Sunrise floods through
vertical blinds strong enough to
bleed through thick fingers of my aloe.

Mold grows from soil-top deep into
the root.
I
stretch my arms, wipe
crust from my eyes
just to find
you.
God,
anybody but
you.

Eyes red. You
didn't sleep.
It's been days since you
slept. Your
pile of cups, stained from old coffee, mingling
with cheap liquor
bottles. Lying on the floor like the bodies
in Normandy.
The first thing you
say to me, your
catch phrase, prodding me with bony
fingers, the scars across your
arms like scales.
Shallow pools under your
eyes lingering, you
say "you will not last today."
I
tried to spring to my feet, you
held me down.
"Sleep," you
cooed as my eyelids buckled
I
believed it best I just
lie
down.
"Spend the day in bed," you
said. "It'll be nice," you
say "let me have just one more day."

Sunrise floods through
vertical blinds strong enough to
bleed through thick fingers of my aloe.

Mold grows from soil-top deep into
the root.
I
stretch my arms, wipe
crust from my eyes
just to find
you.
God,
anybody but
you.

Eyes red. You
didn't sleep.
It's been days since you
slept. Your
pile of cups, stained from old coffee, mingling
with cheap liquor
bottles. Lying on the floor like the bodies
in Normandy.
The first thing you
say to me, your
catch phrase, prodding me with bony
fingers, the scars across your
arms like scales.
Shallow pools under your
eyes lingering, you
say "you will not last today."
I
tried to spring to my feet, you
held me down.
"Sleep," you
cooed as my eyelids buckled
I
believed it best I just
lie
down.
"Spend the day in bed," you
said. "It'll be nice," you
say "let me have just one more day."

Hate and fear answer the door
Welcoming me in:
“We missed you!”
It’s been awhile since we’ve seen you
Come back to where you lived so long
I know you’ve had a falling out
with your old roommates:
Confidence, self-esteem, love, self-worth
Oh, you’ll like your new roomie
Self-pity
You’ll get along just fine
Sometimes it’s better to live alone
But, then I could always move back in
with my old pal
   Loneliness

I met Lori at a beer pong table. She was tall. A trash talker. Beach blonde hair. Eyes blue, blue as the sky on an afternoon in July, when the weather was cool from a light rain. This was post-college—a house party, for young adults who wanted more from life than the typical 9-5. She wasn’t from NOVA. She was from Weston, FL. Her teammate was a guy she was with at the time—they ended up breaking it off and for a while she was dating Cam, a pro-bass fisher, a long distance relationship, but they loved each other. But at the table, I was competing with her teammate, later on I ended up mentally competing with Cam, which didn’t do any good except to make me chain-smoke jacks and drink bourbon. I had a girlfriend at the time—let’s just call her Voldy. My teammate was Lori’s best friend Erica. This girl had swagger; played beer pong like Dr. J, always got us roll backs. I was tall as **** for a Vietnamese American—still am tall as **** for a Vietnamese American (Don’t worry my guys, my family’s from the Southside)—and in college we had built a beer pong table, at a spot called the pink house. “We,” meaning my roommates and I: CJ, Trevor, and Samuel. The U.N. I had practiced daily, playing before class, playing after class. Height made a difference; some great basketball player once said you need to have game on and off the court. I wasn’t sure what court I was on when I was in that moment. Lori was more than appearance; more body language; more eye contact; more southern twang; and more astuteness, than a TED Talk combined with NPR, combined with The New Yorker, combined with Al-Jazeera and linked with Wikipedia on a ***** binge. I could talk all day about how she looked, how she dressed. But I told you what you need to know. She shot first, her right arm shaped like a swan, the type of swan that sits on a lake in the middle of a spring morning, the type of morning when the sky is blue with the eyes of a girl who has seen too much, been through too much, and has heard too much. She sank the shot. Her teammate roared. But all I could hear was Lori’s voice; soft as the piano notes played by Sakamoto’s right hand, loud as the piano notes played by Sakamoto’s left hand. Blu was not how I was feeling. Or maybe I was.
Because at this table I had to either take a loss,
or seal a win. I didn’t know what I wanted. But I wanted her. Wanted her, like how you wanted a postcard
from Santa when you were 5 years old, and it was opposite day. So you got the address wrong,
and the letter was never received. And your parents told
you to keep trying so you did, you did, and you did,
but you were young and naïve. You didn’t know
what was real and what was not real. And now I was
at a place in time, when the setting didn’t matter,
and the alcohol didn’t matter, and the drugs didn’t matter.
All that mattered was her.
Because when I shot that orange ping-pong ball,
I kept eye-contact with her eyes.
Blue, much more blue
than the water in the red solo cups we were playing with.
I wish it were water from the beaches in Florida,
beaches I could read a Salinger story on,
beaches I could rest on
beaches I could lay on,
lay and take in the sun
that rises above my soul
that aches for something more.
But Lori wasn’t Brett Ashley,
she was more Daisy Buchanan
than anything.
But does that make me Tom or Jay?
Jimmy or Nick?
I didn’t know and I still don’t know.
What I do know, is this;
the ball sank into the
first cup of the triangle.
Lori’s face went from cocky,
to frustrated, from frustrated
to relaxed,
from that
to a smile.
One that I remember, and one,
I won’t forget.
Because all I want to do is forget,
Take my memory and squeeze
the bad **** out,
twist the living **** out of it,
and burn it with a match.
Because she thinks I’m the one,
Who did her wrong, but it wasn’t me.
I put that on my integrity, even if my words don’t mean much to your ears: please listen.
I was inebriated, 3/4ths of the time we chilled.
So I didn’t know what was false and what was real.
You can check my temperature,
Because when you’re in my thoughts I get a fever
And hey, I shouldn’t have made a pass on your roomie
I should have thought before I texted, because now your trust in me has been affected.
We’re not talking. I can keep apologizing for what happened, but you don’t want to listen to a broken record.
I wish the bad memories would pass away and I guess they’re all in the past today.
Look, I don’t have a time machine
strong enough to change all the mistakes that I’ve made.
But take this as a time capsule,
this piece that I’m sharing. Like that piece we were sharing. The one that belonged to you.
The one I wish I could kiss again,
Because your lips touched it,
And mine never touched yours.

Yeah I am young once more morn late,
Call it the year of somebody's lord,
Call it nineteen sixty eight,
Hair to my shoulders
Makes me see better,
Parted down the middle,
The older black ladies,
On the new.york city subway,
One and all, bless me cause this Jew,
Looks just like Our Lord
In them Renaissance picture-books.

Ironically, that winter time,
I wear a white sheepskin jacket,
Purchased in the Old City of
Jerusalem, but don't tell'm that,
Cause they would have marched up to Harlem,
No telling what might've happened next...

Next summer reality intruded,
Money in pocket aid and ain't not enough,
Riding the bus on Euclid Ave.
To go downtown Cleveland, the Flats,
Drag racing and watching,
The river Cuyahoga burn,
Kinda of a bus drag, but very very, kinda cool.


Summer next,
Worked in a Republic Steel mill,
They called me the Macaroni Kid,
Cause stoopidly I told them that is
What I et,, with ketchup Heinz sauce,
Desert, a heath bar!
Cause I was saving my pennies,
This college kid they loved to hate,
Caused he bicycled to work and
Wasn't one of them.


Put me, little ole wiry me,
In the boxcars,
Loading and loafing the
Rebar, twisted and straight,
Came it, sent it all over,
Me, black as a
Pennsylvania coal miner,
A San Fran homeless man.
To this day, can't get my
Fingernails really clean.

At night, me and the boys on the porch,
Gettin ******, ****, music and a view of
Cleveland East, the sirens rushing around,
To the houses on fire, the next ******.

First freaked us out,
Coming to get us,
Then it became the best, finest ***
"That was so stony cool" light show.
The girls looked like Joan Baez,
And if they didn't,
We still took 'em to bed,
Pretending it was Janis,
If Joan was busy
In the dorm room next store.

Hey babe,
Wanna come back to my dorm room,
And drink wine, listen to Blood Sweat and Tears,
Make some of our own,
Cause my roomie gone down to Canton,
To visit his cleaning lady mom.

I loved that guy liked he was the first
Real person I'd ever met.
On my first day, without asking,
Ran his hands both all over my head,
Looking for the horns on the Jews head,
According his parish priest, we all had'em,
God's official representative on the consecrated earth of
Ohio.

In those days, I applied to schools
Farthest away from home,
That the student discounted airfare was no more than
59bucks which I could afford so I could go back to
NYC, and find out what was really
"Happening" man.

The summer next, worked in the East Village,
Summer Office Boy for a big corporation
In a part of town where you could buy
Leather fringed vests and the headshops sold
The paraphernalia to get hookah high,
And if you hookah lookah right,
That wasn't the thing they sold for cash money.

Took my steel mill blues money,
Bot me a '65 red mustang car,
That needed to be jumped to get started,
Courtesy of the Cleveland special hell called
Midwest winter.

That car, the floor was made of cardboard,
The four cylinders were bolted to the car,
So when u opened the hood, you saw mostly
The pavement of the parking lot,
Some tiny engine,
In between holding on for dear life.
Always kept extra brake fluid in the trunk,
In case the leak got bad on the Heights.

Needed to do what I needed to do,
So I wrote a resume of whom I was,
And whom I ain't, so I could get me a
Real big time job.

More on that someday,
When the resume is resumed,
Getting updated, that will be kinda funny,
Cause it will run about 500 pages long.

Right now, strange,
I am hard by hard by the Frisco bay,
The Ferry Building and the tripartite
Disposal systems of three garbage cans,
And who should appear, but
Otis and Sara B., (live from the Fillmore)
Singing to me about a dock on this bay.

Got me those 'high flying blues,'
The kind that say;

"Lord, look at me here,
I'm rooted like a tree here,
Got those sit-down, can't cry,
Oh, Lord, gonna die blues."

Missing that dock of mine,
In the picture next to my invisible head.
You want to know my face?
Maybe when back east,
I'll find that photo of that long haired college boy,
Leaning in on, so proud against that red Mustang.

Right now all I got these here old vignettes,
True stories one and all,
Making me miss my dock, my shelter,
On that old adirondack chair,
Where my **** aches, and my mind fevered
With poems of love children and a life that
Tho dim recalled, I see it all so well.

this is a poem about love,

             not boys, for once, or lesbians –
                           but roomie love.

my roommate is my other half,
like when we were little and chewed halves of gummy bears to make two-flavored ones with different colored heads and feet.

3:30 am on a Monday night,
all of our classes the next day, no homework done –
who else will stay up with me to read over each other’s oldest emails,
all disgustingly useless,
all marked as “sent with high importance”

who else will write poetry with me in the looming shadow of Chemistry tests
help keep the Spring terms exams and US History APs at bay
with jokes that aren’t funny but I laugh at anyways
because you are stupid and you think they are –

and everybody in the dorm thinks
we are insane, but that’s okay with me because we have

enough inside jokes to live on for a year
and  
                    each other

Brooding over brews
Breathing over false prophet lines
It turns out I'm falling apart again
'You seem to be so in control'

Through the haze
Hiding in pristine dreams
Painting over the cracks
Sullen porcelain princess
Sin fest cease your ingress
Said the girl in fake flower print dress
She knows what's good
Like smoking in the back woods

Lesbian shirtless circus living room roomie
Sees through facade as if to say
It's all a farce

Understanding somehow
Secret inner nightmare
Don't know how to stop hiding
Can't forget

Twin babies were talking
Snuggled up in the womb
Heads bumping, legs tangling
‘You’re taking my room’;

‘Uh-uh,’ said the other
‘It is you in my space;
Hey, do you buy into
Life after this place?’

‘Of course,’ said his brother.
‘There is life after birth!
Right now we’re preparing
To live out on earth!’

‘No way,’ said the younger.
‘You will have to agree,
There’s nothing more after--
For what…could it be?’

‘Perhaps,’ said his roomie
‘There is leeway and light;
In here, you’ll admit
It is dark and it’s tight!

And maybe, just maybe
We will walk on our feet;
For all that we know
We will drink and we’ll eat!’

The doubting one chuckled;
‘That’s the utmost absurd,
Nonsensical notion
I ever have heard!

This is all that there is;
This is all that we need!
We’re too wobbly to walk
And the cord gives our feed!’

Then shaking his head
With a thumb-******* snort
‘There’s no life after birth;
The cord is too short!’

His big brother held fast
With a kick to his rear;
‘I think there is something
That’s diff’rent from here!’

‘Fat chance,’ said the younger
‘There’s no more than this sac.
And what proof do you have?
No one’s ever come back!’

‘Perhaps they don’t want to.’
Responded his brother.
‘Perhaps, they’re caressed in
  The arms of their mother!

Perhaps she is singing
A lullaby tune
In a soft rocking chair
‘By a big harvest moon!’

The younger twin gurgled
And wrinkled his brow
‘If there is a mother,
Then where is she now?

A mother’s a folk tale,
A legend of lore
Please read my lips brother
This is it, nothing more!’

The big brother scolded,
‘Stop making a fuss!
If there was no mother,
There wouldn’t be us!

She’s all around us
It’s in her that we be;
I’m sure there’s a next life,
And mother’s the key!

She’ll tend to our hunger
Our tears and our thirst.
I already love her
And speak to go first!’

The younger one let out
A tantrum boohoo
‘You always go first;
I’m telling mother on you!’

I started this one off
By thinkin' of what we must look like
Feel like, seem like
Smell like
Individually.
Together.
Apart.
Our own entities in my mind
Only to quickly grow bored with it
I've seen and licked
The dry lips of all that experience
A million times over before.

And I could say: "What if this is different?"
In such a whimsical capacity
Wrapped in a ribbon we called
Longing for secret expectations
But I drown the need for wedding veils
But roomie roo is right
I'll always long for that love of mine
To line in line, hand in hand
Adorn the metal armor I've got
With an assortment of flowers.

Those flowers though
With you
Theres somethin' interesting about the paintings hung all around us
I interview you like a grungy journalist from the 90s
You said.
Curt Cobain
But everything changed
Your skin and hot lips runnin' a mile a minute
I furrow my brow cuz I'm thinkin real hard
I'm twirlin' every bit of information
I've got your raps and rhythm runnin around in my head
You've got the deepest biggest message
A flashlight in your hand.

I told you last night just hold onto your hat
You've spoken the same words
Cut up in tiny fractures of glass
We know colored in red wine and graffiti filled fury
For my soul, my heart, my purpose.

You got my black lipstick on your lips last night
As everyone else walked away we dropped
Our professional kickin' it facade
Not that we don't or we won't
But you wanna examine my rings and things
And laugh when I say somethin
Cuz you keepin secrets of your musings.

I've got steel cut boots and knives like arrows
My hair wild fire with dragons for hours
Body like a water nymph with no teacher
I got so much to give but have grown so weary

So I won't ever ask or hope
For you
Or for this
To be different
You explain polygamy to me cuz you wanna strain
The need to be in a relationship with
Oneself.
The independent quality of deep solitary souls
And for once
For once

I nod my head back and understand.

It’s boxing day (the Brit name for the day after Christmas) and Pamela, Lisa’s grandmother is visiting our little pandemic ark. Pamela’s a Cowboys fan so we’re watching them slaughter Washington - between commercials - but now a Tesla commercial is running. “Those electric cars,” Pamala says dubiously, “seem problematic.”

“You’ve heard of global warming, haven’t you, Pamala?” Leeza says. Leeza addresses everyone (even her grandmother) as if they were her age (12). It’s both seductive and lazy. “This whole system,” she raises her arms to include the apartment, the city and America, “will collapse - we’re DOOOOMED,” she concludes, as if speechifying to an eager crowd.

“Everyone’s heard of climate change,” Pamela says, sipping her eggnog. Pamela is as well informed as any of us and seems rather envious of the future, even the coming awfulness.
“Leeza’s her own theatre,” Her mom says, grimacing indulgently.
Leeza’s full attention was now on the pastry tray - having spotted two small eclairs under the bear claws - she'd lost interest in the conversation and saving the planet.

“The system won’t collapse,” Will says. Will received his early acceptance letter from Harvard the other day and now he knows everything. “We’ll lose Florida, South Carolina and New York,” he pronounces calmly, “so there’ll be some.. migrations.”
“Thank you, professor,” Lisa says, rolling her eyes as if to say ”Harvard people.”
“I think the Covid might get us all - before climate change,” I say, in the spirit of the holiday.
“Well,” Will says, grinning, “that’s what ALL the people at inferior colleges think.”

Leeza, passing by my easychair, curls into my lap like a cat, gently petting my hair. “Don’t be mean to MY friend,” she says, purringly - I was suddenly her possession. Lisa comes out of her chair, a sly smile on her face, to lay crosswise atop Leeza (and me).
“Ugg,” I managed to say, squirming to get comfortable, then “Akkkk.”
Lisa says, “Leave my poor roomie alone!” and starts baby-kissing my head.”
Will starts in our direction like HE’S going to pile on. “Egggg! I shrek, “HELP!”
Pamela whoops with glee as Dallas scores another touchdown.
“Like beating a dead dog with a stick,” she says.

At a standsill,
Furry little bunny rabbits, I crouched down
Late into the night in my red high heels
Eye to eye
Eye to eye
I to I.

You didn't answer my calls last night
Loop, loop, as if forever on the same rollercoaster ride
But you give love, care
"My life revolves around me!"
I run and I plunge
I already knew just that baby.

I don't know what the **** I'm doing half the time
I don't know that I ever have
3 weeks can't come soon enough
But I plot and I plan
Gathering and sliding through nature
Eye to eye.

Colors and pavement surround me
Somedays I am so open
My heart bursting like flames of fire
So eager, so full
While the little lost girl inside me
Still looks the other way
Time to time.

My face looks tired today
I haven't had *** yet this week
****** visceral creature
I know what it all means
I know exactly what it all means
Now can I just let myself go, just be free
No need to rinse, repeat
Or say a **** thing
Just open, open, open
Release, release
Ain't gonna change him, ain't gonna stop him
But I can continue to fly free.

Waiting for phones to ring or to hear a yes
I threw away $50 dollars last night
Just because I could
But I barely got food in the fridge.

I was thinkin' last night
In the crowded room
Roomie says we at that city chic life
Ain't nobody lookin' to settle down
So many options, click click
Swipe right, swipe right
We got so many options
I tell myself this mornin'
Don't plan or think to see him
Focus on your night out.

But I know that sweet drunk dial you will give
You were so disappointed you couldn't come by this week
I don't know what I want
I don't know what I want
Mid twenties crisis.

My Philly girlfriends will never totally quite get it
They've found their people, their person
Love has met its maker, its match
I guess I thought or I did
I have fallen and been chased
An abundance of times
But it just was always, always
So wrong.

I feel like I have written and written
The exact same words
For 9 months almost 10
Loop, loop, loop
So worried about the future
Looking and waiting for things
To fall into place


**** it.

My fortune lied, my grandma died, my roomie got married
I started western music lessons but still i cannot lead
My parents came to USA and roamed around 5 states
I stopped drinking tap water and I started buying crates
I spent hundreds of dollars on my hospital visits
I got myself a new red car and a parking space that fits,
My facebook page got filled up with just couple photographs
Also I found many of my long-lost friends and  my high school staffs
Nothing eventful happened so far,this year was worse than worst
But what still keeps me up and going is the hope to see the best
I did not narrate all these events in the order of happening
I just said these so they would rhyme and will seem nice to sing!

Sweet 16 was when I found myself roomed in Cerritos psych ward,
2 other girls roomed with me,
One kinda like me,
I still have a piece of her converse sneaker logo as a suvenir of my teenage years,
The other girl was a beautiful girl,
Who cried everyday,
And slattered makeup before going to bed,
A beautiful girl with a stain in her smile,
And a **** to her ego,
I sat in this room and saw many come and go,
I'm still stuck here....
With a suicidal mind a flow,
Self esteem sunk low,
Taste for life gone bland,
Took this hand full of pills,
Hope to sleep at last... FOREVER.
Didn't happen,
I'm getting stuck with needles on a daily,
Monitored my food intake on a daily,
Anorexia nervosa won't let me,
But the girl at Cerritos psych,
She still my roomie and others are gone....
Then back,
Then gone again,
The pretty girl at Cerritos psych,
With big eyes, full lips and gorgeous brunette hair,
She's still stuck in Cerritos psych,
*** daddy told her that she's ugly and she's worthless only has a use for one thing,
And to this day I wonder if she ever saw her reflection??
Has she finally seen beauty within?
Or is she still stuck in Cerritos psych ward

I do not,
Let me repeat,
Do not seeketh a (live-in) roommate as the world hast created,
I seeketh a soulmate,
A queen
One of ethreal belated..
One to whom to be related in marital stature!!!

For these ending times
Everyone's a roomie
Living with one, yet being strangers in their mist!!!
Get the gist?
Reader of so called loving words...

I seeketh not to be under the same cupola,
To only be one's guest!!!!
I seeketh a domain,
One of endless nest!!!!

Not as thou oh world!!!!!

Forgot love didst thou oh stranger?

Banana peel next to me
I threw away trash and saw it was all black.

Things in my universe are shifting changing
Roomie says I get very unsettled want things to change so quick
But she don't understand thats how the world works
Thats just how I run with and ahead of it.

I get real secretly resentful and lash out in ways
When I feel caged
Controlled
Or like they wanna steal from me.

So I'm trying to find ways to mediate that feeling
The feeling of sharing, giving
And a profound letting go.

And I can do it
I've done it
Lets put aside possession, pride
Like I have so many ******* times before
Because it ain't about my name.

Heres an application
I've scrawled my heart all over it
I'm gonna do everything I can to make it work
My mama told me growing up I was boy crazy too
But I couldn't be more uninterested as of the moment.

I want an intellectual feminist
Someone rooted in artistic appreciation
Loves their family but not with severity
Sees but doesn't chase a future with me
Simply says
"Whats next baby?"
And
"Here is everything I got to give."

And I don't know where he is
But I don't think he is here right this minute
So I give my heart, my validation
My very existence
Away to the art
Where it can't all fall apart
Because nothing is more fulfilling

Than that.

Just got a call from an old friend that lives right in town at the bottom of Main in PC, near Butcher's Chop House.  Roomie really (lived there about 1yr & 1/2).

"Speak"....

"****** Antoine....can't believe you picked up....I knew you weren't dead."

"Joel my man! how's it?
How's Crash, Gela, them slippery South Cackalacky squidbillies...
Doug?  Everyone still there?"

"Yeah...time warp. ..Good bro...what's up with you...are you coming up this winter to tear your knee up again?  Hope so that way you're stuck in the kitchen cooking all day!"

"Hahaha hey Joel....remember where we were about this time 10 years ago?"

"Yeah...we were heading home slowly from the first 'annual' Jackson Hole Music Festival....cuz you're *** wanted to fish the Green and every hole in the Uintas.  Been fishing lately?"

"Not much lately for fish my brother...more for smiles."

"Imposter! You ain't Antoine!.... wait..... WHAT the HELL'S got into you?"

"Awe nothing just caught two bugs....love and nostalgia"

"Classic ****... unclassic Antoine....come up in December and tell me about it"

Colby and I are already planning to!

Seeping through my starving eyes,
the neighbor props up windows,
walks around my veins in slippers,
seems to already know
which corners give
the best light
for reading.

My best and my worst
Like roommates in one house

Nice guys finish last
Quiet as a mouse

Last evening's beauty sky
Effortless white on blue

I'd walk the wintry beach
And tell my truths to you

Shadows on the wall
Comfort me somehow

Arrival's timeless moments
Preserved within the Dao

Solo troubled but still grateful
Grateful rest right now