Echo

when the mountains rise against me, i will turn my back to the sun and cut the earth with my shadow. when my mouth is dry, i will flood the heavens with resounding mercy. when my money runs out, i will write another poem, and beg the world for more time. beg it until my hands are frail with typographical errors. i will beg until someone weeps for me. so thrash about, you monsters and angels. call for the mongrels and bark out your rage. turn into a valley, exhale. and then move your chest outward with a greater force than quake. the human grain. the quest for place. trace your future to the most difficult endings. all of them should be terrible. there is nothing more glorious than to be daunted. to be halted by an ocean you wish to cross, to have no plans, to be broken by love, to be punished for your innocence, to be raped, to lose, to be so, so hungry. there is nothing more solid than transcendence. you are ninety percent blood. red, because it is as day’s end. an overcompensation of all our grief. and your body is the stone your parents cast into the still waters of creation. spill it over the silence. split your skull and let the doves fly. fly them dumb into the decibels i have left for you in the far stretches of the sky. hear me echo out my absolution. the whole of night will be my knife.


- Rafael San Diego, freshman english class seatmate whom I will forever remember humming Cole Porter's "I Love Paris" during class