#lunaelisa__

[thejunkfolder-com]

for the other writer [jan 2018]

your words warm gentle soft :: synesthetic :: unfurling like lung-fulls of winter :: rising :: weightless wonders like snowflakes :: secret mouthfuls of midnight clouds spilling over :: blanketing barren landscapes with their watery gravity.

___

[by] luna elisa granados, jan 2018 [series]  odes to other souls [image] @harisnukem, via instagram

[thejunkfolder-com]

burning woulds [oct, 2018]

i long for the ashes of us,  a return to the dirt, to the nothingness that we are. instead, i feel myself to be a smoldering ember willing willful winds to fracture & scatter what remains of our splintered woulds.

i pray for rain. or, at least, a single tear that dampens and spares me our joyless joining by these small, tireless fires stripping me of my fortress, my forest of wordlessness, my desire to deny myself the pleasure of burning across this universe of distance between us and the parts of me suspended in this eternal embrace w you.

___

[by] luna elisa granados, oct 2018 [series] breaking up: a how to, in case of emergency [image] @v1olet7ray, instagram

[thejunkfolder-com]

missed connection [jul, 2016]

i'd been thinking about him, in between thinking about you. how we could have come so close. you walking by me, and me, walking past you, only to not meet. this never happened to me before. me being intrigued by a passerby on the street. it's just so bizarre the way i can't get my mind off you walking by me walking past you.

you smiled. and i think i may have smiled, too, but not fast enough; you startled me. still, we walked on, but i turned around. you did, too. at the exact same time. and i smiled for sure this time, and you did, too.

i got shy, looked away and walked on until i felt on second thought, let me look again. and so, i did. and you did, too. at the exact same time. still, i took another step forward, away from you.

yet, i couldn't help myself and turned back a third time, to watch you walk away. you looked back, too, and stopped at the threshold of the deli on hope street. the one i'd just walked out of. either i left early, or you came late.

you stared at me and i stared at you, delighted, laughing, hoping you'd walk back toward me, to where i stood, pretending not to wait for you.

but you didn't move. you just stared. undecided. so i turned away, into the nursery. and you went into the deli. the one on hope street.

when i left the plants and the trees to step back onto the street, i hoped i would see you again. but, i didn't.

why? why didn't we meet? why didn't you stop when you turned around for the second time and found me looking at you, looking at me? why didn't i wave the third time, when you stood at the door of the deli, the one on hope street?

why did we leave each other, two strangers who crossed paths on hope street? why? when it was clear to you and me, we wanted to meet?

___

[by] luna elisa granados, jul 2016 [series] about a boy [image] @dazedinn, instagram

[thejunkfolder-com]

a wrinkle in time [oct, 2015]

the fine line; i've found it hard to find--where breath and flesh blends and bends, yours into mine.

somehow i've crossed it, though i'm not sure how, nor at what time.

it was the panic that pressed me into you. like an unsent letter tucked under the flap of a sticky-lipped envelope. paperless words and curves and verbs folding into themselves.

___

[by] luna elisa granados, oct 2015 [series] about a boy [image] @eloymorales73, instagram

[thejunkfolder-com]

at the studio w/ a.k. [jun, 2015]

we had the lights out. it was too hot even for the dim light we switch on when the incessant buzzing of the fluorescents becomes insufferable. the fan whirred in the background, its blades blasting lukewarm air somewhere behind and around us, never quite reaching out to cool the heat that seemed to seep even deeper into our skins. 

he sat at the edge of the couch, head hanging low between his legs, overwhelmed by the heat. my fingertips darted back and forth over the keyboard. he was silent. the springs on the couch creaked as he unhinged the back and opened it flat. 

he lay very still. 

i stood up from the chair and faced the fan for a few moments. it was cooler from up close. i basked in it for a moment. considerably cooler, i turned the fan directly onto his nude torso.

___

[by] luna elisa granados, jun 2015 [series] banalities [image] @twigandstone, instagram

[thejunkfolder-com]

when’s days [dec, 2014]

you said it’d be “like old times”, you and me in a house made to house less than three. we were four. sometimes, five. well we used to be.

fear.

a field of pure potentiality available to me. yet, i could only see potential for three; in one, you were free.

free

to be brighter now than you ever could be in a house made for one, already occupied by three. ___

[by] luna elisa granados, oct 2014 [series] child’s play [image] @robin isely via @between.mirrors, instagram

[thejunkfolder-com]

snowflakes [dec, 2014]

i’ve only ever watched snow looking up, watching it fall to the ground. i’ve never looked out from the terrace of a penthouse, 25 floors up, a place i call home, to watch the snow floating in the air as it free falls down. i can’t even be sure that it reaches the ground. i’ve never watched the snow fall like this. i thank the heavens for this snow, watery stars sprinkling love on the plants that so want to grow.

there are things i want to tell a tiny human. like, it’s okay to be lost, to wander and drift, to wish and wait for the whim of the wind to catch in her sails. i’d tell her—this tiny human—that the meaning of life is love, living it, sharing it, being it. and finally, that snowflakes are fluffy crystal raindrops so uniquely magical when you look at them up close.

holidays are a touchy subject. growing up i longed to be a part of the togetherness and festivity. now, at 25 and far from obliged to shun these celebrations, i simply choose to. or more true, i’m not ready not to and i’d rather not the company of the city and it’s people with their thoughts and things and otherness that sees not through me, but beyond me.

instead, i prefer whispering to the snowflakes how i am humbled by their splendid beauty, emulating their silent majesty. i save my affection for the love-colored tulips blooming on my table, acknowledging their vulnerable strength, thanking them for opening and closing to better serve their ends. and i’ll begrudge thinking about the things i can’t take back.

___

[by] luna elisa granados, dec 2014 [series] child’s play [image] @urbanreport, instagram

[thejunkfolder-com]

tempered tantrum [sep, 2014]

she's screaming and i'm cold. as i pull out another sweater-- an oversized cable knit wonder fit for a man or two-- i realize that the cold is coming from the inside out. yes, it's a grey day and the breeze is rather brisk and it's quite chilly this early, on a tuesday, in september. but i know this cold is in my joints and bones. sirens. i keep hearing sirens, first in the distance, now near, so near i hear them between my ears. she won't stop screaming.

i get the sense i know what to do, but i'm paralyzed, staring hard onto the outside of my body, a familiar cigarette burning between my fingertips. i don't smoke. not anymore, but there is a part of me, inside, that copes with injured hope by puffing silent clouds of nicotine and dope, and she still smokes. i leave her alone. she knows what i know about the screaming girl: her anger, her sadness, the way she mopes.

i see the little girl, but the girl is not me. little me hides behind another face, a cuter one than i was at that age. this girl has long sandy brown locks that barely wave and there's a baby blue ribbon in her hair and she's got porcelain skin that's gone beet red in the face from her crying. the crying is awful, shrill and explosive. and lonely. very lonely. she's disgusted with us, mostly for doing nothing.

i guess she's six and she's disguised in somebody else's eyes, somebody else's baby, someone she's sure could be loved. isn't that sad? i realize how sad that is, and the truth of it weighs heavily on my eyelids. she thinks she's unlovable. she thinks she's unlovable with her curly hair and almondy eyes that's she's walking around in a white girl disguise. oh, me. who told her that? who made her feel like that?

she slams the door on us. the image flickers for a second and i see her more clearly. little me. she knows i'm writing about her. she knows she’s been seen and while she’s still mad, she knows that it’s me writing because i’m trying to do something. she’s been asleep most of the summer and for a great deal of the spring. it wasn’t until he came that she awoke, groggy and happy for playful love that soothes her pain.

see, she’s angry about a lot of things, things she didn’t know she didn’t know, things she didn’t know were missing, mostly love. she didn’t know she is loved, by the earth, the moon, the sun and the stars. she didn’t know that there’s a special place for her in many hearts. she didn’t know that she has feelings, and she’s the captain of a ship that needs steering. she didn’t know.

she didn’t know that she was blessed, that love is great and fills her chest with every breath and step. and yes, her curly hair, as it is, is the best! she didn’t know. who could tell her, if not mommy? how would she know when the only person who could do this best was a mean woman with meaner words and icy looks for the little human she brought here.

i remember that first haircut. how much it hurt me and i felt so ugly. even at 3 years old i knew there was something wrong about this, somebody deciding for me what to do with my body. i cry now, remembering this and other occasions where i didn’t have a say and adults could trespass, decide my fate— it was their right. that’s not okay.

great heaving sobs swell in my chest and though i find myself alone, i am not lonely.

i write this just as much for me as i do for you, all of you who feel or have felt as unloveable as i have and sometimes still do. those of us who have felt and still feel ignored, neglected, violated, and unprotected, often abandoned, powerless and rejected. there is so much love for all of us. for you, for me, for every single soul that aches with bones that break and skin that stings and leaks love. let love in.

let love in through those cracks in the wall. only love can save you. best of all, you can always make it deep within. the love party is always happening and there's an endless supply of punch that will never, ever end. and the party never stops. come on by, the punch bowl’s to your right. please, have as much as you like. you may leave and come again, as you please and drink again from this endless cup of love. let love be your drug.

it’s absolutely sustainable because loving your self is attainable.

___

[by] luna elisa granados, sep 2014 [series] child’s play [image] @dreamerssclub, instagram