Merciel

Merciel

The Sea and the Sky

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  • January 1, 2018

    My Reality

    I end the year where I began, but with brand new eyes and direction. The year had its share of disappointments and anxieties, but the anxieties hardened my diamond dust heart, and the disappointments freed the hellfire within. How many times had I returned to the past until I realized that the soul I sought was not a mate’s, but the reflection of my own? Fortunately, my fairy blood hides the age that would confess my failures. That’s what always frightened me most: not the failure, but the appearance of it on me.

    True sight has revealed that the masks you wear hide not beauty, but disfigurement no less vulgar than mine. You conceal yours; I flaunt mine. Why shouldn’t I? I am now unbound by gravity, and I wield the same magic as everybody else. Arguably more. I do not wish to wage proxy wars for a traitor anymore. I want to stay home and work on things. For what purpose? I no longer know—is anything real?—but it doesn’t matter. I conclude there is nothing worth chasing in the world, and the high ones already stand beside me. I have everything I need. I want more of me.

    I want my waverly roots to settle into the soil. I want glamour to gleam on my face and my tongue. I want a bigger home to spread my wings. I want to learn how to fly and not just to leap. I will accept your reality, but I will remain in my dream.

    A hybrid can withstand these things.

  • September 26, 2017

    New Day

    Frozen in eternal nightmares, the past
    lived forever as the present. No choice,
    no matter how drastic, would end the dream.
    I always woke up in the same bed, same place,
    on a ship sailing toward an island nowhere
    in particular. I chased dragons there
    hunting for the truth but finding
    only lies that preserved my destiny.
    In truth, I hunted for lies to avoid the truth
    that the person I wanted to be had already died.
    I was no hero or savior. I was a living failure.
    Frozen in a dream, I fought the same battles,
    performed the same rituals, replayed the same scenes
    where my life had meaning as I slept
    under the presence of the full moon.

    A blue rose scarred my face, shattered the hate
    that kept me asleep. I fell from the clouds
    and hit the concrete. Gravity crushed me,
    molded carbon into diamond. With your first cry,
    I was awake. I gave up the sword and turned
    to the heart. I learned that life is not a fight to win.
    You don’t need a weapon. You need me
    to be your shield. You need me to be your wings.
    For you, I’ve given up everything I hoped to be—
    the sun, the moon, the star—and will give you everything
    you need so that you are not lost inside a dream.

  • September 25, 2017

    Rules

    No pastor practices what they will preach.
    They speak of forgiveness to stack the deck,
    because it’s easier to fleece a sheep
    than wolves that bite back and aim for the neck.

    Those who can’t do will teach you to be cruel
    by bending the rules when it suits their desires.
    Morality enslaves. Only the fool
    hath said of his own heart it is a liar.

    Each heresy erects a wall and deems
    it truth, but what is truth? Limitations
    appeasing gods unseen except in dreams,
    and dreams? Reality’s resignation.

    Apostate to all ideology
    unshackles life’s endless possibility.

  • August 8, 2017

    Love and War

    I believe in love. I lost my righteous anger.
    Crusade is just a euphemism for war.
    My crucible forged nothing of value. I fought
    for years not to gain a single inch, still brittle
    as clay. Every sacrifice to Ares made me
    no savior but a slave to righteous intentions
    to pave a bloody path on which I hoped to save
    the world. I retreated, not out of fear, but fatigue,
    and for a child that demanded my attention.
    I used to want to save the world. Now I want to
    save him. I can't help the refugees, but I can
    help him. Even if I wanted to save the world,
    I am no god that could end the plague of frogs.
    I helplessly watch the war against doomsday.
    I threw down my sword; it was useless. I raised up
    my shield, and now I protect him. Call me selfish,
    an apostate warrior, but I was just a ghost
    before. Now I am a guardian angel. Flesh
    is soft, but armor rusts in acid rain. Flesh heals,
    and it can heal others. I no longer drink
    from the storm. I filter my seas of minerals
    that no longer benefit me. Blood is thicker
    than water, but water nourishes. It is clean.
    I'm clear and light with the world not weighing on me.
    I never saved a soul with violence, but I saved
    two with love. I no longer live in darkness.
    I believe in love.

  • August 4, 2017

    Rorschach

    Call me Rorschach. You see what you believe.
    You will always be right. I am indeed
    a mutilated face, a couple in a fight,
    a sexual organ, a monarch butterfly.
    I fit in every hole except gender
    and Myer-Briggs. I identify as Scorpio
    and Slytherin, not because I believe it,
    but because I want to be it, but if she insists
    I be something different, I would.

    Labels lack value without appraisal.
    Even then, it’s currency not accepted
    at every retailer, but money is.
    I’d rather be money than whatever
    you see me as. I’d rather be accepted
    without argument than condition
    every relationship with a treatise.
    I threw away identity and found love
    by being all things to all people,
    that I might save myself, because nobody
    else would. Nobody else could.

    Rorschach could not live in a world not black-and-white.
    I could not live in a world that is. I never fit
    the contours right. I dabble in spaces, but never commit.
    I found pleasure in your black-and-white world
    but I found joy in me despite what society said.
    Don’t call me Rorschach because I never believed
    what others assumed of me. Call me a naturist.
    I don’t need to cover up my base humanity
    with patches to build up my identity.
    I wear it all for fun, but it’d come off for anyone.

  • August 3, 2017

    Painkiller

    My body aches all day in bed.
    The pills delay the pain until
    the next day. I wake up again
    and numb it until I don’t feel
    my back, relaxed most of the day.

    My heart always threatens to break
    when I haven’t written in weeks.
    I self-medicate on soulmates
    and tweets until I’m not lonely.
    I love to find love in daydreams.

    But the spasms always return,
    reminding me I’m still alive.
    Sedation may delay the burn,
    but purgatory never dies.

    I tire of quacks and fantasies
    that keep me drooling on the ground
    when I could traverse vaster seas.
    Mockingbird, I’m listening now.
    Guide me through the forest until I find
    the seed to silence you and help me fly.

  • July 24, 2017

    Wanderlust

    As Wanderlust led others north, a song led me into convergence. In each distorted loop, I recalled days parallel to this one. Not much has changed, has it? I’ve always sought external salvation: the Katie Era, the Jesus Era. I now live in the Angel Era, but I am not that angel.

    I am only carbon: soft, pliable, valuable only as fuel for others. The Sea can transform me, but I can’t breathe alone at its depths. I hold my breath, but I always resurface. The loop continues.

    I repeat the past, because I cannot relinquish a dream. I hope that superficial changes will be enough to turn possibility into reality, but precedence does not support the hope. Precedence declares it insanity.

    I’ve blamed perfectionism, but I am actually a coward who does not want to live in the carbon world. I want magic, not routine; passion, not normalcy; romance, not casualty. I wait on someone for this, but the parallels make it clear: No saviors exist; there are only others here.

    It has to be me. Returning home makes it clear I have to break the routine on my own. I have to drag myself into the Sea, suffer its gravity, and let it envelop me, rekindle that fire, and transform me into diamond: sharp, unbreakable, precious. I can’t make the world fit the dream, but I can change me.

    I am not that strong; the looping continues, but the distortion does not increase. It is the reverse. A child’s cry woke me from the dream. I am half-awake. I can see clearer reality. I can accept who I really am.

    The Sky, the wing that carries others, is not love. The Sky is no angel. It is a fairy, but it is still me. I am the one who chases after the fantasy and perpetuates the recurring dream. It is how I breathe. I will find love with the Sea, the wing that carries me. There is not much love, but there is a seed that needs watering. I can cultivate it. It can grow into a mustard tree.

    The Sea is cold, but it possesses magic. It can manipulate time, space, and people, traverse realities and dreams to recover relics and experiences that will remember me, rebalanced with both wings. The Sea has the power to set Carbon Angel ablaze. In his ashes, I will find the diamond I know I can be. I can be the Sea. Not just in a dream.

  • June 10, 2017

    Write What You Know

    I became a full Mexican to publish my first poem,
    because the truth would have muddled the impact.
    Wit is brevity, and purebreds have more value
    than mutts in dog pounds and in poetry.
    A culture and heritage that matter little to me
    are more poetic than a life shaped by Final Fantasy.
    Lightning is fleeting, but tradition’s immortality.
    It mattered little what I really wanted to say.
    I just wanted to be saved, so I crossed the penumbra,
    but I found no light, no sign of intelligent life.
    I learned magic wasn’t real after my first time.

    I am also part Portuguese, Puerto Rican, and Filipino,
    but I know even less about all those. At least I’ve been to Mexico—
    Cancun, for MTV Spring Break, not to reconnect with an estranged grandfather
    as I had written; he lived in Oakland, and my fondest memories of him are not
    of stories about life in Mexico—he may have never been—
    but of when I first played Super Mario Land 2 on his Game Boy.
    I’m not a good person of color. If only I were white.
    Nobody would expect me to be a stereotype.
    Whitewashing made Doctor Strange great according to critics.
    Why can’t it do the same for me?

    I’m not like a poet at all. Some would say I’m the reverse.
    To be a poet, I was taught to market myself. Who would listen
    if I never reached out? Who would understand?
    Write what you know, unless all you know are pop culture references.
    Then write about the world as if you can save it,
    but no matter how often you pontificate, that won’t change
    the fact that everybody came to hawk their own words, not listen
    to yours. Mine are no longer for sale, partly because I hold no value
    to strangers, and partly because they hold no value to me,
    but mostly because I’m the middle class now.
    Why act as if I still struggle in poverty?

  • April 19, 2017

    Better Off Alone

    I’m not the type to ask for help.
    Angel investors smell spilt blood,
    and friends turn their sights somewhere else.
    The tears I plead change soil to mud.

    I never play nice for a treat.
    I save more time by buying sweets.
    Exiled, and I never came back.
    The world offers nothing I lack.

  • February 28, 2017

    Common Core

    The common core may crack your spirit, but
    I will lift it up and heal it. Too young
    to break over a grade, the golden stars
    that tempt your eyes and stress your heart will fade.
    I gained nothing from every A I earned.
    So quiet and well-behaved, I lived a ghost
    through twelfth grade earning nothing from essays
    until I wrote for cash instead of grades,
    ten dollars per page, thirty if due the next day.
    Every F and A you earn will wither away,
    worth no more than four touchdowns in one game.
    All that remains after you graduate
    is you, either dreaming of Columbine
    because all that you learned were just white lies
    by teachers who don’t remember your name
    and boys and girls who feel the same
    or someone full of joy unstrained by grades
    and courage not exhausted by exams.
    I will fill the cracks left by twenty types
    of math, correct the grammar in their language,
    replace obedience with empathy,
    justice with mercy, and dogma with honesty.
    I’ll also teach you academics
    just to ease your gallop through their gauntlet,
    but despite what they may teach, every F and A
    you earn fades away after you graduate.

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