Five Poems by CLS Sandoval

 

Bird Sounds

 

Pecking

Bird on palm tree

Beating beak against trunk

I look up smiling at him

Loud bird

Heartless

 

Pulling wings from flies

Just to see them try to walk

She has no heart left

Self-Reflection from the Sidelines

 

Fabio hair

Hair on his face too long to be a 5 o’clock shadow

but too short to really be a beard

He had male model written all over him

 

Maybe I’m not as edgy as I thought

Maybe I’m more like a butter knife.

The Madlib of an Addict

 

I spend most of my nights willing myself on a flight back in time that will never happen

So much went wrong

My soul longs for your light as my heart reaches for darkness

I surround my vulnerable parts with hardness while a hunger to soften toward you

Forever posits an oath that may not ever emerge

We haunt the past. We’re addicted to the past.

Contradiction

 

What it Feels Like to Miss Someone You Love

 

It’s like being the only pea in your pod

It’s like being the surviving twin

It’s like being the left shoe without the right

It’s like being peanut butter between two slices of bread without jelly

 

It’s like being nothing but yin

It’s like being yoga without the meditation practice

It’s like being a wedding reception without cake

It’s like being a dog on a leash, inside with your owner gone all day

 

It’s like that

CLS Sandoval, PhD (she/her) is a pushcart nominated writer and communication professor with accolades in film, academia, and creative writing who speaks, signs, acts, publishes, sings, performs, writes, paints, teaches, and rarely relaxes.  She’s presented at communication conferences, served as a poetry and flash editor, published 15 academic articles, two academic books, three full-length literary collections, three chapbooks, and both flash and poetry pieces in literary journals, recently including Opiate Magazine, The Journal of Radical Wonder, and A Moon of One’s Own.  She is raising her daughter, son, and dog with her husband in Walnut, CA.