Born in Mexico, Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal, lives in California and works in the mental health field in Los Angeles. His poetry has appeared in Blue Collar Review, Impspired, Mad Swirl, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, and Unlikely Stories. He is the author of Raw Materials (Pygmy Forest Press), Songs for Oblivion (Alternating Current Press/Propaganda Press), Peering into the Sun (Poet’s Democracy), The Book of Absurd Dreams (New Polish Beat), Before and Well After Midnight (Deadbeat Press), Keepers of Silence (Kendra Steiner Editions), Everything is Permitted (Ten Pages Press), In the House of the Butterflies (New American Imagist), and Make the Water Laugh (Rogue Wolf Press).

Stranger Than Most

Dusk returns,
a stranger 
stranger than 
most some days.

It dawns on
me. I am
stranger than
most some days.

At eight years
old, I placed
an order,
ham and eggs
without the eggs.

I was asked
if I just
wanted ham.
I double
down, I want
ham and eggs 
without the eggs.

Nowadays
I cannot
afford eggs.
I cannot
afford to
eat ham too,
because it
is bad for me.

I am stranger 
than most
on most days.

No Need

I have been walking
toward the light
and into walls.
My eyes are delicate.
My sight is compromised
but that is alright.
I have to pluck an eye
out, the left or the right.
I have no need for one.
I have no need for two.
There is no need to 
talk me out of it, no need.
I am too sad.
I walk into the wind.
I take a long walk.
The wind talks sense 
into me. The eyes stay.
I rip off the band-aids 
I attached to each eye.

Dream Under Water

I dream under water,
under a single raindrop,
as I melt like an ice cube
into a clay pot, in
the same dream,
where I am also a flame.

I have been feeling 
the heat, every waking 
day, my body drenched 
in sweat, even with the
ceiling fan at full speed.

The water in my dream
is tepid. I feel the sun
swimming with me.
Will I be human soup?
This dream needs cold
snow to soothe this
human flame.