¿Que pasa con las geopolitícas?
after “Love Galore”
1.
Anything per sembrare come
your love
shooting stars and all
in these tropical bars
Florida removed my waters
filled with foreign invaders
I don’t currently plan on sticking
around
I’ll upgrade my condos
and get a better view of Midtown
get a better set of pupusas
because love is love is love
that has to be earned
down the stairs
into the subway
glamour and rats galore
is love to be earned
you lonely bruh
ya got the whole world
swinging for ya bruh
but you up in the trees
feeling out these toxic breezes
a city built on top of a landfill
by the swamps and rivers
the fauna don’t get near anymore
you don’t smell like my tears no more
but I got lost in them chalk paintings
pinned up
wall up
on this Bushwick condo
reminder of who took over
this space
nerdy white boys
that have no idea
what to do next
and these colonies
ain’t thirsted
for so much supremacy before
but they got no course
no route
no lines
to the north pole or
north borough
you chew me out
like fountain drink ice
and wondered why I was so lost
but love ain’t make you feel stable
ain’t make you feel compromise
just long drawn flutes
and semitones
the red dress and sea spiral earings
compromising for what reasons
because I’mma be anything
but this gentrified pin-up
this open park bullshit
and clean up the sidewalks
when you want shit
I want to be chained
and willing
so that I don’t swim away
lost in the rivers
I want to be earned
and kept like rose gold
scraped over pizza slices
luxury in ya
live like luxury in ya
in ya eyes
in ya belly
breaking the norms
crunching the shoes
this love didn’t make me
sensational
I’m bloated
on the dictionary
platitudes
high school boyfriends
and various internments
don’t swing my way
don’t unlock my phone
all that’s there
are deleted text threads
and platonic loveboys
ain’t gotta fall flat
like them stones
ain’t gotta love you
like hot steam
up the shorts
but I’m oriented
by this idea
of anything
anything for ya
but blue exploding over ya
rooftops like blue
but don’t get the sensations
my magic gets lost on ya
anything to be anything
but me
because left me unloved
in this new life
2.
This poet tired of y’all platitudes.
Blowing up over ya buildings.
Taking a train to ya dreams.
He didn’t make sense of these scapes.
Lovely queers in the shower;
begging for this love galore
because he thought of what could’ve
been too.
Appearing along like peonies blowing up
over the diamond studs;
the desperate studs.
A dream is a dream is a dream
that had to be EARNED!
Blow me and make me rethink.
Name me senseless and emotional.
But, I ain’t no jingo.
I don’t beg to be part of ya state.
I wanted to earn these folds.
Build my whimsy in your teeth
because the construction of these bubbles
only made sense long term.
I will return to March
and it will smell of ripe streetside garbage.
But, that’s the cost of ya love.
Booty shaking for ya love.
Offer me that love galore.
Construct that new island over the river.
Asdrubal Quintero is a queer Latinx poet from NOLA now living in Spanish Harlem. Besides teaching fourth graders and dealing with obsessive anxiety, he’s listening to SZA and Solange and trying to get his life together. Follow him on twitter @asdrubalaq.