Giggles and fun.
That’s all Lexi does. 

She has got some nice
buns.

I’m like, girl are you french?
Cause MADAMNNNNNN

Lexi is sexy.
She is friends with a Mexi…
can she get a holla for a 
dolla. naw man. She don’t play 
like dat.

-Cynthia J. Zapata

I saw a woman,
  much older than my mother,
kneel before The Lord
  and ask for forgiveness.

I sat in the same room
  and I felt my pride deepen
the canyon between Faith and I.

When was the last time
 I felt the earth and realized 
  my kinship with the dirt?

My breath has left me.
Spirit, why are you so silent?

I heard her plea
  in a tongue I understood.

“Padre, perdona nuestars ofensas.”

But I cannot speak. I am a 
  noisy gong among 
     The Holy.

I have forgotten love. 
I have left my hiding place.

The waters hold me captive,
  but they aren’t waves of 
unending grace. 

I have crushed myself. 

Father, bring me to my knees.

I pray to be as simple
  as a wandering sheep
so that you may find me.

-Cynthia J. Zapata

Beside this boy 
there stands a girl
that you can hardly see
because she lives in his shadow

And she loves this boy, 
but he will never be man enough 
to admit that she is more than 
the world and then some.

She, herself, is like an empty wineglass.
there is nothing inside of her, 
because she has poured all herself
into him. 

That is what she is full of: emptiness. 
only full of the sadness you find 
at the bottom of an empty wine bottle.

-Cynthia J. Zapata