#Eduardo c. corral

[geryone]

Guillotine, Eduardo C. Corral

[smokefalls]

Desire with no future, / bitter longing— / I starve myself by yearning / for intimacy that doesn’t / & won’t exist.

Eduardo C. Corral, "Autobiography of My Hungers" from Guillotine

[apoemaday]

The Blindfold

by Eduardo C. Corral

I draw the curtains. The room darkens, but

the mirror still reflects a crescent moon.

I pull the crescent out, a rigid curve

that softens into a length of cloth.

I wrap the cloth around my eyes,

and I’m peering through a crack in the wall

revealing a landscape of snow.

[sinligh]

In the name of healing I bite chunks of myself daily, spit them out in my hand with the intention to wash it away later

Eventually, i end up over analyzing them, like everything else in my life

grafts of all the causes I’m still here, glued together by my mother’s fears

be the Alpha female, she said. “feed on your most beloved, a cup of the moon’s blood every night before bed for you to run alone forever, run wild, never slip”

I Shower myself with self-loathing, lick my own wounds close Keep me sane, keep me safe

loneliness to me is just another insecurity that is dangling from my prefrontal cortex, dangling right in front of my eyes… for me to see the world through it.

I spend hours looking at the bloody chunks in my hand, thinking where did i go wrong ? how much can I hold on to this heartache ?

I've been running around it all my life, running around red lines, red lines circle me, i run in circles around myself I’m all that I’ve ever knew, yet, I only know myself in fading

A distant memory, a deja vu…

All I really know, is that the only stable in my life is the fact that I exist, and that it’s a temporary state.

jamais vu.

will the lines fade if i eat what i bit off of myself again ? if i chew and chew and chew… If i teach myself to stomach it will i be whole again?

is holding on to those pieces enough to satisfy my desire to be held ?

Or does it make me a feral rogue ?

Schizophrenic delusions ticking in my head…

Sometimes I wonder if it’s my fault that I’m this alone…

then again I wasn’t the one feeding myself all the insecurities as a young child.

I wasn’t the one playing pretend.

It was never my fault, my mother thought faking happiness is the way to protect me, it was never my fault father wasn’t interested in the details, as long as I was his perfect girl…

Now, I can’t hold on to anything the way i hold on to the lunatic turmoil that makes me sway and laugh on my own personal misery.

Call it history.

Hide behind defensive humor, get my inner demons drunk on caffeine, mistake that high for happiness cause mama did too…

And wait for caffeine withdrawal to wake us up, both of us…

I’ve never been hangover, but I imagine this is how it’ll feel

The aura ? The migraine?

The urge to throw myself up to be reborn clean.

•••

•Quotes: Olivia Laing/Heather Havrilesky/ Olivia Laing/ Marya Hornbacher/Anaïs Nin/Camille Norton/ Alice Oseman/ eduardo C. Corral/anne carson/ Joanne Harris/ Hannah Green/Hannah Green/Lisel Mueller

•Original context: sinligh

•Art reference:

1. Sasha Hartslief, Late Night Shower, 2021. 2. Getting Up by Vincent Giarrano. 3.illustration by Owen Gent. 4. The Lovers on the Bridge, 1991. 5. "Beverly Edmier 1967' Keith Edmier, 1998

•song recommendation:

P.s: the whole album is a masterpiece ! Give it a try, thank me later.

[ceeturnalia]

In Colorado My Father Scoured and Stacked Dishes

in a Tex-Mex restaurant. His co-workers, unable to utter his name, renamed him Jalapeño.

If I ask for a goldfish, he spits a glob of phlegm into a jar of water. The silver letters

on his black belt spell Sangrón. Once, borracho, at dinner, he said: Jesus wasn’t a snowman.

Arriba Durango. Arriba Orizaba. Packed into a car trunk, he was smuggled into the States.

Frijolero. Greaser. In Tucson he branded cattle. He slept in a stable. The horse blankets

oddly fragrant: wood smoke, lilac. He’s an illegal. I’m an Illegal-American. Once, in a grove

of saguaro, at dusk, I slept next to him. I woke with his thumb in my mouth. ¿No qué no

tronabas, pistolita? He learned English by listening to the radio. The first four words

he memorized: In God We Trust. The fifth: Percolate. Again and again I borrow his clothes.

He calls me Scarecrow. In Oregon he picked apples. Braeburn. Jonagold. Cameo. Nightly,

to entertain his cuates, around a campfire, he strummed a guitarra, sang corridos. Arriba

Durango. Arriba Orizaba. Packed into a car trunk, he was smuggled into the States.

Greaser. Beaner. Once, borracho, at breakfast, he said: The heart can only be broken

once, like a window. ¡No mames! His favorite belt buckle: an águila perched on a nopal.

If he laughs out loud, his hands tremble. Bugs Bunny wants to deport him. César Chávez

wants to deport him. When I walk through the desert, I wear his shirt. The gaze of the moon

stitches the buttons of his shirt to my skin. The snake hisses. The snake is torn.

— Eduardo C. Corral

[headlightsforever]

Eduardo C. Corral, “Poem After Frida Kahlo’s Painting The Broken Column”, Slow Lightning, Yale Series of Younger Poets, 2012

[agirlnamedbone]

—Eduardo C. Corral (Slow Lightning, 2012)

[spoke9]

Eduardo C. Corral

Lines Written at Federico García Lorca Park

In the cage of my thumbprint I keep my third wish

                                                             acoustic winter

Rain undresses music rain undresses his voice

                                               arrow & minaret

Beneath my palm the wiry fur of lust

                                          open body open

A wound is a self-reporting instrument

                                                   silver filigree

I sleep with his face under my tongue

                                       scab on water

[t0rschlusspan1k]

Desire with no future, bitter longing — I starve myself by yearning for intimacy that doesn't and won't exist.

Eduardo C. Corral, Autobiography of My Hungers, from "Guillotine: Poems" (2020)

[poetrybypoc]

- from Autobiography of My Hungers | Eduardo C. Corral

[geryone]

Guillotine, Eduardo C. Corral

[smokefalls]

How did you make it through those days? When you hurt, you’re not completely in the world.

Eduardo C. Corral, "1707 San Joaquin Avenue" from Guillotine

[arcanespillo]

Còrdoba, Eduardo C. Corral

[emilieideas]

Guillotine, Eduardo C. Corral (2020)

To Francisco X. Alarcon

"Some Mesoamerican elders / believed there's a fifth direction. // Not the sky or the ground / but the person right next to you."

//

Lines Written at Federico Garcia Lorca Park

"Beneath my palm the wiry fur of lust"

//

Black Water

"Furred with frost / & lust, / it howls."

[headlightsforever]

Eduardo C. Corral, “The Blindfold” from Slow Lightning, Yale Series of Younger Poets, 2012

[manwalksintobar]

In Colorado My Father Scoured and Stacked Dishes // Eduardo C. Corral

in a Tex-Mex restaurant. His co-workers, unable to utter his name, renamed him Jalapeño. If I ask for a goldfish, he spits a glob of phlegm into a jar of water. The silver letters on his black belt spell Sangrón. Once, borracho, at dinner, he said: Jesus wasn’t a snowman. Arriba Durango. Arriba Orizaba. Packed into a car trunk, he was smuggled into the States. Frijolero. Greaser. In Tucson he branded cattle. He slept in a stable. The horse blankets oddly fragrant: wood smoke, lilac. He’s an illegal. I’m an Illegal-American. Once, in a grove of saguaro, at dusk, I slept next to him. I woke with his thumb in my mouth. ¿No qué no tronabas, pistolita? He learned English by listening to the radio. The first four words he memorized: In God We Trust. The fifth: Percolate. Again and again I borrow his clothes. He calls me Scarecrow. In Oregon he picked apples. Braeburn. Jonagold. Cameo. Nightly, to entertain his cuates, around a campfire, he strummed a guitarra, sang corridos. Arriba Durango. Arriba Orizaba. Packed into a car trunk, he was smuggled into the States. Greaser. Beaner. Once, borracho, at breakfast, he said: The heart can only be broken once, like a window. ¡No mames! His favorite belt buckle: an águila perched on a nopal. If he laughs out loud, his hands tremble. Bugs Bunny wants to deport him. César Chávez wants to deport him. When I walk through the desert, I wear his shirt. The gaze of the moon stitches the buttons of his shirt to my skin. The snake hisses. The snake is torn.