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Best Poems Written by Feli Elizab

Below are the all-time best Feli Elizab poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | Feli Elizab Poem

This Broken Thing

I need to fix this broken thing.
It is hungry and wants to 
come out to play but 
its bones have become 
brittle with defeat; 
they have 
turned to
ash.

I need to fix this broken thing. 
When it sees the light, 
it scuttles back 
into the shadows 
that have become home. 
Licking wounds has never
been so satisfying. 
Or
more terrifying.

It is afraid of strangers.

It is afraid of mirrors. 

It is afraid of 
e v e r y t h i n g. 

People walk by its rusted cage 
to wonder what went wrong. 
This broken thing 
shouldn’t be here, but 
it is dangerous.
It shouldn’t be allowed 
in public anymore.

It shouldn’t be left alone
anymore.

I should put a yellow sign on it
that says, 
“Come in, but be cautious”
for it has been known to 
gnaw on flesh 
and feelings 
when attacked. 

This broken thing once bloomed.
It once belonged to a 
solitary daughter of the moon.
Its laugh once shook the room.

This thing was once never a broken thing. 

But, certain things can only take so much 
before evolving into
something
broken.

Details | Feli Elizab Poem

Silhouettes Don'T Speak

The way the light hits the ground 
leads to the sudden appearance 
of shadows upon your frame, 
and your wisps of white hair 
are made whiter by the sunlight. 

I stare at your silhouette, 
realizing that the more years go by, 
the more of a shadow 
you are becoming to me. 

We are distanced by generations, 
browbeaten by past mistakes 
and family secrets. 
You've learned to keep your words safe 
in the womb of your mouth, 
occasionally making use 
of the rolling "r"s 
of your native tongue. 

But, 
we are also connected by 
the language of poetry and ink stains 
that courses deep through our veins, 
by the Navajo stories I still see 
etched in the corner of your eyes, 
by the withered hands that have 
forgotten how to use a pen. 

And yet, it is not enough 
to have you sitting so silently. 
And yes, I crave more. 

So I walk towards you now, and 
reach for your hand. 
Silhouettes don't speak, 
and I don't intend them to, 
but they are always there 
to listen.

Details | Feli Elizab Poem

To the Lion-Haired Girls

I want to tell you
to keep your curls
but the allure of it
will find you one day.
You will spend hours
just to run your fingers
down the length of it,
and when you gaze in the mirror
you will see you,
but a different you,
sexy,
womanly,
tempting.
You will put on red lipstick,
and the lowest cut blouse you have,
push up your breasts
as the strands waterfall down.
You'll pucker your lips,
just a little more,
sway your hips,
just a little more
and the men will say,
you're so beautiful,
I prefer you this way.
I want to tell you
to keep your curls.
They are wild,
lion-formed,
complicated,
full of truth.

Details | Feli Elizab Poem

Las Lagrimas Del Recuerdo

Endless Indian summers were spent in his embrace,
the only time as a child that I remember feeling safe
though the danger lurked mere bottles away.
I have only seen the sea with a child's eyes, but
I remember the waves that hit the tawny Corpus sand
and washed over us as we ran to shore.

This was where he took us
to escape from the heat of Dallas, 
to escape the demons in his mind,
and I haven't once returned. Perhaps it is 
fear holding me back, or knowing that I 
can never re-visit a memory. 

I often picture him, our footsteps etched 
into the earth, the way the light
hit the water and reflected off 
my tiny pink bathing suit,
the way his arms carried me to the surface,
arms that held me, strong.

Perhaps this was why Grandma saw something in me,
and she would beg me to beg him.
Maybe I could be the toughest of them all, 
me, tiny as a thought. 
She wanted me to swallow his addiction whole, 
be his saving grace,
be more important than the bourbon.

Leave the bourbon on the shelf, 
I was supposed to say,
pick us over your war-time ghosts. 
I'd only ask it now if I thought that he would stop
and listen to an eight-year-old's desperate pleas.

And he left a part of me in the ocean,
in sand dollars and singing sea shells,
in the mermaids' eyes that he claimed
to have resembled my mother's.
He left me with my own ghosts that I often dance with
to the sound of Tejano and a mariachi's haunting croon.

I fight to remember the 
goodness of my grandfather because 
he is still my endless Navajo summer;
He flows through me,
unstoppable, and unreachable, 
in the memory of tears.

Details | Feli Elizab Poem

Rotten Bananas

They wandered through town, 
tan-skinned misfits hungry to get out 
of the cold embrace of the house,
searching for sunlight in all the 
wrong places. They strolled through 
the toughened streets of East 
Dallas, with their mongrel appearance 
and the half kind of luck that only young
boys seem to possess. 

After being chased by a pack of 
wolverines, (they were really only
two scruffy mutts searching for scraps 
to eat), this pack of lost boys wandered
into the corner store, in search of something
to humble their bellies. The owner eyed
them as they flooded the back of his store
with cat calls and the popping of 
stale chewing gum.

They figured they'd try their luck:
"Hey, mister, can we have some of
these bananas?"

And to their surprise:
"You can have all the bananas you want,
boys."

Because these bananas were a dark brown, 
and soft to the touch. Rotten. 
But the boys hooted, grabbing handfuls,
and from then on, amidst their adventures,
stumbled in and picked those bananas up 
with pride. 

Years later, 
my father would try and tell me stories from
his version of a poor and dust-filled
Neverland. But it wasn't until recently that 
I began to understand what he meant 
when he said,

"Those rotten bananas were the best I've ever had."

Details | Feli Elizab Poem

A Drunken Fool's Lovesong

I will mourn for you today,
and ache for the comfort
of when I used to lay my head
across that Buddha belly of yours,
and you used to sing me 
your drunken lullabies
(though I knew no difference
at the time). 

And I will listen
to this song:
mariachis' high-pitched gritos
accompanying the blaring
brass-tasting trumpet players.

This time, when I see you
dancing to it, sombrero atop
your silver strands,
you won't reek
of that amber-colored
death
anymore.

Details | Feli Elizab Poem

15

I'm still wearing the
red lusted lipstick he hates
as I try to explain that
it's impossible to
wash this disease away.
My father says I'm
a picture of teenage cliches,
mourning puppy love
as if it is something tangible, 
him, always one to rip
the band aid from the wound, 
quick and with only the 
slightest sting of nostalgia.
He wonders why he was cursed
with the mass of emotions
bleeding before him.
"It's later than midnight..." he says,
but they are everywhere,
dampening my hair,
flailing into my mouth
already creasing into 
the laugh lines and 
fleeting moments of yesterday.
My father wanted the boy,
five years younger and 
dead before born
but all he got
was this:
frayed heart and torn jeans,
sheet stains from two kinds of
melted foundations,
the moist aftermath that I will
swallow in sleep, as the
constant question marks
adorn his face.

Details | Feli Elizab Poem

Sarah Was Sixteen

Sarah is sixteen and she is known
for slamming her curse words
and petite body into
empty bathroom stalls, and
eagerly, and always
telling me about her many boyfriends.
She throws back cigarette smoke
like long lost wishes.

I am eight-years-old,
and it is late Friday night
when she comes home
smelling like cheap cologne and red wine.

She stumbles into our bedroom,
wrapping her arms around
my tiny torso.

“I just need a hug,”
is all she says.

Her lips are chapped,
one eye is swollen,
there is blood on her sweater,
and soon she is sobbing.

I am as small as a prayer,
as she wraps herself around me,
tightening, like she wants to disappear
in the folds of my gown.

She falls asleep
on my lap,
as I sing her the only
lullaby I know.

Sarah is thirty
and I am twenty-two.
She dismisses it all
with a wave of her hand.
A cigarette hangs limp
from her fingertips.

"You probably don't even
remember that night..."
is all she says.

I let her believe what she wants,
knowing it's her plea to forget, but
I still note the sadness
in her eyes.

Details | Feli Elizab Poem

Loving a Ghost

The last time you kissed me,
it was as if to say
let go.
Let go.
I held onto the image of you
walking through the door
hoping that I could somehow
will you back in.
I'd gladly accept just the
ghost of you.
It's difficult to love,
an apparition, but
I'd kiss your bruised bones
and wipe the sleep from your sockets.
I could accept your death
because you were the only one 
that made me feel 
alive.

Details | Feli Elizab Poem

Fighter

*Letter to my daughter who had various surgeries when she was a baby.


Maya
you are as still as a rose
as prayers work through
your small body
and needles rest in your arm.
I watch the IV 
drip
like tears 
down the tubes
and your eyes are enameled 
as you hide from a secret
place of pain. 
I've never been a fighter.
I'd prefer being a captive
to the ghosts
dancing around in my
head. 
But, as I watch you battle
against your own body, 
I see a warrior, 
a light peaking out through your
veiled lids. 

I hope someday to be
as strong as 
you.