Current money systems usually collect
   Lots of personal information about users
      This information can be vulnerable to hacks
         And also identity theft, control, and censorship
            Many people do not want sensitive personal
               Information and documents stored online
                  Therefore
               Since it’s not criminal to want some privacy
            Let’s use a money system that doesn’t require
         Personal information simply to use money
      And doesn’t require submitting documents
   Which remain on vulnerable databases
We have this money now, in Bitcoin

Long sacred
It now is unguarded
A sacred discarding
With allies now caving
I ask in this world
Is our nation worth saving?

In cities, country-

men speak softly, everywhere --


someone will listen.

My private statements

have been made public, although --


I wasn't under oath.

Automatic face

recognition: wearing masks --


for your privacy.

Making sure
she kept to the right
of her best misdemeanors,

Rising slowly,
incrementally above her
sub-basement failures

Looking for all
the world like the world
owed her a life
time of favours

Striding unnoticed
past her past
jailers, her angry slavers

Throwing her chains
into the back of her dark
red Daimler

Passing sixty
screaming for privacy

Dying for worthy.

The recent lockdown certainly made family the center of everything - from fun to daily irritations. But after a month of being at college - which I know, objectively, isn’t long - those memories seem like echoes from another life.

I love the sudden privacy college has provided - like I’ve personally rediscovered something seemingly new.

I get calls from high school friends who were close as skin a few short weeks ago and there seems to be a disconnect which certainly isn’t because they’ve been “replaced” with new friends.

I’ve always been slow to mesh with new people so I’m trying hard to look engaged in social situations. “Get OUT there and meet people!”, everyone tells us. So I’m working on it - practicing my best fake, friendly smile in mirrors for when deep down inside I want to run.

At least I’ve hit it off with one of my suite-mates, Leong (thank god). She‘s from Macao, China (the “Las Vegas” of Asia) which is about 41 miles from where my family used to live in Shenzhen. When I started talking to her in Cantonese she shrieked with joy - now we can evaluate everyone and everything with delightful discretion.

My classmates are SO smart that classes move really, REALLY FAST.
“Everyone got that?” the professor says, no frantic hands waived “Moving ON!”

If I daydream for 30 seconds - I come back and - “WAIT, huh? - what are we talking about?” It’s not like high school at ALL - it’s actually scary.

So I’m moving on.

The eyes have made their way back
once again, to pry on what I lack.

The eyes open wider as I undress
the layers of old skin that I won't address.

The eyes skim on each hair
that stands up as I lay bare.

The eyes that once died have resurrected again
to see what's in store for them to gain.

The eyes drown in opportunities,
as they fail to see their inner mutinies.

Yet, their eyes never dry out
from their bed of lies from which they live out.