Category: Poetry

Poetry

Caviar

Carrie Villarreal

“I want to watch the world burn,”
he said, eyes alighting —
the color of newly minted
golden eagles and chardonnay.
Burnished mischief.

“Let the poor eat each other,”
he said, lips simpering–
the taste of sanguine blood
on a white hospital gown.
Cruel antipathy.

“Humanity, in all its petty indifferences,
blatant ignorances, and misplaced allegiances,
deserves what’s coming,”
he said, heart pounding–
the sound of cosmic
drums of conflict, drums of war.
Incarnated vanquisher.

“My death, my darling,
I would do anything for you,”
she said, sword brandished —
the feel of cunning steel,
keen to find a bosomed home.
Suicide.

Featured image by Jean Philippe JACOB on Unsplash

Poetry, Unbound

Avocado Toast

Carrie Villarreal

I have these moments
where I experience the paradox of
words coming into being
at the precipice of their inception
and words dying,
supernovas of cultural extinction.

I wonder if that’s how the Aztecs felt
the moment āhuacatl lost its life —
lost its ability to testify
to the avocado’s testicular formation —
when the Spanish conquistadors
grew enough balls to sail across the seas
and dominate a people
they should’ve left well-enough alone.

Aguacate they called it
refusing viable auditory nuances
of Nahuatl testimony.

These days, we call it “avocado”
because everything sounds
(and tastes) “better” with white-bread
when you crush it against the
English tongue in this country.

Featured image by Nur Afni Setiyaningrum on Unsplash

Poetry, Unbound

Devil's Trills Sonata

Carrie Villarreal 
I dreamt a symphony 
of sleep paralysis last night, 
and in this dream, 
Tartini came to show me
how to dance the waltz of virtuosity.

Agile fingers tripped along
the string of my being,
their allegro moderato promenade
striking carnal chords of hunger.

While I rode this cresting wave —
this swelling expectancy of ecstasy —
the devil trilled the
the bitterest pleasure
in my ear, and
I reached for you
in the liminal space
between the notes.

The reverberations of sound
held in abeyance
resonated within my diamond core
and shattered,
pulling me out of myself and
into the cosmic embrace.

Featured image Photo by Josep Molina Secall on Unsplash

Poetry, Unbound

The Call

Carrie Villarreal

Amidst the tempest-tossed
shore of forgotten eons,
cosmic evil slumbers.
One eye turned to the
unfathomable depths of depravity
which masquerade as his pleasant dreams.
The other,
turned towards humanity,
awaits the coming storm
whose gales will
strip away the light and
usher forth the
Stygian darkness.

And try as I might,
that infernal part of me
harkens to the call.

Photo by Andrei Lazarev on Unsplash

Poetry, Unbound

Pariah

Carrie Villarreal

Low caste by birth –
right side of the tracks
but wrong side of the dollar.
It didn’t seem to bother
anyone else in my family,
but for me,
it was my scarlet letter.

Instead of an A for Adultery
(though I could have worn plenty of them
for all the desperate giving up of myself
to boys I let convince me it was
the only way I would be worth something),
I wore a shabby P:
P for precocious
P for promiscuous
P for plebian

Words were exquisite tools of torture
used to flay my insides
while leaving my outside unmarred.
And so I learned how to wield them
as finely as any assassin
with a rapier tongue.

It makes sense then,
that a childhood
full of portentous naiveté,
would lead to an adulthood spent
in self-flagellation and
pouring of salt in wounds
because as much as I still gave up of myself
to people I wanted to wholeheartedly love me,
(regardless of the various letters I wore
emblazoned and branded into my skin)
I could not stop my acid tongue from
dissolving those ties that bind:
charitable vitriol spewed and
consumed until any relationship
was sundered.

But we can’t change the past.
I can’t erase the crimson lines of
having experienced and seen too much
boil my marrow until I was hollow.
Admittedly, I invited that pain.
I believed in it.
I wallowed in it.
I relished the pristine torture,
the incineration of the gut,
that would set me aflame
with acrimonious retribution.

And now,
that I’ve been
excavated of all I thought I was,
I’ve finally realized
I can accept
your judgements and
not believe them.
I can accept your scorn
and not let it burn
another letter into my identity.

Low caste by choice –
right side of experience;
right side of acceptance.
I am the pariah
who no longer fears
the roll of the die.
And you should be afraid.

Featured Image: Unsplash – “Temps de Flors” by Biel Morro (CC0 Public Domain) 

Poetry, Unbound

Beneath Fairy Lights

Carrie Villarreal

Beneath fairy lights she sits
contemplating her next steps
like a grandmaster strategist
surveying the field of battle;
one wrong move could mean
sacrificing her queen
to destruction and damnation.

The cool breeze
of an April night time sky
kisses her skin
and envelopes her
with the memory of a life
she has tried to forget.
The stars do not shine for her,
and there is no running
from their absence.

The silent moments between
the breathing of the wind
are pregnant with promise.
In the distance,
as in herself,
a storm brews.

In response to Daily Prompt: Glimmer
Featured Image: Pixabay – “Twinkling Lights” by PublicDomainPictures (CCO Public Domain)
Poetry, Unbound

Checkmate

Carrie Villarreal

I want to write
and tell you what happened,
to put the truth out there that
you know who I am
even though you might hear differently,
but the words are splinters of glass
nicking me on their way out,
blurring what I really mean to say.

Refrains of “why is this happening to me” echo
in each calculated interaction
I have with the world,
but there is no real rhyme to these things.
They just happen.
This should give me some modicum of comfort,
but it doesn’t.

“I deserve this” joins the chorus,
and this pitiful acknowledgement
of mistakes made
adds to the swirling amalgamation
of doubt, self loathing,
and words too hard to write.
I don’t deserve this though.
No one does.
But there is no one I can tell this to
that cares enough to hear it.

There is a torment of not knowing.
Not knowing what to do.
Not knowing how to feel.
Not knowing what the future holds.
Not knowing if these words will be my last.
Not knowing if I will overcome any of this
(even though people tell me I will).

The worst pain is that of having an apology
but not knowing who to give it to.
Perhaps I should give it to myself,
to the world,
to you:

I am sorry for not being who I needed to be.

In response to Daily Prompt: Struggle
Featured Image: Pixabay – “Chess” by Felix Mittermeier (CCO Public Domain)
Poetry, Unbound

Let Me Be Myself

Carrie Villarreal
This was the result of a creative writing exercise I did while attending a conference in Amsterdam this April.  It all points to identity and the things we desire if we could just drop the social pretense and requirements and be ourselves.

Let me
wear jeans for professional dress.
Don’t teachers teach better in jeans?
I heard that was true,
and if not, it should be.

Let me
just sit down and cry,
release the expectation that I have
all the answers even though I sometimes
don’t even know what I want.

Let me
etch “Carrie was here”
into the glass ceiling
and shatter it
as I dot the i in my name.

Let me
forget the shame
of bad decisions past
and prevent them
from haunting my quiet moments.

Let me
speak my mind
even if I lose my eloquence
and revert back to the girl on the ranch
doing a man’s work.

Featured Image: Pixabay – “Ranch” by skeeze (CC0 Public Domain)