Phantosimia dangles its scent above cana de azucar, always sour before harvest. To grow sugar cane, you must dissect setts of yourself because society values growth over being whole these days. Does not matter where you are planted, you will still stretch and yearn for Neruda’s sun. But there is money to be made in harvesting the sweetest parts of you. To be burned and burned and burned again. You can only die when they are done. You can only be free when they are done. They are done now and have been after they dug out all the gold and sugar from your soil. You still posture yourself in what remains and sift through the days for worth.
Only Paradox Grows in Puerto Rico
Julio Montalvo Valentin is the author of two chapbooks, Don’t Give up the Ship and Ship Lost. He is a cofounder of and editor at CWP Collective Press. Julio is also an editor for the Mutate Re and Portrait as well as a blogger for Plurality Press. You can find him working on his next project, converting a school bus into a poetry caravan for his next poetry tour.
oh, God, painfully true… love so many lines here. Had to read it twice