I AM MY NIGHTMARE MIRROR

   I love you and I love the hair on your arms and knuckles and how you never look happy    I love when I catch you at the barber shop and you’re sitting next to me and I can see the thin strands of your facial hair from up close    I love your sideburns and I love your moustache also how your eyebrows are all thick and connected, and make your face so expressive      I love your tribal tattoo on the biceps and how your lips never glisten so the curvature of your hips and their synergy with your shoulders    You’re so small and so incredibly fragile with no woes to inspire pity always ready for an act of cowardice      Show your claws with the automatic    Make me feel like a stupid bat    Laugh at me, 6 feet under, blare my organs for juice      I love you, but I love you more when you’re looking at me    Your eyes don’t deserve to be so green or your skin s...

    A birthday like any other    as special as they come    Woke up with the flu    now I can’t do the laundry    Drink my tea, avoid coffee    Maybe roomie will come at noon -  Gotta clean all this poo    and pee, special Betsy    At least someone is happy to see me      Mom remembered, like every year    Gave me the same line as always    Same I’ve heard over 21 times now    Didn’t answer my call, nobody did    Nobody so far, to wake me up at midnight    shake my shoulders and say...    It’s 8a.m. on a Saturday and my bones hurt      Too weak for chores    too sick for ice cream    Dog ate the modem cord     “Lie in bed all day    cartoons will take you away    from this world of chest pains    and misery and oblivion”    But my back ...

[ENG/PT] Today a passenger plane was taken down by its country’s air force No one will be able to speak on the matter Civilians roaming the immediate area are shot and killed by the jets You know I’m crazy, it’s just a movie It’s a dirty cover up When did their technology become so advanced? How are we so hopeless? I watch the world collapse as I curl up and die We’re all going to hell   *** brave the night the night riders   on the lit window a naked woman smokes   the engine growls the blues cries   shedding no tears two hollow chests   no desbravar da noite cavaleiros soturnos   busto nu de mulher o fumar na janela   o grunhido do motor o choro do blues   não se derrama uma lágrima são dois peitos ocos   ***    Waiting, waiting, waiting    Waiting some more    What an asshole, making me wait    What an asshole, ignoring friends    What a bum this world of constant communication   ...

     It was as cold inside the café as it was outside. The coffee wasn’t warming me up, and the barista was very clearly uncomfortable to have to work in that state, seemingly wearing every coat she could find in her closet. People weren’t passing by outside the window, nor did cars; the town was a desolate land that morning.     When the bell rang, she brushed the snow off her cap and shoulders, but didn’t take off the coat, seeing how the barista and I were dressed and realizing she marked our date to be in an icebox, on the very first snow day of the year. The woman  at the counter got up from her stool, but her eyes asserted that she was not going to move further to serve any tables, even more the one I picked, at the very far side of the café.     There were yellow smiles all around. From me, from her, from the barista. What were any of us doing there, after all?     — Sorry for not calling out the date. — She said.     — ...

  [ENG/PT]    Taking pictures of people at the bus stop, this girl on the other side of the street notices and smiles in my direction; waves, calls my attention, gestures a photo-snapping, wants a picture, I take the picture. Now comes the philosophy of the situation.    If I never truly wanted to take that picture, why did I do it, and what should I make of it? Why make a big deal out of it, also?, why should it ever matter? Maybe because the idea of deleting it came to mind. You see, I thought to cause an effect like Schrödinger's cat, of an existence/non-existence of this picture and the possible supposed uncertainty in the head of that girl before, during and after that moment.    On the other hand, what would make someone want and ask for their picture to be taken by a stranger? What would this person want me to do with it? Does she expect me to just accept it? As a gift? A gift of her image to me? Does she only like pictures and wished to be...

[ENG/PT]     Black and white kitty cat    Closed eyes, little loaf    Couldn’t stand the chilling strike of nights or endure the odorless hunger of days    Died in his sleep    Closed eyes, little loaf    Black and white kitty cat   rotting stench of death buzzing necrophages feast noiseful silence of the woods cyclical inexorable fate   *** The barbed wire they put up after the cameras captured us jumping over the wall to steal seemingly nothing is still as loose as we left it to jump over the wall again and steal gardenias   ***    Arrived before the ants    gave him a proper christian burial    Baby bird inside a tupperware coffin    god’s child, friend of the family    The brave little Otto Braun   ***     “want to hear all that and not feel anything; I want you to profess your love for me, give me all there is inside your heart, and feel n...

     It’s a warm night, late night. Half-empty bottle of chardonnay, two mugs, a blanket. There’s a plastic table and the metal skeleton of a parasol; two plastic chairs are bolted to the ground, at a cheap-looking rooftop, adorned by dead plants. We’re not sitting on the chairs, but at the edge of the roof, watching the movement down there at the empty street, devoid of life.    It’s one of those nights. I don’t know why I’m here, just am; the wine doesn’t give resolution. Wishing my head was full of thoughts I sip again from the mug, think about this situation, think about my situation. Where’s the poetry in all of this? Drowsy life in shades of gray can’t become art.     “Maudite soit la nuit aux plaisirs éphémeres où mon ventre a conçu mon expiation,” she says, then sips from the mug too. Down there is a hooker, beside her is a drunk man. They get in the car and vanish, the only car in that street where parking is prohibited. “E lle-même prépa...