Melinda J Nevarez writes poetry and flash fiction mainly to escape, if only for a moment, the chaos in her head. A former drug addict, she is now an addicted to chronicling the plight of the downtrodden and advocating compassionate mental health services.

Duerme con la sangre

it's a quiet kind of danger,
Colder in than out
But/She
wore sadness like an old coat
lint in her pockets (and secrets
they'd put you away for)--

take your medication, darling
please swallow
say thank you
when they dole out your kindnesses
like government cheese...

She
traded up for
cheap whiskey fingers blistered
I'll fuck you for answers,
She
said, almost begging.

Narcissus never procreated.
seduction's free
but she will
catch you behind the curtain and
slit
her wrists
to bleed you out.

Romance the Maudlin

left of the tree,
destruction so obvious it is
Tangible
sits next to him like a moan
against the other side the ground littered with foil--
she is broken, metal.

barefoot, towards him,
Her guilt is palpable Another unoriginal casualty
nothing to hand him, no part of her he hasn't written.

silver scissors
when she licks bleeds smiles.

one time dull eyes
Hatefully needy
cuts the rope, her body curling into itself like old wallpaper.

Eyes cloudy, she turned to ash.


Conception Two

my Mexican grandma had a catholic shrine
With a very large St. Christopher
his hands bound with rosaries
the flickering saints eye level to me
I wanted to shrink into the smell of melting wax

the statue was black;
this was my god.

Though he wasn't allowed in my parents' gauche temple
(the shrouded space between secrets)--
our black neighbor was kind to me...

my god was
down the street
watering His lawn.

when I breached the subject, I'm not sure
the visceral reaction,
how my Stomach Dropped a
Cold Prickle over my arms
when I knew I
had
fucked up Religiously.

and god was an old bearded white man
with Exceptionally Large Hands
it left me unsettled

(old white men
behind oak pulpits they spoke like
Puppeteers)

and a sunday spent on green pews learning
they gave
god
to the white man.