CONTINUATION OF SERVICE

CONTINUATION OF SERVICE
(this is not a poem)


I don´t think about this shit cuz it´s hard to realize this is gonna hurt.

We over at Jaimés house eating burgers and I love the guy,
no like endorsement or whatever, but he tells me that what he feels is:
Blessed. And that is so true man. We are really blessed to be here,
for me to talk about moving to southern France and we have so many options, adventures.

We are all so beautiful, well dressed, tanned, and I fan tears away from my eyes as
they give us our certificates. We are getting done! I hug Claudia hard.
She has been good to us.

We go to Cafe la T. I see the girl, chispa, cute, dressed in white.
She looks fun, and I wonder if I can deserve that fun.
I say she is too good for me to Ben but at the end of the night I am kissing her cheek,
telling her no es por nada, pero sos bellísima. She says thanks, see you next Friday night. I dance really well with her. I dance like a champion! Taxi home. Sweet air.

We talk love and long distance and all sorts of shit the next morning and late into the night and I fly down here, jumping down the staircases and flying past la gente,
To the ciber to talk about my hopelessly romantic self. I don´t understand a single thing more about love than anybody else. Shouldn´t I though, as a poet, or at least, as a wanna-be? I just know we all love it.

Disclaimer: To be good, a poem needs to be more than just honest. Thieves are honest.

So this Chalchuapa girl, Yesenia, yeah she´s cute but I would like her to be more that what she is.
But I waited until it was too late for anything to happen anyways, self protection to not get disappointed. I build this shit up in my mind so much.
And Lorena, yeah she sending me messages promising love but I don´t feel that either.
What am I looking for man? An Alicia Keys song? I hate novelas but dream them alive.
Ima leave them both. Ima move on.
What lies. I will remember them. Does that make me a good poet. Good lies?

When will I take them/me as we are? No lies.

Think about this. The pain is sweet. We are leaving this country. This will fucking hurt.
But we are such mad lovers, loving the fuck out of this hurting country and it all blends together to a sweet poem,

Sweet because only we know the words, gentle, nervous, hopeful. We wrote the first words two years ago in letters we wrote to ourselves, people we didn´t know.

I didn´t burn out. I loved my community hard. We all did. They loved us right back. We got braver.

And so we will continue to run, run, run, living this way forever. This wasn´t a honeymoon, a resume builder, this wasn´t a close of service. They never even mentioned that the C has two meanings.
Fuck the beltway and KSA´s and career resources at the RPCV lounge. A lounge! Man.
I liked the slide best, even though I busted my nose on that slide.
Heaving Ben, one, two, three, Mark and I, Addie supervising.

This has been our lives and I´m right here man, strong, and trying to be true.
Trying to be a poem.

Yo Como Tú, por Roque Dalton

Yo, como tú,
amo el amor, la vida, el dulce encanto
de las cosas, el paisaje
celeste de los días de enero.

También mi sangre bulle
y río por los ojos
que han conocido el brote de las lágrimas.

Creo que el mundo es bello,
que la poesía es como el pan, de todos.

Y que mis venas no terminan en mí
sino en la sangre unánime
de los que luchan por la vida,
el amor,
las cosas,
el paisaje y el pan,
la poesía de todos.