I want you. Shamelessly. 

I long to kneel at your feet

To inhale the smell of you

As I rest my side against your thigh

And watch the fire crackle and pop

As the breeze carries off the heat of the day. 

I desire the weight of your hand

Squeezing my phalanges together

Grinding the bones until I float

And they make my arms dance

Like eels in the water of your touch

Wild but to you compliant. 

I miss a time when you could

Touch me in stillness rather than fight 

When I could Lean against you

And not have our sense of how 

Time is so little urge us along

Into the inevitable before the peace. 

I wish I could touch you without

Our blood racing, without

Slipping under the waters of you

Before I have the chance to breathe you in

To feel the warmth of your skin 

To- if time only allowed for it!- doze

Fire warmed against your knee

Before kissing your hip in the dark of night. 

I'm fuckable now which is an
Accomplishment for
Someone who looks like me.

I'm fuckable now which is an
Ah-complishment for
Someone with brains like me.

Some how this accomplishment
Isn't as useful
As it once seemed.

I'm fuckable now but who cares?
Doesn't mean anyone wants
To spend any other time with me.

Wanting this much makes me hate myself. 

I fight against illogical desires and 

Aim to avoid getting my hopes up

And I had gotten pretty fucking good at it

And now you are back in my life

And thoughts of you make the blood

Rush to my flesh, 

Leave me dizzy and unable to think

Clearly, to see clearly,

To avoid arching my back and 

Whispering fuck 

Alone in my kitchen as I try to return

Myself to a homeostasis that I can work from

Breathe from without gasping. 

I've gotten so good at not getting my hopes up

Letting myself settle into my power

And seeping out into the attainable

To not look ahead and rush 

And now that hard won self control

Is puddled around me, 

Back pressed against hard reality

Trying to bring myself

Back to earth, level my breathing

Slow my blood and approach you

With my will intact. 

I have willed my spine into steel

And still had you before

So why is my back gone

Rounded without you from your thoughts?

"Moroccan" hair

Last night my mother and I
were chatting about our hair
about caring for it, about oil
and I mentioned that my sister
didn't need to do what we did.
"Her hair isn't coarse like ours;
she doesn't have our Moroccan hair"
And it's driven home that
the reason We are seen ethnically European
is our ancestors failed to flee
across 9 miles of water and
assimilated, pulled
away from themselves
when the words left their
Jewish-Moorish mouths,
"...Et in Iesum Christum,
Filium eius unicum, Dominum
nostrum, qui conceptus est
de Spiritu Sancto,
natus ex Maria Virgine..."
Pled, "no, no, yo soy católico
Verme aquí, mientras
mis personas dejen
Es decir, aquellas personas
Soy un buen ... un buen católico
Un católico. dame mi casa, mi profesión
No enviarme al exilio."
aquellas personas - their family,
their people, their history, denied
Made into an other
for the sake of assimilation.
Who would we be if they had fled,
how would they see us?
Either way their blood shows
in my mother and I. Our
Moorish hair. Could-have-been Moroccan hair.
Jewish- or perhaps precisely
Sephardic hair. What my family
usually hides under Just Spanish-ness
hair, on my head and my arms,
my toes sprouting genetic memories
DNA expressing the blood
that carries on from under assimilation.
Even my body wishes to incribe
in us where our people have been.
I don't understand why she doesn't
want to return with me.