I, too, have swallowed the sun on my wrist
and poured salt over a soft heart. That night
in October, you take me to the creek where
you first learned of affliction, flesh, slaughter,
what doe eyes can do to men. A fawn rests
by the water and before it runs at the sight
Here, I am a Rabbit-Hearted Girl and Fawn
Honey Literary
Spare me, Oh Lord, of my nature to worship anything that bruises me.
A few years ago, I stood in front of a statue of Nuestra Señora de los Dolores to memorize her tears
until a young priest pulled me away from the atrium by placing his hand firmly against my bare back.
That night, I snuck into the chapel with nothing but want between my fingers. I then sat on a pew and touched
If I Mistake a Man for a God, i
Nashville Review
ANMLY
The Best Small Fictions 2025 Nomination
2026 Best Microfiction Nomination
ENM (Ethical Non-Monogamy)
When I hide my face in the crook of your neck, my index finger rests between our bodies;
my fingertips graze your freckled chest, the back of my nail touches my lips.
And I wonder if you have thought of your wife tonight.
I love your wife, have even fucked her,
and watch her come with your fingers
still inside me. But when you say I love your little moans
Bendiciones, Sahuayo: niñez, árbol de guayaba y tres poemas más
Casapaís
Llámalo ritual: estrangular algo tierno y quejumbroso
con tus manos y no sentir nada en absoluto. Una vez,
me dijiste que matar a un animal es aprender
de nuestras bendiciones. Años después, en la trastienda
de nuestra carnicería, predicas sobre la muerte y la santidad
junto a una imagen de San Bartolomé, santo
patrono de nuestros cuchillos. ¿Y sabías que fue desollado vivo
como aquel ternero que tú y yo una vez matamos, padre,
y sabías que fue decapitado por un hombre
Cleaver
Bellevue Literary Review
2025 Allman Prize for Poetry
2025 University of Tennessee Poetry Graduate Award
I do not think about flesh anymore, but if I did,
I would tell you about its adoration
for cruelty. How my grandfather clenched
firmly on my wrist the first time I held
a cleaver to wound. How we killed a lamb together
and when it bleated loudly, I bit
my tongue till it bled. How he then placed
The McNeese Review
2025 Pushcart Prize Nomination
Dear Father,
tell me what do priests do
when their favorite virgin dies.
Teach me how to swallow my ungodliness,
how to ache prettily for you and your devotees.
Ask me if I am willing to become a saint,
if I will bleed in the name of God,
if I will wear an iron chain around my waist,
if I will give birth to light.
A prayer is a way of expressing devotion, yes, but it can also be the medium through which we investigate our obsessions. “Dear Father,” was born due to my all-consuming interest in religion, desire, and girlhood. When I first approached this poem, I was spending a week in Lake Tahoe surrounded by a community of poets who were following a simple rule: write a poem a day, turn it in before midnight, and workshop it the next morning. As you may imagine, the (good!) pressure of presenting your work to many talented writers and a pretty strict deadline resulted in this poem starting as all bones and no meat. I can confidently say this poem flourished only because I revised it. See, I do not think of revision as a tedious duty all poets have to go through whether they like it or not; instead, I think of it as a part of my writing process. I write to think, think to write, take my time to sit with the poem, let it mutate.
On Writing “Dear Father,”
The McNeese Review
All of his knives, Lychee, and Sacrilegious
EPOCH
2025 Pushcart Prize Nomination
2026 University of Tennessee Poetry Graduate Award
All I know of the blade is that it laid
on his dish rack first, that he clasped it
between his fingers after chopping
persimmons, that he licked it clean
of marrow, that he has learned
to wash it religiously, conceding
no stains, that he holds it
Me pregunto a menudo si en algún momento, con la rapidez de un pájaro a medio vuelo, voy a cambiar. Si un día despertaré ya sin esta necesidad, sin estos deseos juveniles, sin las fantasías secretas, sin este apetito voraz que me pide a gritos ser querida, ser mejor, ser una buena feminista. En las noches en las que no puedo dormir y las plantas de los pies me queman gritándome “vete de aquí, cambia, vete ya”, me pregunto si en verdad seré capaz de cambiar. Me digo a mí misma que tal vez nunca volveré a ser esta mujer que soy hoy. Quizás eso es lo que quiero: no sentirme triste por las versiones de mí misma que alguna vez fui…
Feminismo, interrumpido
Punto de Partida
'I don't feel blue, I am blue': el azulamiento del cuerpo femenino por medio de la dolencia en Bluets de Maggie Nelson
Academia
Colin White Award for Best Dissertation
Supongamos que comienzo diciendo que la escritura que parte desde el cuerpo femenino ha sido el medio para revertir el borrado histórico del dolor de las mujeres. Supongamos que digo esto debido a que nuestras dolencias suelen ser ignoradas o pasadas por alto. Comenzó lentamente: con la constante ridiculización ante la cual nos enfrentamos al nombrar nuestro sufrimiento. Luego, se volvió —de algún modo— personal para todas nosotras. Fue así como diversas autoras notaron que la tradición literaria masculina se ha esforzado una y otra vez por mantener nuestros sentires ocultos. “Y sin embargo, escrib[imos]” (25), como establece Joanna Russ; y es que ante esta práctica violenta de minimizar nuestros dolores, un grupo considerable de escritoras se ha esforzado por posicionar a la corporalidad femenina y lo que la marca como el eje central de sus obras.