my cerebellum is ever changing,
but in my head there are always vases breaking like a drunken father in an angry fit so that my isolation is never vacant;
my thought patterns are shattered, blood-stained glass.

a furious saleswoman is grasping my hairline at the forehead and pulling the skin off of my scalp from behind,
her friends tying my hands behind my back with rope that is much too tight,
ensuring helplessness over my tumultuous oblivion.

Her speech is like gold.
She smiles, sells veils in bulk.
Find bliss in these shrouds.  

2.
I cannot save you
But I will make you perfect.
Drink deep from this cup.

3.
Plastic is our king.
Watch me move mountains with it.
Christ was made from me.  

4.
Consume me, monster.
Loneliness to be no more.
He says, I'm sorry.  

5.
He says, I love you.
Her heart is in the backyard.
The dogs live there now.

6.
Red runs down her arm.
I am a God, she murmurs.
Everything goes black.

It's a sellers market
And all I've got to sell is myself
I'll start with the tip of the top
And dye my mop
Move down to the brows
Make them small
Emotions leased
I'll make my lashes long and
My lips greased
Brush red on
Glowing cheeks

It's a sellers market
And all I've got to sell is myself
I'll start with the tip of the top
Make my I.Q. drop
Thoughts and opinions
On lock
Not one to be released
Laugh when I'm told
Give a smile and wink
Whatever I do
Promise not to think

It's a sellers market and the markets low
Cheap deceit
Given in truthful blows
Tried to leave
But what's left I don't know

I created my own mask when I was 8 and crying in the back of a cab.
2. I had taken for granted the joy and happiness but my eyes were seeing through tears and for the very first time I could not breathe under the weight of the stone placed upon my heart and we were driving away and away
and away
3. When the plane took off I stopped crying
4. I do not remember the next 2 years
5. At age 13, I spent 3 years being bullied. During winter I would hold my forehead against the radiator until it burned and burned and I would tell my parents I wasn’t feeling well. They would let me stay home by myself and I would feel such relief at not having to see the people who hurt me. I would end my days in my room hugging my frame and reminding myself I am worth something.
6. At age 16 I took my bag full of my broken self-esteem and destroyed self-worth and left the continent to get a chance at mending myself.
7. It has been years but I still feel worthless sometimes.
8. When I come back to the place where it all took place I get mad. The adults who were supposed to protect me just looked at me down with pity and the family that should have been there for me did not understand that I was not being dramatic this time, Dad, and perhaps the saleswoman skills you praise me for were acquired while bargaining for my life you know nothing. I hid all the places where they broke me under a mask that fit so well over my face I do not know how to get it off. It fits so well you never realized it isn’t me, Dad, Mom, you know something is wrong. I see you staring with wariness when I get lost in thought, my hand creating waves in the wind from the open window of the backseat of your car, but you never say anything.
9. Even if you did speak to me, I wonder what I would be able to explain. I cannot even speak clearly to my psychiatrist.
10. I try. Isn’t it enough to try ?
11. The mask does not come off, not for you, not for him, not for anyone. Not even for myself. I wonder if I will ever see my real face again.

.note to self: to make the perfect hungarian goulash, for ever capsicum pepper used, use a romano (sweet) pepper... bay leaf, allspice... pristine pork... no need for chicken stock... decently sizzled lard trimmings (from the pork)... a generous amount of garlic to balance the onions... chilli... and... a 2 : 1 ratio of paprika to smoked paprika powder: cooked generously for an hour+ having poured water into the mixture and some tomato purée... a decent cut of carrot and root parsley... and then... only then: the chopped tomatoes... salt to taste... fresh parlsey on top; yes, served on a massive hash brown (raw potatoes, grated, egg, flour, salt), with a sidedish of coleslaw... come to think of it: no... why would you add nutmeg to the sauce?

                                              nicht ist mehr?
              nicht ist noch -

                       a cough of Ernst Bloch:
    and there i was thinking:
where does Franz Marc (blues horses)
                        and Kandinsky ever begin?
precursor to:
      postcard poetry -
        i'll watch me a painting and invent,
rather, succumb to: phenomenalism -
               what with the senses already dimmed,
blunted to b & w and bad deutzsche grammar?

walking through the mess of yesterday's town,
i couldn't but succumb to the allure
of a thought:

   a thought that resurfaced just about
when i finished my going-to-bed-routine:
smoked a cigarette,
did the no. 1 & the no. 2 &
    ****** off on the toilet,
             smoked another cigarette,
drank a glass of water with
     the prescription,
                     dressed myself in pajamas,
     closed the blinds,
   closed the window,
    put on the headphones -
      put on a horror movie soundtrack,
switched off the light,
       lay myself in bed:
   toiled in it for an hour...
hyper-excited by the prospect of
heading to central London
        to pick out a cabbage vinyl..
     ate a piece of chocolate in the dark,
followed by a decent gulp of water...
fell asleep...

  but prior: in between - the allure of
the thought:

       self-worth attached to certains
jobs...
         and... how else to expand on this?
i reckon i'll write as much a decent
verse in the morning with
a coffee: than i will ever
           (constipated) get out of a nightly
session with a bottle of amber-glug...

if only i was so desperate as to have
written some of this prior to
closing my eyes:
                                 exposing my eyes
to the insomnia glue
       of a brightly lit screen of
                            a brain-harvester...

comparison:
    no one would really care to think
of a street cleaner as important...
     well... for me:
                            if i could be a street
cleaner: i could have all the legs
   and recycling heavens' wheels of
fortune to: blah-blah this sort of
wordings...
                       walking yesterday
through town i noticed two of them...

clean streets...
    what could be more important than
clean streets?
           ***** streets for rats...
            
         but i could never...
never count a barista to be a barrister:
yet both could cite you
some sort of philosophy:
  one would cite you something from
jurisprudence,
   the other something from
       what pedants discuss in an opera
prior to the curtain fall...

yet with a barista?
   a strange hyper-inflated membrane
of self-worth:
  noticed in a supermarket cashier,
noticed in a ekspedientka (saleswoman)
  ekspedient (salesman)...
the more trivial the job becomes:
the more self-worth buds under
the surface: with no ulterior outlet beyond
the role...
   like this shawl of glass full of
water: having more water poured into it...

(god, this looked better in my head):

            how much self-worth permeates
from the face of a street-cleaner?
                zilch...
                    ah..­. but how much of "something"
permeates from you walking
down a clean street:
    indifferently -
                you'll hardly think yourself
as garbage: staring at the blank canvas
of pavement...
             yet the barista?
              it's as if he knows:
i've just put on a kettle, boiled some water,
squeezed some coffee...
   ergo? i have to "look" important!
the street cleaner?
    do i really have to "look" important?
i know this is important:
what? whatever the hell i'm doing.

or at least that's how the narrative goes...
in my little head on my little planet
of cycling upside-down apes...

the more trivial a job:
   the more self-worth needs to permeate
from the person given
a function, which, otherwise:
would conscript disdain...
        the camouflaged workforce...
self-evident:
   walking past a bank...
wait... weren't there 6 cubicles
here with cashiers?
                em... self-service?
imagine that!
           sooner or later
                there will be talk of
                             the                   self-:
not being a philosophical curiosity,
rather a study of the past,
or the reaching out attachment prosthetic
of revealing a dead someone
  a dead former profession...

                   crux hyphen:
                       i'm already part employed
as a supermarket cashier,
  i'm already a bank cashier...
               nothing new: auto-cue:
propagandist line, skewed news...
    
but there's still the blatant glare of
the staring match (and the missing E
starring - and the missing macron
on top of A in the latter) -

                  a láte(!) lātte -
rhythm (caffèlat) - cough-la-la-'t:
   hey, scribble here, scribble there,
you hear it in English all the time,
the ever pertinent question:
how do you say that?
  measure metres in inches
in: metric syllables no good...
   'ave to *** beck tou d' imperial...
yes: and because Dickens...
really really, wrote just any better
   schlang than anglo-saxon Idaho...

self-worth: volumptous in certain
instances in public:
   the same self-worth attached to...
would you really want
to have your shoes-polished
with your feet in the shoes?
i wouldn't...
                      trivial *******,
i know... but such is the beast of
self-worth disguising the trivial
nature of certain professions...
   where would be the Wall St. broker
without a shoe-shiner?
boy oh boy: on the same dirt road:
        shoeshine is that thick splodge
of canvas worth a twinkle 'ere,
           a twinkle o'      'er...

airy-fairy: bottom's up and
flaky in the visage of the pompous
boston alto horn of
              a Parisian kelner...
bulging mass: bloated larynx:
puff ****: the three piglets and
the asthmatic bad wolf...

quick... untangle me from this language!
i have a no-nonsense person
to speak to later:
and i can't be bound to
  this metaphor Dali allure;
literally a square is a square,
red is red,
     and escapism only in
              a prosaic paragraph;

this hardly compensates
even the bare scraps of what is
a work of ethic of...
                                                an ant.

I stare at the brown ocean
Contained in a translucent cylinder.
White pebbles, the sugar coating bottom

Sweat drips down from the umbrella cap
Sitting out on my desk for hours.
A puddle forms, the ring of time.

I stare longingly at the
Beach towel colored straw
Orange-like the sun
With white stripes

The wing tipped tongue of the saleswoman
Flutters on about numbers
And percentages.

Those numbers, and doodles,
And my face
Reflect in the cylinder.

Bold black letters
are written on the side,
F/V 3C 3S.

The crystal ball is clouded in misty veils
but sometimes a soft wind
rattles, blowing the beaded curtains aside
and we glimpse the enigmatic, the mysterious

In one such revelatory dream:
I was dressed in a black crepe abhaya with
gold Kashmiri trim

My face shrouded in skeins of muslin cloth
there was a knock on the door,
shyly I peeked from behind my niqab

A group of friends gathered outside
encouraging me to go
out with them
Refusing, politely, I explained that I was
fasting for Ramadan.

As the dream faded, I later mentioned it
to a Muslim saleswoman whom we purchased
incense from.

Her eyes grew big as the crescent moon and star
Surprised and startled, excitely she revealed:

"We are celebrating Ramadan right now!"