overload.

the blacked hatted women, with multicolored skirts.

old, grey-haired men; tired shoulders, round bellies. mostly because of the altitude, and the blood that was pushed from their hearts under iron fisted rule.
the valley appears behind the twists and turns of the hills. these andean monsters who slumber and lull (with their rumbling, with their seismic rocking) all these millions of creatures to daily peace.

daily peace is different than what beauty queens wish for, that impossible state of human compassion, synergy, quiet madness in the face of unstoppably brutal reigns. daily peace is the feeling (hiding in the pit of your stomach, resonating a comfortable, throbbing pleasure) which only appears when the glittering lights of the city are calming and do not taunt from their distance, when the howling of street dogs is a symphony between the rusted telephone wire forest, sprouting from every angle and criss-crossing black through the air. {can you feel the buzz-buzzing?} it is there, in their silence, that daily peace resides. acceptance.
the buildings here, houses and high rises, press into each other, merging at the spine and becoming chaos. from the window of the bus, i see these walls take shape, come alive with moving people; as i imagine the woman in front of me walking along the broken sidewalk, and through the open air to her kitchen, which she cannot see as we curl and caress the asphalt with our rubber-bus wheels, but she knows it is there, has memorized the stain in the ceiling tile, the blush pink hibiscus bursting from the corner of the window above the sink. i can see her in it. i can see her walking, with the strain on her calves as she heads uphill, the smooth sliding stillness of her eyelids as she blinks. she knows the exact moment to stand, wave down the driver, because she has eaten this time. the twenty-seven minutes from cumbaya to the road side stop just below the market, they have been made into ice and eaten. frozen. and now they are hollow in her stomach, but singing, 'now! now is your time to escape!' and so she does.

at eight o'clock in the evening, every night, without fail, the dogs always start barking. not loud angry barking, or the kind no ear is able to ignore (the kind that comes when the dog is in pain, or afraid and backed, hackles raised into a corner). this barking is pure speech, for fun, or maybe not, but only between each other. the dogs are telling the night stories of the city. [this can be read two different ways, and both are correct. it is to the moment to determine which it will be. is the night a vast audience, soaking in the words like disappearing starlight? or is it the stories OF the night that the dogs are howling at us as we pass, as we sit in our vacant rooms, staring out windows and seeing nothing, when really, it is everything?] maybe i am wrong about everything. people are almost always wrong about everything. especially when it comes to each other, but even more so when it is things that we do not understand, cannot comprehend. maybe these dogs are only barking to make themselves heard. to make themselves hoarse. merely to hear their own voices echo off the walls, funnelling down their throats like burning sand. this is why it is called howling.

cuaron once said 'green is the only color i understand' and this is true for me, as well. of all things, green makes sense to me. don't ask me to explain my logic, because i won't be able to, but when i am drawn [to the weeds, we are brave like soldiers, falling down, under pale moonlight...] in, it is usually because of green. or the ocean.

Enhydra lutris: sea otter (lutra)
Bothrops asper: fer-de-lance

it's terrifying, really, how little sound you hear when there is no limitation to your speaking. when no one understands, when you recognize how loud everything is, everything is amplified.

the act of missing is painful. it is visceral, i don't care what anyone says. you are causing aches in my chest, in my eyes, in my mouth. when i return, you will be flattened. i will hug you so hard, you will break. be ready, for i will be leaping.

favorites:
-el parque el hjedo, and el mercado de artesanias.
-the circling pigeons of la plaza de santo agosto
-0,25 centavos for helado
-discotecas
-making friends with ecuadorian security guards
-dali dripping from the walls
-jugo de EVERYTHING
-el libro se llama 'cuentos del ecuador'

non-favorites:
-whistles
-feeling hunted after dark
-gringo bars
-clumsy words, clumsy tongues
-missing pieces

take me home tonight i don' wanna let you go 'til you see the light take me home tonight