She tells me she loves me, and she might as well have dropped a guillotine on my neck; chopped me in two, head in a bucket. There is something about not being able to accept love from another, though I'm unsure of what that something is. There's something about all that blood on the stage while the crowd cheers on.

She tells me she loves me, and I cry. Lord, do I ever cry. I tell her, love is my servant, I tell her, I am Icarus in love, I tell her, honey-lotus, I am falling. Still, I cannot stand to utter a word.

Blame it on lust, fabrication, blame it on the realization that love is not a one way street. Blame it on the toxicity of past relationships, or immaturity.

I can touch her I can feel her I can love her but I cannot say it aloud.

Say it and I'm paralyzed. Say it and I'm fifteen all over again; fifteen and there's blood ribboning into the bath water, fifteen and this is what I'm leaving behind, fifteen and simply saying that should be enough of a visualization. Two years have passed. Four years have passed. I hunger, I eat, I cannot speak. Speaking is existing, speaking is vulnerabillity, it is them having a power over you, heart in hands, lifted above your head, just out of reach.

And the pain will ease soon; I will learn to accept it, as whole as an apple. I will learn to bite down into the sugary sweetness, drain it to its core, and without questioning whether or not it may be posioned.

This is love this is life I am living I am loving and that is growth in itself.

How raw it is

To devote yourself,

To hold the rosary in hand and tranquility in heart

To write of religion though I can't say I know prayer,

But I know her

I know she is

The cup of holy water on my abuelo's altar

That I sneak sips of when I'm feeling unholy

And she's no saint, but I'd kneel at the church of her body

If I had the chance to

Still, I want to sin at the thought of her -

Want to taste the sweetness of her honey,

Feel it creep down my throat

And I won't apologize anymore,

Won't let shame build a home out of me,

Won't let it gut me

Like a fish,

Oh holy fish,

Fish of Christ

Drown me

I saw the face of god: I fought her, and I loved her. She cradled me like a mother, with her mothwing-gentle mouth, with her spiderweb strength; take me out, take me out and eat me like something ripe, something sweet.

It’s like a confessional, except I choke each time I speak. It’s like when I proposed she build me a church, but instead, she built me a cemetery. Mamá, this holiness, it burns like oil. These scars, they’re a right to survival. The word, “sin,” it rolls off my mother tongue like the sea’s waves; and Mamá, I miss myself. And Mamá, I’m coming home.

Her limbs are like those of a cherry tree - I mean, I am choking on cherry blossoms - I mean, I want to choke on the thought of her - I mean, I didn’t think I could burn like I used to. Didn’t think I could yearn like I used to.

Listen, I’ll bury my past like the dog buried its bone in the backyard. Let me dig a grave, let me mourn. The tarot reader told me, it’s the past it’s the past it’s the past. This is your future. She’s my future, and I will enter this world over and over, blind and deaf like a newborn; searching for her - over and over.

Gramma tells me

God can wash me clean

And I tell her,

(We don’t have a word for this yet - )

Divinity pours from the bedsheets and

I have felt

Euphoria

In all its purity

This is the only way we will ever see ourselves in heaven:

And we were Buddha

And we were Jesus

And we were Allah

( - except perhaps, religion)

--- Second paragraph inspired by a poem by Audre Lorde, all rights to the “And we were Buddha / And we were Jesus / And we were Allah” portion go to Audre Lorde ---

#poetry #lgbt #lesbian #lgbtpoetry #lesbianpoetry #lesbianpoem #lgbtpoem #lovepoem #lovepoetry

Her,

Tasting me like

Honeysuckle -

I am in bed with a girl,

And we are building a church:

Her mouth is my confessional,

My sternum her altar,

And I am told

This is blasphemy in itself

I am told,

This is sin

This is sin

In its purest form,

The way the smell of her

Is my melatonin,

The sight of her:

My refuge

To hold sin in hand

And turn it tender,

Turn it benevolent:

I won’t let holiness hunt me anymore

#poetry #lgbt #lesbian #lgbtpoetry #lesbianpoetry #lesbianpoem #lgbtpoem #lovepoem #lovepoetry