Luis Zul

Up the steps teals I see with the texture of tiles, monumental bricks of clay from Teotihuacán weaved with cement of the sidewalks of North Oakland after my brief grocery trip. Leaves like petals ready to leave amber and citron carry through the wind orchestrated by mechanical gods and the lights at the crossroads before I get to go back home. My simple linen bag deceives me for an instant as it feels like it carries more than it lets on as if the avocado I bought in a whim is as heavy as my home-grown grief. Green and fleshy the memories are and the skin grows thick and the skin darkens and cracks for a moment these ovals weigh like cement and obsidian tied to my waist. The zoom of a car shreds my attention and all the ongoing shoppers wake from a dream all of us, woven together before now undone for the next goal to checkmark from our errand list. At the bottom of mine lies difficult rest and reprieve where I take the fruits from the depths of my heart, consume the nouris...

Leftmost painting: Zim Syed Paintings on left wall: Ariel Xiu Other paintings: Luis Zul Space: Moon Saloon Dreams left on read don't leave scars in hardwood floors Their oxygen fastly, barely escaping from the cracks  of glass sky ceiling tiles Condense into acid clouds who weep cleansing iron statues chipping petals of gold The glittery sediment stamps on the soles of my feet paste as I unravel with pirouettes  and dips quickly forgetting that I have hands on my arms and a head on my shoulders. The ankles of Pegasus boots flutter, lift off ever so slightly forming cyclones of petals with the fragrance of dining tables from halls pungent, ancient with the desires of green men and shaking the room like lovers at the peak of their feverish glares. A sigh in catharsis pulls the breaks on the feet from its ritual of interdimensional gravity. The fingertips grasp at the air thick with electricity unclear whether it's from the rise of the sun or the collapse of what I always wanted ...

I'd rather have you expand, take it all, consume in an instant, leave without hesitation any crumbs. Never will you have to worry as time and space to me are not a competition or a zero-sum game. Our time and space, it is multiple dimensions, it is cheating the law of ultimate energy conservation, it is me taking me for a ride, it is me letting me ride me, it is us growing gently out of our meager bounds, it is us breaking our glass ceilings into manifold shards, it is compounds that melt into a spectrum, bits of refracting surround ranges of light, it is glimmers of beauty displayed on the sacred tall grounds of my foregone youth, of summer days quickly gone by. Our time and space, it is getting hurt, it is licking our own wounds and letting marigolds grow from our own thorns, It is letting them leak gold It is letting them ooze tar. It is me taking a torch, lighting myself on fire. It is rolling down your garden as your fingers run around your mouth and steal a blissful moan. New...

I'd rather have you expand, take it all, consume in an instant, leave without hesitation any crumbs. Never will you have to worry as time and space to me are not a competition or a zero-sum game. Our time and space, it is multiple dimensions, it is cheating the law of ultimate energy conservation, it is me taking me for a ride, it is me letting me ride me, it is us growing gently out of our meager bounds, it is us breaking our glass ceilings into manifold shards, it is compounds that melt into a spectrum, bits of refracting surround ranges of light, it is glimmers of beauty displayed on the sacred tall grounds of my foregone youth, of summer days quickly gone by. Our time and space, it is getting hurt, it is licking our own wounds and letting marigolds grow from our own thorns, It is letting them leak gold It is letting them ooze tar. It is me taking a torch, lighting myself on fire. It is rolling down your garden as your fingers run around your mouth and steal a blissful moan. New...

To prove a point Is something he told me he did before we started dating last year two or so months ago, though he only knew that we were dating until after after we broke up. He went to see a friend, he stayed home, showed up late, he cuddled and danced romantically with many: all of it to gather evidence of his mysterious hypothesis which for me was worth at most a penny. He'd shake from the thought of not being by my side, but only if I was the one taking the first step of the race. Should he be the one to start a sprint his eyes would be full, watery, wet from tears of bliss. He'd dance, professionally, around the subject: his limbs, his hips, barely grazing mine. While mesmerizing to see I couldn't help but notice the performance I was tied up to see in its full plastic glory. The point itself does not interest me because its center is not me. What I cared about most were his actions, so alien but barely comforting to my feet. If life is all about proving points I don...

Slam poetry was made to feel experiences grounded in reality to channel emotions hard to put into prose and harder to put in just a poem. Slam goes the door  when you say "some other time" Slam goes the door when you say "Goodbye". Slam goes the door when we put bounds to our space. The door slams, but there's no other sound made  than that of my voice. You didn't slam the door when you excused yourself in. You didn't crash as you stumbled upon my bed. You didn't fuck me. You just fucked you. Slam. Crash. Fuck. You slam the bridge between us. You crash my will to continue. You fuck with my instincts, as that's the only thing you know how to screw up, properly. The glass that shatters as you close the goddamn door turns into a million gemstones, smoking quartz and amethyst. The glass, once stained, is no longer porous to sunlight. Desaturated, it becomes impossible to hold in holy hands. As I step on shards and pebbles, letting crimson run its fea...