I hope the buildings swallow me
and spit me out on the boardwalk
I hope I crawl towards what we call
potent
and old
I think I am an octopus with 8 legs
and 8 souls
and they all wanna be a lady who crotchets
the radio is laughing at me
I was yelling in the crowd
not that long ago
the uber driver
can smell tobacco
from my broken nail
hands
and swim suit
i left so much sand in the back seat
he called his honda
the beach
– sheila c.
what time is it there?
are you awake?
you are becoming a caricature under my breath
I dream about you, still
still, I know
I have a freshly pressed image
of you screaming on the train
in czech
waving your soft hands indiscriminately
how measured they can be
how infallible they can be
I am saving it for later
I am saving you for later
– sheila c
I have a blue lit dream of you.
you are cackling bent over the tatters
of a tire
calling me "puddin pop".
I detest it
and you laugh so hard
your knees buckle.
I shut my mouth tight
and grit my teeth through a smile.
your hands are open
on my thighs
and I rest my head
right on the crane of your neck.
we are stranded on the 1-10.
I bore this place in the back
of a diner.
I imagined it the way you imagine
your lungs oxygenating blood
as you're running,
platelets swelling up
and such.
you have taught me
i can paint a picture with ache,
pulse,
and yearning.
– sheila c.
I don’t know about grand romances
you know like sunset scenes in movies from 1995
big haired shadows and slow bearing kisses
like you knew they’d end up together, right?
I don’t know about dudes who bring you flowers on bended knees
because they may or may not have fucked your friends friend
you asked “how could you?”
he said “right now, that’s not important”
face bursting through a red bouquet
I don’t know about eternal love
but at night when the heat
fills my densest bone
he turns on every fan in the house
he brings water and gently pours it down my throat
he ices down my neck
he says “honey, it’s alright.. it’s alright.
he clutches my hands
“is that okay? is that better?”
and I lie.
I don’t know about grand romances
but every night
he says he’d trade his healthy body for mine
-sheila c.
when I was a girl in the way
you are a girl with ponytails
and ghost scratches
I was privileged to pretend
I was Darwin
cataloguing wings
and beaks
and smooth feathers
cracking open daylight
with the roosters
the king of my moor
now I am a girl in the way
you are a girl
when you’re impractical
and unlikely to settle
I look outside my window
to see the cardinal breast pulsing
and I feel my gut start to turn
i hear my grandfather whispering
he is dead but his voice is not
when you were a girl
you broke two limbs
from the avocado tree
I planted
your elbow healed
but the avocados
never bloomed again.
– sheila cordova
I contain a certain silence that bends with time
I tell myself
this is the best option
the only option
the world disintegrating like a crumble cake
and my coffee on the table
ready to soak it in
have I given up?
that can’t be
there is more than gin pools
and drowning in fountains
made of right now…
because not now
not this second
not this thing
I feign a laugh
and a whim
of something
something distant
instant
and within.
– sheila c.
I’m aware of the shift
in continental plates
below me
the hard ground
is somehow evaporating
while growing
it doesn’t cease
to bore me.
I am rock
slowly eroding
cliff side
forging
core and crumble
forming.
I am contained by valley
as a split
a dual terrain
beginning in mist
so moist the air
is drip
drop
droning
a deft step
or two
towards
rounded peaks
purging
all the voice
inside the valley
resonates
and pours into the
alley
a bloom
is being bore
before me
– s.c.
