In Her Orbit

My latest pieces

“I have survived too much to go quietly.
Let a meteor take me.
Call the thunder for back up.
My death will be grand.
The land will crack,
the sun will eat itself…

-the day I leave.” – Rupi Kuar.

Creating stardust with ink since 2005. IG: @EchoesOf.Venus

Love has always been the constant moon that orbits my world,
A gentle pull, never to depart.
I’ve had so many chances to walk on solid ground
but I rather be the other kind of girl
In its gravitational embrace I spin and spin,
A dance of souls where we may or may not win.
Bound to the light, I drift and glide,
Around your warmth, where true heart reside
floating in time
Yours and mine
In this vast endless sky, we’re lost and found—
Two stars forever in love’s orbit,
inevitably unbound.

Utterly enamored
You are
my diamond, my beau
Together we are much rarer, softer
blissfully unashamed
I’ve seen breathtaking worlds in many eyes
But there hasn’t been any thing
quite like you
I have never really known “safe”
Neither have I been truly secure in one’s arms
To become one entity during the night
and when the sun comes out from the dawn,
we reign
I see you through skin and bones
I guess I forgot what it was like to be afraid
You’ve challenged all of my defenses
This is the most peace I’ve ever had in my life
since you came.

Illustration by: Fatima Seehar
Copyright 2019 Valerie Sanchez

My body is my home
Where my mind is free to run rampant
Dwelling vigorously,
my eternal soul
There are sturdy limbs that carry
down to the halls of my fingertips
Windows in the shape of eyes
If you look inside,
can you see the castle I have built?
I had to learn how to love myself first
before I could continue to give
Constantly in renovation
of new ways to take care
so that I am never too empty, too unkempt
too depleted, or dependent
I will never be homeless

— Take care of your home.

If I wanted to
I know how I can stop the whole world
Separating myself out-of-body
Just to become one with your every word
My own bottomless ocean of feelings…
feeling you entirely
With such unfathomable intensity
Caressing you without a single touch
I can come to you vacant
but still very much whole
so I can offer you a place to get away
And gentle reminders that keep you sane
A forbidden territory for us deeply felt kind
I find comfort in knowing that you are not alone
And not letting you forget about your soul

If I wanted to…..

It’s easy for one to hookup under the moon,
But I want you in the morning
and late afternoons.
When the sun has finished stretching
and maybe some coffee too.
Breakfast on me,
lunch on you?

Illustration by: Fatima Seehar
Copyright 2019 Valerie Sanchez

I don’t know what the rest of my journey will be

before I leave this earth.

What I do know, is that

at least it will be beautiful

Whether in madness

In death..

Even the end will not unmake me—

I will burn into the next world, still creating fire.

Another chapter closed
Without a shadow of a doubt
Here we go-
Again with my head turning round
a few hundred-thousand degrees
My desaturated eyes rolled back
Another step closer to going crazy
The blinding rage blanked me like a shadow,
squeezing my heart and turning my fingers black

My chest pooled up with sorrow.
It laughed at me, provoked me
Mocked the benevolence in my soul
It knew I’ve been screaming
Sick from only being good enough for you
when I had just finally become strong enough to let you go
Although the grasp was tight around my neck
I’ve always been a true force to reckon with

I promise, I didn’t want things to come to this..
But how did you ever think I could ever lose?
To someone so selfish and weak
I’d die before I lose myself to a man who can’t tell the difference
between the normal human, and the sun or the moon..

One of the most painful realizations in the world
was coming to terms with how wrong I had been
about what I truly meant to someone I deeply cared for
Realizing that everything I thought I had with them
was actually never real—
Just a fabric of illusion I somehow created in my heart,
and the denial was the only thing that kept me going.
When did I convince myself that letting go of a false hope
was worse than having the actual real thing?
Or even believing I was really meant to have something more meaningful than this?
I wanted to be right so much.
I wanted to believe I had truly forged strong bonds despite the hand I had been dealt.

So, I tell you goodbye for the final time
You go your way and I go mine
We pack away all the wasted years
I close my eyes and let you blow out the light

-Familiarity can be such a dangerous thing.

I realized that I became apart of the problem
when I allowed myself to believe there was nothing wrong
when I was really hurting underneath from
the lack of effort by your actions
Somehow always left confused
Waking up to thoughts of,
“What if I’m not good enough for you..”
How dare I-
How did I ever let someone make me feel like that?
The fact that I was always the only one always trying to reassure myself
The rose colored glasses were too big
but having self awareness to admit that it was all in my head
was also problem on its own.
I was always more than enough.

You were not good enough for me.

Illustration by: Fatima Seehar
Copyright 2019 Valerie Sanchez

You swore you knew exactly who I was,
but it was only a version of me
that you created in your mind
Tell me, was it out of fear?
or disbelief in my character?
Did the crease of my smile,
or the resilience in my spine intimidate you?
Perhaps I was nothing but a distraction
instead of facing your own demons
You never showed me who you really were
until you only came around when you were feeling lonely
I’m sorry I couldn’t live up to your expectations
of all the things you thought I could be capable of
From the beginning this was all your doing.
I remember thinking if I should feel offended,
since the real me wasn’t enough
You just never wanted to open your eyes to see it for yourself
I was never the one who had something to lose
I don’t know how you can look at yourself in the mirror all the time
and still be a fool
The monster you’ve been looking for was not me

It was always you.

Illustration by: Fatima Seehar
Copyright 2019 Valerie Sanchez

I’ve been working twice as hard all my life
I was never given the luxury to have things handed to me
I had to grow from my mistakes
To take chances with low probability rates
Tugging on life’s thin compassion
Giving my own advice
and running to nobody but myself
in the middle of the night
Maybe in the end it was all for the better
but I didn’t know any of that back then
That losing out on family,
on love,
on friends,
would eventually lead to the hole in my chest
being mended
It’s strange how strength can be built from
literally nothing
oppose to those who I’ve met who have had everything
My resilience can sometimes be even stronger
As a child I used to wonder if I would amount to anything
Everything I’ve done since then
was to prove myself wrong

You tell me you’re sorry?
Explain this to me..
How exactly was this supposed to go for you?
What made you think this was something that I would need?
I was another version of me back then
who would believe in your take of redemption
You cannot possibly think that I am the same person
I just do not know how to let you back in
Your head must be full of delusions,
because the happy memories were plenty
but the bad ones were just became too many
with no new beginnings or conclusions
Such a stupid conundrum
You see, I was never dumb
and I am also not nice anymore
You’ve had all these years to think about what you did to me,
and now your heart has grown sore
In this bottomless pit of how much I don’t care anymore
You were nothing but a coward all along
Your kind words were criminal
Even now when you apologize, you somehow make it all about yourself
It was all so wrong

You are a part of the ones who made me this way.

I wasn’t used to this
Long warm embraces
and deep wild eye stares
The kind that lets you know
there is so much more in store for you
It’s hard to have doubt
To be afraid
When your arms are just wide enough
To cover me, take me away
It takes a lot to reverse the doubt I have in men
You always prove me wrong
time and time again
You were the first one to not make any sense
The only one who is not like the rest

Seeds
planted
Projected to be the strongest of trees
I can finally take in all of the sunbeams
My roots, now enchanted
so I set fire to all the weeds
Repelling any harm and unforeseen
All of this because you see me
even with eyes closed
Branches crossed, heart on my leaves
You call me beautiful
and push me to grow
I guess I’ve just been all exposed
Love overflowing like a filled watering can
You really are one hell of a man

Dust and decay

Memories drifting off to space

Up, up, and away

Love was just a second to late

By my strong walk and now limitless smile

you would have thought that I wanted things this way..

Illustration by: Fatima Seehar
Copyright 2019 Valerie Sanchez

I watch people abuse their power
and how it unknowingly eats them alive
It’s such a shame to think that they believe that “this is the way”
Treating others like they themselves
are any much better,
Just entitled
but without it you’re just a regular person
like everyone else
who has aspirations, struggles
and enormous dreams
Working just as hard, day after day
I mean humanely.
underneath all of that,
you are no better than me.

My latest pieces

In My Orbit

Since You Came

Your Home

A Love Language

Forevermore

Burned by the sun

Imaginary

Good enough

Monster

Driven

Apology Not Accepted

Get Used To It

Water Me

Is that a Bird? A Plane? It might as well be..

Power