ocean callings

i feel the swing of ocean

breathing at my hair

fly with me

tugging at my sleeves

to plunge into the

churning memories of water

 

i imagine myself

letting go of the safety rails

and unlocking my soul

to the seething waves

let free of yourself

and come with us.

 

something floats in front of me

a marble, a bubble

inside it, frothing

are all the colors of the rainbow,

pulsing within the transparent wall.

 

and then i realize-

that was me.

the bubble contained my imagination,

my inspiration.

 

it popped.

 

so all the paintings of my mind

leaked into the heartless ocean;

 

instantly, it swallowed all that was left of me

turning vivid colors into the same,

deep dark blue.

 

i turn around

and slowly walk back into

the safety of the ship.

 

the relentless susurration

of the reckless waves

beckons to me no more.

 

uma capivara falada

i found a capybara beneath the earthen growth today.

he was swimming lazily in a shallow, murky pool hidden under a swamp cypress tree.

unlike other capybara’s of their time, this one swam alone, paddling like he was waiting for someone. i sense a difference in this capybara- i could tell he did not need comfort of others to stand alone. yet i can also see that something has happened, a distant gaze in the eyes that somehow tells me he was wronged by society.

tomorrow brings a fresh day to spend with the creature. i found him fascinating- soon i began to come on a daily basis.

     monday: i brought a salad of leaves for him. he ignored it.

           tuesday: i came back. the salad was eaten.

               wednesday: i brought more food and a pad for him to sit on, if needed. again, he ignored me.

                    thursday:  the food was eaten and he sat on the pad, expecting me. i laid out the food, though he just looked at me expectantly.

                         friday: when he heard me come, he slid off the pad and near the shore. i gave him the food and he nipped at it, piece-by-piece eating it all from my hand.

the amount of friendship and trust bonded within a week found me amazed. how come humans can’t learn the simple act of faith? why do we always need be so backstabbing and hateful? we call ourselves more intelligent, yet when it comes to companionship we can’t even learn from animals.

days past, and we grew to love each other and finally, one day, he spoke:

my family shunned me for i have communicated with the alligator.

he is different from the rest- he does not wish to eat us, yet every day i bring back the scent of the e n e m y and my family grew to act as if i was one myself. they

dispatched

 of me just a few days before you found me. you say you humans are terrible beasts and that you should take from us, yet we are not much different. you just need to clear free of your past and hold on to the future, and embrace just a little bit more.

you humans are mistakeful, i know. but you can be more.

i saw no more not of the capypara since then. 

blackbird, tonight.

below the crevasse of the earth,
we found a dead blackbird today.

it was found, below the ice,
wings frozen in its attempt to escape.

i told my sister this:
she wrinkled her nose in disgust.
i told my brother this:
he thought it was cool.
i told my parents this:
they asked, “how did that happen?”

i sometimes wonder if i am the only person here,
that thinks the way i do.
instead of my family, i thought:

of the scene in my head

a small silhouette in shape of a bird,
flapping frantically to find it’s home.
it travels distances before collapsing,
down in an arctic crevasse.
finally it awakes,
just to find ice slowly glazing over,
and it flaps, flaps,
eyes darting faster and faster,
before the ice completely submerges,
a little black silhouette,
of a bird.

and, instead of crying or asking
or being grossed-out,
i used it as an inspiration
blossoming in my mind,
and i write.

marmi achachi

They see me, every day. Yet I am but slowness in their peripheral vision. Even my son shall dance gleefully- sometimes he mocks me, at my oldness.

I feel like a frozen pole; in my mind, I know I am moving, but at the same time, it’s as if my soul is moving through hardening glue, just like me.

The creators of my world have made me the grandpa- they even pay more attention to my younger sister. They know me in time, but that fades to ordinary knowledge. I am not nearly needed enough for their care. I see their busy lifespans- always rushing, always looking for something that isn’t there. I’ve seen tears of sadness in my vision, all because they have hurried too quickly to see their potential happiness.

This knowing crosses my mind every day, but I can neither speak nor shout. My son is the beat that keeps us moving, my sister is the reminder that already time has passed, and I am the one that never seems to change- but when you take another closer look, I have already fast-forwarded time.

These humans that I see, sometimes I pity them. When will they understand that sometimes, instead of running, you need to walk and praise the snail? These creatures have programmed us- my son resonates with how they act every day, yet he cannot stop because he was designed not to. These sophisticated beings know much more, but it seems like they pay too little attention to me, the most important.

Unlike my son, they have the choice to move at their own pace- but it seems like they flick that away and in no time, have grown gray hair. Sometimes I wonder. Is gray hair a payback for wasting their happy moments? Is it a contagious illness? Everyone in my sight has soon grown gray hair, before I never see them again.

What does the color of hair mean?

Years I spent pondering these questions. It seems like even though I go round in circles in my small world, I never end. I am infinite. I, unlike these humans, have something they do not. I have time. Yet, though I have all that I need, I daren’t waste a single moment of it. These mortals with the disease of gray hair- they seem to spend all of their lifetime throwing it away.

How can this be? Don’t they realize what they’re doing? Is it some sort of karma?

Then one day, a human walks up to me and stares at me straight in the face. It is the first time I have had this sort of recognition. He talks to another human, saying that I was off-time and my batteries needed to be changed.

Off-time? I am never wrong about time. How could he say such a thing? I am my own essence, and I can never be wronged, unlike these humans. And what is ‘batteries’? How in any way is this ‘battery’ thing any part of me? Why does it need to be changed?

For the first time in my time, my mind seems to work faster and flurries of thoughts comes at me. Then, the human picks me up. What are they doing? How am I moved from my position? My pacing grows faster and faster, something that has never happened before, for I was always on time, always balanced. Then I feel his hand against the world’s back, something I have never seen nor felt before. I feel something coming apart. What are you doing? Why are you ruining my world? How is this–  

axsaraña not, when in jawari

1776

momma always says not to take paths of darkness. you know it is dark when you can’t see the light.

he deprives me of light, but despite momma’s warning, i do follow him. because he is my jayp’u. it is in certain times these things come across my instinct, and i just know.

he takes me carefully by the hands. you must follow me, jarawi, he whispers, as if a boy taking care of a precious glass piece. my breath is still in the moment- his word, his promise of jarawi. could i be his poetry?

it is urgent he murmurs, and bond by the beauty of his essence, i feel wanted, loved. i trail behind him, picking up the remains of a bread crumb trail. i have visited him before, back when memories were foggy like a fast moving car. he has said to eat the dirty bread crumbs. i shall eat, my master.

softly, through the meadow, he pushes towards me a black metal khariña and ushers me towards a small shack.

you must listen to me, jarawi. i am your jayp’u. you must follow what i say before i sink. please.

i nod, and sigh toward him. what beauty… i shall listen, jayp’u, to whatever you shall say.

he leans towards me and kisses me, then pushes me back, slightly, into a hole where i fall. his image grows less, like a mirror, but that’s fine, because i know he’s in here, in chuyma.

i land, softly, on a pillowed grass. “thank you for keeping me alive,” i say to the hole at the top.

i hear his voice penetrating into my mind.

“you must learn to live with discomfort. follow my tracings.” something urges me to hold my knife. he continues. “draw a triangle… then one upside down…” listening to his lead, i slowly trace the blade against my arm. triangle, mujina , upside down.

i cry out, gasping. i did not know he would let me feel pain. blood seeps out, like a black snake.

“discomfort is art. say.”

i force out, “discomfort is art.” my stomach feels queasy. when was the last time i ate? i hardly remember.

“isn’t it beautiful? it is the marking of illuminati. you are, jarawi!”

and then, silence. i no longer feel the presence of him, my all. something leaps from my soul- i slump down. for days i am without water, without food, without him. i can’t feel myself, but all i can see is that triangle. upside down. reflected off of a light beam. i think maybe the ground is feeding me water. but my lips are chapped.

triangle. opposite. is… muyu.

something crosses my conciseness. jakaña

my awareness is complete. i stand up, the first movement in so long. i see the muyu of light above.

i
see
the
qhana

an understanding of god has flown past me. illuminati, not i.

suddenly, an aching pain grabs at my wrist. in my mind, i can see the burnt markings of the mujina pulsing in anger, before fading away. a cry escapes my chapped, chapped lips and i claw at the triangle, twisting in emotion.

god lets me wither away, back into the hole.

in my dream, samka, i know the future. i know that i will walk into reality and mortals will fear me. but that is fine, because i have endured the axsaraña myself, and i know.

i will always be in jawari.

the screaming demon (Bolivian legend)

past a city of ashen men pocketed with a beating heart, past the ugly checkered man who stood as a coat hanger, past an onion bag filled with bugs and dirt and a little girl, there lay an ice desert. beyond that desert, beyond all of the ghastliest of the world, lay an abandoned mine digging all the way to the core of the earth, constricting an ice stone statue called the screaming demon. 

silhouetted by only a glimmer of light peeking through a mile long peephole, the screaming demon would stand behind a black hell of lava and melted, glistering limestone, summoning all the burnt souls sucked from the surface of the earth into his pit of black. it would mute its victims, for the cries of help would be saved for later. the screaming demon nor spoke nor moved; yet his essence of all the bottled up hatred escaped his body like a shaken-up coke, and it would all come down in pourings of screams, tainting all with abomination, lies, sins, and murder. 

the world was a chaos of tear-stricken cheeks and bloody buildings, and pain, oh the pain. it was only until He has sent the Pure One, the little boy that could plug his deaf ears, and travel all the way down to the core of the earth, and for there he sang unspeakable words that drowned out the screams of the screaming demon, so slithered away all uncontrollable hate from mortals, leaving just a slimmer in return, for such a happening could never leave completely. this is what made mortals still sinful, and still mortals, but no longer a replica child of the screaming demon. 

and yet, to this day, the screaming demon is still down in the core of the earth screaming, and to this day, the Pure One is still down in the core of the earth, singing a lullaby.

if the screaming demon shall ever be unleashed to the world again, purity will end.