a world unlike my own

[a-world-unlike-my-own]

Exilio

Me gusta enamorarme más que el amor, propio. Nunca me niego de un amante El mundo es pequeño y mis grandes bolsillos, vacío Mi casa, la maravilla y la pena, el correo que me espera de regreso después de un viajé Soy sin país pero esos sinceros son mis paisanos.

-Nestor Salvador Casas Guadalajara, Mexico 2015

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Monday Procession

There is a sort of fraternity among us grieving. Our badges, the tear soaked sockets our eyes are cradled in.

On my regular walk to the metro station, I pass a mortuary. The sight is often of a mass of sorrow, huddled, pouring over the sidewalk.

I wonder who is being grieved; old or young? Out of the mournful lump, I catch a streaked glance and immediately recognize it; strangely yet intimately.

Then an embedded ache jerks at me. I continue on my commute but my day is altered, imperceptibly, delicately subtle but definitely.

How I would surely bare half the grief to alleviate my brethren if I could, if I did not have my own burden to carry; the weight of tears

-N.S.C. Los Angeles 2015

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Mi Pena Paisaje

Se entrometió tu lluvia en la sequía de mi vida y en su aguacero, mis lágrimas de tristeza eran indistinguibles de los de alegría

Los lirios de la esperanza florecieron sin embargo y se vistió de oro mi tierra de alma … -N.S.C.

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Stairs

I’m glad you’re taking a minute to yourself they would work us harder if we let them

-N.S.C.

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RTS

The mail today, a love-letter postmarked red, 'return-to-sender'.

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Evaporar

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Letter To Dear Mother, Begun But Never Sent

Amá, I’m sorry I haven’t come to visit lately i’m well though take it from me tu querido hijo

don’t worry I haven’t let the city extort me i’m not as naive as you may believe not even as much as I’d like

i’ll be able to pay you back in about a month I promise amá and then I’ll come visit in better shape

it’s getting warm now it's hard to believe I haven’t seen you since the last rain and we’re in a severe drought

you’re the hardest working person I know and here I am early for work eating a full meal

you should see me I have a good color I’ve been excercising again when I’m not too tired from work sleeping better even

well, you know I’ve never been good at a lot of things sleeping being one of them but I mean to get better you'll see amá.

- N.S.C.

[lipstick-and-leashes]

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The darker the night, the brighter the stars

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment

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A World Unlike My Own

On some days

I sense a wonder

swell inside me

tender and genial

As if I might burst

it moves me

to run out

into the world

the only place

large enough

to bare it

But I don’t

because I know

as stark as the world

stands now,

cynical and brutal,

it will tear me apart

So I hide it

to protect

what of my child-self

has survived

into my adult-self

I keep it in

I stay inside

not to dare

utter a word

of how impossibly alive

I may feel

And so it only lives

inside me

and I only live

for it.

- N.S.C.

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Broadcast - Papercuts

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Visit Original Link

Exile Rough from 2007. – N.S.C.

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Visit Original Link

Wake – N.S.C.

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For Your Consideration

To consider

how big of a city Los Angeles is

but somehow

someone has you in their thoughts

maybe only

when they are at their lonliest

but surely

you are of their thoughts

and yet

what poor consolation

to only

be in someone's thoughts

but consider

the enormity of the constellations

yet still

to share the same city

and so

the big city doesn't seem

so big

considering all of that.

– N.S.C.

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Before Midnight

Awakening

from a somber dream

to find friends

on a cold, winter evening

clad in coats

hair overgrown

drunk and warm

shuffling into cafés and bars

to greet the midnight

and straddle the ineffable.

– N.S.C.

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A (Short) Report on San Francisco [working excerpt]

I regret to report the dire scene dire indeed

The houses are built on their sides The buses are strung along by a wire!

There are bread queues outside the bakeries The blue blubbery natives exiled to the beaches! …

– N.S.C.

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Fog Town Bound

Wound

and wounded

drifting…

from lane-to-lane

further

and further away

from those

fortunate enough

to have met

yet, never

truly know

smuggling sentiments

across county-lines

vast            distances

to dilute desperation

a

solitary

solution

the ineffable

promise

of a late-Autumn

evening

to press the soul’s

lips

against the rosy

cheek

of another

city

– Nestor Salvador Casas