I make mistakes.
you understand this
flaw of mine my
only one, I guess if
you think about it...
you explain it with
your perfect phrases:
"Little Imperfections"
"Nobody's Perfect"
"I Love You"

until I mess up

Then,
you don't miss me
you no longer take
me

being perfect, you stop
mistaking me for
someone who you
love

If my life were a number
line—for example—

My life starts: 0
I laugh for the first time: +2
I yell at my mom: -3
I win in school: +10
I lose a job: -11

Am I really the sum of these
parts
the absent space of
my negative numbers
in opposition to the positives

Or

Am I more of an absolute value kind of girl?

If
my velocity is negative on
paper, am I going the wrong
direction? If I am accelerating in the
opposite direction of my destination, (if
I slow down I mean), is it good
or bad?
How about when a train is positively speeding at a high
velocity towards
me accelerating positively
in my direction Do
I run?

I don't judge you
out loud
I laugh when you want me to and
smile at convenient intervals and lulls in
conversation in
life

It's two thousand and
sixteen -
isolation has never been so
difficult to achieve no
dropped
call no Unseen text certainly no
lost letter will do the
trick
nowadays

there is no excuse to give your motherbrotherfriend for
staying a resolute
island in the internetted
sea of archipelagos, so
overcrowded with
bridges and boats that I cannot see the water unless
unless
I make the
space

There is something
satisfying pairing 'nothing' with 'numbing' they
sound so similar are used in the same
context I want my mind
numbed
nothinged
see it works there too, just the dictionary doesn't
know it yet

I collect secrets
gathering them up like
a squirrel holds chestnuts in its cheeks
I hold them, in anticipation of
leaner times
that way, I will be
fine
fine
when winter arrives -
when I am left
alone

Black keys leave me
wondering the night in
shrinking armour a
leg will do I do
do you?

pictures of pictures of pictures are my
past, every year adds another frame another
layer of rose-coloured glass between Now and
Then

Then...now...what? my future is un-
framed, unhinged, unexistant
and so far unbroken

I spy with my little eye...
a bigger eye behind.
a nose between the two
some lips sketched in
below, very
red
a chin hangs from the jaw, like
a stubby
stalagmite

To pull my
self up

To fight gravity and
win for a
moment would be
astronomically awesome

Too bad my arms aren’t armed to
battle even weak
forces

Rain: a good excuse to
stay indoors
I hear it dripping
on the roof, the street, the
sidewalk
but I will never feel it

Raza
sounds like the Ra'zac in real life is the
word origin of "race" is the
world origin of "I hate you because I
can" I race
away from race and riot quietly in my
mind
without hope of
escaping my body my
flinch
away from a black
man walking my
instinct to correct double
negatives when really they aren't
not
right;
I'm not right

The picture is blurry or
maybe I'm not seeing clearly
either way I've resolved to
dissolve this moment in
time, and I absolve myself of all
ties connecting me to that
image that laughing
face that at one point
must have been
mine

Scratching my scalp I
feel the little ***** of white
dandruff then - there -
a scab I can scratch and
stow under my fingernail so
satisfying I want to
find another one

no such luck

You're a lazy selfish self-
pitying lump of skin and bone and
too much fat You can't do anything for
anyone (not even
yourself) What is your
problem you Stupid Uninspired
Unmotivated *** What are
you? I would tell you to
get out of my
life, if I
could

It Off
Rock & Roll
All over from a bullet shooting just
past your ear so
close you can smell the
powder the fire the
lack
of lifeblood in the open
air

Shirley Temple's curls were
gorgeous, - manufactured or
not - bouncy, shiny,
sweet

Mine,
on the other hand,
are a bit frizzy and unruly and
not very
bouncy after the first jump

Maybe they'd behave better in
black and white

me and my dad used to
fight over who
got to have the coveted, comfy, not-made-of-disgusting-yellow-foam
feather pillow
it wasn't really much of a
prize, I guess--
the feathers were so dead the
thing was practically
flat
but
it's the principle of it, the status that
a feather pillow brings to
my sleepy eyes-shut head

most of the time,
I won
he probably let me because
well
he loves me and
that's what parents do
But
he'd still fight
for that pillow he knew
I couldwoulddid fight
back

now, I walk into my bedroom and
see that feather pillow
already on my bed,
clean sheets,
neatly arranged

I wish for the fight

I used to think that I was Social
And then Media came to play.
I've only ever consumed the stuff;
At creating, I'm middling - just okay.

I can't Mediate people;
Will never be a journalist;
I like talking sometimes,
But the internet? Not the greatest.

So it's time to divorce these words:
The Social from the Media.
For all the info I could want,
There's always wikipedia.

I think I'm turning paranoid,
Or at least a little mean;
I question all the motives
Of those who liked my meme.

The second I get Followed,
I ****-- turn around around to see
If he just wants a "Follow-back"
Or truly likes my feed.

Don't even get me started
On social reciprocation.
IRL I don't do so well;
In virtual, I'm an island nation.

Do I just Like what I like?
Or only what really hits home?
What if it's a horrible post
By someone who loves my poem?

...do you like me? Do you really


like me?
Does it
matter?

I
don't
know

Just in case of
stormy weather I
have storm windows which
are also optimal for
keeping me warm at
night

I do well on an IQ test which
Measures precisely how
Smart I am precisely
Now and
In the years to come

I did well
I feel exhilarated enlightened free happy
Special
Better than average
(Has been numerically proven after all)

But years later my elation
Dims because those
Emotions were genuine but
The specialness test is honest
As a used car salesman
One who claims all his cars meet
The (very rigorous) inspection standards he
Sets

A used car salesman of a test made
Me feel special which
Creeps me out looking back but
I should be grateful it
Didn’t make me feel like special
Trash instead

Alas poor yoric
here you lie
alongside
friends, enemies -- strangers you
have (had) no opinion on

what side is alongside in
a deadened place? whose side is
where when after is no longer
before?

the limit does not exist when
a body count counts
even after the soul leaves

but it should

how can corpses count in a math problem of a Choose
Your Side when
they're all on one side now and it's not
yours nor
mine it's the
veil
that none of us with minds and souls and points to prove will ever
cross (in our lifetime)

This is the poeticization machine:
(Say that five times fast)
Raw materials: what I feel and see
The product: powerful imagery --

full of exaggerated angst swathed in
metaphors and rhythm and emotion too
strong to feel
real

Example A: I need a shower so I take it.
Post-Machine:
The burning water scalds my
flesh and I see red rush to the
surface even as the skin on my fingertips
depresses with each passing minute wrinkling
before its time

Take my pride
(there was never much
anyway) take my sorrow take my
anger frustration can’t-do attitude

and I’ll be good
again, well-meaning and
innocent in a
bland
sort of way

pick a pocket or
pick a tree
but do
not
pick
me

My body is baudelarious.
Hilarious,
no?

I see you go towards
the light of
streetlamps, get ******
right up into the heart
of the electric fire
and
burn
(or melt I
suppose)

When I was small I said “Mom
my tummy hurts” and
then kisses and maybe a spoon of liquid
(icky) tylenol followed and then
All Better!

Now
when I’m bigger in shoe size, in brain
(in tummy)
Now when
my stomach starts to bubble and
roil and twist I know the source
is not candy and the
cure is no longer kisses and
I need so much more I need
slow breaths and
slower
thoughts
and
no maternal concern concerning
itself with my intestines, small or
large

a Typical Self-pity Poem this
is... see my list
of perfect woeful moans:
I ache all over from
crying alone and
clenching my jaw and
scraping the bone
I crave independence
but cannot bear it without
help
I know too much to think
I hate my world--
yet I preserve it in ink

Eyes tired of bearing the
Brunt of my notyet game
Plan regarding sleep and I
Don’t blame them

How much gradation in a
graduation?  is it a final line
declining to be either here
or
there? I'd like more
gray
in my ceremonies

You're So Skinny,
you say to me, I Wish I Had a Waist
Like Yours, you say

like it's a compliment.

But

I never agreed to spice up your
own personal recipe
for low self-esteem If
you persist in this
body belief I
will no longer be your
body's relief Go
find another Skinny to
feed your grief

Hulpin tupero ska
ti la sol va va
VHAT
VHAT
tol si naso ta ree
pina nahno kandoo
lo
VHAT are you saying?
VHAT can I understand?

see here's the
thing: this
thing  happened one
day but I
don't know what
exactly

Who owns grief?
The one who cries the loudest?
The one who acts the most disturbed?
     Or *******-ish?
     Or eerily withdrawn and quiet?
The one who had The Best Relationship with the dead?
     The most unresolved?
The one who feels the most guilt?
     Who feels out of place at the funeral?
     Who resents the world?
     Who is named in the will?

How many people can have a share?
Who is allowed a say on the Board of Grief?
     Are children underage?

How powerful are the grieving?
Enough to command a neighbor’s chicken soup?
     Casserole?
     Cake?
     Family heirloom?
     House?
     Family entire?
     Telephone call?

There are precious few at ease
with moral ambiguities,
so we act as though they don't exist.







              ---Wizard of Oz in "Wicked," lyricist Stephen Swartz