Beauty Loved Him More Than Anything, Her

If Death Is Your Father, You Don't Ever Have To Worry About What Part Of His Body The Disease Will Strike Next. If Death Is Your Lover, You Don't Have To Be Afraid That He Will Ever Leave You.

Under The Ground Seep The Toxins Of The Population That Lives Above. If You Have To, You Will Eat Roots And Earthworms. It Is Always Night. Candles Burn In Lanterns Made From Tin Cans. When It Is Nighttime Up Above, You Can Crawl Out, But Only For A Little While. You Feel Ashamed Of Your Matted Hair, Your Torn Clothes, The Dirt On Your Face. Who Would Want To Speak To You? They Are All Shiny And Pretty. They Have Parents And House With Gardens. What Do You Have? The Earth. Whole Handfuls Of It. The Lizard People With Their Slit Eyes And Scaly Skin. Your Loneliness. Your Longing.

If Los Angeles Is A Woman Reclining Billboard Model With Collagen-puffed Lips And Silicone-inflated Breasts, A Woman In A Magenta Convertible With Heart-shaped Sunglasses And Cotton Candy Hair; If Los Angeles Is This Woman, Then The San Fernando Valley Is Her Teenybopper Sister. The Teenybopper Sister Snaps Bug Stretchy Pink Bubbles Over Her Tongue And Checks Her Lipgloss In The Rearview Mirror, . . . Teeny Plays The Radio Too Loud And Bites Her Nails, Wondering If The Glitter Polish Will Poison Her.

Maybe I Would Become A Mermaid... I Would Live In The Swirling Blue-green Currents, Doing Exotic Underwater Dances For The Fish, Kissed By Sea Anemones, Caressed By Seaweed Shawls. I Would Have A Doliphin Friend. He Would Have Merry Eyes And Thick Flesh Of A God. My Fingernails Would Be Tiny Shells And My Skin Would Be Like Jade With Light Shining Through It I Would Never Have To Come Back Up

We Both Believe In Monsters. But All The Ghosts And Demons Are You. And All The Angels And Genies Are You. All The Kings, Queens, Buddhas, Beautiful Boys. Inside You. No One Can Take Them Away. (missing Angel Juan.)