Arlene Guerrero Watanabe | Assumption College

Continental Drift

Before us opens an abyss
of (un)spoken terms, bound broken,
you on one side, me on the other,
spreading apart and we don’t even notice,
losing sight of the him that was you with me,
explosions carving out ravines,
space too expansive to invoke
save in my harshest inner landscape of loss.
Skin and pleasure recede in time
to a now made of the strictest paradigms,
unlike desire or molten lava.
You are my friend, I am your lover.
Yes, maybe, no. Are we, we? Still? Are we still?
as I mourn for the her that was me with you.

               ¤ ¤ ¤

Seis meses

rojo, rubí, carmesí, las granadas explotan en el paladar,
semillas del querer irreconciliable,
que me aprisiona
en el infierno circular
de las repeticiones y de las metáforas inconexas,
se arraigan dentro de mi ser y hacen imposible
el cumplir de mis deseos.

               ¤ ¤ ¤

untitled

night travels rapt, black swathed,
slick as a moonbeam,
cat eyes yielding no response,
pulsing tequila and lips,
sorting drunkenness,
taking turns dancing alone,
but knowing the other is watching,
never directly,
everything moving,
stumbling then, no, not yet, just
towards you, arms and chest,
the skin says it all, warm inebriation of you, of you and me,
of you getting drunk on me, of me drinking you, of ancient
eastern philosophies enmeshed with a conquistador's spirit,
brutal and refined,
you invite me to something I cannot say no to,
it doesn’t matter,
nothing does, except for this gravitational pull, inescapable
between you and me again, pronouns fighting to lose the “and,”
to render the separation as narrow as the space between two bodies,
naked, vulnerable, finally alone, in a bed, together,
an us, but no, not an us, the world reduced to you and me, if only
until the end of this sentence.

               ¤ ¤ ¤

Verdad falsa

Solo tú puedes llenar el vacío
inmediato del ahora,
pero en la sucesión de momentos,
se desmienten mis sentimientos,
se desdoblan las intenciones íntimas,
se reflejan las imágenes en infinitos espejos del deseo,
confundiéndose en el laberinto falso de mi más falsa soledad.