Poetry by Paula Gil-Ordoñez Gomez

     Emma K Alexandra CC




i love even when i hate

my mother shadowed me in the nest
but something wasn’t right 
she let go of her creation
she may have wanted to die
resisting the urge 
for the sake of legacy
i wanted to die & no one told her
my little critter brain cannot be trusted
hogging the light in our shared alley
i put my head in her crane-like hands 
toppling over she stood above watching
unsure of what to do 
i replicate un-love
& my therapist talks about memory
like a switchblade in a bottle
she suggests a rigged election 
for someone to care for me
i can’t pick more guys on the run 
they are beautiful obviously
torture me with a robbed goodbye
& sacred vomit six feet apart
i feel a fool for acting fertile
the way the cold might be colder 
for something so raw 
i stopped writing to be jovial
held on like a grudge
till i traded tongue for fingers
i hardly speak these days
awfully incapable of cracking 
i’m just all nerves
a hymn-like body
always up to something
a bit silly & hurting
to be part of the world
i claim poorly decorated promises 
& watch them grow 
into wildflowers & ripe bananas
my plot will be so warm
it will make you want to stay alive
i admitted a lot already
i'm inclined to start anew
sitting on the playroom floor 
legs bent at the knees 
splayed out like a pinwheel
i love even when i hate
i love






Every Season the City Drowns Me

I come up drenched, sputtering names.
Reborn a child that doesn’t mind, I don’t know my names.

The ink of my body swells & recedes,
my mouth practicing forms, the shapes of names.

I think of how I am still bleeding, purging every man 
who has ever touched me & whispered names.

I imagine if I had his baby & it was like him. I might also want it 
gone, to exist without names. 

All the women came to see if I was awake. 
They wanted to hold me & count my fingers with names.

I had to hold my breath & I did, God why 
did you make our ridges recognizable, fingerprints or names.

The women fished Paula out the wishing well. Skin, kidneys, hair follicles, 
everything but names.

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Hunting Season

I used to be brave in the dark
bumping against others & learning their edges.
I can't bear it anymore-

my lovers are a fractured roof 
I broke my hip on just to count stars. 
I am bleeding but they are stenched in gore.

Hanging on my wall, bodies absorb decades 
of self-importance. 
I have other plans than revenge

—to simply shed
in your shirt, pretending to lay on your F train shoulder,
blood clots slipping out of me like coins. 

In a post-disaster party I invite the saints over 
& confront every single shade of green. 
They don’t notice my reveling

in voice scraps, half-second teases 
I can barely make out. 
After five listens I decide, with faith, that it’s you

singing me to sleep.
It sounded like a call, back home 
women greet strangers as visitors.

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Paula Gil-Ordoñez Gomez is a Mexican-Spanish-American poet based in Brooklyn. Her writing has been published in HAD, Variant Lit, X-R-A-Y, Rejection Letters, and Heavy Feather Review, among others. She is a 2024 Periplus Fellow. Say hi on Twitter @paulagilordonez and find more of her work at paulagilordonezgomez.com.
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