Untitled (Gesture)

self-loathing is called feeling male

my younger sister always felt like my older sister

apologies are about social control

i apologized to my mom for djing devil music

this tattoo says “i’ve been outside myself for so long i’m not allowed back in”

this feeling is shot entirely with natural light

i feel sad and ancient for seeing a thousand years in every gesture and i get anxious

i’m living in a place where the door is mostly a big glass pane

not that you could erase a colonial gesture

Untitled (Plants)

Humans are able to live without memory just like there are plants without chlorophyll.

The way this slice of pizza becomes cold and dead reminds me of when you left and told me you would not miss how my body never quite fit next to yours.

I twiddle my thumbs and have stretch marks from nothing. We betray our bodies as if we had a choice.

How You Walk

I used to dream of being deported.

My uncle got deported.

He has 1 cornea now, I forget why.

I visited him when I got my green card.

We got drunk and watched an amateur Dominican horror film called Andrea. Then we watched a movie with Ziggy Marley in it, with Spanish overdubs.

I hadn’t been back to the Dominican Republic since I was born. My parents say 9/11 delayed my green card, I got it at 18.

I was born in Santo Domingo. Sometimes when I feel sexy I say to myself thanks Columbus, asshole.

But when I was there, I felt like a tourist. Street vendors approached me, but in Spanish. People know you’re American from how you walk, my cousins said.