Memory of a Russian Lover

You were seen
At the bay
Your back against
the shadow
Cast by the sea

Your fingers
Still clutching
The vodka bottle
I wonder if they
Remember my body
its contours
the depth, dark
pit they caressed

cause I do
I still see
Your filmy eyes
They hide
secrets
no, not women
not philandering
secrets of
your untold past

Those sheets
crumpled
By movements
bathed
In our fluids
They knew
They kept them

I know now
cause I listened
I feel it
The great ache
remnants
Of a tyranny
wounds, uncertainty

I know now
cause I've seen
How you clutched
To that vodka
bottle of spirit
Dying to be free.

-Ava Villareal
October 9, 2008

The Reason

Wounds cascade like boulders from a cliff

I can hear them roar tonight

In the acquiescence of the night

In the solitude of my night lamp

They’re coming like the past

Revolting, searing, haunting

I have been underneath

I have been hiding

In its shadow’s deceit

Alone, fearing its strength

Until I found myself broken

Wounds tingle like pebbles

I can feel them crouch

In the embers of my dream

In the soft sound of sleep

Like the memories

Of heydays and losses

Left on the sands of time

I have been there counting

Alone, too long

I found myself

And yet still broken.

In this climb, here on my mountain

As I succumb to my pains

You ‘re all I need to untie my wholeness.

The Junction

While I'm at it

I'm starting to stare

At my own eyes

It leads me back

to that emptiness

the numb

that blinds the mind

and wrings the heart

While I'm at it

I feel lost

Alone and yet

Unfeeling

Nothing comes

Between now

And yesterday

It is there

In that space

Where only

I and myself

Hold and link

With each other

It is there

When I

Need you most.

Somnolence (I crave all nights)

Waves of uncertainty playfully caress my eyes
Blinks devour the rapid glimpses of reality
While sensuously I rub my fingers
On the smooth, dry surface of my skin
Tears drop unsolicitedly on my cheek's contour
This, then the mouth gapes, revealing a dark mass
Suddenly a soft moan comes about
A tiresome surrender to unconsciousness
Or a lover's call in the crack of dawn
In my vision, darkness covets and relents to light
Dapples of sun's brightness sway in an ethereal dance
With its rhythm, things cease to exist, numbness tickles
The body slowly limping into a subconscious existence.

Unseen Aide

You did help
You did help
Me end it
The love, the lust
For naught
For the confused kind
Planted, nurtured
In the pit, the deep
Oh how come
It was real
To the touch
I thought it true
Were you
Did you
Feel, deny it
Was there
There was more
A wallowing hole
Abyssmal ecstacy
In a withering hue
Of doubt, clarity
Sanity, entropy
Of truth and imagery
Of prism and transparency
Opacity of dream
Reality is true
It was you
There was you
Tangible in spirit
Abstract in contrast
Was it revealed
Was it shown
Were you really
The hand that led me
To my clearer sanity?

Ephemeral

When the mind defies words
And the heart floats as an empty tune
Is the city’s blur enough to muddle its beat
Would that childhood seawall’s memory
Drown out inner ripples, crumpling the surface
When distance brings more than lack
And the light bears no brightness
Wallowed in the residues of a confused absence
Of hanging embers scathing the self
Is there more to time and this
The waves of silence breaking walls
Hollow darkness, a night of make-believe
That happiness is resolved in a feat
Of strength, an acceptance of frailty, a choice
An abstract abandon to life
Or offering that gnawing thing to eternity
But finding its return in a blink.

Farewell (for Xlibris)

Say good-bye, while you're able to do so
No looking back, no turning in
A plethora of memories rush
Into a sublime nature of independence
Once when the tide was high
and the murky waters flowed
When rivers ran through mountains
heeding the call of its dried beds
You were lost in the crevices
And now found your own,
hurting in the shadows.