To transform my fear into power, this is the alchemy I pray for.

Witness pain as it brushes past me rather than opening my cells

To let it sink and sprout.

Rather than: possessing its voice and distorting it

so that it sounds just like my own.

Or placing it within me, so on these quiet nights of once in a blue moon,

or in the winter, with every wax and wane,

sounds deep within the caverns of my ribcage.

Rattles me, from the inside out.

I heard the bells toll, ringing like a solemn and forever goodbye, and covered my ears only to hear them louder. So instead, espíritu, I uncover. Porque espíritu, I listen for you.

Is my seat at the table ready for

Who I am?

This desperate and forgiving creature.

Mi amor, the water’s run out. The well has been dry. The night hasn’t ended.

The night hasn’t ended but there is a sunrise after we have felt the phantoms.

After your eyes have shut and you’ve recovered from the night,

from the nightmares.

To sidestep from the shadows and into your beckoning,

Safely? That feels impossible and yet I hope it is the truth.

Impossible is, perhaps,

the truth; like all divine and unsheltered beings,

Or secrets we have kept from lovers and ourselves.

What you worship and what you let go,

This is the only matter. I am told

to not escape but it is a tireless search, not giving up.

Forever inexplicably before me,

reminds me of the past or

all that could be lost.

And still, this moment is the belonging.

Each unsteady step above these sprawling roots

a message sent deep into the ground. I hear it and call you forth,

Should I forget this

Tiresome beginning to welcome all I am becoming?

As wells fill during this season of forgiving,

Where does the water lead? This moment is the change and the answer,

the prayer reflected back onto me.

My seat at the table is ready, set by me, set by mi abuelito or his grandmother’s grandmother or the angels underneath our feet, underneath the house with the evergreen out front.

When you arrive into this eternity, and again and again until the days are done.

The bond has been held. Held firm with this forever-grip, from my mother’s hands and father’s prayers. ¿Pero qué hora es? And where am I?

Y por ejemplo, when the surface of the water reflects the moon, when you cannot know how deep it is or where you’ll sink, will you jump? Do I

Jump?

You are divine and have been,

expanding in ways that others see inverted.

And in this moment, the prayer reflected, magnified.

You are forever and the answer.

Everlasting like this paradise we hope for, in times of panic and surrender.

Surrender. I will put my hands to the earth, not sacrifice but prayer

to all plenitude and humble beginnings. Sending gratitude through and back into me.

Sending gratitude through and back into me.

If this is the new world, do we praise it? Do we break open the silence, this deafening noise,

or lean in with hearts open and teeming?

Unsure of this, but deciding. The logic is not beautiful

Or academic.

My worthiness I can gleam within the

Effort of these guiding angels, for my hands they have taken,

As I’ve stepped atop ruins.

These are the fragments of an ailing planet,

I will look close and not so, stumble, remain. Like the day I forged a memory

On a page in my diary,

Or I looked both ways, ten times, cuidado,

Slow down.

Showing up, feels like labor,

Mother, how did you stand it?

Dime qué hacer. Where is this greater truth to be found? In the mirror or above the atmosphere? I bend to every voice before me,

words settling in my skin.

The miles have been long, the sun unmerciful. I am not broken, but thirsty.

You must let them roam. Forgive them for the pain and release it

so that the rain comes, so that the rain clears.

And when it does,

Your self is the answer, and always will be.

You are my confessions, you are my amendments, you are my invocation, you are mi corazón, you are rhythm, you are mountains, you are valleys, you are the earth beneath your feet.

You are.