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 Nov 2016 Feggyr Citack
Randy Lee
What the hell am I supposed to do I feel as if I'm ******* because this addiction thing has proved time and again that it always wins in the end and I can't stop there is no off switch so I will probably die of this which depresses me and I confess that makes me want a drink as the cycle continues until I lose the battle and my loved ones suffer I have considered suicide to get it over with and stifle the wake of misery I've yet to leave behind but cannot seem to find the courage and you may say that rehab is the way to get and stay sober yet I submit it is a bandaid on a severed artery this I know from experience and what is wrong seems to go down deep to the very essence of me where my belief in God lives in my soul but faith has not sustained my sobriety even feeding the fear at moments when the voices are severe in my mind always trying to belittle and break me down until I whittle away into nothingness please
 Nov 2016 Feggyr Citack
naava
When my father stepped off the plane twenty years ago and found his way to
The Bronx where his brothers were waiting for him,
It was to live every day plagued by stories of his
Roommates being followed home by wickedly-grinning, knife-brandishing men
That took pleasure in wounding the skin of my uncle who worked
For seven dollars a day, and then sent it all home to his mother.
And I know this isn’t what he wanted for me.
I even know, sometimes, that it’s not what he wanted for himself.
Didn’t want to open a bank account, become a citizen of the internet,
Watch as his labor was digitized and filed away on a supercomputer
And used to calculate the distance from here to the moon.

Last month my taxes contributed to Nike’s two billion dollars in
Government subsidies, my money,
Taken from my pocket and used to make sneakers more expensive than my
Last paycheck.

Sometimes I think I’m America’s mistake,
A child of the New Generation,
Born to emphasize the difference between affect and effect,
But never affect the way change is effected,
And I want, so desperately to be a warrior of my time
But I’ve only been taught to reaffirm the rules of grammar and
Sip coffee in silence as the world turns around me.

Sometimes all I want to do is cry.

It’s easy to blame America for your mistakes,
And it’s easy to say you shouldn’t blame America for your mistakes,
And I think once I find the dividing line, the fence, the border between the two,
I’ll understand what it means to be American.
I’ll know what it means to salute the flag and sing the
Pledge of Allegiance with my head held high and my hand placed
Proudly over my heart.

I hope I never find that line.

In school we’re taught A is for Apple and B is for Blue and C is for
Candy, sickly sweet and only sold out of the backs of white vans in the dead of night.
D is for death, which I still don’t understand,
And E is for easy, something that I, as a woman, must know the meaning of.
In school we’re taught to build city halls and towering skyscrapers
Out of wooden blocks, but I’m seventeen and still don’t know where my last name comes from.
In school, I’m ten, and my teacher is making fun of the spanish music I grew up listening to,
The kind with the classical guitar intro that my father can imitate perfectly,
The kind that made me smile until I was ten and became background noise when I was eleven.

In school, I built bridges out of cardboard boxes.

My father didn’t come here to be an environmental engineer.
My father didn’t come here to beg me to major in astronomy because he wishes he’d done
That instead.
I don’t know why my father came here.
When I ask, he tells me it was for the job opportunities - there’s nothing back home -
But I see it in his eyes when he goes home to the house in Ecuador he’s spent
19 years having built.
I see it in his eyes when we finally have a conversation for the first time all week,
Usually on a Saturday,
Because we’re both too busy during the week to take a moment to breathe and say,
In simple english, “Hi. How are you. Hope you’re doing well.”

Sometimes, it’s too easy to blame America for my mistakes,
But sometimes, America deserves it.
I’ll never know why people are the way they are, and I’ll spend a lifetime wondering,
But I know why I am the way I am,
And sometimes all I can do is hold onto that before it’s taken from me
Like the taxes from my paycheck
That are still paying Nike to feed the world the sick, twisted lie that it’s as easy as breathing to
Just do it.

Sometimes I wish I didn’t care,
Because it’d be easy as rain to comply with complacency and
Maybe then, I’d be able to sit back and watch them destroy themselves
And I wouldn’t have to be a part of it.

I’m told we revolt at dawn, but I’m too busy fielding calls from people who want to know
If I’m going, who won’t go if I’m not, who won’t go unless there’s a crowd they can
Disappear into.
Sometimes I wish I didn’t care, because if I didn’t I could stop being afraid of a world
Where caring is dangerous and sugar pills are the only thing on the
Dining hall menu.
I’m told we revolt at dawn, and when I show up, the sun is barely rising and I lift my head
To the sky and breathe in the scent of rebellion, finally, because it’s about time.

We are all immigrants.
We are all immigrants.
We are all immigrants.

Except, apparently, some of us.

I’m five years old and get to sleep in on the second Monday in October and I’m told
It’s a celebration of when God sailed across the ocean and created the forests
Only five hundred years ago.
And I buy it, of course I do, because I’m five years old and though God already doesn’t exist,
I don’t have any other explanation for why the forests are what they are, or
How I got here, of all places. America.
And I don’t know why I can’t run across the country and back again because I don’t have
A single clue about the concept of space, or time, and then,
When I think about it, how dare they tell me America was found when I’m too young to
Challenge them on it.

We can plan to revolt at dawn, but the police will already be there at midnight,
Waiting for us, and if we can’t walk into the path of resistance and keep going,
We might as well not even try.

My T.V. once told me there’s a magic trick for everything, and apparently,
Breaking out of handcuffs was one of them.
At this point, that might be our best option.

But you can’t major in magic, and breaking out of handcuffs won’t pay the bills.
I don’t have all the answers, and I know that kneeling during the national anthem will
Cause so much White Male Outrage there’ll be headlines for days,
But it’s something.
I care about a lot of things, but staying silent isn’t one of them.

If I’m America’s mistake, then so is my father, and so is the revolution at dawn,
And so is Columbus day.
All I know is I’m seventeen and I still don’t know what comes after
“And to the republic, for which it stands,”
And I hope one day I won’t be criticized for failing to memorize patriotic rhetoric.

We are all immigrants.
We are all immigrants.
Remember, we revolt at dawn.
once upon a time
mama said
son
when
i am
dead and gone
and
six feet under
bury me
in
a white silk robe
because
ain't nobody
gonna
steal my joy
Each night as I sleep
a different memory
fades out of existence.
These memories of mine
aren't as real as they once were;
the time I brought my dog
into class for show-n-tell;
the trees in the front yard
of my childhood,
all potential casualties
of my next night of sleep.

I wonder what passed away
into the abyss of forgetfulness
last night as I dreamt about
that serial killer
chasing me down;
maybe it was the names
written on the walls of the
concession stand in my
Intermediate School,
or the costume I wore for
Halloween when I was ten.

It seems as though these
memories of mine were
real once, but those days
have faded away
into memory, one day to be
forgotten when I walk
into work in my underpants,
only to spring out of bed
in a cold sweat.
I turned eighteen, and the floor dropped out.

The summer before, the clean-shaven men
at concerts, the ocean, at grimy
gas stations, would gaze at me
with their sallow eyes and creep
closer, stuffing their tarnished
wedding rings into their pockets. I pretend
I don't notice the approach.

I'm sweetheart now, and the world is dying
to know about my day. The artless
small talk ******
my cheeks a shameful red--
always this crass, unsolicited
acupuncture.  

Now, I'm darling. I'm baby-- my
age the next delicate question laid
across their taste buds.

A year ago, I could blush and remind
them of my mere seventeen trips around
the sun, and off they'd retreat as if
the law were the only thing keeping
my clothes on my body.

The eighteenth trip has come and
past; from here on out
I fly alone, braving the flocks of
pitiful predators.
°°•¤☆¤•°°

the night's as a dark cave
when you're in a test
you can look unto the east
look unto the west
no light to follow clearly
like a banjo out of tune
you chant a mass of chaos
to an uncaring
moon

BUT

there are
stars around the corner
there are
stars behind the door
stars outside your window
when you can't take anymore
stars, they have a sparkle
all their very own
they can warm you
like a hearth
or chill you to the
bone

look up!
dark nights don't last
and though there may be rain
the thunderstorms are passing
you will see the SUN again!
this ol' earth, it keeps on turning
and though the stars are gone
you know it's always
darkest
just
before
the

dawn

so just keep looking up
for Jupiter and Mars
but be sure
to make your wishes

to the

MAKER OF THE STARS


SoulSurvivor
(C) 11/23/2016
Its almost 3 o'clock in the morning and I can't sleep. My father went into the hospital last night. I am cheering myself up with this poem. I don't know what's going to happen in the future. If my father goes into a care home I will be moving. But whatever happens I know that God will help me through it. I am relying on him more than ever these days. I am praying more than ever. If it seems like I'm not on site very much, it's because I need to be communing with the Maker of the stars.

Thanks for understanding.

☆ LOVE YOU ALL! ☆
 Nov 2016 Feggyr Citack
ryn
He used to walk with life in his stride
He used to strut with a heart full of pride

These days see him stumbling every so often
These days see his eyes vacant and sullen

So I asked if there was anything bothering him
So I asked what is it that made his light so dim

He tarried, then answered with conviction true
He tarried before he finally answered, *"You..."
A man without internal conflict
Is either a simpleton,
Or heavily indoctrinated


-Hadrian Veska
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