled generations of woe… We carry the trauma of our forebearers, after all, so the grief must either be expressed or expunged in some form. I’m grateful to my friends, particularly those willing to do the difficult soul-work alongside me: The wild women who “sing over the bones,” as Mexican-American writer (& Jungian psychoanalyst!) Clarissa Pinkola Estés calls it, or who plant seeds the way we’re encouraged to by & our other indigenous leaders. The time is now.

~ Read more about this particular show in the June 2026 issue of Polk Arts! ~

{ Pt. 2 of this essay will feature better photographs of the artwork in question }

“Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.” ~ Albert Einstein

Author’s Note: In April of 2024, I began attending a writing workshop lovingly hosted by my friend & fellow writer . Twice a month, she opens her house to us, feeds us three original prompts, gives ten minutes to respond to each, & encourages gentle feedback. I’m endlessly grateful to this group for keeping a fire lit in me… This is one of my responses!

When I was first invited to a local writing workshop, We Write Daily, I wasn’t sure whether I would ever write again. I was back in my hometown after being away since graduating high school, found myself living with my folks at age 36, & felt like a failure in more ways than one. Although my thesis was published as a book of poetry, I hadn’t been able to make moving abroad work, & couldn’t find a job as a professor even after eleven years of university studies. It took getting settled into a routine—after cycling through several different positions at public & private schools—before my confidence came back enough to be in community with artistic peers once more. I went to my first group session two years ago…

I’ve called myself several things—the moniker poet being chiefly among them, & the one I’ve identified with the longest. But I’ve also called myself a peacemaker—for reasons I won’t get into here, except to say that I rarely live up to this label… Rather, it is something I strive to be. Peace felt like something that needed to be created, rather than something that was created for me as a child. I became the best example of what peace looks like to me, which was provided by my mother’s parents—the grandparents I spent my summers with. Creating a home that feels safe & full of warmth has always been my biggest goal in life—one I’m striving to achieve with the help of my beloved fiancé, who also fiercely defends this feeling.

In the palm of the hand of a child making a wish. In the center of a flower unfolding itself petal by petal. In the woven architecture of birdsong in the morning. In the dew in the grass, & the sweat pouring down your face—in your face, there it is, a glow that never leaves. In the sound of rain. In the warmth of an animal sleeping on your lap. In the prints left behind everywhere you have been. In the grave, it gets buried with the bravest of us deep underground… In the sound of your voice—when you finally answer after I’ve called so many times just to say that I’m desperate without you beside me. In the silence after sex… In the stillness of your eyes… In the heartbeat I could listen to forever. In the thought of us leaving this place holding hands. In the thought of us staying, because this is where the world hides peace. 🕊️

“Writing, then, was a substitute for myself: if you don’t love me, love my writing & love me for my writing. It is also much more: a way of ordering & reordering the chaos of experience.” ~ Sylvia Plath (the unabriged journals)

Author’s Note: I’ve been gifting lifetime subscriptions to fellow writers, so I feel a bit better about putting upcoming posts behind a paywall. This one gets personal—discussing friends & fellow poets who are also real people… So I feel some discretion is called for, even though the only thing I find myself criticizing is the culture of taking money from hopeful writers!

I remember the first AWP I attended (in Chicago, 2009). I went all by myself, stayed with a friend I had a major falling-out with, saw snow fall for the first time, & returned to the news that I’d been accepted into graduate school for poetry... I remember attending a second (in DC, 2011) with cohorts from that same writing program, all starry-eyed to see our professors give their panels.

Both times, I scoured the schedule & circled every event I wanted to attend—so many of them overlapping with each other that I kept falling asleep on the floors in corridors—exhausted, yet full of fresh ideas & poetic inspirations to last me many months. However, I can’t remember either one as vividly as the third & last time I attended the well-known conference (in Minneapolis, 2015).

Read more

“More than a decade after the first strong signals of the collapse (or at least the twilight) of the American empire, there is yet to be a melancholic reckoning with the decline of empire…” ~ Anis Shivani

“It is difficult to get the news from poems…” argues William Carlos Williams, & yet, fellow poet Philip Metres adds (in this essay for the Poetry Foundation) how many poets have historically functioned as journalists. From archivists to agitators, the voices of all those willing to sound the alarm bells & speak truth (when the rest of the world goes silent) are the ones that ring throughout the ages to reach us today… I claim to be no such poet, & would be lucky to have even a single line of what I write survive my death. But I’ve been using poetry to help me cope with the news for over a decade—so the day a maniac at the helm of our country threatened a civilization, all I could do was write this one.

American Doomsday

What if I told you that you had one hour left,
America? Who—presuming anybody—would
you want to spend it with? Or what would you
want to do, where would you want to go do it,
& when did this fear become the new normal?

I ask myself these questions every day. I try to
be brave enough to ask my country... What if it
is our own finger on the trigger, our own hand
pointing the guns toward our own heads? Why
the self-destructive tendencies? False bravado

of a gun-slinger walking into town after sunset
when the curtains have already been drawn on
a gruesome scene, the bodies already collected
& dressed by the women for burial... Men to be
mourned by the children they leave behind—if

there are any children left, at all, by the time the
dust settles. We put real guns into their hands, &
real bullets into those guns... We warned mothers
not to care so much, or to look the other way—to
turn the other cheek, or to be slapped into silence.

I’m thrilled to share that I’ve had two pieces accepted by Space Art Collective for the latest installment in their radical series of local shows! This time, it’s a SPACE INVASION in collaboration with the Depot Arts District & will be on display for just one evening only… But there will be all of the usual treats—including vendors, performers, bands, & artists from around the area. So if you also find yourself around the area (& happen to be available on Saturday, March 21st from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.), then I hope you stop by to feast your soul.

I’ve heard through the grapevine this isn’t a show to be missed—should one be interested in participating in (or at least listening to) the most interesting conversations about art happening around here. But if you can’t drop in, don’t fret too much—you’ll still get to see my work after the exhibit is taken down, & I get around to sharing it… But that could be a month (or even a year) from now, because I’m the world’s slowest poster. I suppose I should mention that the work I’ll have on display are protest poems from my current manuscript…

I’ve been working on this book for a decade, & it’s finally taken shape enough for me to share parts of it with the world. It’s powerful, & I’m pretty proud of it—which is part of why I’ve been sitting on it for so long. This will be the first time poems from it appear in the wild, & I’m eager to see how an audience responds to them. I honestly can’t wait for this event… I have the feeling it’s going to be life-altering in a real way. There are some incredibly inspiring movements happening on the ground, & I believe this community is one! 🪧

“As we’re prompted to monetize our hobbies, sell our bodies, & offload our brains to make more room for advertisements; what new forms of artistic expression can we imagine now at the end of history? […] What can we invent now, as artists, to make the future look appealing? What histor[ies] can we reference to caution [others] of what’s to come? What new medium can we create to inspire the masses? It’s time to shape a new vision & extend an invitation…” ~ S.P.A.C.E.

“One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we have christened reality is an even greater illusion than the world of dreams.” ~ Salvador Dalí

Author’s Note: When I first started this Substack, I was sharing poems from my first book—yet it evolved so rapidly into a space for my photos, prose, & other pieces that I never really finished posting all of the content from that collection. Below is the middle of the longest & most experimental poem in that manuscript—but you can start by seeing the previous part.

I’ve identified as a surrealist (artist & writer) for as long as I’ve been aware of the movement… Except, in literature, it appears under a variety of monikers (avant-garde, experimental, imagist, realismo mágico, & so forth). Of course, there are differences (dreams vs. fantasy, subconscious vs. supernatural, etc).

You pick up the phone to discover « surréalisme » has dialed your number, & is asking to speak with you. It whispers into your ear, & deconstructs your mind…

The difference between what you see & what you recall, what you experience & what you dream, begins to blur… A snake eating its own tail becomes an apple.

I first visited The Dalí Museum with my mother over twenty years ago. I love exploring museums with her, because I always get art history lessons out of it. Also, because she stands before the paintings for a while… Giving me ample time to scribble notes into my journal about the ones I find most evocative.

The phone is weeping into your ear again, while a clock made of hands screams the time. Another nightmare buzzes around the room before landing by the bed.

By the time you awaken, the walls have melted like candle wax & puddled into each other. You scoop up the molten colors & try to mold them back into reality.

The last time I went to this museum was with my partner for my 37th & 40th birthdays. I took fewer notes, & simply relished standing before the artwork. These days, I don’t think in words (or at least, in poetry) as much as I used to. The images bubbling forth from my own subconscious don’t have names yet.

Seashells rattle inside your skull. You shake your head to get them out, & they tumble through the window-shaped hole in your heart—then turn into sand…

Your body is an hourglass marking the passage of time, every grain a memento mori—a reminder of the inevitability of death for your life to have any meaning.

Surrealism is the art of resisting something—usually reality—in an attempt at seeing or reaching something greater than the reality which is being resisted. Dreams fascinate the surrealists because, in them, we defy reality both easily & naturally. It’s the dream world setting that sets the genre apart from others.

You crack open a lobster tail & miniature moths fly out, splattered in blood. The ants are making a feast of the grasshopper, surrounding its body like a frail nest.

Boat as an eye, fishhook in a human head, naked woman as a mountain range… Every word an act of violence, every act of violence a word caught in the throat.

The art of writing has something in common with the act of dreaming: We can impose our own rules & create beauty out of emotions, instincts, & memories. Personally, I’ve always preferred artists who stretch limits… Artists who defy our expectations of what should be considered art (& displayed in museums).

Your mind is stuck on a single image like a projector sputtering on film. Woman with a face like a disappearing wall through which you can begin to see the sky.

Woman with sky as face. Woman wearing your face as her own. You face your reflection in the mirror, & the entire room shatters & then clatters to the floor.

I love what is reassembled from other things to present us with something we’ve never before seen anywhere else. The surrealists do this effortlessly—taking apart everyday objects to reassemble them into different shapes, or to fashion them into brand-new things as though they always belonged that way.

Picking up the pieces, you reassemble them into recognizable shapes. Then, you begin to assemble them into new shapes—ones you barely recognize from your

previous life. The pieces take on a life of their own, until it is your life that has taken you apart & reassembled you into a shape you barely recognize—but new.

Considerations { excerpt }

Consider, O Lover, my throat

white as cigarette paper.

The crushed lavender of my knuckles.

My heart, a dulled

needle threaded through

too many patterns.

Lover, they were stitches of pain

you undid me of;

There is blood gone rancid in me

you can not move.

But how we comb

and comb the night for jewels

to stack around one another,

to cast in the mold of our love.

That dandy, the sky, enters blue-suited

sun like a scotch in hand

as I consider the brevity of a lion;

How many flies can touch at decay.

Consider the road, long

and forked as the Devil’s own tongue.

Consider the Devil, burning

every bridge; Placing

in every tree a black bird.

In every bird a black thought.

<< Voici mon secret. Il est très simple: on ne voit bien qu'avec le cœur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux. >> ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

dans Le Petit Prince

The sun was setting on a Wednesday in February, & my father was driving me to our local library to hear give a reading. The event was scheduled to begin at 8pm, but I’m just going to presume that I was running late (as usual). I knew something was wrong by the way my dad answered the phone, or rather, from the hesitation right before he said hello—when he wondered why my uncle would be calling him. I could sense what he was about to say next by the way his voice cracked, & his eyes crinkled in that way that means he’s trying not to cry… “Se murio Borges—” were the only words that came, but I’d already understood from his body language that my grandfather was gone. By now, we were almost at the library… So I told my father that I still wanted to go to the poetry reading. Yet the truth was I didn’t want to be there when he broke the news to my mom: This was her own beloved father, after all, who she adored with all of her might.

On Thursday, we boarded a plane already dressed in black—in order to travel directly to the wake. I remember this flight feeling dramatically different from the ones we took together when I was a child. My mother was dignified despite her grief—a stark contrast to the sobbing & wailing my father described upon breaking the news the night before. We disembarked, & headed straight for the funeral home—a place I’d never been to before—to find my grandmother. I knelt before her. She looked hollowed out… I was informed by somebody attending her that she was on a strong dosage of benzodiazepine, & that there were smelling salts close at hand. “Estamos aqui, abuela” I said as I laid my face in her hand… But she had a faraway look in her eyes, & only nodded vaguely like she wasn’t really registering who was there, much less which grandchild had spoken. My cousin knelt at her other knee—neither one of us able to leave her side all night.

On Friday, family members were invited to speak at the funeral if we wanted to say a few words. I hadn’t prepared anything for the occasion, but I held in my hands a copy of Le Petit Prince translated into Spanish. Of all the books which my grandfather shared with me, this one had the most profound impact on my life… I had purchased the particular copy I was now holding with the hope of reading it to him one last time. Instead, I read a chapter to a weepy audience at the service—fumbling awkwardly through some of the Spanish. Afterwards, my father kept making jokes forbidding me to read anything at his own funeral—but I had done what I needed to do to make myself feel better. The hardest part was watching my grandmother as the coffin was lowered into the ground—but this didn’t come as a surprise. What surprised me was the second hardest part—watching her walk into & break down in my grandfather’s now empty bedroom.

I have sparse memories of that Saturday & Sunday—spent drinking homemade hot cocoa with distant relatives, or friends who couldn’t make it in time for the funeral itself. I remember long talks with my cousin, Maria, who along with my mother & myself were spending the nights with my grandmother. We kept vigil with her caretaker, Zora, who had been the only other person present to witness the exact moment of my grandfather’s passing. We each had our way of holding space for my grieving grandmother. Mostly, we shared stories until she uttered his name in such a way that it indicated she couldn’t go on talking—so then we’d simply sit & listen to the silence of his absence in their apartment… There was some laughter. There was some television. I tried to press on with my work—it had been a busy season leading up to this, & life has a way of pressing onward—so I found myself in contact with Gulf Coast to which I had promised five poems.

I sent the journal a few fresh poems—including one I’d titled “On the Morning of My Grandfather's Funeral” & the only edit which the editors requested was that I change this title. So I re-sent it as “Abuelo” (which was printed in 2016, & then later reprinted by Verse Daily). I should note that this was the first time I used Spanish in any poem which I’ve had published. I will also confess that the piece was indeed written predominantly during the service… Not during the wake the night before (with his body on display), nor during the procession & lowering of his body (which happened so quickly). I’m unsure why I feel the need to mention this detail, except I do have a history of writing poetry during church. Usually, I scribble esoteric lines into the margins of a service pamphlet. This time, entire verses tumbled out between the stabs of sorrow. I filled a page in my notebook—tears punctuating the feelings I managed to capture whenever those tears held.

If I could say anything to my grandfather now—well over a decade after the last time I saw him, took these photos, wrote this poem—it’s that I still get emotional every time I think about him, look at him through my eyes, read my own words about grief. He was many things to many people, & he continues to represent so much which feels irreplaceable. This past decade without him began like a grain of sand beneath my fingernail, but has grown into a mountain inside of my chest—it’s something I simply live with. It’s still difficult to discuss this loss with those who knew him well. I’m not sure grief is an emotion our meager words can ever do justice. I just know that I tried—all those years ago—to use language in order to parcel through & attempt to cope with mine. I sincerely hope that none of you are currently coping with loss, or have found yourself grieving as of late—but if so, perhaps this piece will bring you a modicum of comfort & squeeze your hand.

~ Abuelo ~

Qué poco sabemos, al final. Que un barco
puede detenerse en la orilla del mar, hasta que

lo vuelca, al fin, aquello que más ama.
Que el amor es la fortaleza sin muros

y jardines sinuosos. Que el tiempo nos roe
hasta los huesos, y luego hasta el espíritu puro.

Y que el dolor es una especie de iglesia: es
así de escaso y así de limpio. Es la rosa azul

sostenida en el agua clara de la mente, es una
canica de miel sellada dentro de una jarra

de sal; es, de esta manera, dulce en su esencia.
Pero mi lengua se vuelve piedra. Y mi corazón,

una piedra que intenta sacar leche de otra
piedra. Aquí está tu cuerpo, dulce y solemne

testigo. Aquí está tu corona de silencio.
Aquí está tu mano, una especie de voz

en la oscuridad. Aquí está tu piel, una flor blanca
que florece y vuelve a florecer. Es solo

la luz agrietada que ahora nos separa, una
puerta silenciosa que has atravesado. No eres

tú él quién se ha ido. Es el cielo, bajado
ahora, el que ha venido a caminar contigo.

*

~ Grandfather ~

How little we know, in the end. That a boat
can stall at the edge of the sea, until it is

overturned, at last, by what it loves most.
That love is the fortress with no walls

and winding gardens. That time gnaws
us down to a new bone, then to pure spirit.

And that grief is a kind of church—it is
that sparse and that clean. It is the blue rose

held in the clear water of the mind, is a
marble of honey sealed inside a pitcher

of salt—is, in this way, sweet at the core.
But my tongue is made stone. And my heart,

a stone trying to draw milk from another
stone. Here is your body, sweet and solemn

witness. Here is your crown of silence.
Here is your hand, itself a kind of voice

in the dark. Here is your skin, a white flower
blossoming and blossoming again. It is only

the cracked light that now separates us, a
quiet door you have passed through. It is

not you who has gone. It is the sky, now
lowered, that has come to walk with you.

*

Published by Gulf Coast in 2015

Reprinted in Verse Daily in 2016

~ Read more about this particular show in the June 2026 issue of Polk Arts! ~

“A wise man can play the part of a clown, but a clown can't play the part of a wise man.” ~ Malcolm X

If you had told me—any number of years ago—that I would someday get a clown measuring 6-by-4 inches tattooed on myself & covering the majority of my left thigh… I would have laughed in your face. Yet if you had shown me the clown—with her vintage suit de…

Read more

“Educate a boy, and you educate an individual. Educate a girl, and you educate a community.” ~ Adelaide Hoodless

I had the honor of helping with a second “Crafts for a Cause” set up by Buena Market, which also helped me come back to finally finish the essay I started writing about my first experience lending a hand over the summer. In truth, I’ve spent a significant amount of time reflecting on the importance of community…

Indeed, I believe we all have—times being what they are. So this is the second installment of what I hope will be a series of essays—each one examining how different communities I’ve been a part of have shaped & continue to shape me… I’m already looking forward writing the next (about our most recent experience)!

But before I get ahead of myself, I need to revisit last summer—which is when I first met the small business entrepreneurs & family behind Raíces Plant Truck & Taco Riendo Truck (who I’ll be focusing on in the third installment). For now, I hope you enjoy this flashback to the fateful day in June when our paths crossed.

I remember the exact moment—as though it were a movie in my mind—that I first felt proud to be a bilingual speaker. I was eighteen—a freshman at Florida State University paying a visit to the bookstore on campus… Having declared myself an English Major—with a concentration in Creative Writing instead of Literature—I was quite eager to show off my skills get to work. I’d already met some self-proclaimed poets around campus & begun attending their club, but hadn’t decided if that was my genre. My notebooks were full of play-writing, & I’d only just bought what was to become the first of many poetry journals… 📓

In fact, I knew painfully little about poetry—as most college freshmen quickly discover. English Professors don’t typically assign textbooks, so I had student loan money reserved for that purpose burning in my pocket… I high-tailed it to the bookstore to peruse that particular section, & there I picked up a copy of The Captain’s Verses by Pablo Neruda—a poet I’d heard my father mention before. It was a bilingual edition, but having been educated here in the United States (& therefore, in English) meant I wasn’t entirely comfortable reading in Spanish—unless it was a comic book, or a bedtime story designed for children.

As I thumbed through the book, I remember feeling relatively unimpressed by the verses—but I was skipping over the originals & only reading the translated versions. Eventually, my eyes tricked my brain as they rapidly skimmed from left to right: Only tasting the lines in Spanish, at first… Then I began to savor them, & then I began to devour them—skipping the translations entirely. “My goodness,” I thought… “The originals in Spanish are SO much better!” It’s likely I shouted at the shelves—my heart beating faster in my chest. So I bought the book (along with a stack of others), & have revisited it many times since then.

But it was a rather bittersweet moment—for it was standing there stumbling through the lovesick captain’s versus that I first felt proud about the fact that I was a native Spanish speaker. The pride was suddenly eclipsed by shame as I started to unpack all the reasons I hadn’t felt that pride before… As I started to unpack just how ashamed I’d been of my family (especially my parents), my heritage, & my rich cultural inheritance (up until that point). As the year went on, I realized I wasn’t growing homesick… I was culture-sick. After giving up on a Philosophy minor—I declared myself a Spanish Literature minor instead.

I wish I could say that my shame ended there, but it had only just begun... I’d go on to develop a stutter—which is purportedly more prevalent in bilingual children—when I volunteered to read aloud in my Spanish Literature classes. I’d go on to publish my own debut book of poetry—only to crumble the day I gifted a copy of it to my grandmother, & realized she wouldn’t be able to read it (since it was in English). I’d go on to move to France & become trilingual, only to discover that I had a thick Hispanophone accent when I spoke French. I’d finally move back to Florida—where I felt most at home—because of family.

But my chosen family, & my definition of what it means to be family, has been a fluctuating thing… I felt desperately alone as (I honestly appeared to be) the only Puerto Rican living in Paris. I found myself feeling desperately alone yet again early last summer, as (again I appeared to be) the only person shouting into the abyss about the escalating conflict(s) overseas. The horrific plight of the Palestinian people was triggering affecting me in profoundly unexpected ways, & I couldn’t help but wonder if it was my experiences as a Puerto Rican raised in the United States which flared my desperation & fueled my despair…

Yet it didn’t escape my attention that there were other first-generation folks—many with Latinx or Indigenous backgrounds—who also seemed to be openly struggling. This is when I reached out to friends who had just opened their bakery Bandidas to ask if there were any fundraisers on the horizon, & they redirected me to our mutual friend Steph—the absolute visionary behind the Buena Market brand & experience. After some pestering, she confessed that she was planning on testing out a new initiative called “Crafts for a Cause” & that the idea was motivated by her own desire to do something for Palestine.

I felt electric when she asked if I’d like to participate—as though the strings of fate were becoming knotted instead of flapping like loose ends in the wind… It was a crossroads at which nearly all of my passions intersected—language, justice, heritage, food, family, education, community, children, & the arts. I said yes, & tried not to freak these friends out with my enthusiasm. The truth was, I needed to surround myself with like-minded individuals as much as I felt the need to protest the war. I knew—I believe we all knew—there wasn’t much we could do to help the people of Palestine besides show our solidarity.

I’ve participated in a fair amount of protests throughout my life… Ever since I stumbled upon my first animal rights march while walking around Old San Juan with my cousin in Puerto Rico: We were both handed signs, & simply went along chanting until we reached the Capitol Building before breaking off again to continue our excursion of the city. I’ve linked arms & joined in song with fellow anarchists during Occupy Wall Street, helped surround the White House to protest the expansion of pipelines, & disappeared into a crowd of thousands who took to the streets in Paris during the 2015 Climate Summit.

I’ve also lost some of that fire in my belly—growing more bitter & cynical with the passing years, & watching as the world only seems to worsen in countless ways… I’ve discovered that I’m disabled, & only grown angrier at the appalling disenfranchisement of entire sectors of the population. I’ve learned that hope is an all too easy thing to extinguish—that it is far more challenging to fan the flames necessary to keep it alive. But I do still believe in the power of coming together—if only to break bread, to converse, & to help educate children. It seems to me that these simple tools are also the most powerful in changing…

Changing hearts. Changing minds. Changing the self. Changing the world, too.

None of these things can be done alone. In fact, the older (I won’t say wiser, though one can hope) I become the more I realize that nothing can be done alone… Yet there is ample medium between doing things in isolation & doing things en masse (French adopted by English meaning “in a mass”). It’s easy to feel like part of a movement—part of something massive—but difficult to feel like part of a community while participating in marches or protests. I do still believe in the importance of such demonstrations—there is a time & place for them—but I have also come to realize that it’s easy to be a face in the crowd…

Being part of a community—meaning being in actual communion with others—takes far more effort. Showing up is the only thing required to contribute to a protest, & to be one more body in an ocean of bodies chanting or shouting in unison offers a kind of high which can only be achieved surrounded by that many other humans acting as a single force… Like an army going into battle, or a stadium full of fanatics cheering for their team. It is quite another thing entirely to be on the team that is working together—each with their own part to play—towards a common goal. As the crowd dissipates—so does the high…

Eight months have passed since this unforgettable day in June—yet I still feel its glow. It lit a light inside of me which won’t soon be extinguished. It served to remind me of the goodness still thriving in the world, & of how I don’t even have to go looking all that far to find it. I can’t say for certain whether any life was altered or minds were changed or hearts were touched… I can’t even be sure that our fundraising effort made any impact whatsoever. I highly doubt that any amount of money can help alleviate the grief of an entire population suffering an ethnic cleansing or a genocide—when it is the root of these evils.

All I can say is that I was changed. All I can be sure of is that I felt connected to something greater than myself—something my ancestors would be proud of. Somehow, it felt more powerful than writing a poem. Even if all I did was show up—smile at strangers, teach a handful of children how to make art, & temporarily forget my sorrow in the company of friends. It was a balm for my soul, & provided a container into which I could pour my grief… Which in turn, helped me carry it better. Helped me carry myself into the future—not a dark & dismal future, but one where hope still blossoms despite the odds against it.

{ Shout-out to who I couldn’t have done this day without, & who quite frankly deserves an entire essay of gratitude for his efforts as my co-educator…

To be continued in Pt. 3! }

“What’s in a name? That is what we ask ourselves in childhood when we write the name that we are told is ours. A star, a daystar, a firedrake rose at his birth.” ~ James Joyce { Chapter 9, Ulysses }

As a storyteller, I find it remarkably difficult to tell my own story. I’m convinced that I share this affliction with other narrators… Preferring to become invisible, or to shrink into the background of the stories we weave—to be a fly on the wall, or to be the wall itself—that is the goal! But I set out to discover my backstory—to explore the myth(s) of my origin—with this project, & I still intend to follow through. I shared Part 1 of this piece (or perhaps just the preface to it) over two years ago… So here’s Part 2, in which I introduce you to my great-grandmother.

Her name was Mama Chila… Or so I believed, because that is what I heard her called by everyone else. My mother Brenda—whose name is fairly unique in the family—would boast about being one (the 11th to be precise) of over fifty grandchildren. My grandmother Norma—who shares a name with her eldest daughter—was the fourth of twelve children… All birthed by this matriarch of the farm in Quebrada, Puerto Rico. Her husband, the patriarch, was known to family & farmhand alike as Papa Juancho. My abuela spoke incredibly tenderly of both her parents for the rest of her life—eyes watering wistfully as I asked my questions about her childhood. Her father had passed some time before I was born, but her mother was still around to see the first few years of my life.

The memories I have of her are blurry & disjointed, at best… But apparently, I enjoyed lengthy conversations with my great-grandmother at the handful of big family gatherings I attended as a child. I can only imagine what it was we talked about, but I was a precocious child who gravitated to the company of elders from early on. I do remember being rocked to sleep by abuela—as she sang beautiful lullabies in Spanish—enough times to make her arms the place I felt most safe in the world. I don’t know how old I was when I finally realized that Chila was a nickname for Cecilia—meaning I was the grandchild named after her mother—but I remember it came as quite the surprise… So what did the youngest Cecilia speak to the oldest Cecilia about? Only the angels know.

I was much older when I learned that Cecilia Echeandia (not yet called Mama Chila) was 21 when she married Juan Felix Gonzales (not yet Papa Juancho)—who at the age of 37 was a full 16 years her senior. The feelings that came with this knowledge were softened in learning their marriage was opposed by one of Cecilia’s older sisters—who also married a Gonzales brother only five years her senior. All feelings aside, the age discrepancy certainly helps to explain how our matriarch went on to mother a dozen children… As well as how she lived to see her eldest grandchildren give birth to great-grandchildren. In a large family that goes by nicknames (& numbers) to keep track of who belongs to who, I believe there is a special tie to the one(s) you share your name with.

I’ve always loved my name—despite how frequently I’ve heard it butchered, disemboweled, & just plain mispronounced… I’ve also had many nicknames—yet none which I answer to more often than the one used by my family & my dearest friends. I delight in hearing my niece & nephew call me “titi Ceci,” & when I named this newsletter “La Belle Vie de Ceci” I was also delighting in the fact that « ceci » is a word in French—which offers a fun (if nonsensical) meaning for fellow Francophiles. It isn’t the beautiful life of Cecilia—because I don’t feel like I can speak for all the Cecilia’s. Even if I could, I don’t know that I’d call all their lives beautiful. The beauty lies in the mystery… In what I can’t remember speaking about with my elders, but believe I heard with my heart.

To be continued…

“What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.” ~ Kurt Vonnegut

I’m going to try my best to avoid committing that most elementary of mistakes it seems many writers make—which is to preface this ramble in a preamble with any specific definition of the buzzword which I’ve chosen to dissect below… 🤓

The word being community, it’s tempting to reach for a dictionary—yet such a simple (& seemingly) innocuous gesture could sabotage the integrity of my piece entirely… Since the point here is to offer my very own (perspective &) definition!

I would instead like to offer a bizarre tidbit about the autistic brain: I read our prefrontal cortex develops faster, but doesn’t mature until later, & begins to deteriorate earlier than that of allistic (believed to be baked by age 25) brains… 🧠

Enjoy the essay, friends! 🤍

At the age of 35, I decided to move back to my hometown in Central Florida…

I’d been abroad for five years—long enough to make France feel like home—even spent the majority of the lockdown there. But when travel became such a restricted thing, I began to miss my family too much. I finally cracked when my younger sister’s second little one was born. So in late 2021, I found myself living in “the sunshine state” once more. The last time I called this subtropical region home was when I rage quit & moved away for college at age 17… Which (if you’re enough of a dweeb to do the math—like I am) means that I had been away for another entire 17 years. Of course, I ended up crash-landing with my parents often enough over those adventure-filled seasons to keep tabs on the place. I simply never expected to be back heartbroken & completely broke yet again by choice—much less that this particular time around, I’d stay put… For long enough to allow my roots to begin to dig themselves back into the earth.

This past summer marked 30 years since my Puerto-Rican parents chose this town as where they’d like to raise their own children. As the eldest daughter, I’d already bounced from sunny island in the Caribbean to coastal (but rural) Tampa to the suburbs of Orlando with them… So I was already 8 (going on 9) when we arrived, & settled in Lakeland as a family of four. It felt strange that there were far fewer Spanish-speakers here—in comparison to the schools & neighborhoods I was accustomed to where we celebrated our heritage. Then instead, due to the racism in the form of bullying & comments under people’s breath & frequent teasing & other things I won’t describe, I eventually grew to hate the fact that we were the ones who spoke a different language. I grew to feel ashamed of my origins. I adapted—or rather, assimilated. It was far easier for me & my sister than it was for our parents, so I even grew to resent them…

It wasn’t until I moved away that I was able to see any of this… Or to feel any amount of pride in where I came from, & where I grew up. But it took longer than that to feel safe here—safe to be completely myself, or to even consider raising my own little children here. Last summer, I wrote about local pride & what that means to me. I was feeling aglow after attending a fabulous bake-sale fundraiser for trans-rights organized by Gabby ( of ) & her amazing wife Gio… Who together form Bandidas (favorite bakery & catering in town). This year, I was feeling increasingly depressed—due to world news—not to mention, deeply ashamed to call myself a citizen of this money-driven, war-mongering country. So in a desperate attempt to do anything besides doom-scroll on the couch, I begged our mutual friend Steph (the powerhouse behind Buena Market) to assist with any fundraisers for June.

That’s how I got to be a fly on the wall for a genuinely inspiring experience, & truly beautiful event. We provided easy, eco-friendly crafts to children & their families for free… Regardless of their ability or willingness to donate—or even discuss—the causes being promoted. We made it clear the organizations we’d chosen to promote were those which directly served children affected by this ongoing conflict abroad… Buena Market designed a flyer with a simple way to scan in donations to either the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, or Operation Olive Branch. But no record was kept nor receipt was exchanged, because the goal wasn’t in collecting funds—which we sadly knew wouldn’t make a dent in this horrific conflict. The goal was simply to raise awareness, & provide a safe space to broach the subject with one’s children... To help teach them what it means to belong to a far greater, global family. What it means to care—deeply.

As an educator, I can understand why so many guardians strongly hesitate to discuss such distressing issues as starvation with children. My folks certainly avoided many topics. I still hope to have a child someday, & I know I’ll hesitate strongly not to shelter them from harm. But I remember growing up feeling increasingly alarmed, because I knew few adults around me were being fully honest. My distress turned into suspicion of most adults—fear I’ve never fully shaken… However, I hope I’ve begun to now that I’m one of the adults making choices which will impact children for generations to come. I’ve often taught (or tried to teach) my students the importance of caring about more than just one’s family members—that all of humanity is one big family—but it isn’t often I’ve felt like I lived up to that example… This experience was one of those rare times, & I’m still unpacking many sentiments that came with it. { TBC in Pt. 2! }

“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”

~ Samuel Beckett

What started as a summer hiatus now seems to have turned into an autumnal hermitage, which I don’t yet know whether I’ll manage to shake for the winter—or not. Meaning, I have spent several months rearranging the literal—as well as figurative—furniture of both my home & heart. In truth, I’ve been sleeping far too much, & gotten nearly nothing one might call “productive” done… But this has come with rich rewards! I’ve reconnected with myself, with a few dearly missed friends of bygone eras, & have even made a few new connections. It’s been years since I chose to prioritize relationships, & it’s truly gratifying to rediscover skills for making others—especially children & teenagers—feel both safe & seen… It has also been rather gratifying to realize that I finally feel both safe & seen. I know I’ll be unwrapping the gifts this year has dropped into my lap for many seasons to come. Yet I want to reflect on one feeling in particular in this post, as well as share the work of art (a collage) which I feel most proud of creating to date… 🕊️

Sometimes we fail… We fail to find the words—to comfort a grieving friend, or to describe an aching feeling. We can fail to protect the ones we love from coming to harm—or worse, we can turn out to be what harms them most. But hardest, & perhaps most frequently of all—we fail ourselves all of the time… What matters most is what happens next. The steps we take here will be the shakiest, & feel like the most difficult—but they determine the core essence of our very being… Particularly in the sense of our being in communion with others. Among my chiefest faults—I would readily list the direct admission, & the full acceptance of my many shortcomings. In short, I don’t particularly relish being confronted about where I’m currently dropping the ball… Since (chances are) I already know, & have been hyper-fixating on it—but thank you!

Sure, few among us could admit to ever feeling truly eager to admit defeat. In ancient Greece, they tried to teach through spectacle & theater that hubris is often the downfall of man. After that, the Book of Genesis tried to convince us the woman was responsible… But we’ll digress someday. To err is human, after all, & our imperfections certainly do play a large part in what separates us from the divine. I have to wonder, in that case, what thin device separates us from the demonic? I shudder to think that only prayer has that power, but that is what I was taught as a child. It’s little wonder I’m often spiraling into dark philosophical doubts… Forgive me, dear (few remaining) readers—if I stumble drunkenly down streets of superstition, fall into foxholes of absolute nonsense, or disappear behind a burning bush to relive myself for a moment.

The difficult truth I most hate to admit is that I’ve failed at so many different things—so many times—that I’ve had to learn to make it into a little game I’ll play with myself… One in which nobody really keeps a score, the points don’t make sense or matter, & the only way I can possibly lose is by not laughing at myself along the way. Essentially, I got so used to failure that I had to learn to have fun with it—even if it rarely felt enjoyable. The one who I have to credit for equipping me with such a necessary life skill would have to be my father… But I wouldn’t feel this gratitude or so generously towards him until tragically recently—as we each underwent individual evaluations for a late diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder. Time has smoothed our roughest edges out, yet it was a long road of stumbling (& of often bumping into each other) to get here.

I see it in so many students I’ve worked with… Ones who become the class clown (like my father did) to cope with the frustration of falling ever further behind their peers—especially emotionally/developmentally—due to a lack of complete diagnosis or unpicked up on learning disability. Others who become artists (like I did) & withdraw socially—seeking attention only on the page or stage aka where it's deemed appropriate to do so. But then I burned out… As anyone using art as their biggest tool to cope who then attempts to make a living off said art most likely will (without other supports in place). I hate to say it, dear readers, but I wonder whether some of us are simply set up for failure from the start… In a society that shames our children until they give up clapping, dancing, drawing, drumming, painting, singing—or expressing joy.

If I could go back & say anything to my younger self (& if I could be certain that I’d actually listen), I would try to convince a far more energetic but less experienced me to try to be less afraid of failure from the start. To think—how frequently that fear gripped & ultimately paralyzed me until I lost almost every joyful expression I knew (besides poetry… Until the day I lost that, too.) Only to discover halfway through this life that it was in that holy & fertile ground of my greatest failures which I was able to grow, & to prune myself of sorrow. That pushing past failure is where I found satisfaction or any personal success—as though it were failure itself which fertilized the fruit & flowers. It may be an overly simplistic & all too perfumed approach—but as I once called myself a poet, I’ve been known to take those from time to time. (Another fault, I guess!)

My father is one of those rare people who never stopped expressing joy. He didn’t let the world dictate how he should live his life, overcame obstacles I couldn’t possibly fathom experiencing, & has never really stopped evolving. His laughter is infectious, & he is constantly cracking himself up with his own jokes. I’m convinced that he & I were a pair of circus clowns in another life—much to the endless dismay of my exceedingly patient mother. But he taught me the lessons I’ve been most grateful for, as of late: How to laugh at myself. How to get back up regardless of how often I fall due to my own clumsiness, or am knocked back down by circumstances. How to bring out the best in others by being their biggest fan. How to survive hardship, & maintain that sparkle in the eyes . I know he won’t read this—but I’m glad he’s still around.

~ fin ~

p.s. He’s still alive, he’s just not a big reader! But don’t worry guys, I’ll probably read it to him & he’ll probably just shrug his shoulders & quote some movie I’ve never even heard of then we’ll both go down parallel rabbit holes of absurd jokes.

“Blessed are the Peacemakers…”

from the Beatitudes of Jesus { as recounted in the Gospels }

How do we write from the heart? This is the question that has been on my mind lately… Ever since I realized that I was writing out of grief once again. Grief is an all too familiar feeling, so writing became an all too familiar refuge. Silly of me to think the days (& nights) of needing such a crutch simply to survive were well in the past. While living in Paris, I even went so far as to start proclaiming that I officially “quit” calling myself a poet (because I stopped identifying as one).

Although I ceased my writing—even as some of my best ideas were coming to me—the world hasn’t ceased its cruelty. As I turned towards a calling that felt more important for me to pursue—that of becoming a councilor—it only deepened my desire to be a source of healing & strength for others. For a time, I thought & told many that it was poetry which saved my life—but it was my own willingness to get well that did… Writing was merely the instrument which I chose to pick up.

It worked well (for a time)… It was a sharp tool, & could make deep incisions. It felt like I could dissect my soul on the surgical table of the literary arts, & it felt good to do so. Great, even—especially during the discovery of my process, & the composition of a first book—until the process itself started to feel soulless. I was no longer writing for myself, but for an audience… For accolades & awards that I tossed aside & promptly forgot about in order to pursue/produce a fresh batch.

I still remember those early days of discovering poetry… How potent it could feel—how like magic in the trembling hands of a student struggling in nearly every other subject at school… I was a teenager, but I was dangerously treading water in many ways—academically, emotionally, physically, psychologically, sexually, spiritually: I was beginning to drown, & I was beginning to lose my belief in God—alongside every good thing in this world—as I had already lost faith in myself.

The first poem I wrote (worth its salt) was in response to the prompt to write a poem as though it were a prayer. As a freshman college student who had just left the church—by moving away from home & existing outside familial obligations for the first time—I’d never considered such a blasphemous thing before… So of course, I decided to dive right off the deep end. I went for the most well known prayer of all: In one sitting, I rewrote the Lord’s Prayer as a modern narrative.

This piece ended up being my first real publication (in Issue 128 of TriQuarterly which was still in print & which my professors told me was cause to celebrate)… Naturally, I thought: “I must be onto something here!” & decided to explore this newfound way of expressing myself even further… I had known I wanted to be a writer since I was a child, but what I immediately realized & most enjoyed about poetry as a particular genre was this profound similarity to prayer (& to music).

So writing poetry rather quickly replaced closing my eyes to say a prayer before bed, & I found myself more replenished in the solitude of this act than by most acts. Thus, I found myself in the company of poets, pursuing it as a path almost fervently… There came a time when I even called poetry my only religion, & in truth it had become exactly that. Yet the only other poem I produced which took the shape of a recognizable religious text is the one I present to you in this post.

Even after I stopped attending church regularly, the way I dealt with my more conservative family members—or fielded the questions of those whose opinions I still greatly cared about—was simple enough… I told everyone who asked that I still believed “the words in red.” As anyone who has owned a red letter edition of the Bible knows, I’m referring to dialogues attributed directly to Jesus Christ (& this was often sufficient to end the interrogation on the subject of my salvation).

Truth is, I’ve always found it easier to be irreverent about paternalistic figures (especially in monotheistic religions)—because of my distaste for authority, & my own trauma with both my parents. But I’ve always had a fondness for the more mischievous, misfit son who often causes a ruckus in the name of justice. When I rewrote the Lord’s Prayer, I remember feeling angry. But then I wrote my own take on this section of the Sermon on the Mount, all I felt was deep grief & loss…

~ The (Other) Beatitudes ~

Blessed are the wingless, for their bones
are not hollow—but heavy with want.

Blessed is whatever flocks homeward,
as well as whatever remains—as I do—

for the winter. Blessed are those who
shoulder up. Blessed those who suffer

no fools. Blessed what is in me to tip
an intimate scale of guilt, and blessed

that guilt—for it knows no immediate
bounds. For it made me better than I am.

Blessed is the solemn animal that weighs
every question asked, finally, by the river.

Blessed is all the debris that waits inside
of our monuments. Blessed is your body—

big enough for the both of us. Blessed
are my hands for falling upon all which

they don’t understand. Blessed the moon,
bled white, bandaged in silk. Blessed too,

the stars—for it is with the mercy of carrion
birds that they dip their long fingers in silver

and pick her carcass clean. Blessed is the sea,
graveyard of time. Blessed are the black waves

that congregate like mourners. Blessed are those
who have done their weeping, and are quieter now.

“The thing is that any sophistication I have, aesthetically, comes from Vogue [Magazine] and Harper’s Bazaar. In the 60’s I never missed an issue—even if I had to steal to get them.” ~ Patti Smith { in Interview Magazine }

There is a story I’ve been wanting to share for quite some time, but I never really found the space to tell it. You see, the front cover of my first book of poetry—featuring the top half of a naked woman showing a slight bit of side boob, but mostly her back (as a nod to the title, The Wingless) while crawling around in the dark—is actually only half of a photograph from a spread for Vogue Australia. I originally found it on Tumblr, then used TinEye to track it to the source—down to the exact date & issue of the magazine.

When I contacted my editor to tell him that I’d finally found the image I wanted on the cover of my book—he laughed & told me to keep looking. First of all, it was a photograph taken by a fashion photographer who lived in NYC & whose work had graced the covers of multiple famous magazines...

Secondly, our budget was $200—which was shameful to offer even an amateur in the field. “Gerry” (my editor) has been in the business of publishing poetry since he founded the press—which he has almost single-handedly run & kept afloat since the 1970’s… I knew that I would do well to listen to him.

I went back to clicking through page after page of mostly dull copyright free images. In doing so, I was fairly dismayed to find where so many of the covers I recognized from shelves at bookstores had come from. Surely, it wouldn’t hurt to contact the editors of the magazine. So I wrote the following:

“To Whom It May Concern:

My name is Cecilia Llompart, and I have fallen in irrevocable love with a photograph from a 2009 issue of your magazine. I am a poet, and my very first book is about to be published by a small university press in the United States. They have, rather graciously, allowed me to suggest my own image for the front cover. While it has been suggested that I use an image that is in the public domain, I have scoured hundreds upon thousands of these... Many of which are intriguing in their own right, but none which captures the essence of my work. I am, quite frankly, tired of the same, droll, stuffy, unimaginative images that have dominated the covers of books for centuries. Don't judge a book by its cover, they say—but why not?

Read more

But the more closely I pay attention to what’s going on in the world—the more self-indulgent it feels to post or promote anything personal… Lately, I’ve begun to wonder if carrying a perpetually broken & constantly aching heart is merely the condition of being alive today. To have made it this far, survived for this long, grown this resilient & this strong—only to continue to bear witness to such staggering destruction. Truly, there are days when the weight feels unbearable—yet we must find a way to bear it.

I’ve never liked just how easy it is to turn a blind eye—especially in countries such as ours—nor how powerfully sedated everyone in contemporary society seems. The hypocrisy of my own statement is not lost on me (as someone who relies heavily on meds to avoid falling apart)… But there are wars that wreck the world, wreak havoc on the collective conscience, & will haunt us for a long time to come. These are events we must shoulder & share the guilt for. I believe we’ve been witnessing one in real time…

I’ve been struggling to write this essay for well over 150 days… For over 150 days, we’ve all struggled to make sense of—struggled even to stomach—world news. Forgive me, dear readers—for perhaps I presume too much by including you in this collective grief… Yet how could you not be struggling alongside the rest of humanity? Unless you are one of those who has turned off & away from any & all news entirely—in an attempt to preserve your own faltering sanity.

But sadly for me, I swallow world news like a daily dose of poison… Every morning, the headlines wait patiently alongside supplements & prescribed medications—knowing I’ll eventually falter. Sure enough, before I’ve even finished my cup of coffee, one of the central causes of my depression enters my body & unsettles my nervous system… I surf through clickbait & start to doom-scroll as easily as I swallow the antidepressant that’s supposed to counteract these heavy feelings.

How long have I been this deeply depressed? More importantly, how long have I been this fearful? I can date both states of being back to age nine or ten at most… But my memory becomes difficult to trust before then—because of a series of distressing events that punctured several holes into an otherwise carefree childhood. Caring about others—sometimes far removed from myself—served as a way to distance myself from emotional dangers lurking closer at hand…

Still, until recently, I remained hopeful about the state of things. Pragmatic, certainly. Cautiously optimistic. Maybe even a party-pooper from time to time (okay, a lot of the time). But a doomsayer? Never! Certainly not one of those seers holding a cardboard sign & shouting at strangers about the coming of the end… Except lately, I find myself actively resisting making such a spectacle of myself. Or worse, fighting the urge to curl up into a ball & do nothing at all.

If you’re still with me, dear reader, I salute you… However, I cannot guarantee you a happy (nor even a truly satisfactory) ending. In fact, I can almost guarantee you will get nothing worth making it this far. If I seem to make light or poke fun—please know that it is only to keep us limping along to the sobering tune of reality. It’s no secret that I’ve been struggling to believe in the goodness of humanity… That I’m even beginning to doubt any prospect of seeing a better future.

Whenever I reach this point, I remind myself of the fact that I started referring to myself as an existentialist by the age of sixteen—just to cope with belonging to a blind-folded society in a cruelly unjust world. Here in America, we are hindered by our inherited fear & our bottomless greed… We are taught to mind our own business, to commercialize our every last breath, to make a profit from our pastimes, to grieve quickly, & to grin while we take our beatings.

If we dare complain, we are told to be quiet & grateful for the little we’re given because of a carefully constructed illusion that there isn’t enough to go around. When our neighbor has something we don’t have, we find it easier to covet & bad-mouth them rather than learn to share or celebrate the success of others. But despite being raised in what I was taught to judge as a morally bankrupt & impulse-driven culture, I held out hope for a gentler & kinder world.

I clung tightly to this hope—just as I did to the belief that I was doing the things that would help usher in a better future for all. I voted, I volunteered, I recycled, I rallied, I protested, I marched, I organized, I demonstrated, I educated, & I boycotted… In short, I showed up. I saw many small changes & kept right on hoping for a big change to come—to sweep the entire nation—maybe even in my lifetime. I prayed I’d live to see the day we joined hands & burst into song.

After the end of the first month of this relentless war—which is just another in a series of relentless wars against innocents—I shared some thoughts that started with the words: “These are not dark times we live in... These are simply the times—& things have been dark for quite a while.” I then lost the will to share my true sentiments almost anywhere except for in conversation—either fighting back or releasing tears. In those early days, I wept far more than I spoke.

I circulated the news relentlessly. Not because I felt like it made any real difference—but rather, to keep myself from going numb… I donated to relief efforts & tried to encourage friends to do the same. I, too, cried for a ceasefire. Then I, too, slowly stopped waiting for it. As our own government continues to unmask & reveal itself to be the fully unhinged monster it has become—perhaps always has been—I see how I, too, am complicit… How perhaps I always have been.

Westerners all over the globe have spent several lucrative centuries in blissfully ignorant slumber & will be waking to an incredibly grim reality. Some are waking sooner than others, while some will continue to deny the effects humans have had on the planet until they find themselves more personally affected… A handful might even remain miraculously unscathed—emerging on the other side of this tunnel we’re digging ourselves deeper & deeper into.

If I’m going to be brutally honest here, my friends: I will admit that I no longer see a light at the end of this tunnel… But I can still feel its glow. I’ve stopped praying to see better days—am in fact resigning myself to never seeing them with my own two eyes—but I haven’t stopped praying that our children or our children’s children might. I haven’t stopped praying for the innocent. Nor for the planet, itself… Which—as the poet Joy Harjo taught me—has personhood.

To be honest, dear readers… I thought I was done with poetry. I grew weary of the elitist gate-keeping at every level & found it frustrating to sit with what felt like intentionally complicated books. During the lockdown, I discovered a budding desire to belong to a broader community of caregivers & councilors—to a workforce that got their hands dirty. I’m grateful to have found just that in pursuit of art therapy with special education training.

Yet it seems poetry wasn’t quite done with me. I find the words spilling out of me & onto the page again—though it still doesn’t feel like the right time to share them. I don’t know if that time will ever come, but I can see in the eyes of my students the bitter cost of all this silence. I can see how weary the newest generation already feels. I put into their hands the work of poets such as Fatimah Asghar & Safia Elhillo because I trust their words more than mine.

Instead of imagining better days to come—which now seems to me just one more form of escapism—I’ve been trying to anchor myself in the love that I’m given in the moment that it is given, & in the glimmers of divine light I feel privy to in the presence of nature. My greatest remaining comfort is this: Somehow, strangely—& maybe even for the first time in my life—I’m not afraid. I’m gritting my teeth & committed to not going anywhere… I’m here for all of it.

If all I can do is bear witness, then I won’t look away until my heart gives out from fully breaking. I’ve rolled up my sleeves & I’m praying my knees don’t give way. I used to fear death, but I see it everywhere now—the way it weaves everyone together. I won’t let anything stop me from planting seeds & hoping they’ll grow—for the sake of those already born into this very broken world, & for the ones whose karma will bring them back… To suffer—or to feast off fruit we plant today.

“Healing is impossible in loneliness; it is the opposite of loneliness. Conviviality is healing. To be healed we must come with all the other creatures to the feast of Creation.” ~ Wendell Berry

I turned 38 last weekend, which means I’ve officially been writing poetry for two decades… Over half of my life! So I suppose it’s about time I tell my origin story on here. Not as a writer—since that dates back to as soon as I was capable of holding a pencil and clever enough to invent my own words—but as the poet who followed a path centered around that specific genre towards a graduate degree, a published book, and a few teaching gigs (that eventually ran dry). But the truth is that I never meant to box myself in as a poet, per say, though for a time it felt fitting to refer to myself as one… If only because it seemed like the easiest, most fulfilling, maybe even marketable thing to do as a bilingual, multi-hyphenate artist coming of age before we all stopped believing in a future in academia.

It all began at a humble cafe that has stayed in business over the years thanks to the loyalty of the students across the street. Truly, it was proximity which brought us to The Sweet Shop Cafe with such regularity more than it was the offerings at said establishment… These ranged from milkshakes to Italian sodas to Boba teas and encompassed every type of handheld, sandwich, or wrap imaginable. But if I’m being entirely honest, it all began with a hilarious sandwich board made of cardboard and advertising a poetry club in permanent marker.

I had only recently arrived along with the newest crop of freshmen to Florida State University, but I was already eager to declare myself a creative writing major and find my tribe. Therefore, the very moment our families (at least, those members who had driven or come along to install us into our dorms) had dissipated—and all that remained of the crowd on campus was students who lived or professors who taught there—I set off in search of a sign. It came far sooner than I expected—right as I rounded a corner to the brick courtyard under student union…

In fact, I almost smacked face first into it! Rounding the same corner except coming from the opposite direction were two young men… One of them had recently become a creative writing major himself, and would go on to publish several beautiful books. But at the time, all I knew of these students is that they were both wearing handmade sandwich boards which slung over their shoulders using twine to attach the front and back sides. In the time it took to apologize, I noticed their signs advertised a group called the Society Of Poetic Elements… (Or S.O.P.E. for short.)

I attended their next meeting, and found myself the only freshman (and female) student sitting at a table of about four or five other juniors and seniors. They met every Thursday night, and waxed philosophical about poetry for about two hours… Encouraging each other to read so-and-so or try such-and-such technique to improve a recent draft. I marveled at the sheer quantity of names of still living poets they knew and dropped so easily. I forced myself to read even my worst results of the generative prompts, and blushed at their kind remarks.

Growing up, I’d already been part of choirs, orchestras, theatre ensembles, and many a collective performance before. But it was at The Sweet Shop Cafe where I was born a poet—and in this place that I finally learned what it meant to be in community with fellow writers… I honestly consider myself fortunate that it was such a decent experience, and that it prepared me for my first official workshop—which didn’t occur until the following semester. To this day, I feel as though I owe a debt of gratitude to Glenn, Karl, Phil, and Todd for being so dear.

There were other members who I’m choosing not to name… One, the founder of S.O.P.E who I didn’t meet and become friends with until many years later. Two, a dear-hearted and dearly-departed soul whose name I will refrain from saying out of respect for his relatives. Three, the other wearer of the sandwich board (whose behavior towards me wasn’t ok, so I’m not ready to open up about that right now). Finally, the other students who wove in and out of the group—who helped me keep it going after the original members graduated. I owe them thanks, too!

Lately, I’ve struggled to identify as a poet. It’s certainly still the genre I’ve spent the most time appreciating, contemplating, studying, utilizing, etc. It has shaped me—led me so much farther than I could’ve dreamed—and being one is a dream that continues to guide my steps… Just not all of them. Not even most of them, anymore. The years I spent so certain of that identity were beautiful, but oftentimes heart-breaking ones... I learned that a poet is a lonely beast of burden here on earth—often tasked with bearing witness to far too much.

Still, it felt good to return… A full twenty years after I first walked through its front door—first put pen to paper in my beloved poetry journal—this so-called cafe has barely changed. The sunken couches and the tall-backed benches look as dingy yet inviting as ever… The wood-paneled walls have sustained another few generations worth of signatures, yet somehow remain the same shade of mustard yellow… The ceiling hasn’t been replaced, and the hand-drawn advertisements look trippy as ever… Maybe some things never change. {to be cont.}

“The sound of silence

Is all [of] the instruction

You [will ever] get”

~ Jack Kerouac [et moi]

Something happens between birth and death that forces us to slow down. I don’t know when I began, but I like to think I’ve been doing the work of digging myself out from beneath the rubble of my own past. This entails creating a space that feels safe enough to read through the journals of my youth—to unlock those still painful memories—or to sort through photographs that play tenderly on my frayed heartstrings.

A new (for me) creative practice I have enjoyed doing for the purposes of this platform—this assemblage of my mixed-up memories—has been to pair photographs with journal entries (including drafts of poems) jotted down within the same time frame. Entries oftentimes only a few lines long… Yet combined with images captured that day (or even week), I’m delighted to discover what I was unable to write down.

It might simply be human nature to want to plow (or plod, for those of us who are on the slower side) forward into the future… That is, until we lose something which begs we retrace our steps. Or until age catches up with us—forcing us to catch our breath more and more often. Taught that time is linear, life is a race, and death is the finish line we’re all desperate to outrun—it’s little wonder we end up stalling!

Or worse, going around in circles… I imagine hell is repeating the same mistakes and never learning from them. A few years ago, the world stood still just long enough for me to catch my breath—to remember who I wanted to be: Someone who took ample time not simply to stop and smell flowers, but lingered long enough to write a haiku (or two)… Who talked for hours with trees… Who listened well—listened closely.

I spent the global lock-down going up and down a handful of streets in that Parisian suburb which I called home at the time—slowly walking my dog because it was one of the few authorized activities (outside of going to work) I could do. I already knew I was saying goodbye… Not just to a city I loved, but also to a self that no longer served me: An identity grown stiff from wear and tear now stifling my future growth.

It wasn’t easy for me to peel back the layers—nor was it easy for those close enough to me to bear witness to the wreckage. I sought solace in silence and steady movement… I wrote haiku as I walked as a form of meditation. Taking stock once more of the smallest wonders all around me—how they enhanced what was made with tools or by hand—at last, I trusted this beauty would follow me anywhere I went.

~ Parisian Blues ~

{ { in 25 haiku & 1 tanka } }

~

Paris is a state
of mind—as much as it is
the sun on your face.

~

In Spring—I worry
the cherry blossoms will fall
before you return…

~

« Nos amis les chiens
ne sont pas admis » read the
sign outside the park.

~

Nine white round pots and
eight black square ones guard
the side door to the hotel.

~

English ivy crawls
under a black wrought iron
fence with spear-like tips.

~

Potted cacti peek
through windows at posters of
the Golden Gate Bridge.

~

A mustard colored
splatter of moss stains the base
of solemn oak trees.

~

There aren’t many
leaves left on the ground… Winter
has digested them.

~

« Doucement » I find
myself whispering when I
step over the stones.

~

Catching my breath on
a bench—the wind rustles the
bamboo behind me.

~

A young woman in
glasses stops to read the words
engraved on a plaque.

~

rue Joseph Bernard
named for a « sculpteur »
who died (1931).

~

The bark on these trees
looks blue compared to the ne-
on of the bamboo.

~

Hearts made of paper
hang above the flower shop—
moss tickles my feet.

~

A magnolia
tree helps the noisy din of
traffic seem dampened.

~

At night—fake candles
draw me toward a window
of fragrant flowers.

~

A stone face with a
surprised expression still hangs
over the blue door.

~

Teenagers curse in
Arabic while loading crates
of bread onto vans.

~

« Vous étés des cons un
chat est fugueur » scribbled on
the lost cat flier.

~

« J’avais pas eu le
temps de le réfléchir— » said
the man cycling past.

~

A dirty blanket—
with leopard spots printed on
it—waits in the rain.

~

Pink feathers float down
murky gutter water then
disappear from sight.

~

A grey-haired woman
plays songs from Amelie on
her accordion.

~

« Je voir la lune ! » says
the child—pointing at the sky.
« Bien joué » says the mom.

~

In Spring—anger chills
my bones, despite these flowers
stuffed in my pockets.

~

A cigarette butt
bounces off the back of a
speeding motorbike

inches away from my face
before landing in the street.

~

“I have absolutely no pleasure in the stimulants in which I sometimes so madly indulge. It has not been in the pursuit of pleasure that I have periled life and reputation and reason.” ~ Edgar Allan Poe

Disclaimer: Just in case the subtitle and epigraph haven’t clued you in, dear readers… This post contains some heavier themes—but I shall attempt to blanket (bet you thought I was going to say sugarcoat, didn’t you?) ‘em in a little bit o’ sweetness.

In a fairly recent conversation with , we half-jokingly waxed poetic about whether the listicle (popularized by purveyors of clickbait, gossip, and other such digital time-sucks) could ever be elevated as an art form. I believe it already has been… But I’m a fan of lists in general—as you can see by the two list poems I previously shared here and here—to the extent that I’ve had to stop myself from making endless amounts of them.

Yet I still take a seemingly endless amount of photos, since this is a more socially acceptable form of obsessive mania (and therefore helps me combat my anxieties). One thing I’ve always struggled with is food… But as the struggles seem to stem from sensory-related issues rather than body image ones, I flew under the radar of diagnosis—until I finally came across the distinct differences between eating disorders and disordered eating.

A few months ago, a challenging but gentle conversation with my councilor (an ASD specialist) led me to confront my drinking problem… Which, although it hasn’t been excessive since my 20’s, it has nevertheless punctuated my 30’s with several less than pleasant memories. After she explained that members of families affected by diabetes will sometimes turn to alcohol instead of sugar, I had some revelations about my own genetics.

I haven’t had anything more than a mocktail or non-alcoholic beer since that session, and celebrated the accomplishment with a half-serious listicle which I shared on other socials but deemed unworthy for this one… Now, I’m torn. I’d like, dear readers, to celebrate another accomplishment—and I would like for all of you to celebrate this one with me. After over a year of being too underweight (plus a summer setback in the form of Covid), I’ve reached my goal minimum weight!

I don’t know how to describe the profound difference this makes in my daily life to anyone who has never dipped below their BMI—just as I could never claim to grasp the physical nor psychological toll it must take to keep weight off. I’ll also admit to cheating by replacing meals with a glass of milk (for the protein), which I then use as an excuse to wash down dessert. It’s stupefying how my consumption of sweets and sugary treats has skyrocketed since I quit drinking…

But it didn’t phase my councilor.

The famously tormented American Poet goes on to say, “It has been the desperate attempt to escape from torturing memories, from a sense of insupportable loneliness and a dread of some strange impending doom[…]” which led him—like so many sensitive souls—to seek solace in substances to the point of abuse. Even our country’s economy seems dependent on perpetuating the cycle of poor health and escapism while profiting from the entire gambit on all sides.

But this was supposed to be a post about donuts! Not about privatizing basic human care, imprisoning powerless addicts, or succumbing to invisible illness. Certainly not about the disproportionately distributed burden of diabetes among certain citizens and/or demographics. DONUTS, I TELL YOU! How much I missed their irresistible call, how they can be found everywhere here, and how sometimes I cried at bakeries in Paris (as embarrassing as that is)…

Yes, dear readers, I missed this humble pastry—which I dedicated my first poem to at the tender age of ten—above all other American delicacies during my several years in France to the extent that I shed bitter tears over the half-frozen imitations they had to offer me over there. Yet I don’t know that I would have ever felt fully comfortable admitting that aloud to anyone before coming to understand the importance of comfort foods with my condition’s eating challenges.

I’m trying not to torment myself with guilt. This I owe to therapy, a loving partner, and my own slow progress towards practicing self-compassion. Now that I’m in better health and financial standing, I’ve promised myself to start eating “healthy” again—but I know the pitfalls of labeling. I’m not skilled enough to draw everything I eat, but my photos serve as a creative food journal of sorts—certainly beat counting calories—and make me happy to see that I’m eating at all.

p.s. To read this in its more light-hearted, listicle form—click here!