To start your mornings with
blood on your hands
smearing across pages
is
incriminating
and inspiring
And you must know
if you were to slice open
my veins would also
spill black fountain ink
If you were to sever my tongue
my hands would speak
for me
Go ahead and gouge my eyes
I can still see
And when I die I desire
to be cut as a cadaver
All the words visible
under paper-white skin
so they will know, too.
I do not aspire to be a skeleton
with brittle bones
I want blood
to pour with every pinprick
of a pilot pen pressed
on a page
But blood makes people squirm
Blood makes people gag
so I intend to
leave this world
with a crime scene behind me.
Let them shake and shudder
for they know not
the life they’ve lost
They live in fear of papercuts
and I carve myself open
again and again
And I will continue to
until I bleed out
and my ink dries up
If it sounds violent it’s
because it has to be
The world could use a
few more bloodstains
Makes it more uncomfortable
Makes it more interesting.

I feel breathless at any speck of thought —an idea— crossing my mind. I am restlessly wishing for something, prying for crumbs, and my mind is slowly sinking. Breathing words for oxygen, concepts for nutrients. I am a starving girl in a desert of words.

Astonish the world with humanity.
Amaze it with acts of kindness.
Stun it with creativity.
Shake it with exceptional ideas.
Bewilder it with compassion.
Astound it with forgiveness.
Reveal to it the best of being.
Surprise it with a soft heart.
Impress it with generosity.
Light it up with optimism.
Guard it against abuse and injustices.

Hussein Dekmak

On cool, starry, fall, indigo-blue night walks, it’s so beautiful that it’s hard to believe we’re mid-catastrophe.

That sunrise will dawn on countrymen whose heavy burdens our national leaders won’t even publicly discuss much less address.

File hope under other names - we need changes and new leadership - hey, you adults - can we please just try a government of concerned professionals?