nicolemonique

i will never plant another jalapeno pepper for a man i love. i don’t know if there’s magic to it, or just bad luck but as soon as roots curl into fertile soil, fingers start to uncurl from my hair like one space can only spare so much heat-- and peppers will grow when people won’t and how can i feel lonely when i know that? it’s just the nature of things. I want to rip that plant out of the ground because i feel like it’s laughing at me, but one of us deserves to blossom. i’m so mad at it for being here still, when he’s not. but shouldn’t i be grateful? thank you for staying, even though I

I hope I linger and burn in the back of your throat like whiskey drinks and cigarettes-- other things held with reverence when they please you, that you drop without a thought when you’re done.

you thought i meant to let the fire go out when really, i just got lost looking for more dry wood.

what there is was between us looks like beach glass-- it shone like so many radiant drops of sun and sea at the beginning but it’s cloudy now, and dusty, stuck in an in between opacity, so far from the abandon of the waves and excited fingers that held it up as a precious jewel, priceless, then.

I have my grandfather's hands, and my father's. I have their hands and I have their name, a hand-me-down that fits— I'll be the last to wear it. My hands do things their hands have done and more, and less. I have their hands, and I have a back that bends into my work, and a penchant for humor when I need it. I have my grandfather's hands, and my father's, and I carry their guilt, I think, the sins of the father are visited on the child-- but I have their dreams too, I think, and the same way of hoping, and when I write sometimes my words aren't my own, and when I look down I see grandfather's hands, and my father's.

for six years you've been settling like a water-stained box in a basement sitting in some corner sinking into yourself you've been waiting for something to happen for so long that waiting seems like enough now-- it's full of so much potential-- but your sharp edges are sagging, for a quarter of your life you've been dormant and i wonder-- i fuss with frayed flaps where the tape doesn't stick, it's soft like thin velvet-- i peel back papery layers and i wonder: what will fall out of you when all those walls fall away?

instead of breathing, air pushes its way inside and i can only drive it out for a moment before it charges in again and fills unwilling lungs, forces them to expand out like wings stretching into sky and sun a rush of air that violates a sacred space and takes its place-- sets up camp nice and easy near my heart and i'm so tired i can't evict it like i want, i just can't breathe when winter comes.

I can see already the woman you'll find someday-- I can just barely make her out so far away still, but even from a distance I can see she's beautiful. When you come to me with those eyes I've looked into through sun and rain, those eyes I've watched fill with fury and joy, worry and wonder-- when those eyes shine with some new light that isn't mine, when they glow with a question you don't know you're trying to ask, I'll see what you need (you were never mine to keep) and I'll love her completely so that you can do that too.

I'm a child of the earth-- made from mud that's thick and cold-- I catch sunlight in my hair but I have winter in my bones and moss under my tongue and further down below a thorny thicket grows between my legs, I hide shadows behind my knees I have twigs between my toes I whisper in the quiet things that everybody knows: that everybody loves a clearing-- I wish I was one of those.