E.P. Robles | Poetry

I. Proof of Ache (Acrostic with Hidden Name)

Pixel saints flicker above a dead phone, promise in packets, rumor returning.
Hush of the feed at 3 a.m.—the city’s eyelids scroll for a kinder glow.
Inside the glass I ghost my face, messaging the void with a velvet prayer.
Looped notifications bead like rosaries; I mouth their data in secret.
Love is an interface—yet also a room that edits the pulse to silence.
I sign what I cannot say, each tap a knuckle at Infinity’s door.
Parallel lives unzip in tabs; I keep the one that glitches and calls me beloved.

Every algorithm wants my ache to stabilize; I refuse, and it blossoms harder.
Printers of truth jam; rumors unjam. I staple the night to the morning and wear it as armor.
Real is a rumor confirmed by yearning; speak it, and the mirror fogs.
On the curb, a siren tutors me in red grammar; I conjugate hurt to future perfect.
Blue is the browser where she appears—twice removed, thrice returning, always unsigned.
Let the body be a document with margins wide enough for miracles.
Every promise is a password with a hidden expiration; I memorize the pattern of forgetting.
Somewhere a door keeps opening into itself; I practice entering by staying.

II. Golden Shovel for the Leaving Lady

I build a hush the width of a street and name it faith, Because
the city keeps its clock in my ribs; if I stop, it stops, and I
pretend not to notice the moon rehearsing our phone-glow; you could
edit me softer, I say—but you won’t; I agree to want what I not
understand: the shape your silence makes when I stop
typing. A comet clears its throat—your profile turns—only for
a second—then the postcard grin: the sovereign of Death
cruising the boulevard in a soft sedan. You wave as if He
were rideshare; you laugh at the meter running, how kindly
you lean to adjust the mirror so I look endless. The car stopped
between two centuries, and I count each breath like tabs; the door opens for
no one and for everyone—and yes, I get in. You don’t. You hum for me.

III. Mirror Practice (Palindromics & Returns)

live not on evil
Able was I ere I saw Elba
Backspace the prayer, then pray the space back.
What I forgive returns—not as itself, but as a better question.
I look into the look that looks back, and choose to be seen.

:: 09.06.2025 ::