“Sanguine Heartbeats” and Other Poems by K. Perez-Sanchez

A writer from the Bronx, Kevin Perez-Sanchez has been writing for nine years. His pieces draw heavily from his own experiences as well as the stories and experience of many others he has met. He hopes that readers feel as much reading these pieces as people did when relaying those deep emotions to him.

Kevin’s work has been previously featured in Volume 10 of In Parentheses.

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Heavy Degree

Elation drowns in my memories.
Receive, return, and lay in comfortable pain.
At dawn, a stubborn pride seethes.
Execrate the day it didn’t rain.

Crushed by your heavy degree.
If I brook this torment, do you still die in vain?
Curled on cement, I whisper apologies.
My future aches all the same.

Does spirit make up for misery?
Though it is left ripped and maimed,
Is it so strange to feel free
When liberty builds cages around my brain?

When I wail, come back to me.
Tell me it’s the ashes in which you remain.
I hold them in my sleep.
What a child your son became.

Only on a graduation stage
Do I feel the drain.
Would you feel ashamed
If you heard my name?

Sanguine heartbeats

As the light comes to a close,
This cave grows dark.
In the pitch black,
I find difficulty staying still.
Down in the mud,
I find difficulty keeping quiet.
In the cave, I feel so alone.
In the cave, I am so alone.
But, with incidental vim,
Without a light at all,
Without a mouth,
I scream.
A cry not meant for others.
These cries are meant for me.

Guardian

An infallible god born man
Claws truth towards him
With eyes made right,
With a mind carved marble.
Born to love.
To, by proxy, die.
Trekking lifespans of blunder-men
Who fill one’s heart with theirs.
When they fall,
An instinctual rage spirals
As your eyes are not the same.
Holding the cadaver
Made of soul and pride.
Heavy flesh.
You’re holding heavy flesh.

Tragic Junctures

Where were you?
That such a thing would scream
Would be completely confounding.
I’ve found you now
In these tragic junctures.
You’ve always been there,
Between the words and screens,
But, these eyes won’t read.
In a sea of so many
Heart-weighing memories,
One can barely see
That it’s always been the entire thing.
A warm honey filled chest
Propels my hand towards yours.
Your nails feel real to me
During our temporary scenes.
Hold me close.
I’ll settle for your hand,
For any piece is loving treasure.

Math

Beyond the horizon,
A man stands.
The sky is clear, open and vague.
There, a man stands.
Wind breaks and splits around him.
From afar, you put out your hands.
He can touch you.
Don’t cry, don’t scream.
A man simply stands.
Around you space bends, staying intact,
Your space of which he spans.
Only when the body shakes,
Does one notice that the horizon expands.
He can see you.
As he approaches, he moves farther apart.
You try to move, to see if you can.
Move, move, move
Your toes in the sand.
But you can’t, you really can’t.
Eye to eye, the man stands.
He cannot smile.
There is no end to a void like so.
The man understands.
The beast spreads and contracts,
Stopping each start, beginning the end.
Infinitesimal movements fill the void.
In your ear, the man stands.
“Listen to my music.”
Fear the beast.
Fear the beast.
Fear the man.

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