All I remember is the tough ball stuck in my throat. The swallowing of saliva trying to keep it in. Bitting my lip to keep from screaming. Eyes burning and the dampness prevailing. Heavy, cold tears held captive at the tips of my eyes. I refuse to blink. My temples throb reacting to the fight against my body, my heart. Eyes swollen and red from the battle I desperately want to win. My neck hurts from looking down, ashamed. This is a sad day. The pain keeps coming eventhough I clinch my jaw and hold my breath. The pain still leaks out eventhough I am trying to use all my strength to keep it hidden. At this moment I feel weak. I finally blink and as my eyes close thick drops of water rush down my hot face. My mouth opens and the sounds of sadness escape me. I shrivel up into a little ball and cry.
I do not want to cry.
---Denise Rodriguez
I wish I could take you back to simpler times when we played don't touch the floor and I saved you from man-eating sharks that lived in the carpet. I'd like for us to walk backwards to a time and place where all we did was dream, dreams that didn't feel like dreams at all. I want to swoop down and be your superwoman and take u far away from the ugliness. Far away from the truth. But its too late. The day we made a vow to forever be honest regardless of brutality is too far away, out of our grasps. It was the same day we were slapped in the face by reality. That day we vowed to forever be honest w/ each other in a world full of lies. Together we broke dreams and made new ones. Simpler ones you might say, but ones we have yet to accomplish. Today we are lost. Forever trying to live off the memories of how life once was. Remembering the clear blue sky of Eagle Pass... the "kaw," of crows...the sun that turned our skin toasty brown. Trying to remember how the tierra felt between our bare toes. But most of all we try to recreate that feeling of carelessness...of love...of perfection. But as we grow older and our eyes open it becomes a struggle each day to hold on to the sacredness of a time when we dreamnt dreams that didn't feel like dreams at all. When all we wanted out of life was all we already had. When I played the guitar that was really a broom and u did the moonwalk while singing into a plastic mic. When I saved u from goblins, monsters, and ghosts. Now I cannot even save myself. The laughter of our innocence echos in my mind. We spit shaked and promised that our children would grow up together while looking up at hundreds of stars in a quiet border town sky. My soul still lies there in the soft dirt bed believing. It is harder for us to keep our vow today then it was back then. The lines are all blurred; no one knows what the truth is. But we did once when u were Baby Jordan and I Snow White.
---Denise Rodriguez
Take whatever u'd like and leave me here but I will rise and when I do I am never coming back.... the same.
----Denise Rodriguez
I am a poem.
I am endless lines and phrases.
I am this paper, this pen.
I am poetry deep and meaningful.
I am emotions with endless ranges.
I am sadness.
I am bliss.
I am rage.
I am peace.
I am what u can't say but always feel.
I am unapologetic, a escape from the norm.
I am innuendos and insinuations.
I'm what you can't have,but will always want. I am a wink and a sigh.
Most of all I am the truth.
I'll reveal all of me in these puctuations and spaces. It is your natural desire to interpret, to understand, but I could care less because I already know what I am.
I am this. A living, breathing poem.
I am all poems.
---Denise Rodriguez