my kindness has now been commodified
whereas before it triggered hate
--seen as weakness, as cruelty's plaything--
still, i saturate to what extent i can
my daily happy-dance with honest friendship,
compassion's ease, delight and pet-store equipoise.
yet my sincerity is sloganed, emptied of its worth:
trained to say 'rewards program' in stead of 'membership, account';
'guests' in stead of 'customers'
'team-players' in stead of 'employees'
'long-term relationships' as first and foremost mission statement's goal--
slither-scripted to promote a highest bottom line
as language euphemizes baby mice as 'pinkies,
fuzzies, hoppers': 'feeders' for a petted multitude
of scaly, fang-ed maws.

pre-thanksgiving christmas-trees
on either side of automatic double-doors--
styro-snowflakes hung
by wrapping-papered end-cap shelves on sale
to swipe our plastics to a higher debt--
to tinsel out the shame of maybe giving less?
reminding 'gift-time soon' and 'this could be a gift'
to ward off never having given childhood its due?
or of being less than cheerful
at incessant jingled tunes?

november fifth--decorations up;
guy fawkes night of trick-or-treater-candies
tweeting hallowed flu-shots
as my manager in elf-cap-antlers squeals in glee:
says she starts promoting christmas back in august.
i tell her that's appropriate!
given jesus was perhaps born in august.
says she didn't memorize the bible.
i tell her that part was left out anyway--
i don't mention the holiday's titular meaning;
or the waiting gnostic manger,
royal transhistoric camels,
mary on her donkey, joseph's wind-blown face
las posadas... the loneliness of exile
O mary... in her starlit tears of unknown pain and joy--
the unremitting love for barnfloor bodyheat,
todos santos
nonhominin humanity...
earthling rights day
a stranger's kindnesses
of yule-tide warmth and evergreen,
solstice-fulcrum festivals of lights
veteran's day's existential loss
and bureaucratic selfhoods shelved;
gurpurb at a gurdwara
the martyrdom of guru tegh bahadur
the garifuna settlement day
the tazaungdaing festival
fasting over christian as well as buddhist lent
the five days of deepawali, diwali:
bodhi day
découverte d'haïti and vertières
jamhuri day
chalica
zamenhof day
sadeh
pancha ganapati
malkh
soyal
mithras day
osiris, adonis and dionysus day (all dec. 25th)
humanlight
--republic day! national day! and proclamation day!
in the maldives, brazil, northern cyprus, chad, yugoslavia;
in the central african republic, burkina faso, kenya, malta, kazakhstan, niger, south sudan...
chahrshanbeh soori
modraniht
the dongzhì festival
the saturnalia of pagans (lit. "country dwellers"; "those of the heath")
dies natalis solis invicti
newtonmas
kwanzaa
watch night
hanukkah
boxing day
malanka
the day of goodwill
wren's day
quaid-e-azam's day
yeni il
guru govind singh jayanti
international solidarity day of azerbaijanis
fête du vodoun
hogmanay
Iemanjá
darwin day
milad-un-nabi
lohri
pesach
chocolate-egg-laying fertile-bunny-day-- or ishtar day
butter week, crepe week, or cheesefare week-- or maslenitsa

Today is a first draft day
With no re-write on its way
I’m at the messy stage
the unstructured phase
with a faint promise of better
or maybe just more neatly arranged.

I’m a first draft
and on days like today
I feel it.

Makes me want to move my head back
and sing like I'm dancing with the notes
its sad melody no longer means
looking back
and beckoning
change.

It's melancholy
is only:
a beautiful pain
I would rather have within me
than be without.

It flows;
like its story is endless
from a childhood book
where the trees talk
in the woods.

Like a waterfall
to a beauty
frightening
ever lasting...

When can I be alone?
When am I really by myself?

Even the term 'by myself' implies that you are 'by' something,
With yourself.

Like the self is something external to you.
Someone you can sit next to.

I want to be truly alone, without myself.
I want the wind to brush past unfollowed by thought or recognition.
I want no one to know where I am, even me.

I need to be without myself,
Far away from myself.
I'm just so relentlessly 'there'.

oh my darling angel you are the reason i’m still a person with skin
you are the reason i wake up in the morning and smile sometimes
with teeth sometimes without but smile nonetheless//you are the reason i eat
with such gusto because i know you would laugh at the way i wolf down pasta//you are
the reason for the hole in my chest in your absence i collapse like a dying star//you are the reason
i’m trying so hard to be better and//you are the reason i called my therapist’s office and said hi
yes could i please have a listening ear//you are the reason all my cuticles are picked ragged like
so many spiky sea animals warning you not to touch//you are the reason for my writing
the note you left me to write calling me “stinky” still sits on my shelf untouched//you are the reason i’m
insecure about my taste in alcohol//you are the reason i’m not insecure about my laugh anymore//you are the reason that my hair is soft and//you are the reason
i’m shaving my legs again//you are the reason i care about *** at all and//you are the reason it
scares me so ******* much
you are the reason for much of my life as it stands now proud and tall and shaking
like a fawn still wet from her mother’s womb

ME: I’ve called you all here today to ask you something.
BROTHER 1: [looking sideways at the door]
BROTHER 2: Hmm.
MOM: [smiling widely in that way that says she knows]
DAD: [smiling widely in that way that says he doesn’t]
ME: To be frank, I don’t think you all like each other very much. Is that true?
MOM: [smile gets tighter, hand reaches towards phone]
DAD: No, it’s not. [scratching side of head nervously]
BROTHER 2: Hmm.
BROTHER 1: You all bore me.
ME: We know we do.
MOM: [typing furiously]
[silence punctuated by dog licking his leg]
ME: So, now what?
BROTHER 1: [rolling eyes slowly and obviously] What do you mean, now what?
ME: Well, I mean where do we go from here?
MOM: We don’t. We just stay here or nothing at all.
BROTHER 2: Hmm.
DAD: What else can we do? How do we know doing anything at all would be better?
ME: I am tired of writing poems in my head about us. We have to do something.
[silence punctuated by dog coughing]
BROTHER 1: ******* and your poems. Do you want to hang out?
MOM: I love you all but I can’t stand any of you.
BROTHER 2: Can we be done now?
ME: We’ll never be done.
ALL: We’ll never be done.
[dog sneezes]

I used to trace the acne scars down your back
Like a blind man reading a poem in braille