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.