TWO POEMS by MIA AMORE DEL BANDO

Visions

I vision the future

Dismal and deluded lights

Blurry violet edges and stranger’s smiles

My heart on a platter for cannibals to feast

I like to assume it’s because I’m too nice

Handing over my organs like charity

I vision my life

In a zigzag pattern

A Rube Goldberg invention

Seventeen different exits and strategies

For the same grand result

Lonely at home with the television static

Waiting for wholesome purpose through the black and grey margins

I vision the past

An angry bird pecking at my skull

Until it punctures skin and bone

Smashes my brains like a geo stone

Lumpy jelly center

Initial sour and soiled after taste

Swallow the seeds for a promising future

I just need a little water

I vision what I want

The barricades welded with white gold

Igniting my eyes like the wildfires of California

My greedy chubby fingers extend

And grasp the lock of the gates

Scorching my flesh, ripping the dermis off the bone

Like a starving coyote carving his teeth into fresh kill,

Mauling at its fatty intestines

It hurts to see treasure

Only for it to evaporate

I vision who I am

Sitting on the scratchy carpet

Entertaining the war I declared

To do nothing and complain

Or transform into the god I know I am

Only to burn myself again


Vacant Books

I stack the books carefully

Completing the leaning tower of knowledge

Everything I should’ve, could’ve, would’ve been

If I read the damn pages

I want to nourish myself

Feel whole again, like a child weaving through the playground

Not knowing what day of the week is

Or the horrors of the world

Just knowing the obvious

That someone is hogging the big slide and all the swings are taken

Learning patience for the first time

And struggling to get the sand of out their shoes

The war I created a while ago still rages

Anything sharp and violent

Gets pressed against my temple

Until my skin gashes open, a cracked egg

And nothing important oozes out of the fractured crevasses

Empty substance

Clear and sticky

Tiny air bubbles trapped inside

Hollow people don’t bleed crimson

When you dismantle my limbs

There’s nothing to suffice

Just the vacancy of my dreams

And the books I’ve never read


Mia Amore Del Bando was born and raised in Long Beach, California. She is a Los Angeles-based flight attendant. Her profession allows her to travel to several countries and practice her independence wherever she goes. She has been featured in The Art of Everyone, You Might Need To Hear This, Flora Fiction, Inlandia, and others. Her work has been published in-print by Wingless Dreamer and Poets Choice. She is a faithful friend, difficult daughter, and selfish lover.

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