Above Ground Level

By me, for CJ.

"Where's the bloody Air Force?"

-Irate Soldier, Dunkirk

I have just now realized,
After a long while of thinking,
That I know close to nothing
About flying and fighting.

However, I've also noticed
That, though now we're all right here,
Who's bold enough to say that
They know enough about war and peace?

Not me.

What I do know is
That there's good, there's bad, and worse,
And then there's best, along with you.

I also happen to know that
If you lose sight, you lose the fight.

I know there's you, and me,
There's those who fear
And those who fight,
And those who live in a High Flight.

I know a thing or two about this life,
How it lifts and twirls and drags us down,
And leaves us feeling washed out, and
Craving
Joy.

I know about your favourites.
I don't know how a Lightning hitting land sounds like,
But I think I remember
Seeing it Spit fire.

I know that many meet their fate
In the midst of a W. B. Yeats sonnet.
Somewhere among the clouds above,
Getting looked down upon by the comet.

Despite not knowing if it's wrong or right,
Or the first name of those brothers they call Wright,
I thought of what I wanted to say, and thought
I could just give it a shot.

Even though I know nothing of aircrafts and flight,
It all came down to these verses,
At the end of the night.

Hanahaki

                                                            Inspired by, 

and made for Arthur Williams. 

The tulips grow outside my window.
Their bright-coloured petals sway away
When the gentle breeze blows through.
Peaceful and quiet, and calm like her.
Moving in silence on this warm spring afternoon.

The tulips don't cry, however.
They grow, and live and then die in the cold,
They dry like pages from old books
I never thought I would read.

Being a flower is a privilege,
Which not everybody gets to feel.

The tulips bloom still,
Even more so with her burning,
Ice-melting touch
Which made room
For even more of them to grow.

Her warm caress pierces my skin,
Right through the heart of me;
Incomparable and unstoppable,
It's silent, tender and new.

New like a pure first kiss after many,
New like what lacks in racy, frantic nights,
New like what others always crave
And I never thought I'd need.
Not even when someone's eyes
Flooded with infatuation
Turn around to find my face
With a expression that doesn't match
The slowness and bliss of the morning after.

Here I am,
Alone.
Nothing else but the tulips
And me, I
Hear her heart beat in mine.
Abruptly, it stops.
Kindly and without a rush.
I now exist for her.

What do these tulips know of love?
They certainly know more, compared to me.
Their petals open, screaming her name,
Self-aware of how undeserving one can be of her,
Falling on me like a curse.
Like focusing on the first letter of each verse
In a particularly cryptic stanza.

The warm wind blew through the tulips
And everything slowed down.
Nothing made sense as the world turned on its head;
The opposite to what I've always known,
The wind between the tulips
Sounds now like a song of doom.

The tulips are now everywhere.
They've passed the window, and grow on my desk,
In the sink,
On the floor,
In my hands,
In my lungs,
In my heart.
In my voice and my tears,
In my thoughts and in between her hair,
I see them and they see me.
They haunt me.

They became a plague I grew to love,
And I should know it's love what brought them here.
Everyone saw me, but now I am watched.
I was listened to, but never heard,
Browsed on like a boring summary,
Not knowing what it was like to want and need
And never receive.

If I knew that kissing in the dark
Was all it took
I would've blown all my candles out
Just to see her light them back up.

She's probably watching,
With both hands on her hips;
Ice met with fire and thought it could win.
She had captured my soul in her lips
And turned it into something it should never have been.

The tulips now know I know,
And still keep growing strong.
Let me cry on the floor and see if they drown.
Their colors are all I can see now;

Let me enjoy or hate my luck.
Who would've ever thought
That tulips could damage someone so?
Let me replace my oxygen for them
So anyone can follow the trail.

Ode To Joy

I will not tell a story of fake laughter
And fake smiles;
I laugh and smile because I can and want to,
But in times like this,
What is there left to smile and laugh about?

A lightbulb with no filament.
The lights are off
The candle is gone.

Let us live, laugh and love
And look beyond the clouds that announce the storm
And the bad omens
And let us be grateful

For our emptiness
Our meaninglessness
Our egos and our selfishness.

This is an ode to us.
An ode for us,
Our dead flowers
And our inevitable death.

This is for those who chose how to live
And how to die
And how to leave their mark behind

For those like me who dared to take the step
And for some reason it did not work;
For those like me who are still trying to figure out
How come it did not work.
This is and ode to those who live.

To the river flowing in our veins
And the blood flowing in our rivers.

To the motherly figure smothered in lies
And the fatherly figure you do not want nearby.

This is for your prayers and your blessings.
I say I do not need them nor I want them,
For which God could save us now?

This goes for our double standards
And our fake morals
For naked girls and singing neighbours
And summer breaks that appear endless
For the smell of cigarettes
And a last wish before we die
The scent of alcohol
And saying we are just fine
The song we hate, you and I
For the comma in the middle of a sentence
For this phrase
For injustice
For murder
For death
For those who live alliterative lives
With no spaces
No line breaks
No punctuation
No contractions

For a life without shortcuts
And for those who would never take the long way.

For the rich
For the Good Guy who does not need this

For medicines and therapy
And a page from a Sylvia Plath book.
For studying bees and keeping clothes
Hanging from your closet, limp as fish.

For the Starry Night
And the smell of teen spirit

For the Club of the 27
And the white lighter in my pocket
And some furtive glances
And the bits of skin that stuck back together
After being through manyy nights like this.

This is an ode for those who live until their 30s
And still want to see what is yet to come.

Here is to dark jokes I can not share
Although I do not know someone who would care.

To the designer
And the great chef;
To our curiosity
And our need to know
How come it did work out for them.

This is for me and for you.
Because if I am one, then we are two.

At last, for the ones who spend their
Time
Writing about this life
Despite being the only reason why
There is nothing left to smile
Or laugh about.

For tears and pain
In our body and in our souls
And a temporary band-aid
That will not fix the bullet hole.

This is an ode for me
And for those in whose behalf I talk.
I am us,
Though I would rather believe in solopsism

This is an ode to happiness
This is an ode to freedom
This is an ode to life
To sadness
Imprisonment
Oblivion

And an ode for those who know
That Time moves on
And on
And on
And on

Jojutla, Morelos. (Español)

Nos dijeron
"Aquí no pasó nada.
No hay monumentos
Ni museos.
Hay un mercado,
Pero no hay más."

Curiosidad de turista,
Y el no tener nada que hacer.
Diez pesos por el estacionamiento,
Y tres cuadras bajo el sol.

Tres cuadras en donde notamos
Que sí hay monumentos aquí.
Terrenos vacíos y bardas caídas.
Casas faltantes, muros agrietados.

La banqueta está en construcción.
Las flores se secan junto al escombro.

No hay museos,
Pero hay una familia viviendo en lo que hoy es un baldío
Donde solía estar su casa, ahora en una
Casa de campaña.
Azul, como el cielo sobre sus cabezas.
Azul, como el agua.
Azul, como la tranquilidad.
Azul, como lo único que tienen.
Azul, como lo que les falta.

No hay monumentos,
Pero hay rocas y ladrillos esparcidos
Sobre el pavimento quebrantado.

Cuando algo importante pasa,
Alguien coloca una placa.
Alguien construye un museo.
Alguien planea un memorial.
Algo siempre se queda atrás.

Aquí sí pasó algo,
Pero lo único que quedó de ello
Es que ya no queda nada.

Jojutla, Morelos. (English)

They said to us
"Nothing happened here.
There are no monuments,
No museums
Just a market,
And nothing else."

Tourist curiosity
And the stress of having nothing to do.
$2 for a parking spot,
And three blocks under the sun.

Three blocks in which we noticed
That there are monuments, indeed.
Empty lots of land and fallen fences,
Cracked walls, missing houses.

The road is under construction,
The flowers dry by the rubble.

There are no museums,
But there's a family living in an empty lot
Where their house used to be, now they're in a
Tent.
Blue, like the sky above their heads.
Blue, like water.
Blue, like tranquility.
Blue, like the only thing they have.
Blue, like what they lack.

There are no monuments,
But there are rocks and bricks scattered
Over the cracked pavement.

When something important happens,
Someone puts up a plaque.
Someone builds a museum.
Someone plans a memorial.
Something always gets left behind.

Something happened here,
But what's left of it
Is that there's nothing left.

Untitled

The oldest thing I remember
Is me runing at the
Kindergarten's playground
With my newly-found friends.

We ran, and the wall was the goal.
"Whoever touches it first, wins!"
I never won;
I just wasn't fast enough.

Here, in the city where I grew up
There are train rails covered
By layers and layers of pavement
And ages and ages of neglect.
"Ya no se usan", said my mom,
Though the rails do pop up sometimes,
When the pavement gets too worn down
And can't keep up with the time
Which still passes by.

When I was 8, I heard of a train
That crosses the country
All the way from the south
Up to the north.
"La Bestia", le dicen.
How many heads does this Beast have?

At an exhibit on
Immigration
I read a tag next to a photograph of
La Bestia,
It said:
"And after Chiapas
Comes the United States?"

I don't remember if the man who said it
Was Guatemalan
Or Honduran
Or Venezuelan,
But it doesn't matter.

I saw a reportage about
My people
Harvesting fruits and vegetables
For $8 a day,
Carrying the buckets
That They wouldn't ever want to touch.

It was movie day in Geography class.
An Arizona-border woman said
She hates us all the same.
Her daughter ODd and died;
And ever since, when mi gente passes by
She picks up the phone
And calls whoever needs to know.

When I was a kindergarten girl
The only wall I ever knew of
Was the wall at the back of the playground
Which I could never reach.
The four walls in my house;
The wall in my room,
Covered with tacky teenager stuff.

Now I know that
There's kindergarten children
Who know much more of walls
That I ever will;
The only beast I ever feared
Was the monster in my closet,
And though they fear The Beast too,
They still pack up their things and go.

I know of a group of women
Who cook and bag food
To feed all of the Beast's heads.
Las Patronas, que les llaman.
La Bestia might even fear them
If it wasn't for the weight
Of the severed limbs and the blood
It drags between its feet.

Today, I write for the children
Who know more of walls and deportation
Than I ever will.
I write for the town in my country
In which little boys dream of crossing
Pa'l otro lado;

For all the Janes and Johns Doe
Who've been waiting at the morgue for
Someone
To go and pick them up;

For the rosaries and prayer books
Ripped out from the hands
Of a person who's already been stigmatized;

For the 5-year old
Calling out for mamá and papá,
For the quechua family
And the nahua girl,

For the Cuban rafters,
Por el Padre Solalinde,
For the hundreds of thousands
Of forgotten IDs
And the empty packets of Sedalmerck;

Por Las Patronas,
Por La Bestia,
Por el Río Bravo,
Por el mojado
Wo has jumped over the wall
Surrounded the wall
Snuck under the wall
Hated on the wall
Spat at the wall
Died by the wall.

For the Salvadoran woman
And her Salvadoran son;
For the Northern Mexican desert,
For the Southern "American" desert.

For the woman whose house is split in two
Because of a technicality
And the Border Wall going across her front yard.

For our territory;
For our people
Who didn't cross the border,
But instead, the border crossed them.

For my neighbour's son
Who didn't get sent home by the ICE,
He only got sent away.

For my Latino family
Por mis mexicanos,
Guatemaltecos, Hondureños,
Salvadoreños, Nicaragüenses,
Venezolanos,
Colombianos,
Bolivianos
Paraguayos
Peruanos
Chilenos;

Por mis mexicanos;
Por mis niños
Y mis niñas.
My boys, my girls,
My women
Our men.

Our blood
Which has been spilled by The Beast
Or a gang
Or the desert
Or the border patrol
Or a soldier
Or an ICE agent

Or a Woman at Wal-Mart
Or a Man at Starbucks.

For the hatred and the prejudice,
And the well-intentioned influencer who says
"This is not who we are,"
Ahora dilo sin llorar.

For the insensitive jacket
And the children kept in cages.
I'd love to see how many of you
Would even think of sending
Your kids to such a "boarding school,"
Because that's what it is, right?

I write for my blood,
Mi sangre,
Mi gente,
My Family, with capital F,
Who knows more of walls
Than I will ever know.

Bein' Green

Back when I was 3,
I loved to see the sunlight shining on my skin.
I remember how much that used to
Make me smile, like that tiny
Yellow flower
Growing out unexpectedly
From a crack on the sidewalk.

And then I’d run, and trip
And fall
And bruise;
I’d stare at that
Violet mark
On my skin, it tingles,
Though it never really made me cry.

I could lie down on the ground
To just stare at the
Blue sky
Which raised up high above me;
I wish I could get there and stay,
How much time of dreaming would it take?

I recall the bright, familiar color of an
Orange peel
Resting on the kitchen table
After having asked Mother
To slice it up for me.

As I grew up, I heard
That 15 is right where
Your time for dreaming stops,
This, from a woman with an
Indigo-sounding voice
And a passion for the quiet
And the square.

Yet, who was there to see
When a 16-year-old me
Had to stand up for herself and learn
That love was a kaleidoscope of deep,
Red memories
That never fade away?

But here, now in my room,
Where it pours bean
Green over blue,
I can see and I can tell
That a little, fragile sprout can still hope.

We mix up, and swirl
And leave our mark behind,
But if I could go back and see
That 3-year-old me,
I’d most likely say to her
That she really got it right,

For a flower that is yellow
With a violet bruise
Under the blue sky,
Who smells of orange peels
And turns away from women with indigo voices
Can look through the kaleidoscope again.

Those red memories
Will bring up the green inside;
They’ll bring up our hopes,
And lead us into understanding
That we are all, in fact,
Leaving behind a
Rainbow trail
As we pass by.

Macbeth, 4.3

Alas, our poor country!

It is too frightened to look at itself.

But it shall come to know itself in the intimacy

Of the candlelight

And the perfume of the flowers scattered on the floor.

No kisses, no caresses;

Only the weight of tears,

Frustration and impotence.

It cannot be called our mother,

But our grave;

Mass grave for artists, and not for murderers.

Our land, where blood is used to water

The Seed of Tomorrow.

Where nothing, but who knows nothing,

Is once seen to smile;

Smiling next to the Grim Reaper, who walks amidst

With a grin wide with impunity and relief.

Where sighs, groans, and shrieks

Rip through the air but no one notices.

Life goes on, another day comes by

And they tell me that this sorrow is an ease.

“You’re alive!” Isn’t that right?

Where violent sorrow

Is a common emotion;

If three died there,

Then fear, anger and shame

Will be the end of us all.

Were people

Hear the funeral bells ring,

And no longer ask who died;

Students forging a future

That never comes,

And where good men die

Before the flowers in their caps wilt,

For they die before they even fall sick.

Leanan Sídhe

I’m Nobody! Who are you, fairy muse?

Are you – Nobody – too?

One look, and I was sold.

A Species stands beyond –

Invisible, as Music –

But positive, as Sound –

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me,

For who would want a poet who cannot live?

Leanan sídhe, rwy' dy garu di.
Why should I blame her that she filled my days with

This violent inspiration and subduing misery?

Her home is empty and her heart is old,

I part thick curtains, and am startled by

The rapid clouds, the moon’s cleanliness

From my rented attic, with no earth to call my own

Except the air-motes,

I?

I make houses shrink

And trees diminish

By going far; let the gods speak softly of us

In days hereafter.

Our dried voices, when

We whisper together

Are quiet and meaningless.

Softly, in the dusk, this woman is singing to me;

How should we like it were stars to burn

With a passion for us we could not return?

Let us go, then, you and I,

When the evening is spread out against the sky

Till, losing memory,

Bird, fish, and sheep are ghostly,

And ghosts must do again

What gives them pain.

Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt,

There she stands, as if alive.

Why, what could she have done, being what she is,

But to claim my life as hers?

She clung on to me, until I had nothing left to give.

The years to come seemed waste of breath,

A waste of breath the years behind

In balance with this life, this death.

Was there another Troy for her to burn?

Oh starry starry night! This is how

I want to die, and for short, I was afraid.

Earth, receive an honored guest:
Your dear artist is laid to rest.

Mictlantecuhtli

I

Here I start to sing;

Flowers blooming in my heart

In the form of a grand song.

It is the breath of life

Into the cries of the dead

Who say “thanks” to you.

Now, attend the story of the Lord of the Mictlán.

To him belongs my soul, and yours,

And the Nine Rivers of the Underworld.

Dark haired, like the night sky,

Sprinkled with stars, scattered around

By the bats and the spiders and the owls.

Trust me, for I have seen him.

I died in my sleep, nothing honorable about that.

Neither Tláloc nor Tonatiuh would want me, I knew.

This unworthy death sent me straight to His abode.

Down I went.

Step by step, calm,

Serene, silent, tranquil,

For I knew I was going down

Through the path they told me to.

It kept getting darker every second.

I should’ve paid attention to the owl hooting.

He always falls head first, like the sun. Tzontémoc.

This is our final home; where we don’t exist. Fleshless beings.

II

Çan nompeua ye nican o in nicuicanitl huiya

Noyollo ytech

In cueponi xochitl y

Yectloc cuicatl y

Yca yan noconehcapehuian

Ypalnemoa ohuaya.

I could hear them all crying for my long-gone soul;

My Xolo had his sight set on his only quest.

We crossed the river, we survived the mountains.

The obsidian mount could’ve cut us in half.

The frozen wind did cut us in matching halves.

There were flags, arrows, and the beast that’d eat our hearts.

Sharp rocks sliced our feet open,

Until we disappeared in the last realm.

They gave me water, paper, fabric;

They burned down my clothes,

My jade heart beat with the coldness of a lifeless rock,

But the beast fell for the shiny, green bait

And let us be

In a place where no one is;

They let us be,

Even though we could never be again.

III

Quetzalcoátl came down here once,

Alone, some time ago.

Mother told me about it,

Because her mother told her about it too.

The gods gave us life.

The gods sent a flood.

Humans turned to fish,

And as fish they perished.

The world needed new humans,

Quetzalcoátl retrieved the bones of our late ancestors.

Mictlantecuhtli is a trickster; the snake knew.

Their agreement was deeply flawed,

For the conch had no holes.

“Four times you have to pace”, easy enough.

“Four times, just see how nice this conch sounds.”

But the conch had no holes,

Of that, the worms and the bees took care.

 Powers of wind and life

He carries the conch around like an award.

He took the bones,

But the Lord had changed his mind.

“No”, instead of “yes”;

The snake became a thief,

There’s no stealing of what was always yours.

The Death’s servants dug up a hole,

Foolish quail, who would’ve thought the snake’d be afraid of you?

The bones scattered,

The quail went to nibble them,

But Quetzálcoatl survived the fall,

Although the bones weren’t so lucky.

Therefore

I’m 5’5

And you’re 6’1”

Or so they say.

In Tamoanchan we were reborn.

Bone-flour in the pot,

And gods’ blood.

For this, we say tlazohcamati miyac.

IV

This is my final home; where I don’t exist. Fleshless being.

He keeps falling head first, like the sun. Tzontémoc.

I can pay attention to the owl hooting now.

It keeps getting brighter every second.

Through the path they told me to

I went back to them for once,

Hopeful, quiet, calm,

Tranquil, serene,

Up I went.

I knew what to expect, and at the very back

Of what used to be our living room in the family house

My own reflection stared back at me.

Here I shall lie forever.

Flowers growing from my grave

In the form of life renewed.

It is our last breath

Into the laughs of the ones we leave behind

And I say “thanks” to them now.

You heard the story of the Lord of the Mictlán.

To him belongs your soul, and mine,

And the Nine Rivers of the Underworld.

Hair dark like the night sky,

Stars hang from it by their necks,

As the ones who are not allowed in.

You’ll see him, and I won’t need your trust.

La Llorona

I love the song of the mockingbird,

Bird of the four hundred voices;

It took us long to realize

That one of those voices was hers.

Tonatzin, please don’t cry for us,

Your beloved children will be alright;

Even if the droughts drown our fields down,

And the fire floods up our wills.

Yaocíhuatl, warrior woman,

Don’t you see that your heart-wrenching screams

Are powerful enough to melt down our firewood

And light up the flowing water of the river?

Hummingbird, please fly away,

There’s no need to crush our bones.

Malintzin, don’t you fret,

Your progeny can forgive.

Our blood is yours, Llorona.

Your half-blood progeny will forgive.

Mother of the emperor too,

She passed down the power of her own blood,

And made sure to let it spread.

You cannot deny the mark on our foreheads;

It shines scarlet and it claims for vengeance.

The wind whispers in the flowers’ ears,

Please, tell me what it’s saying;

The flowers cry like mourning widows

Growing by the gravestones.

Your children were frightened, Llorona,

But you have as much fault of our downfall

As the cypress has when it cries for us.

Chocani, dead men tell no tales,

Which is why their sorrow is unbearable.

The darkness will cry down on you

When Tezcatlipoca realizes you are sunken in grief.

What withholds you from showing so?

You are within your rights.

Your children’s tears watered the meadows

Upon which They built their palaces

For our tears meant nothing

As much as our holy ground meant nothing

And our words meant nothing

And our sorrow meant nothing

And our blood meant nothing

And our pleading meant nothing

Then make their trepidation mean nothing,

Make them run away with fear, Llorona.

Show them whose land this is.

They hang their crosses behind wooden doors;

The fact that you’re gone doesn’t mean you’ll stop.

I saw you coming out of the temple one day,

Your children know you are devout;

When your children spot you, they see the Mother in you.

The crucifix behind the sinner’s door wept copper tears

When I told Him your story.

Can you imagine His misery?

The nails pierce His skin once more,

While He is bound to care for those who put Him there.

Look at us now, Llorona,

You, who come from yesterday and from today.

Look at your children now, and you’ll see

That our past splendor is gone.

They ripped it away from us with their guns

And their cannons

And then wore it as a new cloak for theater night.

You did not sell us out to them;

I know that this will not calm down your sorrow,

But we know.

We find you by the lake, by the river,

In the rain, amid the drainage,

Whilst your cries rise up from the underground.

The wicked ones run away with fright,

And your children miss you,

They turned you into a monster,

But we know Our Mother.

Take us to the river for the weekend, Mother.

Wrap us with your shawl; it’s cold outside.

Masqui no nemiliz nicpoloz, chocani,

Even if it kills me, Llorona,

Saicsemi ni mitztlasohtlaz.

I will never stop loving you.

Amo cahua nitlazotzin;

I will never leave you.

Xtabay

After Hunahpú began to reign our days from high above,

And Ixbalanqué ruled our nights right after him,

The people from the village thought they knew you, Xtabay;

They thought they knew you, and your neighbor Utz-Colel.

Xkeban was your name amongst them,

“Bad Woman,” and much more,

For passion was reserved for others;

For others, but not for you.

But I know you, Xtabay!

Oh, I know you all right.

The silk-cotton tree keeps singing your song,

I can hear it as clear as the sound of your hair

Rustling against your bare and perfumed shoulders;

Just like that bright morning where

I went down the wrong path

Until you found me.

I did not find you, Xtabay,

For I had no intention of disturbing your peace;

But your fragrance floods the air,

It gives the water redolence.

Your petals cry, Xtabay.

Flowers cascading down your open coffin,

Though the villagers never liked you.

Love is not a sin, Xtabay.

It took them a while to understand.

Modesty is not only silence and constriction,

Kindness is more than respecting yourself,

(Whatever that means);

Passion is not an illness,

Yet your heart could not contain it.

You are beautiful, Xtabay.

I know it because I saw you.

I saw you blooming next to the pathway;

Helping the exhausted traveler wandering around the forest.

That traveler was me, Xtabay,

And how grateful I am.

I was weak;

No water, and no food,

And the road extended still long before my eyes.

Your pistil put my thirst at ease,

Your leaves calmed my hunger.

How sweet you were,

How intoxicating you are.

I loved you, Xtabay.

I promised I would love you

Like no one ever did.

But that is the curse of your love, Xtabay;

You are for all,

And not for me.

I wanted to take you home.

I really did.

I still love you, Xtabay,

And I believe I always will.

There is nothing left for me.

Nothing else but thorns and

Beautiful, stunning flowers

That hurt my eyes,

And disturb the air.

I can hear them breathing through the thorns.

I tried to find your scent, but you were long gone.

Utz-Colel died and the Tzacam grew from her grave;

It repulses me, Xtabay.

I found her, by the thorns.

She is deeply jealous of you — who wouldn’t be?

She tries to love, but fails.

Love to her is a sin;

Passion with no kindness

Grows next to the thorns

And it pierces my fingers.

My blood runs out of the open wound,

Xtabay, where are you?

The silk-cotton tree cries for you, and for me, Xtabay,

“Come back!”

I do not love her, nor does she love me.

And yet, she’s walking down the pathway

Crushing my heart between her fingers.

Can you follow the trail of blood, Xtabay?

If a woman is going to take my heart

I want you to be the one who keeps it.

Such a cruel imitation, Xtabay!

Off she goes, Xtabay.

Utz-Colel took my heart,

But a faint hope occupies its place.

My heart cries crimson tears for you;

They decorate the pathway.

There you were, by the road.

I wish you were crying for me.

My blood tears fell on your face, Xtabay.

And I am sorry.

In yaakumech, Xtabay;
Sa'as si'ipil.