Category: Arte

Motocross Legend, Love of My Life, Pt. 11 (Poetry)

On By Jon UreñaIn Arte, Escritura, Inteligencia artificial2 Comments

If you haven’t read all the previous parts or you don’t remember them well, I urge you to read this short story (or novella) from the beginning (link here).

During my fifteen minutes of quiet,
A respite from scrubbing greasy dishes,
Folding laundry, tidying up toys,
And chasing after a toddler who found joy
In turning the apartment upside down,
I retreated to our fifth-floor balcony,
And tried to settle into the bistro-style chair.
A pair of seagulls whirled over the rooftops.
I took a deep breath of the afternoon chill,
Bracing myself to confront my scarred wounds.

On the table, I rested the old tape recorder,
Already obsolete by the late nineties.
I flipped my sketchbook to a blank page,
And beside it I lined up my graphite pencils.
I adjusted the headphones to eclipse the world,
Then dared to press play on the recorder,
Inviting you in.

Your brisk teenage voice, vibrant and infectious,
Hit my insides like a rock smashing
Through a frozen lake.
An ache surged, a relentless wave,
That threatened to ravage the shores of my self
With memories too potent to withstand.

“Welcome back, stellar listeners,
To another thrilling episode of ‘Izar’s Takeover.’
I’m Izar, your DJ and host, accompanied
By the one, the only, Captain of the Cosmos!”
“Hey, folks. Who do we have beaming in
For today’s intergalactic interview?”

My fingers reacquainted themselves
With the textures of the pencil,
An extension of my nervous system,
While the fifteen-year-old cassette
Hissed and crackled.

“Hold onto your space helmets!
Today, we’re delving deep into the psyche
Of the fierce, formidable Asuka Langley,
A.K.A. the Crimson Devil,
Ace pilot of Evangelion Unit-02,
And defender of the Tokyo-3 Geofront!
Let’s find out Asuka’s favorite color,
Whether she prefers coffee or beer,
And why she has no friends.”
My teenage self pulled back.
“W-wait, I’m doing Asuka?”
Your giggles rippled the channels of time.
“Yeah, come on, do the prime tsundere.
I’ve noticed the way you stare at her.”
“Don’t make me sound creepy.”

Now that your voice carried me,
My hand drifted of its own accord,
Combining graphite with paper
And fading daylight.

My teenage self deepened his voice.
“Favorite color? Blood-red, of course.
Drinks? Coffee, when it’s arabica;
Beer, if it’s brewed in Germany.”
Struggling not to crack up, you asked,
“And friends?”
“I’ll have you know, Izar-chan,
Everyone else is an inferior specimen
Unworthy of my company.”
“Asuka, are you a cat or a dog person?”
“Penguin. Duh.”
“How many nipples does Eva-02 have?”
“Uh… three? Maybe four?”

“Asuka, you’re famed across the cosmos
For your skill in a biomechatronic superweapon,
But what drives you to stand atop as the best?”
“I must be the best! If not, then who am I?
My strength is all I have.”
“Beneath that tsundere exterior,
Your heart cares deeply, doesn’t it?
What truly motivates the Crimson Devil?”
“I fight to protect pathetic losers
Like my family of plug-suited nimrods.
But deeper than that, I fight for a world
Worth existing in, worth loving,
One where nobody has to feel alone.”

I pushed the stop button,
Cutting off a teenage voice.
My aging hand holding the pencil trembled
As my heartbeat pounded in my ears.
On the page, the contour of your face,
Along with the shape of your eyes,
Your nose, and your parted lips
Smiling mischievously,
Had manifested
As if through a blinding whiteout.

What had we been, Izar?
A boy and a girl, alone together.
Too bright, too bold, too brave.
A nova, a celestial collision.
The blood in our veins
Had flowed in a single stream.

A gaze bored into me like a needle.
My wife, wrapped in a bathrobe,
Loomed in the balcony doorway.
I slid off the headphones, then stared back
Wrung dry, with my scars peeled open.

“Have you forgotten to buy cake mix?” she asked.
After recovering from the jarring intrusion,
I retrieved the crumpled grocery list from the garbage.
“Well, maybe I didn’t write it down,” she said,
“But I definitely told you about needing cake mix.
Run down to the store and get it, please.”
How come the moment I could finally rest,
Some chore sprung up, one that couldn’t wait?

In a dream, my lawyer-wife’s belly
Grew and shrunk in rapid cycles.
She carried her organs bundled in her arms:
A bloody tangle of intestines,
A pulsing brain,
A heart-shaped piece of coal.
Dream-her, scowling, rebuked me.
“You seem like a high school student
Posing as an adult,
Trying to take responsibility
For the mess you’ve created.”

Dream-her must have taken notes
From the ghost of my wife I conjured up
In daydreams, to build up my defenses
Against forthcoming arguments.
In the realm of matter, we merely coexisted:
Two planets orbiting a toddling star,
Exhausted by their revolutions.
Yet, both of them, my wife and son,
Demanded all my energy and focus,
As if the cramped quarters of my soul
Hadn’t been filled to capacity
By the specter of you.

Some days, I forgot you were dead;
Your laughter echoed through our home
To fade as a ringing in my ears.
Other days, a frigid wave of sorrow crashed
And drowned my surroundings in darkness,
Submerging me to a depth where time slowed,
And light could no longer penetrate.

The nocturnal breeze chilled my face
As I clutched the balcony railing.
To my left, a dark-gray road
Lined with bare-branched trees,
Their limbs stretching upward,
Sliced through apartment buildings
Toward Juncal Church, whose steeple,
Etched against Mount Jaizkibel,
Towered over the Roman museum.
The church’s clock face reflected
A sky punctuated by dazzling stars.

You stood in my periphery,
Hands jammed in your jacket pockets,
Your silhouette rimmed in starlight.
To succeed in our elopement
And fulfill the wish from a decade ago,
To flee this pain-burdened city
Where all I did was waste away,
I only needed to grab your warm hand,
And jump from this fifth-floor balcony
Into the hard asphalt below.
The world would vanish in a puff,
And we would drift upward and upward
To that ocean of forever,
Where we’d get to play among the stars.

I dreamt of our last moment together.
The amber glow of streetlights
Swirled like auroras in the rain-laced air.
You parked in front of the candy shop.
Drenched under the torrential barrage,
We clambered off and removed our helmets.
The taste of rain mingled with your saliva
While the Aprilia’s idling engine rattled
Like a hiker hopping from foot to foot,
Eager to move on.

We wished each other good night.
Thunder growled as you straddled
Your gleaming yellow-and-white bike.
You pulled on your helmet,
Gripped the handlebars,
Lifted the side stand with a kick,
Leaned forward, and twisted the throttle.
Your Aprilia roused with a throaty roar,
Then sped into the rain-engulfed night.

My chest strained with the weight
Of the countless combinations of words
I could have uttered back then
To save your life.

Had I insisted on accompanying you,
We might have woven ourselves into the night,
Resting in the refuge of your childhood bed,
Immersed in each other’s warmth.
Or we might have crashed on the highway,
Where we would have drawn rain-flecked gasps
Lying shattered on the bloodied grass
Amid scrap metal and broken glass.
Either way, I wouldn’t have left you alone.

At the Mount Igueldo amusement park,
A pine tree cast its dappled shade
Upon person-sized mushroom sculptures
With dot-speckled red caps,
And stout stems featuring cartoon faces.
Amid the mushrooms, fairy-tale gnomes
Stood brandishing shovels and pickaxes,
Caught in eternal toils.

Along the tracks, the train came crawling,
Its design imitating a bygone steam locomotive
Painted sky blue, sunny yellow, and candy red.
As the train passed in front of the mushrooms,
My wife, encapsulated in that vibrant world,
Leaned toward our son seated beside her.
“Look who it is, honey. Wave to daddy.”
My beaming boy recognized me as his father,
A beacon in this unfathomable universe,
And waved exuberantly.
A pang tore through me,
But I raised my hand to reciprocate
With a smile bolted onto my face.
If I were living the life intended for me,
I would have never met this family.

One Friday evening, in the living room,
Our toddler, sitting on a playmat
Amid a disarray of plastic blocks,
Replicated his giraffe plush toy
Drawing on a dry-erase board.
My wife and I, slumped on the couch,
Settled on the escape of fast food.
She suggested Chinese,
But in my mind, a hole had opened
Into the vault of memories,
And I remembered a scarlet polo shirt.
I insisted on ordering pizza,
Then looked up the number of that shop
Located downtown, beyond the bridge
That spanned the railroad tracks,
In the sloping Lope de Irigoyen Street,
Where you delivered pizzas
For money and adrenaline
Back when we were teens.

After placing the order, I couldn’t sit still.
I roamed the apartment,
Drank water only to drink more,
Splashed my face at the bathroom sink.
Anxiety built up in my chest,
Sweat beaded on my brow.
I saw you hanging out in front of the shop,
Chatting animatedly with the other drivers.
Once the cooks had finished baking,
You put on your scarlet cap,
Loaded the pizza into the cargo box,
Then rode the scooter across Irún,
Heading to my home.

The buzzer startled me.
I checked the monitor:
The building’s front door swung shut.
A minute later, the doorbell rang.
Heart lodged in my throat,
A foolish and fraying part of me
Hoped against everything I knew
That time would fold upon itself.
I stumbled to the entrance,
Paused, took a shaky breath,
And peered through the peephole.
There you stood, sixteen again,
Clad in the scarlet cap and polo shirt,
Balancing a pizza box on your palm.

My heart sputtered back to life,
And I threw the door open.

As I gazed into those chocolate eyes,
A wave of vertigo swept over me.
Your mouth stretched in a grin,
Exhibiting crooked front teeth.
“One family-size pepperoni pizza.”
Your youthful voice pierced my ribcage
And stirred the liquifying viscera.

You offered the hot cardboard box,
That smelled of burnt crust and grease.
I realized I held bills.
Your caramel ponytail swayed
As you fished into your fanny pack,
But when you extended the change,
I closed your fingers around the coins
With my larger, trembling hand.
“Oh, that’s my tip?” you chirped.

A lump welled up in my throat,
One I couldn’t swallow nor breathe past.
“Enjoy your pizza, sir,” you said,
Then tipped your cap as a goodbye,
And trotted down the stairs.

My lips quivered.
The back of my eyeballs burned.
The pizza box tilted downward
And thudded onto the floor.
I hunched over and covered my face.
The dam containing a lifetime’s laughter
Creaked, cracked, and burst.

Author’s note: today’s songs are “K” by The Clientele, and “Diez años después” by Los Rodríguez.

If you enjoy my free verse poetry, I have three books worth of it yet to be self-published. Check it out.

Motocross Legend, Love of My Life, Pt. 10 (Poetry)

On By Jon UreñaIn Arte, Escritura, Inteligencia artificial2 Comments

If you haven’t read all the previous parts or you don’t remember them well, I urge you to read this short story (or novella) from the beginning (link here).

On my train ride back from work,
Inside an eggshell-white passenger car,
Slumped with weariness in a plasticky seat
As if my muscles and bones sought to dissolve,
Lethargy pulled down my eyelids
While I fought to remain awake.
At my stop, I exited dragging mutinous feet,
Then trudged my way to a purported refuge.

In the past, after the workday had drained me
And I returned to my parents’ apartment,
I ensconced myself in my childhood bedroom.
Many such afternoons, I dropped onto bed,
Where, as white noise coursed through my limbs,
I slipped into daydreams or hallucinations.
Now, when I opened my apartment’s door
To the smell of home-cooked food
Mingled with those of baby powder and cigarettes,
I faced my lawyer-turned-stay-at-home-mom,
Who looked pale and jittery, stimulated by a cocktail
Of caffeine, nicotine, and food-derived boosters.
She unloaded her day’s frustrations onto me,
Her patient listener and supportive husband,
Who could barely string coherent sentences.

I yearned to collapse onto the couch
And indulge in the oblivion of mindless shows,
But my wife had waited for the chance to escape
And puff on her damnable sticks in the balcony,
So I, as if prodded by a cattle farmer’s pole,
Was thrust into a chain of duties.

I tended to our baby, who spent his waking life
Cooing, babbling, crying, and pooping.
I changed his diapers, bottle-fed him formula,
Wiped the trickle of milk dripping from his chin,
Played with him until his squeals fizzled out,
And struggled to soothe his colicky self.

I went out on evening errands
Such as buying snacks or cigarettes,
Fetching prescriptions from the pharmacy,
Or perusing supermarket aisles for deals.
I held plastic-wrapped packages of meats
While the fluorescent tubes overhead
Bounced reflections off the polished tiles.

As if the apartment wanted to fall apart,
I had to replace burned-out bulbs,
Repair leaky faucets,
Unclog slow-draining pipes;
Tasks that I, who had grown up drawing,
Should have known by instinct how to do.

I didn’t complain against an adult’s fate,
That of ants, termites, or bees,
Perpetually teeming.
Besides, I received the orders from my wife,
Who had sought me out and witnessed me.
I had become a vessel for her hope,
And I didn’t dare discard it.

In the amber glow of the nursery lamp,
I rocked our baby in my arms
And crooned “Brahms’ Lullaby”
As I paced under the gaze of a plush giraffe.
Sleep is a realm, or a void,
Into which one eagerly dives and drowns.
Why would a baby fight the descent?
What better way to spend one’s time,
What lovelier gift could anyone hope for
Than a momentary reprieve from consciousness?

After my baby’s eyelids drifted shut
And his drowsy coos trailed off,
With him cradled in his crib,
I snuck into the master bedroom
And slid under the covers
Beside my wife’s warmth.
As I lay like a bruised, spent sailor
Whose ship had battled tempests,
Finally left alone, I sank
Into the ocean of the subconscious,
From whose murk you emerged,
Gliding through the viscous tides,
Your caramel locks billowing,
Arms extended toward me.
Tangled and embraced, we swam
Out of reach from the surface.

Through a gap in the bathroom door, I glimpsed
My topless, teary-eyed wife’s reflection.
She was grimacing bitterly at her midriff:
Over the waistband of her panties, which pressed
Into the softened roundness of her lower belly,
The overhead light accentuated, deepened,
A cluster of stretch marks surrounding the navel
In patterns of silvery and flesh-toned scratches.
With a fingertip, she traced the striae
That reminded her of the burden taken on,
And the toll it had exacted.

He lay cocooned in a blue woolen onesie,
His chubby fists curled near his cheeks,
His pacifier abandoned in a corner
Like a bone of a half-consumed victim.
From his barrel-shaped chest,
The ribs rose and fell rhythmically
As his small lungs expanded and contracted,
Preparing to spew volcanic ash.
Overlooking this dormant bundle of rage,
This little tyrant from a hostile planet,
I, his caretaker, or slave, stood motionless,
Dreading that the alien would awaken
And, while thrashing his tiny limbs,
Erupt in an incandescent wail
That would pierce my eardrums
And ripple through my bones,
Shattering my sanity.

The shower’s scorching jets
Steamed as they scoured my skin,
Streaming down my hunched spine.
I clawed at my skull;
Another goddamn Monday morning
Of a suffocating cycle
That would last lifetimes.
What was I holding out for?
That your ghost would burst in
And whisk me away from this cage
To resume where we had left off
A decade ago?

Cloistered within steam,
Under the drumming of water,
I whispered “Izar, Izar, Izar,”
A plea for help, an invocation.
The hooks were carving deeper,
And trickles of blood
Were dragged down the drain.

In a weekday evening, crumpled on the couch,
I had drifted off only to jolt awake.
A cartoon flickered on the TV screen,
Mingling its colors with the apartment’s lights.
At the edge of my blurred vision,
My son’s toddling form loomed
As he, clad in dinosaur pajamas,
Dragging a stuffed plush puppy,
Explored the living room
In a quest for the limits of the known,
Or anything to gum and drool on.
His clumsy fingers seized the remote,
That he shook experimentally.
The TV blackened.

Author’s note: today’s song is “La puerta de al lado” by Los Rodríguez.

If you enjoy my free verse poetry, I have three books worth of it yet to be self-published. Check it out.

Posted a commission on ArtStation for a header #9

On By Jon UreñaIn Arte1 Comment

The day of reckoning has finally arrived: I have found my artist. Before I go in depth about the person in question, I’ll give a shout out to the couple of artists who offered themselves this weekend, with no luck:

  • David Becerra Silva (portfolio): a talented artist with a bold, action-oriented style that I like a lot. Not what I wanted for this job.
  • Saúl A. Arcucci (portfolio): a unique vision focused on dark fantasy. Quite interesting material. He could do bizarre well, but not the absurd, silly angle that accompanies most of my material.

Anyway, my chosen talent is Daniel Acosta, an artist from the land of Andrés Calamaro and Ariel Rot: Argentina. I can’t even with this guy’s talent and imagination. Check out his range:

Isn’t he grand? He’s the only artist who gave me the confidence that he could pull off bizarre yet silly material such as the sasquatch goddess (who is very much a sasquatch) and the sentient triceratops named Lorenzo, in addition to the lovely cat-girl Minami and motocross legend Izar Lizarraga. So in a couple of weeks or so I’ll be short 250 USD, but thankfully I’m made out of money, and I’ll have emblazoned my website with a header that I’ll love to stare at for years to come.

Tomorrow at work I’ll send personalized apology emails to all the other authors whom I had considered and that were informed of that fact. As for you reading these words, if you are neither me nor one of the artists in question but instead an author who has found your artist of choice through these posts, at my expense, I hope you’re grateful.

Posted a commission on ArtStation for a header #8

On By Jon UreñaIn Arte2 Comments

Another day, another entry of this popular series. Just five artists to consider today.

The style I’m searching for is somewhere between the following examples, belonging to the portfolios of some of the artists who have offered themselves: 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8

Here’s the artist whose talent has impressed me enough that I’ll consider her when time comes to choose:

  • Srish Nair (portfolio): a unique artist with a fantastic sense of color. She has also drawn some weird stuff, so perhaps she’d be able to handle nutty material like the sasquatch goddess (who is, despite instincts to the contrary, a sasquatch) and the sentient triceratops.

Here are the drawing persons whose talents I won’t consider further for this particular project:

  • Mónica Acosta (portfolio): very talented fellow Spaniard who wants to work in the game industry. I like her style a lot, it just isn’t what I want for this project.
  • Conscious Meat (portfolio): a unique vision with a matching name. I see myself paying this creature for a drawing, just not this one.
  • Setsu Setsy (portfolio): a gorgeous, dark, horror-oriented style. I love it in general, but it’s hardly related to what I’m looking for right now.
  • Chris Rutayisire (portfolio): competent stuff. Incompatible with my stories.

That’s all. Hope weather is good wherever you live.

Posted a commission on ArtStation for a header #7

On By Jon UreñaIn Arte2 Comments

Throughout yesterday’s hellish day at work, and an afternoon in which I finished the latest chapter of my ongoing story, I had artist after artist offering themselves for the job listing I posted on ArtStation, one I was on the verge of closing. What the hell is up with you, artists? Are you that desperate for work? Anyway, today I woke up to find out that someone from the US, presumably one of the artists, checked out the entirety of my tale of motocross legend Izar Lizarraga, for which I’m grateful. I’m a cranky loner, but I still like when people read my stuff.

The style I’m searching for is somewhere between the following examples, belonging to the portfolios of some of the artists who have offered themselves: 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7

Here is the single artist from this batch whose talent has impressed me enough that I will consider her seriously for the “prize” of having to draw my header in exchange of money:

  • Laila Arêde (site): fantastic style, a unique vision that approaches what I’m searching for. I’m tempted to call her a genius. My issues with it: may not be “loopy” enough for my material, and is perhaps too feminine for sasquatch goddesses and sentient triceratopses.

Here are the artists whose talents I won’t consider further for reasons:

  • Nikita Atrenev (portfolio): this person has an excellent ability to use colors in a way that makes the illustrations look very realistic. But for this job, I need a different set of skills.
  • Zamfir Sinziana (portfolio): very interesting work that would do great in game cards or visual novels. I find this person’s backgrounds particularly attractive. Wrong style for this job, I’m sorry to say.
  • Kaide Robertson (portfolio): a fellow who’s majoring in writing and who proved that he had read at least my sasquatch-related story. Unfortunately, his visual work doesn’t cut it even just compared with today’s batch of applicants.
  • Lucy Finch (portfolio): I love her medieval stuff; great use of colors to elevate her drawings. Wrong style for what I want.
  • Kauan Dias (portfolio): a unique, gorgeous style paired with a great imagination. I see myself paying this person for a job, just not this one.
  • Mailen Jacome (portfolio – instagram): very talented lady. I appreciate her attention to detail. Wrong style.
  • TszHin Lau (portfolio): intriguing line-based style that unfortunately lacks when compared with other artists from today’s entry.
  • Sebastián Ceballos (portfolio): a unique, very personal vision, that unfortunately doesn’t align with what I want.
  • Gabo Zeta (site – portfolio 1 – portfolio 2): cases like these hurt: he’s clearly very talented, passionate, confident, and with a fully-developed personal style. It just happens that it doesn’t match what I want.
  • Chloe Boetcher (portfolio – instagram): very talented, with a careful style that I appreciate a lot. Doesn’t match the anxious, loopy tone that I’m searching for, though.

Considering applicants takes hours; no wonder people hire secretaries. Whoever you are, I hope you got something out of this post. Now back to ordering the notes for my next chapter.

Motocross Legend, Love of My Life, Pt. 9 (Poetry)

On By Jon UreñaIn Arte, Escritura, Inteligencia artificial2 Comments

If you haven’t read all the previous parts or you don’t remember them well, I urge you to read this short story (or novella) from the beginning (link here).

After my pregnant lawyer quit smoking,
Her poised persona devolved
Into furrowed brows, clenched jaws,
Shifting in her seat, pacing aimlessly.
To keep her mouth busy, she snacked constantly
On nuts and seeds like almonds and walnuts,
That she seasoned with soliloquies
About her research into dietary changes
Which would maximize fetal health.
She increased her intake of kale and spinach,
Chock-full of folates, nutrients for a growing brain.
She switched to whole grains rich in B vitamins,
And integrated more milk, yogurt, and cheese,
Hoping that one day, out of her would emerge a baby,
Instead of some godforsaken abomination.

Together we researched cribs and strollers.
She shelved her popular novels and self-help books
For guides on babies’ developmental stages,
Creating a nurturing home for a child,
And balancing motherhood with a career.
As if bracing for a shadow boxer’s pounce
From the corners of her mind to sucker-punch her,
She swung words at phantoms, often striking me.
During legal arguments, she found her wit blunted,
Her sentences faltering, her thoughts scattering,
And she suspected that those colleagues of hers
As useful as shadows in a blackout
Gossiped about her incompetence.
When one dared to rib her, she snarled
Like a cornered junkyard dog.
Until now a lawyer focused on her career,
She pondered reducing hours or working remotely
To dedicate more energy to our awaited baby.

The lawyer and I indebted ourselves
To a bank, my parents, and my in-laws
To buy a second-hand, two-bedroom apartment
On a fifth floor, with built-in wardrobes,
Electric heating, and an American-style kitchen;
Located in San Pedro Street, beside the Bidasoa River,
Near the primary school you and I had attended.

The largest bedroom bloomed into a nursery
Equipped with a crib of white wood;
A mobile adorned with stars; a changing table;
Wall stickers of lions, monkeys, giraffes, elephants;
A sturdy, comfortable rocking chair;
And set on a nightstand, a lamp with a dimmer.

Inside the master bedroom,
In a corner of the wardrobe,
I tucked the moving box
Housing my keepsakes of you.
The hems of my row of shirts
Draped over the lid as if caressing it.
In that confined darkness,
Your figurines, my comic strips,
Your motorcycle gloves
And handwritten letters,
The tapes with our pretend shows,
Photos that had captured you,
All aged second by second
While you remained eighteen.

Evenings lost in the glow of dramas,
Lying on the couch watching TV
With our legs and fingers entwined.
The heat emanating off her curvy body.
The scent of freshly-brewed tea.
Shelves of books and DVDs,
Framed motivational quotes.
The lunar landscape of my existence
Had become inhabited.

Her cravings escalated to chips, doughnuts,
Potato omelets, ice cream, fried pork meatballs,
And whatever she could munch or suck on,
From candies and energy bars to popsicles.
She gained weight, her breasts swelled.
I made myself useful by rubbing her feet
And massaging away the aches from her joints
While she, amidst balled-up snack wrappers,
Pored over childcare books, flipping pages
With her cigarette-deprived fingers.

She zigzagged along an agonizing route:
Aversions, headaches, insomnia,
Nausea, vomiting, constipation,
Anxious gynecological appointments,
Prenatal yoga, birthing classes,
Nightmares of miscarriages and stillbirths,
Of episiotomies, hemorrhages, C-sections,
Of premature infants hooked to machines.
At night, she clutched her belly,
Fearing the budding life inside
Would twist and strangle itself.

Whenever I failed to intuit her needs,
She snapped at me, and slammed doors.
At times, exhausted, loathing herself,
She sobbed inconsolably,
And repeated that she had botched her career.
Sprawled across the bed, backaches gripping her
Thanks to the demon’s growing weight, she cried,
“Why the fuck did I need a goddamn baby?!”

The echo of “Fly Me to the Moon” playing elsewhere
Resonated in the sepulchral bedchamber.
Dust motes danced in the beams of evening sunlight
Spilling through windows stained by time.
The light gilded an ornate, full-length frame
Adorned with carvings of wildflowers,
That encased a scratched and scuffed mirror
Whose bottom third was marred
By a dried-out splatter resembling rust.
Within that glass portal, you, my Izar,
Wore a dress with a pleated bodice,
Dyed like the blush of summer dawn.
Your caramel locks cascaded in gentle waves,
Framing your twinkling eyes and buoyant smile,
Both alight with recognition.

Through the mirror, you strode into the room.
As you padded barefoot towards a vast bed,
You made your dress glide over your head,
Leaving the fabric to flutter downward.
You rolled onto the plush duvet, lay supine,
And illuminated your face with a playful grin,
Showcasing those crooked front teeth.
Your satin, coral-pink panties glimmered
As you eased them down your thighs.
“Fly me to the moon,” you asked.

I awoke to faint snoring,
To a naked, round-bellied woman
Whose swollen breasts heaved against me
In the warmth of the night.

Before you vanished once again,
I shut my eyes tight
And gathered the dream’s fragments
As I fondled my partner to her senses.
Our breaths mingled,
Her ballooned belly brushed my abdomen.
My hardness delved into the silky folds,
Becoming engulfed in your warm currents.

I pictured you bouncing on me,
Your caramel waves bobbing,
Your breasts shuddering.
Light and shadow played across your torso,
Accentuating the ridges of your ribs
And the grooves of your abdominal muscles
Under smooth, taut skin sheened with sweat.
The outline of your pelvic bones emerged
With each rock-and-roll of your hips.

Your thighs trembled,
Your fervent moans grew ragged.
My hands clenched the bedsheets
And her nails dug into my back
As I thrust desperately,
Escalating the slaps of colliding flesh,
Until I released all that hurt and sorrow
Into the cushioning waters.

Under the moist bed linens,
Your figure merged with the lawyer’s,
Who nestled against my side
While the fetus’ kicks nudged me.
She loved me with an infant on the way;
It should have been enough
To hang onto and live for.

On a rainy Sunday morning,
A gush of clear fluid soaked the mattress.
The woman grimaced and cursed
As she clutched her belly like a wound.

Labor pains, hours of pushing,
Sweat and tears mixed in her eyelashes,
Her crushing grip bruising my fingers,
Tearing of flesh, blood loss,
Insults flung at me for knocking her up,
Feral screams and utter helplessness.

Ripped out of the womb with forceps,
Emerging into the harsh fluorescence,
Coated in blood and amniotic fluid,
Arrived a screeching, blue-tinged thing,
A sea creature destined to die ashore.

While our newborn’s wrinkled limbs jerked
And his scrunched, purple face twitched
As he protested against the indignity of birth,
The obstetrician cut and clipped his umbilical cord.
A nurse, efficient like a conveyor worker,
Suctioned the mucus from the baby’s nose,
Rubbed his skin with a towel to cleanse him of gore,
Then placed him in my partner’s trembling arms.
Weeping, shell-shocked, she gasped,
“Oh god, I’m his mother.”

Lying in a plastic bassinet, swaddled in a blanket,
My rosy-skinned, plump-cheeked firstborn fussed,
His miniature fists protruding from the binding.
My fingers brushed the silky tuft of black hair
That crowned his defenseless head.
Over the years, the clay mold of his body
Would take on the contours of the boy,
Then the man he would become,
Perhaps one who, despite life’s challenges,
Would never falter, never give up,
Who would pursue his dreams,
And remain free of sorrow.

On an October weekend, at Irún’s city hall,
The lawyer and I signed documents
Affirming our legal partnership.
While my mother-in-law held her grandson,
And my parents pretended you had never existed,
I posed for wedding photos alongside my wife
In a dimly-lit corner of the registry office,
Standing theatrically still.

I wore a well-fitted charcoal-gray suit;
My bride, a sleeveless ivory gown
Dappled with flower embroidery.
I had shoved my hands in my pockets;
She, solemn and lost in thought,
Clutched a bouquet of red roses.
My sunken eyes bore a piercing gaze
That stared past the confines of the photo
At someplace distant and unreachable.

Starting my own family, getting married,
Both promised a rebirth,
But even now, remembering that ceremony
Fills me with sorrow for her, and for this life
That carelessly tossed us together.
As a girl, my wife must have fantasized
About her special day, about prince charming.
Instead, she ended up bound to a wreck
Whose cracks oozed tar,
Who dreaded to look beside him at his bride
In case a dead teenager gazed back.

Author’s note: today’s songs are “This Is How It Always Starts” by Grandaddy, and “Only in Dreams” by Weezer.

If you enjoy my free verse poetry, I have three books worth of it yet to be self-published. Check it out.

Posted a commission on ArtStation for a header #6

On By Jon UreñaIn Arte2 Comments

How y’all doing on this lovely Monday morning? You know the drill by now: I paid for a job listing on ArtStation so willing artists would offer their services. My goal: to end up with a good header for my site, one that I wouldn’t mind staring at for years to come.

The style I’m searching for is somewhere between the following examples, belonging to the portfolios of some of the artists who have offered themselves: 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7

Here’s the latest batch of artists who have bravely offered their talents:

  • Kirin Kar-Wai (portfolio): a unique, very interesting style, but one that clashes with what I want.
  • Ertan Ceyhan (portfolio – instagram): super talented dude. Extraordinary attention to detail. Not what I want right now.
  • Beau Madden (portfolio): I’m not sure what to say in cases like these (and I’ve had a few). Thank you for being brave, I guess.
  • Giulia Minutillo (portfolio): very talented artist who does interesting stuff with color. I feel bad for not considering this one further, maybe in part because she said that she was “really fascinated” by my writing. Although I suppose that’s what someone applying to a job offer of this kind says.
  • Nikodem (portfolio): a growing author who is unfortunately not on the level of the examples provided above.
  • Tim Msibi (portfolio): a cool, dynamic comic book style that doesn’t match what I want.

The volume of emails has slowed down conspicuously, and disappointing so many artists by sending back “Sorry, but…” is making me sick. I think I’m going to shut down this job listing and choose the “winner” among those artists whose examples I have provided.

Ongoing manga: Isekai Craft Gurashi Jiyu Kimamana Seisan Shoku No Honobono Slow Life, by Aroe

On By Jon UreñaIn Arte, Escritura, ReseñasLeave a comment

Four stars. The title translates to “The Heartwarming Slow Life of a Free-Spirited Production Worker.”

This is yet another title in the isekai sub-genre of “let’s contrast how shitty my life on Earth was by having a good ol’ time in this fantasy world.” When this series started, I expected it to be completely mediocre, but it surprised me with its character work and sense of humor.

The story follows an overworked Japanese salaryman in his thirties, who works at one of those Japanese companies that require you to wear a suit and tie, and to die inside. Wanting to remain human, he exercises his architectural talents in an online VR game. His buildings are so popular that they’re regularly used as backgrounds for wedding proposals by the kind of people who would propose to someone in a video game. Anyway, the godess of love or some shit contacts the protagonist through the game and offers to send him to a new world where he may be able to have a good ol’ time.

He finds himself in your average isekai fantasy world, based on Central Europe during the post-medieval period, but including monsters and sentient fantasy races of the Tolkienesque variety plus beast people. His abilities back on Earth have been turned into vastly overpowered skills: previously a crafty fellow, he’s now the most talented builder person around. He has also access to a warehouse-size inventory in some private dimension, along with the kind of Minecraft powers that allow him to dig through a mountain easily. Although initially he’s a bit freaked out, and tries to remove the VR headset in front of confused fantasy people, he quickly gets used to a life that won’t involve working at a Japanese company.

Like in many other isekai, first cute girl he meets, who is usually the first female at all he meets, becomes the intimate option. In this case, with the guy in his thirties even though his new body doesn’t suggest it, they establish a sort of father-daughter relationship with no incestual undertones. Because she helped him, a broke guy with no ID, to get around in that new world, he imprints on her (or is it the other way around?), and is happy to follow her on her adventures as long as he has the opportunity to make her comfortable. By that I mean stuff like cooking restaurant-grade food for her every day, or producing entire houses out of his inventory whenever they need to take a rest in the wild.

Still, she doesn’t fall for him, which may have to do with the fact that she has a questionable relationship with the older female receptionist at the adventurers’ guild; this girl even calls “dates” her outings with the receptionist. Oh well, can’t fix nature.

Plenty of the plot so far involves the protagonist wanting to enjoy a slow life in this new fantasy world, only for people to take notice of him because of shit like stacking the processed meat of eleven orcs on the guild receptionist’s desk, or earning about a year of his previous salary in Japan with a single quest. Soon enough he attracts the attention of the local duke, and a troublesome party of adventurers.

This story is fun, and I like to have fun.

Posted a commission on ArtStation for a header #5

On By Jon UreñaIn Arte2 Comments

Welcome to yet another instance of me mentioning several artists by name, and potentially annoying them. You should already know what this is about: I posted a job listing on ArtStation because I wanted someone talented to replace the awful AI-generated header of my site with something I would love to stare at every day for years to come.

The style I’m searching for is somewhere between the following examples, belonging to the portfolios of some of the artists who have offered themselves: 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7

Sadly none of the following artists match what I’m searching for style-wise.

  • Lina Russo (portfolio): I’m very fond of her drawings, but wrong style for what I want.
  • Gianpiero Mangialardi (site): a tremendous pro that apparently has produced covers for dozens of books. I’m very impressed with his stuff. Wrong style, though.
  • Loan Art (portfolio): huge talent, very unique stuff. Same thing.
  • Out Class (site): a collective of talented pros. They have pointed out two artists in particular, specialized in comic book styles, but that’s not quite what I’m looking for.
  • Diya Sengupta (instagram): very talented artist with an extremely unique style. I like it a lot, yet…
  • Alejo Vigliani (portfolio): fantastic work that would do great for hard-boiled, grungy projects. Mine’s not one of them, though.
  • Michelangelo Di Gregorio (portfolio): I’m impressed by his stuff, and I appreciate that he’s from Rome (the old Rome would have continued to exist, if I had any say in it). He approaches the anxious, loopy vibe I was going for, but not quite as well as the examples above do for me.
  • Kamilla Egri (portfolio): I like her drawings in general, particularly her use of colors. Not comparable to the drawings I’ve put as examples, though.
  • Adrian Merchan (portfolio): an interesting style, but not what I want.

Nobody else has applied so far; maybe the onslaught of emails will slow down to the point that closing the job listing will make sense.

A curious detail I’ve come across: after informing some artists that their style didn’t match what I was looking for, some of them were eager to try and mimic those other styles. Is that something that visual artists actually enjoy doing? As a writer, if someone suggested that I should change my artistic voice to match what they prefer, I’d be tempted to tell them to eat a dick. Maybe visual artists are more adventurous.

Posted a commission on ArtStation for a header #4

On By Jon UreñaIn Arte2 Comments

After a busy morning working as a computer technician at a hospital, which has absolutely nothing to do with writing, I’m too tired to edit the current part of my ongoing story, so I figured that instead of wasting the afternoon, I could catch up on the numerous new replies I’ve gotten to my job listing on ArtStation for a header to my site. Who knew there were so many artists in the world?

The style I’m searching for is somewhere between the following examples, belonging to the portfolios of some of the artists who have offered themselves: 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7

I connected with the art of the following artists to the extent that I’ll consider their work when time comes to choose, as well as for future endeavors:

  • Alicia Bernáldez (site): apart from being a fellow Spaniard, she offers an enchanting style that’s uniquely hers. I love discovering an artist whose stuff would have hardly come out of anyone else.
  • Bruno Gonçalves (portfolio): a huge talent able to create the kind of works that I wouldn’t mind hanging on my walls. I love his attention to detail. He also pointed out the fact that I’m reporting on those who have offered their services, and he didn’t seem outraged by it. Although I’ll consider his talent and I’m happy to give him free publicity on my humble site, it doesn’t match the style I was going for.
  • Mae Dominguez (portfolio): gorgeous drawings, a very unique talent, but I write an anxious, loopy, generally disturbing kind of fantasy.

I failed to connect with the art of the following artists to the extent that sadly I won’t consider their work further, for different reasons:

  • Valentine Tomeh (portfolio): I love some of this person’s drawings, and they make a great use of colors, but the style doesn’t match what I’m looking for.
  • Mohamadali Moh (instagram): interesting and unique style. Not for this project, though.
  • Anna Ballestero (portfolio): another fellow Spaniard who loves Baldur’s Gate 3 (count me as one of them). I like her style, but it isn’t what I want.
  • Bruno Gonçalves (portfolio): I like how lifelike he makes the people.

I have yet to answer to like seven artists. Have I mentioned how much I hate replying to the humans whose works I won’t consider further? I imagine them opening my email only to find out that their day has gotten a little worse. That said, many more out there aren’t brave enough to show themselves.