—TENDER LOVE IS BLIND, IT REQUIRES A DEDICATION

 

 

CITIZEN ILLEGAL   /    Jose Olivarez

 

My therapist says I can’t make the monsters disappear no matter how much I pay her.

 

If you catch my mom in good light, it’s impossible to tell where the sun ends. 

 

So few of us had even seen Love. We had only met Love’s fucked up cousins.

 

Some of us practiced saying I love you to the mirror. That was a lie we wanted to believe.

 

Trying too hard is another way to confess.

 

Fun fact: when you to try to blend in, you can never blend in.

 

We are gathered in truth, because my therapist said it was time to stop running.

 

You don’t know what you left because you had been trying to leave so much, it’s hard to tell what you lost, what you kept, and what the price really was.

 

My monsters look almost human. My monsters want to be friends.

 

I climbed out of that skin as fast as I could, only to see some spirit give it legs. I ran and it never stopped chasing me, each new humiliation coming to life and following after me.

 

I want a joy so fake it stains my insides and never fades away.

 

I don’t trust people who don’t know the freeze of loneliness.

What is assimilation but living death?

 

I know no love without teeth and have the scars to remember.

 

Trace those scars and you have a map to my heart. Open it carefully.

 

I don’t know how love works 

but I remember the day 

my grandma died 

we talked on the phone. 

I don’t remember what you said 

or whether it helped, 

I only remember 

when I called you answered.