the server (waiter) raps
praise upon the sushi,
its integrity,
the harmonic
of its construct,
the curated singularity of
each rice grain

the innate elegance of
the thin sliced,
nearly translucent,
au naturel, organic,
ginger root

the skin smooth paste of
green wasabi,
grown naturally
along stream beds in
mountain river valleys in Japan

genuinely puzzled,
when he,
the old erstwhile poet
unabashedly weeps before all

no hero he,
just an overcome one,
his tears flavoring his food

mourning the
celebrated abuse
of his verbal children,
those natured nurtured babes
the stuff,
the words of his definition

each weird word,
loved for their cultured,
unique quality of their history
grown in languages's
perpetual petri dish

asked if something was a matter,
answered yes,

"this plated performance,
such an extravagant essay
on the beauteous wonder
of life's bounty,
left me wordless"

and she, burst out loud in laughter

Petri dish children run with punctured neon green veins
Raised in focus groups with the touch of a hungry CEO
Who will sell your youth for another car to drive
Built from the dust of a baby boomer cabbage patch
Poked and prodded by the media of a society flamed with consumerism
Where your loosely draped skeleton frame has no more weight than the quarters you tuck in your pockets at weigh ins
Sunken eyes and sideways grins
Little girls are growing up to kiss the bad boys
Tequila soaked, beautiful kisses
Where your idol is a crack ***** beauty queen
Where your every fatal flaw has a rememdy and a price tag
A generation sick with drinks
Plagued by impulse and energy pulsing in tides
With ****** laughs and magnetic orbits
What ever happened to the petri dish children
Built for beauty and style, but left broken and stunning

If I could look past myself to see the world around me,
I know I'd be a better person.
But instead, my thoughts create a light so blinding I have to put up shades that tint the world the color of insecurity just to see.
These shades, this insecurity, is like a funhouse mirror that works against you,
Making those around me immaculate Greek gods who stand a mile high
As I stand lower than dirt wondering how their flaws only add to their perfection while mine stand out like scars on every surface of my body.
But it brings with a comforting sense of consistency in an inconsistent world.
It wraps you in an embrace so tight it both soothes and suffocates you, but you can't bare to let go.
It becomes the overly understanding spouse you both despise and adore.
No matter how many times you cheat on it with false hope and cheap popularity, it
Keeps
Coming
Back

I'm so caught up in my past that I find myself walking backwards so I don't have to watch my future crumble around me
But I found that just because I stand still, doesn't mean time will do the same.
Time marched on and left me lost.
"Here and now" became "There and Then" and I found myself standing in the "Soon to Be".
I realized that at some point, my personality married the wind and left me in a gust that still leaves me cold.

A year ago I was asked if I knew who I was and I said I was like the one thing held constant in a science experiment.
As people were placed in the caged existence, a world the size of a petri dish,
I never changed.
I knew who I was
What I believed

If you asked me today,
I wouldn't have an answer.

One day I questioned reason and existence.
The day I looked to God  and said "this can't be all there is, there has got to be more than this" was the day He sent me an instruction manual wrapped in a silver lining.
I was told to look for the best image of myself and work to obtain it
I found that it isn't easy turning the desert into the Garden of Eden

I speak in two tongues and they both hiss at each other like snakes.
Tripping over my own words as my mouth becomes a battle ground.
I stand on the side-lines looking in. Waiting for the opportunity to announce my presence.
A foreigner in my motherland and a foreigner in a sea of white faces,
And I do not fit the colour scheme.

I’m a stranger, an alien, something to be prodded and poked at and made to squirm.
A minority not to be distinguished from a sea of cloth draped women.
An epitome of the strange lands of deserts and spice.
And hung above my head is a dark cloud of stereotypes and misconceptions.

The Western woman wants to fight for the freedom of the daughters of Eve,
Not understanding that her view of liberation tastes different on my tongue.
So I’m left helpless to the hot iron lens of the media, examining me like a specimen on a petri dish.

My identity, a crumbling church still worthy of all the worship.
I memorized my history books then forgot all the verses.
I grew up haunted by my ancestor’s curses.
I’ve shed so many layers of my skin attempting to fit in, now I no longer recognize myself.
I gaze into the mirror and my reflection looks away, too afraid to make eye contact with a stranger.

I am a human split in two by borders that require passports and stamps of approval.
One half of my bleeds in red, white and blue, and the other the ashes of a burning nation.
I soak up every atom in my body with a culture that isn’t mine,
And speak words that feel heavy on my mother’s broken tongue.

Embedded in the arms of parents who are too afraid to let me go, because the world is cruel to women who don’t belong.
I am like glass that has been shattered into a million pieces, and then painstakingly put back together again.
Delicate to the touch, quivering beneath broken knuckles and clenched fists.

In the back of my mind lie vague recollections of the hot marble floors of a childhood home,
Of crevices etched into unfamiliar smiling faces,
And a country which my roots have been uplifted from.

I am a kaleidoscope. A kaleidoscope of clashing colours but you, you only view me in black and shades of grey.
I question how to belong without jumping into a skin suit that’s too baggy at the sleeves, because one size does not fit all.
I don’t want to lose my morals, values and system of beliefs.
A whirlwind of obstacles surrounding me, closing in on all sides…it’s hard to breathe.

But even after multiple blows I’m still holding onto this thread of hope…and pulling.
Unravelling what’s beneath.
And when I raise my firm hands to the sky I pray,
That my wandering soul finds a place to call home one day.

I want to
swallow your organism,
taste your bacteria,
swim in your virus,
catch your disease
& become viral.

I am consumed
by your fever.

Stimulate me
with ****-symptoms,
split me
in you petri dish,
mutilate me,
break my cells
into smaller molecules,
help me to succumb.

Take me over the top,
bring me to
ferocious-******,
one without a cure,
leave me
forever wishing
for no antidote.