And as the teacher said goodbye to her graduating class
filled with children she taught so much to,
she wondered where they would go,
and she wondered who they would be...

Would so-and-so make it through high school?
Would what's-her-name keep dancing?
Would that-one-boy ever stop talking and begin to listen to others?
Had she done enough to help them all?

It was no longer her responsibility;
she had set them free.

After a nostalgic sit, she walked home to a simple house,
in a simple town. Her husband waited
at the dinner table, silently admiring her curls,
as she sat down, ready to take in food and new information.

When she was at home, she was no longer the teacher,
but the student. Her children filled her soul
with things she never knew or imagined.
Her husband smiled and reminded her
that no one in this world is perfect,
but in his eyes, she was,
and that was all that need matter to her.

Too familiar with the unhealthy coping mechanism of numbing emptiness with mindlessness
Your hands are too tired of the math review you’re desperately trying to finish.
You find yourself
Tapping through Snapchat stories, barely paying attention to
The group selfies, of bright, well-lit rooms decked with Christmas decorations
Of red ribbons and green pine and mistletoe
Of the white glints of friends’ toothy smiles
Sometimes the snaps would be videos
With deafening, muffled sounds of cheers, people’s faces recognizable
Even when turned away, laughing, looking at the star, the subject of the snap
All the cameras point to her face as she dances
It’s a party, and the late realization makes you feel dumb
I wasn’t invited. But why would I be?
I’m the asocial one, the one who always has to politely decline with
“Sorry, I have to do homework, have to do this, have to do that”
They’re IB kids. You’re in AP. What’s your excuse?
You think as you sit in front of your fluorescent LED screen
The phone’s luminosity searing through your eyes
But you can’t tear them away from the festive scene playing in front of you.
They’re having fun. It’s nighttime, 11:04, 5 seconds in, but
The environment in your house versus theirs
Seem 12 hours apart, night and day,
You squint, because wow, everyone is there. The close ones, the acquaintances,
That one guy you had to sit next to once in homeroom.
It’s almost Christmas.
You glance around your room.
No cat in sight, mother upstairs, conked out.
Your phone isn’t even alive. The snap has long been over. No vibrations of incoming texts.
You sigh.
Only a semester left.
And your fingers wearily
Pick up the pencil
And you resume
Alone.

Kathy Ann cut the hair of Mr. Diatribe,
recently deceased,
and glued his soft golden locks
to her pink phone case.
Fuzzy, calming, cathartic.

The scholars took this as evidence that she truly loved him
for all the favoritism
for all the joking
for all the flirting
for all the gentle touches
and for all the extra credit he offered her.

She raised her phone to the sky and declared
“This is my trauma on display,
for all the world to see.
It changed my life forever.
He will never part with me.”

Sophia asked her
“Wouldn’t you rather move on
and build a better society?
Imagine a school with free lunches,
no homework, no grades, bully-free.
Co-operation and learning only.”

“I’m still ****** up about it,” said Kathy Ann.
“It sounds good but I don’t believe.”

“That’s okay. I love you.”

“Some day, I will too. Thank you.”

The way you hug me
The way you talk with me without voice
The way you need me

Is enough to show me that I'm still needed
Soundless love that motivates me to live
Thank you, my dear student

If it wasn't for you,
I would feel so worthless
Thank you for keeping me alive.

I read about death and violence

I proof read,
and top up
and eject
and print
and scan
and hand in
and sometimes I get full marks.

Mark.
Marks
Marks on the body.
Mark my words.
(Mark my work.)
Karl ******* Marx
The communist who launched a thousand memes.

My oh my.

//

The necropolitical is like a funnel
a filter,
a sieve.
Like baking,
only you didn't forget to put the oven on
and people are inside the oven and so are you.

It's not like with the toaster
when ur mum tells u to scrap the black crumbs into the drain.

It's not like you can unburn the burnt.
Oh and the skin grafts?
There's a waiting list for that.
The waiting list?
There's a form for you to get on that.
The forms?
You need to print them out.
The printer?
OUT OF ORDER.
Buy your own.
OUT OF STOCK.
Your bank balance?
FUNDS INSUFFICIENT.
Your bank?
Sorry you have reached us out of outside of our operating hours.

Outside
Outside of our
Outside of our operating
of our operating hours
operating hours
and hours
and hours
and hours
Thanks for holding! A representative will be with you shortly...

[Dave Dobbyn music continues playing through the phone]

I.

“You can only fight the way you practice”
― Miyamoto Musashi, A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy

His lessons started late
As always, and as always
What is thrown is a question
You grip tightly
around your fingers
as one would,
as one always should.

With a branch he beckons:
“Come” he asks,

“if a stick is struck from this angle,
what would your answer be?”

Always, the old man taught
With each strike, each parry,
Each disarm and lock,
Each time my knuckles
Would hurt. This way
he makes it sure
that my body
remembers.

This is always
the first step.
My mind might forget.
But the body
Remembers.


II.

“It is difficult to realize the true Way just through sword-fencing. Know the smallest things and the biggest things, the shallowest things and the deepest things.”
― Miyamoto Musashi, The Book of Five Rings: Miyamoto Musashi

With him, everything starts
The vague quality of nonwords
Taught from pain, simplified
Through science:

the fulcrum and the lever.

Each joint, each turn,
a pattern to comprehend,
all things work in context:

A framework of the undeniable
Fact:

the world is separate
In only these two words:

Taub at Tihaya

The colloquial words for
Face down and face up;
This is a pattern
of the body.

III.

“If you wish to control others you must first control yourself”
― Miyamoto Musashi, A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy

Tihaya

The lesson starts
When he presses
His thumb forward
to a hand asking for alms
like turning a doorknob
too far to the right.

Taub

when I pull back
four fingers
on a giving hand
too far to what is left.

these are the means
for control.
When I know
How much is necessary
To push or to pull,
To teach or to break.

- 18 October 2017

In this place
chopping so much your hand cramps,
so you have to hold it by the wok
for five minutes before it unclenches,
is something to by proud of.

In this place
college students scoop and cook
to pay for school,
or pay off school,
instead of applying what they learned,
which cost them more than money.

In this place
the line never sleeps,
you are Pavlov's dogs
trained to a bell.
And if you are unlucky enough
to be put in the kitchen,
you'll find it worse than Hell.

my days are numbered
in hindsight we see that our ends are fated
but my clock looms in front of my face while yours dangles off in the distance
you do not see death up close as i do
you do not see the haze that surrounds our existence
you only see sunshine
an overcast day or two in the grand scope
but all i see is darkness
with light tickling at its edges
my days are numbered
as are yours
but my clock ticks and ticks and ticks
while you do not know it exists
oh how blissful that blindness must be

I wrote student fees and it autocorrected to
fears

My friend was drunk and said CV
when they meant VC

Volunteering is sold to us like a product,
it's not that it's good in of itself,
it's good for your self,
it'll look good on your CV

it'll look good on your CV
it'll look good on your CV
it'll look good on your CV

if only you could see me
if only you could see me
if only you could see me

you'd see the way my face freezes or flinches
either one,
there is a pain that runs across my face like an electric shock

dehumanising someone is like they invented a wireless, handsfree, bluetooth way of stabbing someone,
you can do it without touching me,
but I can assure the pain in my chest will tell you otherwise,
you have cut me

please help me find the plug at the wall
help me restart
help me find the USB charger
help me connect

you've convinced me that if I claw at my arm long enough
wires will spark and spit at me
I am a machine because you treat me as one

like when they ask for my number at Student Health
or they ask for my number at Studylink
or they ask for number at the Bank
I remember I am nothing like everyone else.

Does logging off look bad on your CV?