Marcelo Quesada
summing up lots and lots
we reach for handfuls of…
we reach for handfuls of…
(whisper here now,
in my ear, soft and…)
and you’re worried you can’t do this again,
you tell me,
backlit by television glow
we live in movies
we live in reels
gags and cut!
to the part where we eat
each other alive
[if you…
if you reach out…
i’d meet your limp finger
with a bludgeoning]
summing up, we sum up,
handfuls we reach…
for handfuls of…
we have hands full of we reach…
(coo here now,
in my head, hot and…)
and i found something in release,
i tell you,
but not really and
we haven’t talked
we live in lone dunes
translucent and floating
and i found something in release,
found something in getting nothing,
i get something get something get
not nothing from nothing no longer
[if you…
but i was bitter for a long while;
coughing up coins to taste and i
fell back into cigarettes too,
wringing things out
to wring things out,
as they need to be,
always need to be,
humility in my life is circular–
if you want…
i pretend we’re playing parts
little people etching little lives
prying death shut through
the people who know us]
–and often growth is…
you know how change is…
i choked down my youth in
a passion to become someone
other than who i felt i was
lit coals and dry wood and
bit my nails until they bled,
and now i’m tasked to
coax out that child i buried;
one who wept often and suddenly,
wombed in soil and dark so
i claw up clumps with a fervor,
like sex in the dark we waltz
around each other and i keep
dancing even when you leave
translate hot breath;
into markings, into tender blows
and a ripe grin
you can tell a lot about someone by
their response to love
[did you…
what was that? I wasn’t
listening;
reorder yourself,
pick apart the countless chiasmas
that constitute a body,
string them up and thread
a new corpse built for
leaving others alone
i was digging pits in
my palms, thinking of
going home for the summer…
begin divining;
its easier when nothings always
mean somethings of fruition,
you stand in the periphery and
whisper,
you learned what teleological
meant and haven’t let
it go since, stuck to your
ribs and coiled venom;
you must truly hate
where you find yourself
i was…
i was in a pleasant, foreign field;
softly bedded in wildgrass
shoots and stalks thrust up
against the screeching wind
winding up my palms into fists
to tense handfuls of the stuff,
squeezing the sun out to feel
it drip down forearms and pool
at the elbow before it drips
drips
drips
;
limp trees sway back and forth
like gelatin,
the rough ridges melting into
patterns blurred and submissive
and your footsteps land padded
through the grass and things,
hearing your fingers and nails
push past and bend warmly,
you,
singing that song,
we love to love
and we love to hate,
we hate to love
and we hate to hate;
these are things we feel
and these are things we do
dull creatures
breaking bodies open
to pour light,
jealous creatures
bestirring broken bodies
for release!
and we weep joyously together…]
and we weep joyously together.
waiting for the earth below
to open up and swallow us whole.
there’s a tenderness,
a jubilee,
in absolute submission.
Marcelo Quesada is graduating this spring with a major in art. he loves moral philosophy, grabbing coffee, trying new restaurants, and vintage clothing.
