Wednesday, September 27, 2023

Emulsion





"Emulsion" They said I should grieve but instead I swallowed it like a lump of coal; painfully pushing it through scratching everything on the way down leaving traces of itself on every part of my soul.
-Armando Torres

Would You?




"Would You?" If you lost me how would you feel? Would you have a hole that you would quickly fill? Or would you remember me and any of the things we were and get glimpses of them when you passed places we had been? Would you see the foggy images of past memories in your dreams? Would you randomly feel the loss while in the shower and close your eyes to reminisce in the moment at the happiness we once had? Would you look at a blue sky from between the trees like we used to and listen to the leaves sway... ...allowing the hurt to touch briefly just so you could cry a few more tears and move on with your day? If you lost me would there be anything left of the happiness or would it all just be hurt? Would it be just misery disguised as lessons learned? Would I be anything of worth?

-Armando Torres

Wednesday, June 14, 2023

With or Without





"With or Without" When was the last time I even looked up at the sky, took a moment for myself and really existed away from memory to enjoy what I actually see, to really be present away from all the pain and all the hurt, without all the burdens, I can't even remember what that felt like, to look at the trees and have my mind blend into the vibrant hues of browns and greens, to see the baby blue sky right behind the swaying leaves, to feel life move around me as I breathe in the crisp fresh air, I can't even say when the last time the world existed for me in that kind of capacity, it's all tones of gray and muted colors, dull pain and counting dollars, going to work and grinding through the stress of another day that doesn't look anything like I remember, And Perhaps, in the end, I am the memory, and world is there, just like it always has been, with or without me.
-Armando Torres

Retrospection





"Retrospection" If there was a time where I didn't feel broken I don't remember it, Don't know when that could have been because as far back as my mind can stretch isn't that far past the present, I sense that these cracks in my mind have become the wrinkles of my soul, Not something to fix but more a part of my identity, My burdens have become more a part of me than any sense of accomplishment, more reflected than any smile I can stretch across my teeth, I don't know what life is like to be happy, the closest I get is when I forget about all the hurt and all my burdens and I can breathe finally and I can experience mere moments of peace before it all starts flooding back in, if there was a time where it wasn't like this, I don't remember it.
-Armando Torres

Tuesday, January 24, 2023

Dual Points




"Dual Points"
Below a moonlit sky 
my eyes slowly close 
as I inhale as much cool air 
as my lungs can hold,

Keeping it for a moment 
until my heart beats 
through my chest 
and my blood surges 
through my essence,

I find I can only see you 
in the black 
behind my eyelids,

I can only feel you 
and your soul 
inside my beating heart,

The world falls away 
and a surging sense of purpose 
fills my soul,

Let me carry you 
when all is too heavy,
Let me show you 
the persistence of hope 
when everything feels too bleak,

I know how to look 
into your eyes 
and see your soul,

I can exist with you 
when 
the tinge of pain 
on silent lonely nights 
glides in
and the world has left you 
with all 
the echoes of thought,

I can hold you 
and brush away the silence 
and say I love you,
I need you,
I can find you 
among the existential starways 
of billions of glimmering points of light,
   within 
the spectrum of infinite colors 
of the cosmos,

I can find your shimmering existence 
as your soul pulls mine,

I can feel you now 
below a moonlit sky 
as the air of the night 
finally releases from my being
and my eyes open
showing you
my glimmering points of light
as they shine back my soul
to yours.
-Armando Torres

Monday, January 23, 2023

A Brief Glimpse





"A Brief Glimpse"
The long hours of the night
drape over me 
like a large wool blanket 
laying heavy 
on my shoulders
pulling my frame 
toward the floor
hunching over
as my head aches downward,

An unspoken melancholy 
hangs within my eyes,

Some say 
I can see the future
and others believe me to be cursed,
   warning to never venture 
      near me
or else one can find 
      their life 
being forever tainted
with 
ill content and suffering,

I cannot see the future 
for the gleam in my eyes
are of past sorrows 
   and can only see 
   the mistakes that have 
passed 
   from this moment to the next
riding on the grains 
of sand in the hour glass,

For I cannot even see the grains 
before the decision 
and yet 
some say 
I carry their fate
within the wools of my shroud 
that forever lays heavy 
over my shoulders;
      but no fate exists 
that hasn't already been made,

I can only look upon those 
that have passed 
and only show what was,

I hold no power or intention, 

I am and therefore you are,

Yet Perhaps there is no future 
and peering into the past is the only future we have,
   confusing deeds done 
   for deeds that will be,

Then perhaps, 
it may be that 
   I can indeed 
   see the future
      and those tales told 
   do hold some truth
to them.
-Armando Torres

Saturday, January 21, 2023

Take A Breath





"Take A Breath" A very potent mix of emotion and dread mixes with my blood dilating my eyes as the air in my lungs slips out from between my lips like silky lines of mist. The skin over my eyelets slowly slide closed as I catch my next gasp of breath filling my entire chest where it holds for what feels like eternity pretending like it's the edge of death allowing me to sink away in the absence of the motion of it. Falling deeper and deeper still into a darkness of calm as galaxies and nebulas pass me by, swirling vortexes of reality and light dissipate into black and finally the air in my chest releases and my eyelids pull back as my newly formed eyes begin to again glimpse the world with calm again.
-Armando Torres

Faintest Anxiety





"Faintest Anxiety" There is a thought inside a memory somewhere for me, however, it is unreachable now as it has passed this moment. A notion I can still feel but can't remember, It grips my heart like a white knuckled fist but it only exists on the fringes of my emotions. Clinging to relevance hoping I remember but not realizing it's too late. I don't know where it is or where it came. It's gone. It needs to know there is no hope. I have to move on but can't. It grips my heart like a fist over an edge clinging to life not realizing it will pull me over instead.
-Armando Torres

Back Into The Ether





"Back Into The Ether" I wish I could exist outside the moment, away from the violent colors of reality and inside the gray hazy mist of memory, To be able to peer in at any point and dissipate back into the ether once all things have become too much again, A being existing in its cocoon recharging and waiting to return at the right moment, to leave its fingerprints on the flow of events and leave as if never even here.
-Armando Torres

Monday, November 28, 2022

Fleeting Winter Flakes





"Fleeting Winter Flakes"
The soft crunch of snow 
   beneath my feet
   feels like it did then
   only for me to remind myself
that time has gone by,
   fleeting winter flakes
fall from the sky
and I have begun
to blur the lines
of what you were
   to me,
somewhere amidst 
all this descending white
on the buildings
over the sidewalks 
    and covering 
    the tops of trees,
our past still exists for me,
a ghostly motion of us
moving
among these snowflakes
existing 
right before my eyes
for mere moments 
before disappearing
amongst 
a million other flakes of snow
remembering once more
that we were 
a lifetime ago.
-Armando Torres

Monday, November 7, 2022

All Over Again





"All Over Again"
Knock on the Devil's door 
long    enough 
and something      will      answer.

You will need    more 
than what you brought 
to exist              beyond 
that moment of confrontation.

Time will s t r e t c h infinetly backward 
and extend in w a y s 
where only the moment 
you experience in memory
as the present 
could be used to break you.

Every   memory 
will      exist 
at    the    same    time 
with every painful one 
being at the forefront.

The    suffering 
would    only    be 
the    first    thing 
you    would    know.

    The very essence of despair 
would come through 
   your own stream of time 
among the existential 
and the conscious.

You wouldn't realize 
at    first 
but   would   come 
to     know 
that this process 
is    only     nature. 

A    process As    natural 
as the birds eating  seeds 
or maggots         Feasting 
upon rotting flesh.

A system of balance 
where life 
is only a piece 
of a much larger machine.

There's nothing humane 
in the way 
it would happen;
   humanity is but only 
   a futile construct of defiance 
   to the natural order of things.

A necessary piece to the machine, 
   an illusion of struggle 
   to make 
   a more powerful connection
and nevertheless,
to never change the outcome,
to never change 
    what you will become.

The existential flesh 
of your mind 
would very precisely 
be flayed and stripped away,
leaving behind 
something different.

Leaving eyes 
coated over 
   with black 
   and no pupils,
leaving a dark sheen 
of infintie existence 
glinting with its own 
swilring galaxies 
and cosmic pillars 
of stardust and creation.

A being of purity 
that has at long last 
inside infintiy 
found its purpose,
   existing now in its final form
   to finally hear 
   the next knock on the door,
to finally reach with purpose 
and answer 
and begin this process once more.
-Armando Torres

Sunday, November 6, 2022

Singularity





"Singularity"
Pull back far enough 
from this moment
and you lose all beauty 
into a single point.

   The details disappear into memory.
      All the hurt and the pain and the joy.
Every    thing shrinks 
into a single speck
that disappears 
against the backdrop 
of black         ether.

So many pale points 
of pure thought
gone and lost
among so many more.

Close your eyes 
and stretch infinetly outward
away from this moment 
and everything is lost 
to a single dot
indistinguishable to any kind of detail.

Life,    consciousness,Existence, 
all move past 
a horizon of no           return
and continue 
toward a      singularity 
that you   can     never 
move closer toward.

As you continue 
to pull back 
so far    into 
the Infiniteness of Irrelevance
immaterial becomes the observer 
and you lose 
  the   sight     that  once   saw
all those beautiful moments and details 
    to   the    infinite     black,
never to find 
your 
pale point of pure thought again,
never to venture 
toward the horizon 
to find your singularity.
As   you      just 
dissapate into nothingness 
and dissolve into the liquid
and waves of pure inconsequentiality.
-Armando Torres

Monday, October 24, 2022

That Place




"That Place"
It was night
when I finally finished cleaning.
   You had left long before now,
   weeks before me.
I packed all the boxes 
of things you left,
of things you told me 
to donate away.

I painted over 
the holes 
in the walls.
Cleaned the kitchen. 
Closed the blinds.
Walked through 
and looked at all the empty corners.

This place was what was left
and we are both leaving separately.
   All those emotions experienced here 
      are now among the walls,
among the silence and shadows.
Everything we said and felt
belongs now 
to the history of this space.

Right before I turned out the lights,
That last glimpse I took
I saw all 
the echoes of memory 
dance
through the hallways and the rooms.

Cried as I stood there 
for a second 
remembering
most our moments we spent there 
living our life together.
   But I, only stand here now 
   as a spectator 
watching it play out 
beyond the here and now,
   as only remnants of a happier time,
trying my damndest
to ignore what went wrong.

But I will take with me 
only what will hurt
and leave behind 
all the pleasant parts
because they won't come.
They belong there in the end anyway,
unspoiled,
for the silence and the walls.

We had our moments 
and now have both moved on.

I wonder every now and again 
where you are
but then the parts 
I took with me from that moment
come flooding back in 
and I choose not to remember you.

You're so far away from me now
that I don't know what you look like.
Don't know your name.
Don't even remember things you liked.

I do still remember that place, however.
Where it is. What it looks like.
   The off color of white the walls were painted.
   The stains on the carpet from the wine we spilled.
   The way the bed faced the window from the other end.
   The layout of the bathroom with the shower by the door.
The nights we took showers together 
and made love 
dripping in water.
Laid together on the couch 
as the sun dipped below the horizon.
The way the light shined 
through the kitchen window 
when we made breakfast for each other.

Oh no, There I go, remembering you again.
I can't anymore.
I choose not to think about you.
I won't remember you.
I choose not to remember you.

But 
sometimes I think 
I took too much with me from that place.
Maybe even stole some of those pleasant memories.
But I did it
Just so when I cry
I can find my reasons why.
-Armando Torres

Saturday, October 22, 2022

I can't leave





"I can't leave" I close my eyes and there in the black I am distracted by the images and shapes that appear from nothing to paint stories I don't remember but somehow feel familiar. It's odd, the sensations beneath my fingertips feel real, I can feel the walls of this giant city, the grass against my palms, the scent of autumn in my nose. There's something in me that knows this is a dream and another part that seems to be real to me. I lose my sense of time if I linger in here too long then I find the waking world far more strange than when I left it before. I am becoming desensitized to the regular sensations of this real place. I'm being tempted by the unfamiliar that exists when I leave here. My ability to differentiate between you and the person I've come to know in my dream has dwindled and the foggy line between when I'm awake or asleep has all but disappeared. I feel everything from everywhere and I'm so very tired. The people here only serve to hurt. I'm more afraid of the deceit here than the lies I have created for my eyes. It all feels so real there. I'm so far removed anyway that my broken soul cannot heal here. All the reminders seem to disappear when I'm gone. I think I will make peace inside there instead of here. So I lay myself down to sleep knowing this will be the last time I see this waking world. I'm trading the sensations of the here and now for some different kind of experience where I can make what I feel into what is real. I close my eyes and I think this is my dream. However, There's something here I don't quite remember seeing. Something quite unfamiliar. A being separate from me. It's not doing what I want it to do, isn't being what I want it to be. I don't think this is my dream. This isn't my dream. This is something different. I can't feel my reality. I can't pull my mind to awaken. What have I done? I can't leave. I can't wake up. Someone. Anyone! Come find me. Please. Help me. I can't leave.
-Armando Torres

Thursday, October 20, 2022

We Are Connected





"We Are Connected"
As much as I hate it,
we are connected,
when you hurt, I hurt.
When you are in pain, I feel the guilt 
and don't know where it came,
I just know 
the strands of existence 
that entwine your heart 
to this plane 
also intertwine 
with mine 
and I sometimes 
can feel 
the pull of purpose 
coming from 
a higher celestial realm 
and feel the things you feel.

I have tried to know why 
but instead now
just accept 
that we are connected 
even though 
you are the most awful thing 
I ever regret allowing 
space 
on the pages of my life. 

You will die someday 
and I expect 
the hurt and emptiness to overtake 
my being, 
allowing myself 
to become something else.

I look around 
and just know 
that no one knows 
the burden of you 
but they all see 
that we are cursed 
with connected tissue
to be one and the same. 

We are connected 
even when we  shouldn't.
 
Residual experiences 
that should have 
long bled 
into the liquid of existence 
and left me the fuck alone. 
But here I am again,
hurting again, 
and not knowing why 
but understanding, 
you are going through something
that I don't fucking care for. 
I hate it. 
I hate that we are connected.
-Armando Torres

Wednesday, October 19, 2022

Another Face




"Another Face"
I can't heal the hurt that I have
and it's corrosive.
   Rotting me from the inside
and growing to the healthy parts of me.

I feel it at the edges.
   Stretching around the fringes of my face,
tainting my viens, 
ripping me with pain
from tissue to bone 
   and doing it all 
   in secrecy 
as I try to smile 
to hide the hurt 
this pain has wrought.

I'm a facade.

A barely passable 
version of a human.

Just
   a writhing
   mass 
      of flesh and bone 
      with pain 
      boiling just underneath.
Just so I can exist
as just another face.

Contorting and stretching 
my skin 
so I can pass the day 
without having 
to answer 
the questions.
   Without having 
   to show 
      that I have run out of patience.

All the movements and charades
   Just so no one 
   can know 
   that I can't heal the hurt that I have endured.
-Armando Torres

You're Not Alone



"You're Not Alone" The candle flickers from across the room. The shadows it casts dance over one another as the coolness of the night settles in and that's when you begin to feel it, Even though there seems to be nothing but a lonely dark room. Lifeless of anything or any kind of movement. Just the dark reminders that creep up and over your eyes leaving the bloodshot stains of memory and pain hanging like dark bags. It's here where I see you, its here creeping up and over your shoulders from behind with my eyes that I peer into what you show without you knowing. You sit there alone because you think I'm not there but regardless of what you believe I can still see you; as I hover over your shoulders. I see you and what you do. I see your secrets kept from people, kept from everyone and everything. So don't ever forget that when alone feels just enough where you think no one knows, I do. I know. Because I can always see you. I find your hollow existence among the existential fabrics of depravity and watch you. I feel the grooves of your emptiness and glide my fingers over reality until I touch the ends of who you are. Sensing the very tips of your sanity. Just know, you are somewhere even if alone feels so alone. Don't. Because I know. I always know.
-Armando Torres

Who Am I Feeling?





"Who Am I Feeling?" Where do all those moments go once the stream of seconds have moved on, once time has left this point behind and continued on to a new one? They say time heals all wounds, they all say it'll get better with time; But Where do my feelings go Once time has erased the moments, Once memory has dissolved into the ether of reality? A cyclical motion of energy perhaps but where does this emotion go? A transference perhaps but then who is feeling my hurt now? Who's heart break am I feeling? Were these emotions ever mine? Were they ever real to begin with?
-Armando Torres

a sense of self





"a sense of self" There, just beyond the dismal glow of the computer screen one can lose a sense of identity when lingering inside misery for too long. Wandering its endless corridors, Exploring deeper than the time before. Eventually blurring the lines and feeling like this was home the entire time. One becomes misery and accepts it as a part of their identity not realizing it is but a parasite and we its host. Lingering on the fringes of light we tend to look out into the abyss letting the darkness transform for us and become the tortuous images we see about ourselves. The frail false walls of identity crumble in time as the cracks let in the drippy existence of what could have been. There, just beyond the dismal glow of the computer screen we should dare not look, because there is where the ocular point of misery stares back
-Armando Torres

it's all just a moment





"it's all just a moment" Looking back over the course of my time I find I could only ever have existed for a moment, barely a life, but never for more than a moment. None of us have been here for longer than a brief instant. We, who think time moves alongside with us have never existed longer than an insignificant blip. The relative motion of it, the seemingly endless movement of it, the grandness of time, all of it, just for it all to be a moment when it all existed. just a moment. And none of it would have ever existed if that moment never existed at all.
-Armando Torres