SEPTEMBER 2025, POETRY
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Mateo Perez Lara (they/them/theirs) is a queer, non-binary, Latinx poet from California. They have a pamphlet titled Glitter Gods, showcased with Thirty West Publishing House. They have an MFA in Poetry from Randolph College. They run Blastbones Poetry Events in Bakersfield, California. Their work has been published in The Maine Review, The Acentos Review, and elsewhere.
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Behind the Scenes with Mateo Perez Lara
–What was the initial inspiration for this poem, and were there significant changes from that inspiration through edits and revisions?
M.L. The initial inspiration for the poem was based off of a Charli XCX song called ‘Sympathy is a Knife”, which is about being afraid of what others think and also dealing with depression. As I moved further into writing about my own experiences, there were significant changes from that inspiration. I started watching the movie ‘Antlers’ directed by Guillermo Del Toro, imagined what it would be like to have one space where I allowed my fate and my appetite to win, and another pressure point, to believe in the opposite of what I hunger for. Sometimes I am torn between being right, closed-off, and protective, and/or being open and vulnerable. That is the fear, and I think, it sometimes does hurt us to be vulnerable, and/or closed off. It takes a lot of work to put down your emotional weapons and say okay, this is what I allow, I am allowing it.
-How does this poem fit into your body of work – is it similar in ways to what you usually write or is it very different?
M.L. I am currently working on a full-length poetry manuscript called ‘We’re All Going to Die Tonight’, which carries a critical lens on killing the past or the past selves which terrorize you, so you may become new. It also draws inspiration from horror movies, and when sometimes our own lives, our own families, are our first terror, how do we reconcile with that?
In order to heal and change and move forward, you have to essentially kill what is holding you back, whether it be memories, friendships, relationships, etc. This poem taps into that fear of people and the courage to recognize it. This poem is similar in ways that I write, where sometimes the image comes to me first and I fill in the space or trap my memory, my meaning inside the space to coincide with how the feeling resonates inside of me. Sometimes it is a piercing emotion, and sometimes it’s passing. I try to mimic that on the page.