~

dark early pre-dawn

body suspended between the-dark ochre earth tones of night,
and the teal pealing notes of warning of an impending morning,
signs aborning, me rising with urgency of the leaden half deaden,
torn from the bed casket to venture into a different kind of twi-lights,
nature demanding both intake and outtake, a restoration of balance

but first a bumbling wobbling, the body as carnival bumper car,
installing soon-to-be-bruising for later examination-exhumation,
lurching from handhold crevices in the walls like crazy cliff climbers,
my balance disturbed, eyes try  tearing apart the sticky glue of night,
my sense of direction keeping me from free falling into green glass
edges of glass tables, barely, and not always, red cuts evidentiary

“my balance disturbed” words fresh formed, and a poem expulsion
required to balance the unjust scales of spirit soul and the body cage,
patch an negotiated agreement between warring cousins, just a
twenty four hour ceasefire to retrieve the wounded and the
corpses unfounded in the small copses of false shelter,
like my ancestors expelled from Spain, making escape to be
strangers in strange lands, or remain hidden in place neath disguises
of clothes of new poems, prayers for old and new gods

this new poem comes quick like a young man making first love,
for the poem has been written by thousands nights of practicing,
so ready for quick retrieving in a smattering of a few minutes,
expulsion expulsion
what a perfect verbiage to capture the night terrors, the differentials,
the procession path between what was and what will be,
when my balance restored and this poem’s completion installation
in the body of my work, as a nail disguised in the works of my body,
entering by command of the pitch black gods

I know I'm not the best
but I'm pretty **** impressive

sure, yeah, I used to do those stupid violent things

and I still have those stupid urges to defend myself from an invisible threat
and the sinking feeling won't ever go away

and yeah, I was expelled because I was a bad kid

but I am a good student


I got a C in english.


okay, a C isn't so impressive but hear me out

an unmotivated, unmedicated, angry year 10

who missed every third lesson because

he was hiding from the gunshots he could hear over his literature teacher

crawling out of the classroom on his knees desperately trying to stay safe

curled up on the floor, crying

I thought I had died
or was going to die

I tried to **** myself a couple of days after

and nothing seemed worth it

but I sat down in the canteen

desks arranged perfectly like they hadn't been flipped over and over in fear of the looming threat of failure every ******* day

and I was shaking while I held that pen

and I wrote my stained soul and heavy heart and dried blood onto that test paper

and I got a C.

that C proves I still have worth-
even after all my academic failures.
and now?

I'm medicated, motivated,
dedicated

give me a chance to prove it

I'll be the best risk you'll ever take.

Muted color
On darkest day                                          
There was a light
to show the way

In dreary towns
My eyes were bound
To the misty lights
Up on the cloud

What is that phenomenon?
Where did it go?
The place we are seeking
We shall never know.

As our eyes droop down
And our smiles go flat,
It is easy to see
That we shall never go back

To that muted color
On that darkest day
Where that light to guide us
Showed the way

Immortality is over
We are now doomed
To succumb to our future
As our destinies loomed.

As we were shot down
To the pits of Tartarus
My fate was no longer
Ambiguous

We were forgone
Forever to roam
The pitch black world
Always to moan

That muted color
On darkest day
Was unfortunately one
To never stay

He got expelled this time.

He wasn't sent to
In-school suspension
Or lunch detention
Or the counselor's office.

He was expelled from
Fairfax County Public Schools.

And his friends all freaked.

They sat outside the school
Every morning
And wouldn't go in
To protest.

They signed a petition
That called him a
"Well rounded student"
And
"Well loved by the student body."

I didn't love Brian.
I hated Brian.

Brian was the kid
Who always
Made the class
Stay late.

He was the kid who
Went through the halls
Grabbing peoples butts.

He was the kid that
All the guys wanted to be
And all the girls wanted to have.

And instead of sending him off
To West Point
Where he would have to
Shave his Bieber hair and
Follow the rules for once,
The county revoked the expulsion.

And to me
It seems like
A celebrity murdered someone
And because a thousand fan letters were sent in
They got to go free.