Some people read a poem to reach to the core emotions that it typically embodies. Sometimes, these emotions are so raw and unfiltered that they are effortlessly reached. Other times, they are hermetically sealed, requiring a deliberate strategy to uncover.
Personally, I use two tools when reading a poem to reach its core. First, I examine the structure—the “engineering” of the poem, how it flows, and the intentionality behind the style. Occasionally, the structure employs a scaffolding technique that guides me to the emotions. Then, I follow the lines of the storytelling: the setting, the persona writing it, the background story, and the intended recipient.
And as we all know, there are those occasions when a poem is not only about the emotions it conveys but also about using a safe tool to explore difficult issues.
The following poem attempts to do exactly that. It uses the emotional weight it carries—unfiltered—to lead us to certain topics I believe are important in social work. The poem discusses addiction and the choice to erect walls as a coping mechanism, to prevent someone from the shame and stigma, and from the emotional overwhelming.
It also addresses how such walls deeply affect those close to the person—family, friends, former lovers—preventing them from reaching out. It opens a culturally sensitive discussion about connection and disconnection, boundaries and accountability, and respecting the peace that someone seeks while also giving to their people a way to come close. In some cultures, and collective societies, leaving someone alone in their darkest times is seen as nearly sacrilegious. In western countries though, this could be completely misunderstood as a violation of boundaries and of agency.
The poem also explores sexuality, and desire, and how these are often intertwined with the notion of care to create a unique space of understanding among queer communities. Hypersexuality, often viewed in social work as a maladaptive trauma response, can also be a strategic, sometimes intentional, albeit subconscious, way to reclaim control over one’s body and the contours of love, sex, and human exploration. For some members of the queer, trans, and Two-Spirit community, sex is a way to feel valued and to engage with someone who affirms their worth and desirability—a powerful antidote to rejection.
Lastly, the poem is about resilience. In social work, we map resilience not only through individual strengths but also through external resources that create a support system. However—and every 2S/LGBTQ+ individual who has been alone in the closet understands this well—resilience often lies in the power of imagination, which can transform silence and disconnection into cinematic storytelling that transcends distance and connect people on a spiritual level. The ability to channel the pain of not knowing how to support someone into a poem is perhaps one of the most profound gifts we can give ourselves. It is the most rewarding way to honor our humanity.
Mourning Dove
I wake up with a heavy worry in my stomach,
a constant weight pressing me down.
It fades away while sleeping,
a sleep to peace, my escape to you.
I smell the shame in the sleep,
the guilt, the degradation
that shoves you into the cave.
I see the devil that burns you in,
the force that triggers the waves,
that tremor your blood,
poison your memories
and immortalize your lost wars
the one that makes you fly high,
and high, fly further high
and crashes you back
crashes you down.
I am in your home on those PnP-s
when you force yourself,
the ruthless force you wield to silence the pain
of that artsy boy who can’t believe how hung you are.
Then the flaccid retreat, you become slow, your mouth dry
a young man approaches you from behind
I see his silhouette, long, curly hair
a Jericho Brown with some Spanish touch.
He once wrote: “None of the beaten end up how we began.
A poem is a gesture toward home.”
and this: “What is it to be loved by a man?
To be held by a man who looks like a god.”
The pain you now cannot feel
as he ensnares you in your bedroom:
shhhh, don’t be afraid…
it will be slow…
His deep melodic timbre inside your beauty,
and the echoed worries of your friends
voices from as far as the moon:
“I am worried, please call me”
I find myself somewhere, it’s dark…
I smell the sweat of stranger bodies
It feels humiliating
Am I really doing that…?
I want to wake up from this nightmare
this fulminating dream that takes my breath away
and drowns me at the bottom of the lake
where I hide my skeletons.
My loss, my confusion, my blessing
how did the different lives of us echo the same pain?
Living feels like a profession,
a profession unlearned.
I see the devil again, he now puts a mask
that looks like my father
your father,
those fathers,
that never became fathers.
Fathers afraid of our markings of queerness
that shelter and disconnect us
from the world
and from ourselves.
There you go back high
fly high, and high
fly further high.
Then, the collapse into my arms…
I hold you gently, so I don’t wake you up
I touch your eyelashes, your dense eyebrows
your birthmark, your lips, your eyelashes again
your ears, the nose, your chest
I move my fingers down your arms
the smooth hair on your forearm
that gentle contrast with your manly hands
I press that ulnar nerve on your right muscled arm
I tell you about this idea of the declining modernity
that still shapes our lives
the birth of humanism, the creation of Human/Man
claiming the highest form of supremacy
over every other living being
a separation between the Human
and everything else
and a separation among humans
the colonial matrix of power:
racism, sexism and the separation from nature
dispossession
and disconnection
and I hold you tightly, the only connection I know
to protect you from this madness
your heartbeat becomes slow, it’s peaceful
while I hold back my tears.
Something is coming from an unknown space
it takes us in its arms
a sense of care, desire and love…
light like a breeze.
Late morning, I need to disappear
just before you open your eyes
unknowingly that I am real
not a ghost in your dream.
You are now awake,
feeling tired,
crashed, disoriented
still alive.
Those late mornings
and early afternoons
the time of your clear thoughts
and the major depression
the first, the second, and your third coffee
your unfinished thoughts,
and a lot of shame, a lot of guilt,
confusion and silence.
The deep silence that stabs your soul
and gives you the pain that shoots you back:
You fly high and high, too high
and further high.
I finally fall inside your cave
your arrogance, your obsession with perfection
the thoughtfulness of who you are
the power of art that never blasts
it sends you back,
and you fly high, and high, and further high
and then the crash, down a hole
that drills your core, down to your beauty.
The waterfalls inside your cave
the soothing sound of the cascading water
and a small pond that it creates
a mourning dove, a child and a beast are drinking.
There you fly again:
high and high
and then down, and down into your art
the poisonous weight of your inherent beauty.
I see it in how you select your music
how you sort out your dreams
your time alone, the way you write
that meticulous obsession with perfection,
the art that doesn’t burst
the art that hemorrhages inside you,
my tormented soul.
A timeless soul,
who as a child – that child in the cave – carried the weight of adulthood
the artist with a childlike essence
that cave child…
This sharp pain
of losing you
my constant company
nothing like this screaming worry for your life and your dreams.
I wake up in a small hotel room
at Carrer del Rector Triado
a mourning dove
on the open window.
I stare at him, he stares me back
grey color, melancholic gaze
starts cooing his gentle mourning
coo-COO-coo…
It is like bringing me your story, our story
it echoes the souls of thousands of years
the collective scream of lost people that were here before
the way how they carry us through the mountains of life
In that peaceful moment of clarity
I know
that you will live
and I feel light as a feather
the mourning dove flies
and I fly with him
and we fly high, and high
and further high.
