I am the only Asian in this bar right now.
Be my friend!
I will check the box of your social diversity quota.
Granted, I only speak a mispronounced fraction of
my immigrant parents' native tongue.
Ala Jackie Chan, I do not understand the words coming out the mouths of anyone on that massive continent (Russia included) that I appear to be more or less from.
But, I do eat spaghetti with chopsticks.
I am mystical as
fox, or Kitsune, in Japanese folklore.
I can hit you with wisdom worthy of a fortune cookie as fast as Google can tell you that the Philippines is nearly 2000 miles away from China. I want to say I'm from an exotic island where they play basketball in sandals and drink soda from plastic bags- like, A-level material you could make a movie out of in Slumdog Millionaire fashion and get awarded for your romantic portrayal of poverty you think is three worlds away from home. But nah, I'm just a kid from South Florida. Paved driveways and cul de sacs. But I do pump both fists in the air watching Manny Pacquio PPV fights on a bootleg stream. Beyond that, I'm probably the worst Asian there is. Not the crazy rich kind with a PHd. I dropped out of engineering after one semester and cannot solve a rubix cube. I never learned kung fu. Though I'm learning to face the adversity of becoming a single parent after my daughter's home broke in two. I write marketing proposals to pay the rent and poetry to fight without fighting in the spirit of Sun Tzu. My eyes do not slant in the direction of your narrative. I once ran in a pick up game where I caught the nickname of Yao Ming. Yao, I am 5 foot 8. Though I fall short of expectation, I can still check your diversity box on the way down and do a cool pen spin after to punctuate my intellectual prowess. I also happen to own an assortment of Japanese swords made in China, which I intend to use as heirlooms. This is what cultural colonization looks like: me, in a bar, the last samurai standing confused in an age of melting pots, Korean tacos and Asian slaw made by corporate imposters with names like PF Chang. What in the slaw is Asian? I wish I knew!  I wish I knew the true value of my heritage to be worthy of carrying it forward. Like how my grandfather planted a Malonggay tree in our backyard whose leaves my mother would pick and boil to make tinolang manok -the Filipino version of chicken soup- as a weeknight staple on our dinner table. I can barely soft boil an egg for instant ramen. Or how my motherland's socioeconomic gap tooth smile is so wide that it drove over 10 million of its native sons and daughters off its shores to find work overseas as servants on cruise ships and hospitals to feed the families they barely get to see. To follow their trail blazing footsteps, let me be the second generation tipping point where some form of cyclical tradition breaks. That way, I can raise my daughter free of predetermined scripts. So as the worst Asian in this or any bar, cheers:
to being the first of a new kind.

Extra Extra ...Read all about it!!!..The time for the righteous ***** is dead...You claim Your stature of limitations..But all you got is knowledge...Let me reconstruct the past...That the ones you preaching to don't see...Slavery...to share croppers.. to steal mill workers...Cotton pick en...to bootleg ‘en...to crack rock..**** ‘en...They got Aids from monkeys..So lets give it to all the monkeys..They know to much lets bury the smart ones under all the dummies...Rise up you righteous *** Shabazz..With more medals then Marcus Garvey...but this dispositions is thicker than the stash on Steve Harvey. Cuz the kids they love the Wiz...and all the green he smoke...Forget the yellow brick road...its these white bricks they see as Gold...But you so righteous with black power on Your bumper sticker...And so sweet that your water start to be thicker...then blood...with a hood that attack your own progression..You Been righteous for so long..with hope you feel depression..that you accuse your brother of mental retardation...urban gentrification...when he still live in the same house he did the year before...but you been moved to the east side on the top floor..You righteous *** ***** you been pronounced dead...back when them bombs hit over Bagdad...they waved the white flag..but you just made it easy...cuz you still so righteous...you done Got Fat, Turned Gay...and rallying for pride marches...Cuz you don’t know what else to do...your time is over..Them black cats use to be panthers, now you dress them up...and placed us all in a new minority...just to keep your righteous priority...Are You still looking East, or have you finally excepted the West..

ya know somethin'
writtin' poetry
kinda makes
your mouth
water and
then
i just
wanna
take
a few
sips of
this
bootleg fire-water
johnny-white-lightning
whiskey over here
you know
down yonda
hell yeah
you know what
what i'm
talkin'
'bout
anyway
the mighty spirits
help me
rejuvenize
the equilibrium
immensly
thus in the creative
proccess of poetry writtin'
Lord help me please
cause i know
i got da right stuff
now aint dat da truth
yeah you so crazy

***** girl. godly beast.

I couldn't be
one of those
beautifuls
if I pleased.

tribal bones stained
with European empirico
I am black death disease,
just human trash
that learned to read

& I believe bootleg genius
is being
massively reproduced
more cheaply & as we speak
is being weakened
so as to be spoon fed
to the cool kids.
yknow they
couldn't do it
by themselves.

never sweated.
laughed instead
yes
I seen em
inchin to the edge
but
I didn't
do anything about it.

I kinda feel guilty
cause I didn't
do anything about it.

It's just a ****** up
awful sound,
a whole generation
hitting the ground
at once.

Man. it really
puts things in perspective.
kinda makes you wonder
what's coming next.

medicine medley
ineffectual
malady infectious
witch hunt etiquette,
I think in pictures
disney depictions of
apocalyptic ****
yet to be decrypted

I rip myself to pieces
every day.

I'm lost, in a labyrinth of twists and stalemates,
Adrift on a raft of sticks, spit, and namesakes,
Gripping the helm with white knuckles and splintered wrists,
Abandon ship from one blistered fingertip,

A treasure map scrawled to waylay my steps,
"Eighteen, get a degree, take 10 paces, left,"
Wait with bated breath, just for a vacated chest,
Wish the masters would stop clocks; playing chess.

The guy in these picture frames is roulette,
Dropped from black to red, two cents, bootleg,
Counterfeit, forgery, patented blown potential,
An outline traced with a broken pencil,

A crooked nib and a handful of ink stains,
Splotched paper with the brand of this kid's name,
Crinkled and torn up, soon to be ash in a bucket,
Tossed to the corner, overflowing the stack of a hundred.

It twas a chunk.
A bootleg papertowel, ziplock baggie, hairband combo
Allowed me to continue
Cutting and subsequently cooking
Perseverance? Check.
Being a bad *****? Check.
Maintaining a sense of humor while I'm gushing blood? Check.
Jamming 90s alternative rock with my nineteen year old brother? Check.

No ******* this time though..
He wouldn't allow such.

Don't tell me to smile
Exhortations to "cheer up" will be ignored
You don't know how far you're stretching me, do you?
Your head still in the clouds of safety where imbeciles call out to each other
Listen. Listen, do
We're exploring the heaviest things in the world
Too heavy for Sysyphyus to haul
I'm that kid you can kind of see through
The one on the left corner
With the cool bootleg Pink Floyd t shirt wrapping his thin torso
He's got a box of Playboys beneath his nightstand and he's barely 14 years old
He reads and incorporates that garbage into his pre-adolescence behavior
With dreams of visiting Plato's
Retreat
Picking up some bunnies using some of the better Party Jokes
His expertise at 'lingus and 'latio are as well perfected as can be without having actually performed them
But he could sure bust out the ******* Philosophy and would have held his own with the old geezer who wrote it
But he was only 14 and nobody seemed impressed with the amount of ******* culture he'd consumed
They weren't letting him in the cluuuub
Your ****** right he didn't feel like smiling
But he wasn't bored
And he didn't feel too serious
He'd let it slide this time

*to be continued

I downloaded my honest expression of feelings for you
but it came as a zip file
and I’m hardly tech savvy
so It sits in my hardrive with the other long lost files
like that first bike ride without training wheels
and christmas back before it all got so painfully awkward
two spaces above it
is the memory of being chased by angry farmers on tractors
and the file I edited last
was my self-image profile picture

I want you.
but sometimes wires don’t connect and the connection tends to
falter - lag
so I sent my mind to the pornographic district
where the lights flicker so red, like your favorite shade of lipstick
and for a few minutes there I committed biblical abomination
which is a fancy ******* way of saying I jacked off
before checking my local news site for the five day forecast
rain, rain, rain, rain, but a hint of sunshine

Woah! That’s a risky site! Are you sure you still want to continue?
not really. But last time I checked I never asked you for anything
so I’m buying the ingredients for happiness on ebay
two parts forty ounces of malt liquor
three parts resin stained smoking apparatus
two parts the wrong crowd
and ten parts stupid *** decisions
now I’m stumbling upon locked door keyholes
to see bootleg copies of your next summer blockbuster
they’re worth the ten dollars a pop - I’m just broke

I tried to upload a **** shaming video of you to youtube
but it was taking too **** long to process
so instead I tweeted all 140 of the characters I have played
and wrote you a bittersweet, scathing review
4.5 stars out of 5 - would not recommend
#FuckYou
I would still swipe right to your front door on silent nights
smelling like a bad rock and roll cliche
saying the same one liners over and over again

I listened to your swan song on spotify
and yeah, I’ll admit, It had me swaying
but that might just be the new “Twenty dollar a week diet”
I was forwarded online
so skype with my self-esteem
and IM me your holy of holies
and I’ll pretend whichever God you follow is up there somewhere
maybe I am just a post on your blog
maybe I’m just the virus causing you to curse at low speed internet
but I think you should leave your ISP a nasty voicemail
because this headspace is corrupted
and this computer is crashing towards an eternal shutdown

I’ve been listening to a lot of Willie Nelson lately,
A bootleg copy Outlaw Willie’s “Greatest Hits,”
Permanently inserted into the CD-player of my Honda:
An automobile preference,
An immediate dead giveaway,
A tag better than a license plate,
Useful for identification purposes,
Distinguishing friend from foe,
In this case a rolling, conspicuous enemy of
Detroit & rust belt environs.
Like other zombie-American consumers,
I **** the livelihood of my countrymen,
Once again, selling out friends & neighbors,
Doing my bit for Capitalism,
Exporting another job overseas.
I do my bit to help the 1%
Pay Labor back for the
Capitulations of the 1930s:
Unions winning concessions
In the street, pickets & strikes,
Boycotts & violence,
Largely mobbed-up violence.
Willie does a nice cover of “Heartbreak Hotel,”
Different, yet raw like Elvis,
And rocking.
But I digress.

So I’m thinking about the HOA Board,
(HOA: Home Owners' Association)
Local Thanes of Cawdor,
As if people over-55,
Living in gated lunacy,
Actually needed a 4th level of government.
The HOA Board turned down my landscape modification again.
Of course, they are just busting my *****.
They know I’m a hothead,
A deeply anti-authority type,
Forged in childhood in the street,
Through ringalevio & stickball,
“Your Mother” taunts,
******* contests,
Belly bumps,
Bones of contention,
In short: Brooklyn 101.
Retired now & for awhile I think
My problem with authority retired with me.
Just when I'm thinking
My lessons are finally done,
I realize there’s one more report card.
And Citizenship is a Grade:
“Plays Well With Others”
As it was for boys,
The measure of a man,
“It’s a community we have here,”
The HOA Doge & Ministerial Cohorts,
Conspiring to provoke
The sociopath in me, a fit description
For any would-be antagonist,
For anyone challenging
The Restrictions & Covenants,
Openly arrived at, in secret.
My neighbor,
Good Citizen Bernie
Reminds me that a community is
Entitled to know whom it’s dealing with.
The price of real estate not always
Effective for screening out
Potential psychopaths.
A determined caste-climber &
Boat rocker slips through now & then.
Insecure & angry because of it,
The schoolyard **** gone grey,
Yet hasn’t figured out the object of life is
To win friends & influence people.
Retirement: a Carnegie Deli &
Serenity Smorgasbord,
“Plays Well With Others.”
The HOA leadership has the right,
Has a duty to distinguish
The merely eccentric
From the clearly a present danger.
So they bust ***** about rules broken,
Code infractions, sordid violations,
Community norms transgressed.
Better you flip your wig
Under close observation & preparedness,
Than go off spontaneously.
One more massacre;
Another random bloodbath.