I SWEAR, I WASN’T THAT SAD

The bee sting you got
running barefoot one summer
through a meadow so green it hummed,
so wide it must have thought it was forever.

That sting now rings the church bells,
plays the organ softly before Sunday sermon.

It trims the shrubs out front, paints the fence
white as a hymn, rinses the windows
with vinegar and rag,
sweeps the steps in a motion
you might call prayer.

All that pain became
someone’s maintenance.

That’s what memory does—
turns wounds into workers.

And how, you ask me,
do you get back inside
the hive of that mind?

How do you undo
what the imagination has built
out of smoke?

I wore a flak jacket,
had in mind to drop a few bills
into the offering plate—
a kind of joke, maybe,
or a bargain: God,
forgive me in small bills.

I pray for myself
because I know it hurt.
I would like to make it up to you.

I mean it in the way
the poor juggler meant it
in that Christmas tale

no gift to bring
but the only thing he knew:
to enter the dark church,
face the cradle, and juggle
in the silence.

We call that story beautiful,
call it redemption,
but also, isn’t it
a little bit desperate?

Maybe all art is like that—
some trembling attempt
to juggle fire in front of God.

To say: I know how violent I am.
Watch me make it pretty
before I drop it.

I think play is part of it.
So is rage.
The desire to make something still
out of what wants to be a storm.

And compassion—
don’t forget it cages the word compass,
a way to find north
in the middle of a broken instrument.

I have tried to use the stars.
I still remember
everything I read about constellations,
even now.

Even here, in the age
where faith comes cheaper
than bullets.

I keep looking up,
thinking maybe
they’ll rearrange themselves
into a shape that makes sense.

Or at least into
the meadow again.
That sting. The church.

The boy running barefoot
before the world
learned to alter shuffle.

Marie Anne Arreola is a true child of the internet, best known for her role as editor-in-chief of the bilingual catalog VOCES, where she has led over 30 interviews with international creatives—ranging from influencers and writers to artists and content creators.

Marie’s bilingual writing has appeared across Europe, North America, and Oceania, in publications such as Torrey House Press, Meniscus Literary Journal, San Diego Poetry Annual, WILDSOUND International Poetry Festival (Toronto, New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles), and elsewhere.

She is a two-time finalist for the Francisco Ruiz Udiel Latin American Poetry Prize (V and VI editions) from Valparaíso Ediciones, and a recipient of the 2024 Young Poets Scholarship awarded by the Gutiérrez Lozano Foundation.