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Free Flowing

Edmundo Barraza

Squeeze my lemons trickle down social insecurities third world project criminal justice injustice three strikes or a home-run prison system mutual terror bucket list priority destroy the world total absurdities my mother was a fish as I lay dying experiment stream of consciousness extreme mind fuck non-required grammar uncensored thoughts under subconscious and comatose dreamlike visions dormant and inert subliminal messages from the dark side both dumb and smart need not apply a comma here a period there absent and dismissed obsolete comprehension send me to hell he’ll laugh from there while others remain in heaven bored to death pitiful … Continue reading Free Flowing

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Foreign Violence

Edmundo Barraza

I’m an exile. I fled from Mexico in a hurry. The reason was just a tragic, unexpected accident. I didn’t have time to pack anything. Straight from the accident, I ran away to the US. I couldn’t say goodbye to anyone, not even to my mom. I was riding a crowded bus with my girlfriend. We were standing in the middle aisle when a man started groping my girl from behind. He was near the exit with his back close to the door. When I saw him touching my girl, I pushed him so hard the doors opened and he … Continue reading Foreign Violence

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Brothers In Distress

Edmundo Barraza

The explosion was imminent. We didn’t know who or what would set it off. The decision was mutual and final. Everybody would later say absurd, too. I expected to be painless. I hated pain. Physical or mental. We’re three brothers separated by six years each. We all were born in September. My brother Ralph was thirty, I was twenty-four and my little brother Anthony was eighteen. Our house was a gathering place for all kids from the neighborhood. I don’t remember having had any serious fights with my brothers. We were always very close to each other. My dad had … Continue reading Brothers In Distress

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Global Suicide

Edmundo Barraza

—I was a little pessimistic when I wrote this little thing in 2017. Is there a reason to be optimistic now?— God has left the building and the planet too. Hurricanes dance in the ocean. Hurricanes cohabit with earthquakes. The heat is hotter. Walls built with tiny hands will stop refugees but not bombs. Children expelled from paradise. Limbo kids between heaven and hell. But which is which? The ax forgets, the tree remembers. The forest never wins. Mother nature is dead. Without a nation or destination, refugees flee in mass and cry in pain. Destitute and diluted in the … Continue reading Global Suicide