Stranger to earth, to her body, to the church. I often wondered how she could remain stoic as her blood licked the grass blades at our feet, the moth falling with her finger, drowning with my grief into the ring of fire. How far can one go, she asked me, to live without participating in the circus, to resist clowns, to not register pain, family, injustice, rain. Look, I said, they endure, the sound, the visuals, the memory – episodic, yes, but they endure – people would not forgive bystander. The moth fell again, shuddering, struggling. And her finger, gushing with golden blood, was still pointing at the priestess, who smiled, and said, you decide, it’s your body. To sequester, draw a line on the snow, better with blood, but tears would suffice too – and so the stranger was repeatedly created and destroyed.

Who are all of you?
What are you?
Am I human like you too?
If so, then why is there a pane of glass
Separating me from you?

I've been out here in the cold,
Looking in my whole life.
I once tried knocking on the glass;
Gently tapping with my fingertips -
ra-ta-tat-tat.
I think the music was playing too loud
For any of you to hear.

Just when I was ready to accept my fate:
Freeze to death and meet my maker -
She took my gloved hand in her own
So we could both look in together.

Of all the things
I could have been-
I am a stray voice
of a peculiar tone,
bearing no face,
stumbling within a crowd
of congenial strangers.
I am an astronaut
trapped hovering above the Earth-
not truly a part of,
not really connected,
but an outsider left
in love with the world
and all its beauty,
from a distance.
I am the painting
from a surrealist mind
of no name
that hangs in the
shadowed, empty halls
of a foreign country.

Where oh where is it in me
you still reside,
where is it you still hide,
irony in it's full stride
sees an outsider
on the mirror's inside.
I am but a corpse of our dead kin,
this is how it has always been
and always will be.

How too often,

as well as unfortunate, it is that

I find myself feeling at odds with-

ashamed of even-

for being the person I am.

My whole being seeming to be

something so very foreign-

as if all I am made of is

far too immense,

and much too intense

to exist in all its entirety-

that I instinctively work

to melt myself down enough

to be filled within the jagged cracks

of life's very own looking glass.

Where I am to be

hardened, bent

to fit and disappear into

it's illusive mold.

Where I am no longer too much

of something then-

I'll be nothing at all.

I see a friend in the face of a stranger,

but I let the stranger pass me by.

As quick as a cold breeze

brushing against me in the empty night.

A glimpse of a person

whom could have been

that piece of a soul who could

connect with mine.

A connection brought out by love

that is also not love.

An innocent love fueled by companionship,

of two souls recognizing one another.

Not as the conjoining of one

but as if journeying side by side.

Like that of children,

conjoining only in the soft comfort

of two, gentle hands.

I've seen a friend in the face of strangers,

but a friend is still yet to be.

In the loneliness, I wonder,

does the stranger see the face of

a friend in me?

Sometimes, I find myself

trapped in an empty room.

But... this specific room

isn't filled with an oppressive darkness.

The walls don't whisper

a devilish call in my ears.

And cold doesn't capture me

in an icy embrace.

In this room, it is still.

It is silent.

It is hollow.

And I am just there

sharing space among the nothingness.

In this room I should feel peace,

perhaps even serenity,

but there I stand and

I am impracticable.

I am insignificant.

I am inane.

And I am entirely alone.

It’s early,
shutters yawn open
drawing in an already spirited sun.

I reluctantly roam
an unchartered narrow maze
of whitewashed walls.

Fingers squeeze
a mint mil Pesetas banknote
and list, written in my mother’s
stern and starchy hand.

I am the outsider,
inside and out.

I inhale
pine dust, bins and septic tanks,
I exhale
a huff of childhood hopelessness.

Shadows startle me
with machine gun Catalan.

I didn’t hear the rumble of the water truck.
Didn’t look right when I crossed the road.
Didn’t thank the stranger who saved me,

until now.