By: Amber Pineda

Dyeing Blue Rain Rust

In the loud stillness of this barren
Cover of cascading stars and mellow rain
Are these red strings of restraint that
Embrace learned destiny
As though it were beneath your skin.

There is a sprinkle of porcelain confidence
In this deluge of cherry-faced meadowhawk,
Drowning the throttling sin that bypasses
The arms of these lurking strangers.

Somewhere on this side of the world
Is a brilliant blue sizzle,
Perching on the edge of half-empty mouths
And dried gums.

After every pop and crunch,
A splash and gurgle hastily follows,
Imprinted on a forgotten memory
That you’d only recall
In fuller space.

Sand suddenly seems sagacious,
But like the blinding mundanity of an honorable dream,
It decides to hide and cower behind falling words,
Trickling all the way down to the bottom
Of a distant experience.

You know not when to laugh
When wronged by a truthful tone,
And within the blankets of a frail and bygone time,
You make like celestial music
Your midnight defeats.

###

Fairies on the Ninth Night

Flatter me before a trodden black
Road. Morning lays equally between
Our sighing dependence. An unbearable chain
Wraps around the black flower
Of your hesitant haste.
Sometimes, I see fairies following you,
Strong and sure,
Yet bittersweet all the less.

Treat me colored, for
There is forever a rich dust
In the lost words of a complete man.
I see myself in your quick inhales,
I see myself in your amber surprises,
But I see you in my hearty ashes.
On the ninth night of the
Ninth year since my ninth year,
We exchanged blues and reds
In a sea of
Bright, glaring skulls.

###

Eroding an Earth

Yesterday’s rain has erased today’s half-baked hunger
With a coral spring.
Winter has left a little shadow behind,
And piles of hoisted paper pages totter and fall
With a mellow thaw that melts away at these honey ghosts.

You have fallen within a sweet gale,
A stopping place
With the flowery tears
From a lonely night,
A lost beach
Within a gluttonous pain.

Outdoors this humble storm
Is a wistful keeper of secrets
Waiting and chortling,
Turning a ready blue.

The craggy rocks
Become a melancholy color of a quiet space.

You remind me almost of
A sweaty valley,
Infested in sweet ichor.

The weight of rainy dew
Stares at the stars and ground,
Wearing a blinding, delicate red.