Beads

And the faces that floated in my dreams ceased to exist…they did so in my insomnia and I could finally rest. However, my peace did not last but a brief instant when I suddenly began to think you…to miss you…to hate you…

Without knowing, or caring, that my stars had become cold corpses that adorned the black of the night I let myself be guided by this loneliness and I made a pact of blood with her. In my aloneness I dragged your image across the garden of withered carnations and wept beads

Beads of blood, beads of sweat, beads of dew

The sun falls and the day dies, and the voice of dusk begins to narrate the events of my life: you left, you strayed from me, and I was, by chance, a witness of your goodbye. What’s worse is that, upon leaving, you took with you my thoughts, my winter; you clothe your soul with my clarity and you leave, you fly, you are washed ashore and with you go my bones, my heart, my strength and, above everything else: me.

I would sell the world, even though it is not mine, for my eyes to bathe in you, briefly, just briefly if I could. The impossibility is irrefutable and I’ve accepted defeat. I do, however, keep my words…those not whispered. Words you never heard were the only things you could not take. The irony is, though, that I would sell my soul, even though that also does not belong to me, just to whisper those words in your ear in vain hope that you would stay.

J-Lopez (Dario Mariategui)

San Diego

11.23.09

Dominical Prayers

And it was so that i reconciled my thoughts with my dreams of two Saturdays ago.

It was then that I welcomed the abyss while I, at the same time, forced myself to find any valiant and comforting feeling that maybe, just maybe, still hid in a dark passage of my subconscious where, for a while now, my memories had rotten away.

While the irate drops of water futilely pounded on my window I saw you. And you walked with fluidness, as if gliding, so strange and inexplicable through the halls of my serenity piercing the invisible walls that held up airs and moments of my temperance and past encounters.

Then I dedicated myself, with arduous devotion, to love you more than I could imagine. I found new instances to do away with the void and to fill your eyes with water so that a pure and pacified rancor could bloom.

By Sunday you did not exist. Amongst the prayers of saints and martyrs your name lost its charm, its color. The intense orations dragged your intense and phantasmagorical image towards the plenitude of my being. Blessed.


J-Lopez (Dario Mariategui)


Cuernavaca, Mexico


07.28.08

Breathe. Weep. Exhale

Breathe. I feel her presence in the dark. Then I see her pale profile perforate the shadows. Her dress blends with the background of the high-ceiling room. One thought her to be ethereal but the painful echo of the wood that her needle-point heels produces give her an earthly nature. A soft sob reveals the pain knotting in her chest and lets this guides her to the center of the room—the special point her soul chose to leave its body and rise into an unknown direction. Six steps and she elevates over a steel stool, closer to her final destiny. Weep. The memory strangles her soul and, in vengeance, the rope strangles her neck. The metal stool that once held her body falls defeated against the wooden floor. The air becomes infinitely heavy. The air is too dense and rough for her satin-red throat that, during her last moments of eternity, encloses the minimal space of life. Her sharp eyes point to a roof of a color white. Her eyes, during her last breath, protested against He who makes use of roofs of all rooms, of all prisons, of all hospitals, of all the asylums of the world, in order to avoid the saddened eyes of the beings He made of clay and that now seek His breath; those beings who now claim a speck of hope or a divine hand to scare away the haunting specters forever, the insatiable demons. This never happens and she knows that. The last air held in her lungs can be heard rushing out of her beautiful body. She disappears into the dark. Everything that exists on Earth does shares the same fate. Her death was the strongest and most applauded. The spectators, her witnesses, did not know. By this last act she would be remembered. She, a long time ago, had already known. Exhale.

J-Lopez (Dario Mariategui)

San Diego

11.21.09

To Do

“My life is full of little doves”, her father heard her say over the phone, alleviated by the innocent and candid way in which she referred to happiness. The kilometers that mediated their repeated conversations were many and the telephone, since writing was not a habit of theirs, was a synthetic and direct recourse to keep up to date. She hung up the phone and sank her face, pen in hand, in her agenda where dry cleaning, dentist, studying, dinner with friends, shopping, weeping, where rigorously checked off with a sense of asphyxia.

J-Lopez (Dario Mariategui)

San Diego

11.16

"Go to Hell!" She blurted. Who heard her? Only a man, an old and stern man, sitting on a bench in the park...he continued to flip through his newspaper.

a thought...

her skin was made of paper, my bones were made of glass, our hearts became of stone. Loving each other was a painful affair.

Songs for Afterhours

It is true. I am still alive. All vital sings: normal. The Electroencephalogram shows a slight mental disturbances: insomnia, anger and...heartbreak? And why wouldn't it. It is 2:17 a.m. and as I lay I watch the headlights of the passing cars cast strange shadows through the blinds of my westward facing window. Spirals of light. Among all of the flashing images and thoughts that are keeping me awake she is there. She is getting married soon. Do I care? Perhaps. Another thought: she got married. DID I care? Maybe. If only I could use a machine to measure how serious I was about the girl of my past and of the girl of my future I would be able to assess the situation insightfully. She got away, I let her go, that is that. The other will be getting away, I will be letting her go, that will be that.

Maybe being awake is not so bad. Some say sleep is overrated. This is my time. I thrive in the dark. I feed off the silence and stillness of the night. My senses are more acute. I put on my earbuds, turn on the iPod...Jeff Buckley? I'm obsessed. Wilco, very suiting. Yo-Yo Ma plays Enio Morricone, too dramatic. I can transport myself, as if in a time/place machine, with "Pictures of You", "Last Goodbye", "Mania Cardiaca", and practice my air drumming (on my back) with Michel Camilo. Nothing erases the thoughts of them. I think them. Every second unearths a new memory I thought was successfully suppressed. Fail. I am impervious to them now and conclude they will be the past soon enough. "In My Place" brings me back to the present where the lights keep spiraling, teasing, accompanying me through this seemingly endless night. I am at peace. "That's All I Ask" sends me into literal euphoria and at the climax of my emotions I begin to dream. Silence. Peace. Sleep.

J-Lopez (Dario Mariategui)

San Diego

11.04