Merciel

Merciel

The Sea and the Sky

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  • July 10, 2016

    Not of This World

    I cried when critics declared Batman v. Superman rotten.
    My trinity had died, slain by a hydra I cannot reason with or fight.
    I believed in justice. The world proved me wrong.
    I’m always wrong. That’s life’s greatest lesson.
    I couldn’t save animals or stop global warming
    by passing out pamphlets and abstaining from meat.
    Al Gore blames SUVs and eats food from factories painted green.
    I couldn’t help the poor or myself by giving out charity.
    The church told me I took the Gospel too literally,
    Donald Trump commissions the saints to crack heads and crush pussy.

    I once believed everyone was stupid except me,
    but now I wonder if I’m the only one asleep.
    I run in place unable to cross the horizon.
    I speak but lack the volume to make anyone listen.
    I’m naked, but nobody’s paying attention.
    I revolt against the inevitable conclusion.
    I never knew I never enjoyed life
    until Christ led me astray. I could’ve joined
    the circle-jerk, but I took a vow of celibacy when drunk
    on the Spirit, when I believed life had meaning
    outside a high school thirst for college coeds.

    I was wrong again.

    Now, I use my education to debate teenagers
    on why Microsoft is evil and why Sony is great.
    Maybe I’ll find a revelation on Reddit or Tumblr
    that will shift the paradigm and solve the paradox.
    I deserve to be loved. I’m smart, and I’m kind.
    I am most of the time. But even if Gaga matched me,
    even if she saw my reflection and not just my shadow,
    she’d never be as beautiful awake as when I’m asleep.
    She’d never be the pixie that I really need,
    quenching my need for more dopamine.
    Antidepressants numb the body and mind,
    but not the heart. Nothing ever does.
    There is no God, no justice, no logic in this world.
    If there were, everybody would know
    life only makes sense when you force it to.
    Deconstruction is more real than what’s canon.
    I was never deemed a hero for making the right choices.
    I was never white or tall enough to spring from Eden.
    I remained a stillborn seed, a weed begging for somebody
    to water me. I’m a ghost in my own dream, waiting for somebody
    to pinch me. Wake me up, or prove that I’m right about life.

  • March 13, 2016

    My Losing Virginity Poem

    I became a full Mexican even though I was only a third
    because the truth would muddle the impact.
    Wit is brevity, and purebreds have more value
    than mutts in dog pounds and in poetry.
    I fleshed out my life with reality TV.
    I had been an amateur until reality kings
    perfected my POV. I plagiarized pop lyrics
    and sprinkled in “soul.” I created a grandfather
    I had never known but had seen in novellas
    I watched with my abuela, a word I never used
    until election campaigns introduced it to me.
    I never learned Spanish. I chose French
    because the goth girl in class introduced me
    to the Cure, cocaine, and poetry,
    all things I remember more fondly than Cancun,
    which I went to, not with the hope of connecting
    with my ancestors like in the poem, but to get laid.

    As usual, reality got in the way.
    The euphoria did not last long anyway. It never does.
    I want neither climax nor validation, but salvation
    in a world without God, magic, and passion.
    Compared to those, art is masturbation.
    Even if my truest poem were published,
    it wouldn’t change anything. The climax
    ends too quickly, and the buildup just wastes time,
    so why take Prozac to extend the grind.
    I lost interest in Katie right after I graduated,
    but I held onto her for my imagination,
    but no medication can keep me dreaming.
    I’ll always wake up alone, surrounded
    by people I don’t care for. I stay in the club
    because if I ever find comfort in being alone,
    then I may as well already be dead.
    Words lack substance when confined to my head,
    so I vomit on Facebook to show the world
    I’m not dead, dumb or blind to what’s around me.
    I just close my eyes because I’d rather live
    in dreams where I just fuck and eat. No need to cut
    life with drugs, media, and friends.
    I turn off my phone when asleep;
    I no longer need notifications.
    I’m in control. I’m free.
    I can run on water, I can eat meat,
    I can abandon everybody and remain guilt-free.
    I can see my baby when he was still three.
    He’s the only person who matters to me.
    He’s the only reason I wake up when I still want to sleep.

    I never loved another person.
    I love Lady Gaga, not Stefani Germanotta,
    Lana del Rey, not Elizabeth Grant,
    and not even Katie, not as she is.
    I flesh them in poems but hide when I see them.
    Even if they loved me, I would lose them
    just like every crush that quickly turned to dust
    as soon as I saw them without imagination’s makeup.
    They’re nobody I want. I’m not the angel they need.
    I’ve taken a vow of celibacy, not out of religion,
    but because there’s no reason to do anything
    for a quick pick me up that barely lasts half a day.

  • March 6, 2016

    White Dwarf

    Prozac made it hard to rise

    from bed most days. I didn’t want to die.

    I didn’t want to wake. I lost my pick-me-up

    at the pharmacy. I couldn’t find my way

    back home, so I stayed behind

    and stared at walls like 3D posters,

    but the patterns had no depth.

    I only saw black-and-white text

    I could read, but it made no sense

    why I’d age fifty years instead

    of trying to surf the tempests.

    Either way, I’d end up dead,

    either drowning in my own storm

    or shriveling in a desert sun.

  • March 2, 2016

    Nemesis

    The “smartest” girl I know confesses on Facebook
    that she’s an introvert to her one thousand friends.
    She would rather read a book than go out for drinks
    according to her weekly posts of Buzzfeed links.
    In conversations, she refers to Mark Twain
    as Samuel Clemens, and translates our laymen speak
    into an esoteric dialect rehearsed
    since college but she always misses my connotations.
    She uses Tumblr because her thoughts won’t fit
    into tweets, most of which she expresses through sunset memes.
    She no longer follows my blog because I disagreed once.

    She considers grammatical fallacies and misused
    apostrophes torture, but she has never won
    a spelling bee like me. My trophy’s at the Goodwill,
    discounted to a quarter, if you want to see it.
    It comes with my Mensa spam. I gave it away
    because masturbation’s a sin, and I never
    got laid with the results of a quiz anyway.
    I half-assed my A’s to make time to sleep, watch TV,
    and play video games. She worked her ass off each day
    so she wouldn’t end up at Jack in the Box like I used to be.
    I now work on websites, changing the colors of links.
    She earned her master’s degree in teaching
    and makes three-fifths what I do with my corporate BS.

    She tells me I will die alone; I remind her that she will too.
    She waits for Prince Charming like her Jesus godmother taught her to,
    but she’s no Cinderella, Snow White, or even much of a Lady,
    and I’m more Elsa than Anna when it comes to love.
    I don’t need a mate because I don’t have a soul.
    I don’t need a god to avoid feeling alone,
    and I don’t need to be liked for a profile pic
    covered with flags to show strangers I care about shit.
    I burn bridges she’s terrified of crossing.
    I’m Kanye West: unfiltered genius with a godlike fashion sense,
    and she’s Taylor Swift: fake as shit church princess.
    She says she’d rather read a book than party, but
    while I slept through New Year’s, she carpet-bombed
    Instagram with pictures of her friends—
    teabaggers and anti-vaxxers—and thanked them
    for making her poor, dumb, lonely life worth living.

  • February 6, 2016

    I Am not a Hufflepuff

    Do not call me a Hufflepuff. I want
    another class—anything—not defined
    by what I do for you. My loyalty
    is why everyone comes to me, but not
    for me. Man’s best friend, because I’m your bitch.
    I like to help, but I’m not just an elf
    who lives to deal with your dirty laundry.
    I have a life outside of your epics.
    You would know if you ever talked to me
    about something other than your own battles.
    Why must someone die before you see me?

    I’m more than miscellaneous background.
    Acknowledge me for my brain, spine, or heart,
    not just for hands that carry you across
    the ocean when you’re too tired or drunk to walk.
    If all I could be is a Hufflepuff,
    then I’ll drop out and disapparate to the streets, cloaked
    with invisibility you gave me,
    to gorge on sin and gluttony of the world
    beyond your magical fortified island.
    When the police come, I will not be named the culprit.
    They’ll never see me. I’m a Hufflepuff.

    You’re not so smart. You’ve passed your OWLs, but they
    have never reached the heavens like mine did.
    You’re not so brave, afraid to live in a world
    where magic doesn’t exist. I have lived
    my entire life without a wand, burning
    bridges with my words to prove I could fly.
    I’ve killed more demons than you’ve seen, escaped
    a prison built by magicians like you,
    where you sort everyone into a class
    to flesh out your pyramid scheme, with you,
    the lightning rod, erect at the apex.

    If I am just a Hufflepuff, I do
    not belong with you celebrities on stage
    or with the groupies who wait for you to cast
    away their dry spells. I’m not a wizard
    anymore. Magic summons me to you,
    transforms me into your familiar, living
    portrait to pretty up your walls at night,
    your own personal Uber saving you
    money you’ll squander somewhere else. I have
    no life within your walls. I’m just a ghost
    wandering the halls at night, looking for a fight
    to prove to the world that I’m still alive.
    Why must someone die before you see me?

  • January 24, 2016

    Power Fantasy

    Who wouldn’t become Kilgrave if given
    the power to control minds? Whether for food
    or love or to bring about world peace, we want
    the world to abide with us. We know what’s right.
    Do others? We won’t know until we tell them so.
    A superhero’s greatest power is control
    over people, whether through strength or charm
    or binding webs. The lines we vow to respect
    wash away in a single wave of force.
    The appetite does not relax when fed;
    it only expands, and self-reflections
    are never seen. Crusades saturate souls,
    nuance blends into shadows. Justice remains,
    guided by a compass attracted to good
    intentions, but always our own, leading
    to depths we never explored before we had
    control.

    Even God may have been the love he claims
    before impatience pushed him to practice
    tough love on the flocks who kept acting up.
    Ripping children from wombs, crushing their skulls,
    aborting nations to build a paradise
    where nobody dies. Christ himself did not
    shed as much blood as the Israelites did.
    What would Jesus do? He would die for the world
    rather than save it with blood, sweat, and tears
    of villains who refuse to just listen.
    He forgave them anyway.

    Kevin lost his chance to be saved the moment
    his parents stuck the needle in his back. They extended
    his life, expanded his strength, extinguished his soul.
    Redemption never comes without castration
    nor does the desire for it. Jesus conquered death
    without assault rifles and neutron bombs,
    without pillars of fire and forced obedience,
    just by accepting it. The saints followed
    his footsteps into the caves. Crusaders
    prop up his body in front of a flag,
    plug up his wounds and pierce his lapels
    with campaign pins. Armed with rifles and dick
    pumped up, they made a savior for real men
    to follow and honest women to obey.
    They made a hero to bring about the peace
    they desire. A paradise in their own image.

  • October 5, 2015

    Short-Term Evangelist

    Short-Term Evangelist
    Michigan Avenue
    Photograph by Jason Carpenter. © Creative Commons.

    I helped my church plant a garden in Chicago’s inner city,
    but the plants withered, because we forgot
    to water the leaves, declaring our mission accomplished once
    we planted the seeds. One of the boys who pretended
    to shoot me as my friends handed out cafeteria trays
    asked if I’d return to play with them the next day.
    I had to say no, because we planned to take a trip
    to Michigan Avenue where I entered my first Apple Store.
    Homeless men and women begged at the doors of Starbucks,
    still holding the pamphlets on the Four Spiritual Laws we gave them
    that morning during the evangelist phase of the mission.
    I gave them no money because I only carry plastic,
    but I gave one the rest of my vanilla bean frappe.
    He wanted to talk about Jesus—I wanted to talk to a girl,
    but God was watching, and so was she,
    so I listened to his testimony, waiting for the opportunity
    to present mine and close the sale, get close to my soulmate,
    but his testimony ran too long, didn’t adhere
    to the three-hundred-word limit we wrote
    and rehearsed the morning we arrived in Illinois.
    I drowned out his tragedies with prayers to return home
    on dates with porn stars I promised I’d leave behind
    once God blessed me with a family of my own,
    until he stopped, and I could finally brush him away
    with a passionate prayer, but though free, she already left
    to see Blue Man Group with the rest of the flock.
    I wandered through Michigan Avenue in search
    of a light, a sign, whether it came from the sky or from a strip club.

  • October 4, 2015

    Nostalgic for You

    Nostalgic for You
    cemetery flowers
    © Flysnow | Dreamstime Stock Photos & Stock Free Images

    I never considered you more than a friend,
    but time multiplied by distance reshapes
    your face, mutates friends into obsessions,
    molds love out of nothing, perverts the chaste.

    Dreams photoshop your eyes a greener shade
    as porn expands your breasts a couple cups.
    Old songs reheard weave us into new fate
    revised by porn with girls who have your butt.

    I found you on Twitter again. Your tweets
    praised Trump, raised guns for Ohio, teabagged
    women and children. Were you always so sweet?
    I never noticed. I never saw through masks.

    My dreams now have you bind me, torture me
    with whips and wax until I vote GOP.

  • September 27, 2015

    I Wish I Were White

    I Wish I Were White
    Superhero
    © Patrimonio | Dreamstime Stock Photos & Stock Free Images

    If I were white, I could’ve been Jesus in the passion.
    No, he wasn’t white, the church reluctantly admits, but
    Chad, the varsity quarterback who scored
    four touchdowns in one game, makes such a great Son of God!
    Brittany, his cheerleader girlfriend and pastor’s daughter,
    is already Mary, his mom. Why break such great chemistry
    and cause strife among the elders just to make
    a political point about an ethnic Jesus?

    The college pastor/eHarmony matchmaker
    might have tried to set me up with the girl I loved
    rather than the only other brown one in the ministry.
    Did he not notice how devotedly I followed her,
    or was the idea of us together inconceivable?
    She would’ve still said no when I asked her out,
    but rejection would’ve arrived before the date rather than after
    she realized the feelings I expressed to her weren’t just a joke,
    and I wouldn’t have spent an entire week preparing
    for a chance I never had—not even one in a million.

    If I were white, it wouldn’t be so ironic
    when white social justice warriors tell me to check my white privilege
    because I dared disagree with them on what it means to be different.
    I would be their equal rather than their damsel in distress
    who congratulates them with cake for defending me against myself.
    They wouldn’t call me self-hating because I dislike mariachi music
    and never learned Spanish. I chose to follow the goth girl to French instead.
    I’d have followed her into the crowd, but black and white clashed with me.
    So did the Hispanic and Asian crowds.
    I just sat on a bench and watched the goths from afar as I listened
    to Morrissey on my smuggled-in Discman.

    If I were white, nobody would ask me whether or not the white boy
    I take the park is my son; it would never happen.
    Nobody would ask me where I was from.
    Nobody would respond, “I mean before California,”
    when I answered.

    If I were white, I could choose my own class.
    I’d be the default character: a clean slate, perfectly average
    with limitless potential. I would be the human,
    not the elf who only works well with magics
    or the dwarf who’d better be a tank if he wants to be useful.
    I could be a paladin, wizard, or ranger.
    I could be a dashing rogue and not just a thug.
    I could even be a ninja, because some ninjas are white,
    but a ninja of Hispanic or Southeast Asian origins? Inconceivable.
    I could be just American. I could be the everyman,
    the star of every video game and movie, the god of every religion.
    I could be Jesus transfigured, shining in white.

  • September 8, 2015

    Dampened Dreamer

    Dampened Dreamer
    eroded sandcastle
    © Steve Hardy under Creative Commons.

    Go fund yourself, I replied when you asked for money.
    Begging at burnt bridges surprises nobody, but even
    on your Jesus year, you wait on rooftops for miracles
    and shoo away would-be friends who won’t pay
    to be your clients. You say you’ve earned success,
    but what have you done besides plant azaleas
    you quit watering when the summer arrived?
    The waves washed up your sandcastles,
    and your resume has no references because nobody
    returns your calls anymore. Those who do,
    you threaten to sue or accuse of assault
    to shake them down for some investor capital.

    I satisfied your wanderlust for a weekend—you burnt me
    the next, but I’m not upset the plans we made withered.
    I don’t miss your shadow boxing or your crazy antics,
    but you aren’t crazy, just spoiled. Exotic eastern spiritualities
    can’t fill the holes Hollywood and Paris left in you.
    I can’t either—your problems are too large
    for my quaint life cultivated through crises you experienced
    but never adapted to. You still wear the ring and dress
    with a oneway ticket back to your hometown
    to see your should’ve-been husband again.
    Strike your flint to reignite old flames, but
    you already scorched your earth. Ashes won’t burn again.
    Say hi to his new family for me.

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