Chopsticks and Friends
Chopsticks and Friends
Chopsticks and Friends
Chopsticks and Friends
Chopsticks and Friends
Chopsticks and Friends
Chopsticks and Friends
Chopsticks and Friends
Chopsticks and Friends
Chopsticks and Friends
Chopsticks and Friends
Chopsticks and Friends
Chopsticks and Friends
Chopsticks and Friends





Until when are you going to write random things?

*Haha.

You can't eat yogurt
with chopsticks
Believe me I know
I just tried

Not a spoon was in sight
We had Chinese last night
Saw chopsticks and had
to decide

So I plunged with the stick
In the yogurt...not thick
My first scoop
was less than desired

I could be here all day
Yes eating this way
was definitely
making me tired

So I picked up the cup
The chopsticks did chuck
With a slurp and a guzzle
so quick

Lesson learned
Lesson lived
You can't eat yogurt
with chopsticks

Maybe it's the way the national flag flies so high
Despite the country's imperfections
Maybe it's the way we're united
Not separated, despite the difference in cultures,
Believes, traditions, languages

Maybe it's the way you see an Indian eating with chopsticks,
The way you see a Malay in a saree,
The way you see a Chinese making ketupat's for Hari Raya.

Maybe it's the unity you see,
Maybe it's the goosebumps you feel when you say Merdeka,
Maybe despite the hate you have towards history,
Deep down, you know how grateful you are to be Malaysian.

Maybe it's the way you walk into a mamak,
And say
" tauke tapau roti canai 1 milo ais 99 "
And maybe,
It lies in diversity,
Beyond everything else.

*Malaysia, tanah tumpahnya darahku.

I pluck stars with chopsticks straight out of the night
bring them to my lips and kiss their fire
drop them into my bucket filled with seawater fresh from the shore
and watch them sizzle and spit and fizz and spark
and when it seems their fire is all gone with my chopsticks to save my fingers from their burn I flip them back into the sky and watch them reignite and shine back in the place I plucked them from.

i.

the poem has a beginning exactly as you’d expect it:
pa in sweatshirt, ma with purse; the funny thing is
i never used to call them those names:
“pa,”
“ma,”
always found them too cowboy-ish,
too un-me, un-like

us: who held chopsticks before dinner time and shared
stories of how grandpa came over from china.

ii. (at the dinner table)

there is no symbolism here. there has been none
for a while now. this household eats and
eats in quiet. my grandmother is a poet but their
books all burned down

back in ’45 when mao stormed into fujian and
all her uncles could eloquent on was that
“the communists were coming!”
“the communists were coming!”
and instead of poems took with them their
children, and their gold to pawn

and their clothes on their muddy
mortar-stained backs

and the japanese

iii.

my grandfather now comes twice a week to the
hospital for chemotherapy. it is a nice hospital.
good view of the cleanest part of our *****

city. there are lights and white folks now. two things
my dad said did not used to be there. they

used to be spanish. they tilled
our rice fields and spent the money on living rooms
with lots and lots of space to sleep. we on the other hand,
worked. he claims.

your grandfather and his grandfather and i

iv.

awake every sunday morning at precisely 8:30.
made to go down to the temple in kalesas
and told to fetch the office paper for
noontime reading. see we weren’t spoiled: grew

up just next to the pasig river which back in
the 70s did not smell as bad as sin only
sweatshirts

and the sweat we soaked them in we reeled along
steamed fish heads and chopsticks for picking at them with
and bowls of rice we never really ate with spoons.

v. (back at the dinner table)

i listen to my mom and dad
sweat profusely in the evening heat only we can have here
he in his sweatshirt and she
with her golden purse,

preparing to leave - a wedding party awaits -
an jacket draped over his shirt just like grandfather used to do it
in a sense,
but gripping the chopsticks delicately for all us
to see:

“pa,”
“ma,”

v.

it is not cowboys that give us our names.

apple

did you imagine red?
so did I
which is weird because the apples I eat are kind of yellow

asia

I said asia
not China

I remember the time
my history professor told my class to imagine asia
I thought of an exotic
country
with arab sheiks
and snake charmers

the Chinese
the Japanese
chopsticks
and the orient

it was then that she pointed out
"haven't Western ideas just messed with you?"

and it was then that I realized
"Wait; I'm Asian. I've lived in Asia all my life."
how come I saw it as something foreign
and strange?
I've never even seen the things I imagined.

I remember when I watched Big Bang Theory
and the four friends sat down to Thai food
Raj made the mistake of asking, "where are the chopsticks?"
which led to Dr. Sheldon Cooper saying
(in this paraphrased version:)
"they don't use chopsticks. They use spoons and forks.
The fork doesn't go into their mouth.
They use it to push food unto the spoon, which then goes into their mouth."

I sat there thinking..
well that's weird

when a couple of months later as I watched the episode again
I realized
that's how my people eat!
that's how I've always eaten..

the houses I picture in an average neighborhood
are two story
concrete structures
with shingled roofs

cul-de-sacs
and oak trees

my own house
is one story
of brick and wood
it is beside a highway
and surrounded by guava trees
and coconuts

I don't even know what a picket fence is.

Poetry is like sushi.
Sushi contains
Rice & goodies  
Wrapped in nori.
Both are combined rolled
Into cylinders
Then cut
Into rolls.

Poetry
Is sounds  &  tropes
Rolled into images
Each poem
A unique
Experience.

When you
Eat Sushi
With chopsticks
You are too  eat
the rolls
with just  one bite
Sampling the wholeness
of the taste
and presentation.


May you
Devour
This poem
On the chopsticks
Of your feelings
And sample
The flavor
In the ink.

I am the only Asian in this bar right now.
Be my friend!
I will check the box of your social diversity quota.
Granted, I only speak a mispronounced fraction of
my immigrant parents' native tongue.
Ala Jackie Chan, I do not understand the words coming out the mouths of anyone on that massive continent (Russia included) that I appear to be more or less from.
But, I do eat spaghetti with chopsticks.
I am mystical as
fox, or Kitsune, in Japanese folklore.
I can hit you with wisdom worthy of a fortune cookie as fast as Google can tell you that the Philippines is nearly 2000 miles away from China. I want to say I'm from an exotic island where they play basketball in sandals and drink soda from plastic bags- like, A-level material you could make a movie out of in Slumdog Millionaire fashion and get awarded for your romantic portrayal of poverty you think is three worlds away from home. But nah, I'm just a kid from South Florida. Paved driveways and cul de sacs. But I do pump both fists in the air watching Manny Pacquio PPV fights on a bootleg stream. Beyond that, I'm probably the worst Asian there is. Not the crazy rich kind with a PHd. I dropped out of engineering after one semester and cannot solve a rubix cube. I never learned kung fu. Though I'm learning to face the adversity of becoming a single parent after my daughter's home broke in two. I write marketing proposals to pay the rent and poetry to fight without fighting in the spirit of Sun Tzu. My eyes do not slant in the direction of your narrative. I once ran in a pick up game where I caught the nickname of Yao Ming. Yao, I am 5 foot 8. Though I fall short of expectation, I can still check your diversity box on the way down and do a cool pen spin after to punctuate my intellectual prowess. I also happen to own an assortment of Japanese swords made in China, which I intend to use as heirlooms. This is what cultural colonization looks like: me, in a bar, the last samurai standing confused in an age of melting pots, Korean tacos and Asian slaw made by corporate imposters with names like PF Chang. What in the slaw is Asian? I wish I knew!  I wish I knew the true value of my heritage to be worthy of carrying it forward. Like how my grandfather planted a Malonggay tree in our backyard whose leaves my mother would pick and boil to make tinolang manok -the Filipino version of chicken soup- as a weeknight staple on our dinner table. I can barely soft boil an egg for instant ramen. Or how my motherland's socioeconomic gap tooth smile is so wide that it drove over 10 million of its native sons and daughters off its shores to find work overseas as servants on cruise ships and hospitals to feed the families they barely get to see. To follow their trail blazing footsteps, let me be the second generation tipping point where some form of cyclical tradition breaks. That way, I can raise my daughter free of predetermined scripts. So as the worst Asian in this or any bar, cheers:
to being the first of a new kind.

candlesticks caught up in your wristwatch grip bundled up burning chopsticks not frostbitten yet, flashlight to toes happy it still shows your glowing red interior

Contemplating life
over a hot bowl of soup,
my mindful mentor
passed me
the pleasure of oyster
to mix in with
the pain of chilies
stirred together by
chopsticks held in my hands.

There he taught me
the lesson of humanity
and the person's potential,
pointing at me
and then back at the bean sprout,
fiddling it in his chopsticks
as if he were God,
mentioning to me
"This sprout and you have plenty alike..."

"What do you mean?
How am I like a vegetable?"

He smiled and nodded to disagree,
"Life is not always physical.
Think for a second,
open your fragile closed mind.
Imagine this soup not just a bowl
but instead a cauldron,
the mixing of different elements,
sensations seared by heat
to create the luxuries we call
the world where you
are a mere bean sprout."

Looking at the small, colorless
tasteless, inferior plant,
I wondered, confused and asked:
"Am I so inferior in this world
that I cannot compare
to the rich flavor of beef,
to the nurturing noodles,
to the accenting spices,
but instead am no more
than a flavorless root?"

Yet my mentor laughed,
and patiently passed:
"You worry too much young one,
too much on yourself you blame.
Instead, take upon consideration
that the bean sprout is small,
fragile, tasteless like water;
there is nothing you can change
other than size and color,
but lower it into the soup
and patiently stir,
allow it to soak up the world
and obtain its potential."

I repeated his actions,
placed myself in the world,
sat patient and absorbed its essence,
and then removed it,
placed it to my lips.
Surprised that what I later discovered
was not a bland taste of disappointment arose
but instead what lingered to the tongue
was the sweet taste of near perfection.

Like bears gnawing at the wood
And swings that go about
They sit and cross another
For that bark would even bite its brother

It took one night in the same room
with the next four months left up to the universe
to figure out that the greatest plans
will never be the ones we make in advance
and with the help of you words
to pick the lock on my brain
there is no way in hell that I could ever allow myself
to ignore every sign along the way
and walk past the capability
of being in love with you.

I'm half asian so everyone thinks I speak 'asian'
Which just goes to show their ignorance, thinking that's a language
Another strange causation because of my 'asianness' is that I:
Can always win arguements with Wyatt by stating this fact
Was declared a ninja even before my skills were proven
I surprise people with my appearance and when I reveal my ethnicity as they believe initially that I'm mexican, italian, or spanish
Was assumed to have gone to the same church as all the others
Am considered strange, exotic, weird, genius, awesome, and stupid
Am endearingly called a 'short asian woman/lady/girl' by friends
Oh and I love love love love chopsticks, rice, and spicy foods.
Pass the srirachi and pepper please

i imagine heaven, as seeing copernicus balancing himself, while riding a bicycle for the first time, seeing how he theorised the imbalance of the geocentric model... mind you: the heliocentric model for writing history... kinda ******, isn't it? not much to go around, landing on the moon, probes to saturn, lovely pictures... to me? we're still living in a geocentric world, since most of history happens in the geocentric model, rather than the heliocentric model of: dwarfing man... plus, readings maps doesn't really help even if you know that the earth isn't flat... o.k. smart ***, you navigate a car across europe, from england to a remote city in eastern poland!

memory is such a fickle faculty of the mind,
made twice as fickle (some for of "natural"
selection) - most assuredly an ontological
anomaly - but i remember this one particular
morning, where i had to take a photograph
of the vanilla / raspberry / rose hue clouds,
while pumping myself for the day ahead
at 7a.m., listening to *jethro tull's
my god - ah, the flute man, i sometimes
imitate it, puffing out clouds of biblical
verse citing: the fire ahead, and the smoke
behind, will guard your path upon
the woken ask for: an exodus out egypt.
after all, i'm all for free speech,
but when a freedom is lacking,
and an insidiousness overcomes a first
comment of a site like you-tube...
       debating bands, "trying" to broaden
the young minds:
   i actually was introduced to king crimson
when i was circa 10 / 11...
      hell, depends who your father was...
people abused by trolls forget one major
point... the adrenaline rush you get
when being slighted...
      you know the effect of adrenaline in
this loser microcosmos?
  you know how powerful it can be?
you have to learn english a second time
even if you already speak it as an american,
or an australian...
              you have to pick out the best
bits: on the continent there's no such thing
as english humour, there's only
the macabre humour, or... dark humour...
prime ingredient?
oh don't be silly, it's not turmeric
(the poor man's saffron) - although that
could 'elp...
   it's? sar-casm!
     the english are renowned for it...
by the way, i once mentioned "chiromancy"
and i.q., i.e. how you hold a pen
or a fork / knife, or how you type without
ever glancing at the keyboard...
better add chop-sticks to the affair...
i prefer to call them pinch-sticks -
since you're most likely pinching your
food, rather than forking it...
and that: they're not exactly drum sticks
either...
            i wonder why high i.q. correlates
to culinary equipment...
        i fiddle with my beard,
scratch my head and state: no idea!
but... have you ever wondered why
thai curries are so much fresh than indian
or bengali? the indians use the base
of onion ginger and garlic,
and very few greens...
                 they're heavy on the stomach too,
but thai curries?
        so easy to digress on,
sorry, digest...
                   and these pinch-stick antics?
bewildering...
    i can't remember the last time i used
them,
but it's always the same cliche:
once you've learned how to ride a bike,
once you've learned how to swim,
once you've learned how to use chopsticks,
you can't forget how to,
even with a ridiculous amount of hiatus.
odd, isn't it?
   well, i find it odd...
see, when you come across a youtube troll
in the comments section,
be sure to turn a reply into a sarcastic snigger -
the english humour type,
recognise the adrenaline rush,
mention a small weener,
i know it's not exactly bungee jumping,
just recognise the adrenaline...
  and **** me it's there, esp. (like me) you've
had a few drinks "too many"...
it's easy prey... you can turn into
the most obnoxious antithesis of a troll
that a troll begins to cower...
   i'm not for safe spaces or curbing a freedom
of speech, but, come one:
you mention a few bands that are the neo-alt.
from the 1970s in the prog rock movement,
why settle on citing a want for kids reading
to led zeppelin... or black sabbath...
no one mentioned deep purple either...
guess what ****** of guitar store workers more:
deep purple's smoke on the water,
or led zeppelin's stairway to heaven?
  oddly enough? the latter.
i just hate hearing the news of teenagers being
"sold" suicide after being abused online -
esp. girls...
        come on, if you're being trolled,
turn into an englishman, become sarcastic,
watch some fawlty towers, some monty python,
and then spin it with things like:
i'm getting a hard-on, or: my ****'s getting wet...
pick 'n' mix...
          the only way to effectively disperse these
"saints" of free speech is to become
a bigger troll than they are...
  and how does one overcome a troll?
one becomes an orc.

you know what i find funny? the phrase: i could eat you. juxtaposing vide cor meum against... this is the part where punctuation marks are never collision prone diacritical marks... but then again, there's that dietary joke... i could eat you... dependence on your bones not being properly disavowed within a langoustine broth... and there you are: a grey area mindful of Stalin... *****! i'm trying to humanise ******, stop interrupting! where once a moths' flutter, later a rainbow in the nacht! mind that niqab... nicht would mean nothing. some insinuated cappuchino, some cackles... some said cutie-pies invoking rouge cheeks... every time i watch these culinary shows i get thinking about cannibalism to counter veganism... and then i laugh... i don't want to find stinking socks and political correctness as "my way, did it to suit Lascaux cavern graffiti"... i preferred wanking than keeping up with women... it's the song i heard before lambs stiffened and muslims became muslims, and falafel was mince... ******, get under the hosepipe and you're there, all freely gagging for the fizz... a touch of tinsel... vide cor meum... return of policy... as half-heartfelt kaleidoscope returning to define a rainbow... i love that phrase given the palette opportunity... i could eat you. it's the demonic encouragement that solidifies the stench into what's to be seasoned properly... i don't know.. the phrasing: i could eat you sounds more formidable in delayed practice than: i can **** you... plus the gazpacho... which means: Batman ate cold cauliflower soup and slurred to slurp the question: but it's cold? Baldwin replied: it's supposed to be! they said orthography as a rigidness of aesthetic, i said... that's questionable whether any is applicable, given we're talking about graffiti.

i got tired of sensing other people's jealousy,
and tried to love them,
which ended up to be as much as a matrimony
toward one woman, ambition-bound
to incarnate the matrimony of swans...
  and the poor old ******, left to fantasy in
his days as a widower...
   every time i look at a lonely swans
i try to duck-quack the thing into existence...
            but there are variation of marriage...
a west london accountant can speak terrible
crap against an ethnicity i try to not identify with...
but i am courageously borne from,
    and therefore have to express some affiliation...
as a matter of principle...
  i rather not, but iu must, even though i sprechen
a host tongue... and am, therefore,
embedded with claims of socialite elitism...
                 but then i compare...
and these these comparisons are the due phrase...
Marilyn Manson's *a minute of decay
is a chance to hear the bass guitar overpower
           the drums... a bit like a culinary pistachio
moment in a risotto...
   i want room to breathe in!
     i want vaughan williams' fantasia on a theme
by thomas tallis... i sanctify the need
   for prokofiev's lieutenant kíjé's suite...
(dots are optional, the syllables aren't,
a classical dot above the iota might revel in
being the defining moment of tonguing /
dissecting a word... but it doesn't have to be so)
i need air to breath in, a moment to whimper...
why do the **** love Chopin and not Liszt?
   a bid ******* odd... i don't like either Chopin
or Liszt... because as Kaiser Yoseph said
in amadeus... to many notes...
and i agree... vivaldi made violins into cherub
       pumpernickle sparrows -
you danced, you joyed, you came across St. Vitus' dance...
   you were doing arithmetic as concord speed
within a framework of even (white) and odd (black)
numbers... once you played the nocturnal Fabergé -
someone suggested you move the ******
  goose to the Hermitage, and frame it!
why are the Japanese are the only Europeans in Asia...
      never mind, they just are,
hence they compete for playing Chopin like they consider
sushi to be a culinary exception of the tartar -
minus the influence, obviously, hence the stress to
impose Chopin... but never Liszt... odd...
          template virtuoso and you think of Liszt
than you might conjure Chopin...
           better than that... conjure champagne
bottles blundering to the volcano's worth of fizz...
still... the Japanese are a curiosity...
first of all: they abide by Chopin and chopsticks
not being utilised when gobbling sushi...
   they have the ambassadors of kimono,
samurai, origami, karaoke, bonßai (zye, rye),
          Fukushima... Hiroshima... yep, that place
were stanley lee derived the concept of x-men...
          still, they have permanent ambassadors in
opur midsts... words that can't be "translated" due
to etymological puritanism...
       finally the Portuguese sailed away, and founded
Brazil on the promise of an infinite supply of toothpicks
from the Amazon -
or? hai sensei!           hatch that with the catchphrase:
     kajagoogoo: shy-shy, hush-hush, eye-to-eye.
          we're storming the labyrinth right not,
and i still can't believe that poetry revolves around
the rhythm of rhyme... play any ping-pong, lately?
     no wonder poetry is a peacocking dollop
of clogged-up cow dung... it's just asking
for a *****-slap in a playground.
           but why Chopin and not Liszt?
the **** are what Napoleon was to the Duchy of
Warsaw... they love that arithmetic of
a pebble-dasher's *******...
       wet dreams... some authentic curiosities of
civilisation still have them... i wouldn't recommend
listening to them recounting the fables, personally...
i'd listen in on the succubus jerking them off...
  and just recently i was walking the deaf streets at
night with a bottle of beer and felt the bottle
of beer almost being tugged from my hand...
  and some say that eating a woman's umbilical-chord
is what's necessary to live as a man to later
sing some aria; or like drinking a pregnant woman's
**** will ensure you don't become myopic...
             i don't like Chopin,
i don't like Liszt either... i want a room, and a chance
to breathe... at the end of the classical expression
summarising the wind, we had a return
to the rooting in Africa... earthly delights
and a grumbling stomach in need of feeding,
  jazz did the work for us, jazz still had
an orchestral element to add a Lacan of all things
worthy of deconstruction...
       but then the French came along and shoved
fondue into our ears... and we said
alight with an eureka moment... pop!
             n'ah... the moment when the bass overpowers
the drums... i really have this wild fascination
with the bass guitar...
                 because i don't get Mozart,
and i do think that Handel did much more than
even the sacrificial lamb that Beethoven is...
                  listen... poetry doesn't have to be
music... rhyming is ping-pong anyway...
but as long as you feel in debt concerning music,
the music will come on its own accord...
today i was rattled by a mix of dub (without a step)
and beck's odelay... cruise-missile dylan...
give or take...
      well, given the italicised pr.s. (pre scriptum) -
much later an aged blonde boasted about snorkeling
******* and young ****... and missing out
when she teased me coming back to her abode...
           moth steals from a butterfly,
butterfly never turns into a daisy...
                       you're still a **** and i'm about
half of the total worth of being a ****...
which makes as equal... or queue more.
           variably condoned to be synonym with
mosque...  but i said mannequin...
     it's this **** with the five a day....
Christendom mentioned fruit & veg...
Islam mentioned variations of a murmur...
   is prayer classified as fruit, or vegetable?
you're as bewildered as i am...
   i too thought tomato is a fruit...
turns out it's a vegetable...
primarily due to basil, feta, and the mediterranean.
               herring belong in the baltic,
******* attempting that sort of ballistics...
ask about the relationship between
              a. yan sobieski
         b. ******
                    c. window on arabia (vienna,
counter st. petersburg) -
     oh you'll get many thanks...
sure... you'll end up becoming assured
that dogs don't need petting, but training,
and that you have to make all friends bound
to be kenneled, because they won't learn otherwise;
it's a bit sad...
          for about a minute...
                   you tried being peace-abiding,
peace-mindful...
   you wanted to state compassion...
  in the end people need a slap... or as 2000 years of
history proved... a crucifix.

We walk the smoke-thick winter street of sweet 'n' sour aromas
amongst a throng of oriental shaded faces (such gentle souls)
who crowd  little pushcarts selling scallion pancakes.
Overhead, red talismanic paper lanterns bob, enticing us
to the tap of percussive chopsticks.

We sit in awe; snack on duck-tongue; roast pigs hang
glistening; fat-fresh, ready to fry.
Waiters wheel trolleys piled high with steaming shrimp noodles
past tables of golden oranges and watermelon seeds.
Our Chinese chef prepares shredded pork in garlic sauce.

He smiles and says:
"More guests means more happiness."

Chopsticks
Don't look down
Don't fall
Don't worry
Don't give in
Don't listen
Ignore them
Ignore the thoughts
Keep moving
Keep thinking
No don't
Don't think
You'll fall
Chopsticks
They're frail
Don't falter
Push forward
Keep moving
Keep going
Keep moving
Don't think
Trust them
They don't lie

They snapped

Along the sidewalks of Somerset Street
People pass upon purposeful feet
Rice and noodles up for all
We each hear the call
Come! There is much here to eat.

From the western end we embark
Just near where we usually park
On the street's sunny side
Past diverse shops we stride
Windows hung with ducks roasted dark.

To the place we were aiming to get
A table with chopsticks is set
There we eat such a meal
That it fills us with zeal
A lunch that we won't soon forget.

Someone once asked me
questions I would answer blandly
they weren't what I wanted to answer
Questions of perfect dates
and perfect people
when simply
I wanted them to ask
"What is you favorite flower?"
I could respond with my fascination
with these tiny
white petaled
flowers
ones that made me smile
so wide
eastern Europe could see my teeth.
I wanted someone to ask
about my favorite food
So i could respond
with this amazing blend
of rice and fish
and seaweed and other ingredients
but I'd add
that I only eat them with chopsticks

I would look at them and ask
If I was to fall in love with you
could we share these things
and face the world?
but I couldn't do that
because who wants me,
the girl who wants **Sushi and daisies.

I don’t always wash my hand when I ***. I am stubborn to the point of the ridiculous. I can’t understand people who don’t need their own space but at the same time I get lonely very easily. I narrate my own life like some kind of second rate soap opera. Sometimes I ******* out of sheer boredom but never *** because no matter how good it feels I am not really that interested. I get bored of people I am sleeping with very quickly. Even though I don’t like being in them I sometimes create ruts. I have very unhealthy relation ships with men and only ever fancy emotionally distant ******* with huge laundry lists of emotional problems because I am not wholly comfortable with being loved. I post pictures of my self semi naked on the internet because I like being desired without intimacy. I am terrified I am mentally defective like my great aunt Doris.  I hate my mother’s first name. I have always wanted to come from aristocratic stock and attend private school. I eat in bed. I use my size as an excuse so I don’t have to try to find love because then I would have to let someone in. I am scared of my manipulative side. I lie to well. I leave fresh flowers in their vase till they wilt and die because there is something morbidly beautiful about the sad crinkled mass it reminds me how closely linked we as humans are to our own mortality, I tell people I do it because they dry better that way. Sometimes I tell people things to appear more interesting than I am but when I tell the truth it is always more interesting, I still do it though. I am desperately afraid that if I do seek a psychological test I will be perfectly normal. I practise jokes in my head before I say them sometimes. I get scared when people expect me to share my own feelings or opinions and often make up ******* so I don’t have to divulge things. The shyer I am the louder I get. I once tried to jump off a bridge because of a boy. My parents ***** about each other to me, I just like the attention. My father has never directly told me he loves me. I hate sharing but because my mom instilled it in me as a child I find it ridiculously hard to say no. The more trivial something is about me the less likely I am to share it. I hate the feeling of puckering fingers after they have been in water and I always get angry doing the washing up. I got my first tattoo because I wanted to lay the artist. I eat with chopsticks because I don’t like getting food on my hands. I can be incredibly competitive and I hate myself for it. I like having beautiful friends. I google people I like (whether that be in a romantic or non romantic way). I am scared of never being a mother.

I am that petite build, with that straight, black and shiny hair that every white girl envies.
I have those slanty eyes that turn into slivers when I laugh.
I love kimchee, rice and mandu.  There is never such a thing as too much garlic.  I put red pepper flakes/paste on everything.
I use chopsticks.
People think I'm "cute" and pat me on the head.  That drives me nuts.  It still happens and I'm 32.
I regularly tell people that I don't speak Korean, except for "Where's the bathroom?" and of course "Anyonghaseyo".
My skin turns a dark tan in the summer months and I wish I was more peachy or pale like the white girls whom I think are beautiful.
I wear glasses.
I love to read and research things and I'm a good, diligent student, but I'm terrible with math and science.
I'm musical.

****

I play the clarinet, not the piano, violin, or cello; like every "Asian" should play.
I'm a tom-boy; you will never find me in a tu-tu or frilly-like dress (in public).
I do not wear make-up.
I'm loud, boistrous and obnoxious at times.  I have a serious *****-mouth and I'm not reserved or "refined".
I ask the guy out; not the other way around.
My career is more important than "settling down"-- at least during this point in my life.
I choose to never have children -- EVER.
I bite my fingernails and I've never had a manicure.  I've never even been inside a manicure shop.
I am a fantastic driver.
I am the only person of color in my immediate and extended family.
Over 99.5% of my friends are white.
I have never been in a relationship with an Asian man.
I grew up in an all-white neighboorhood and when I saw the Vietnamese, Cantonese, and Hmong students at my elementary school, I always wondered what it must like to be "them".

In 2007 I lived in South Korea for 3 months.  I encountered complex questions concerning who I am.  Who am I, really?  Am I an adopted Korean?  Am I a "real" Korean? Am I a Korean-American?  Am I none of these?  Does it even matter?  I was left with a gaping hole in my chest of deeper questions, deeper insecurities, and a poignant feeling of loss.  I thought, back in the States that who I am there is who I really am.  But, here I am, in the country of my birth, surrounded by people who share my ethnicity.  This is who I really am, right?  I felt such a deep responsibility to be more Korean.  I felt that if I identified as "white" or even a Korean-adoptee, that I was betraying my culture, my People, my home.  But, while I was in my homeland of Korea, I was so homesick for Minnesota.

When I returned back to Minnesota around Thanksgiving time, a few months later, Eastern Social Welfare (adoption agency in Korea) found my birth mother, Yoon, Young-Hee.  They were able to confirm that she was indeed my mother.  They tried to tell her that I have begun a search and that I wrote a personal letter for her, waiting at the agency.  Once they mentioned me, Young-Hee hung up the phone and would not answer Eastern's calls over a course of a year.  Children's Home Society and Family Services in St. Paul, MN contacted me and said that Eastern Social Welfare suggested that I wait a few years and try again.  I waited 6 years.  Last Decemember I re-intitated the search with the hopes that Young-Hee had gained the courage to talk to the social worker.  I had prayed for this for so many years.  I visulized light and love surrounding her.  I asked God for help.  I have heard nothing from my social worker and it's been almost 10 months.

I am learning how to let go of this search and let go of Young-Hee.  I am learning how to take my healing and my identity into my own hands.  I have a million questions that I wish I knew -- questions about my birth family's medical history.  Questions about why she gave me up. Questions about her current family.  Endless questions.  Now, I have come to terms that my questions may never be answered.  I could always have a mystery around my birth and possibly the future cause of my death (until I am diagnosed with something).  Can I live with this ambiguity?  As of right now, barely.  I am barely able to keep myself from falling apart with the frantic wonderings of my mind.  But, this is something I have to live with every day.

The Adopted Korean Community often hears wonderful and inspiring stories of adoptees being re-united with their birth-families. This is not my story.  My story is the all-too-common story that is rarely heard.  No one wants to hear how your birth mother will not cooperate with the Korean social worker and even read a letter you wrote for her.  No one wants to face the fact that millions of adoptees around the world live with this reality, too.  No one wants to acknowledge the pain, the rejection, and the loss that prevails.  Why would anyone want to hear a story like that?  Well, people who do not find their birth families or are turned away by their birth families have a story to share too.  It may not be an "upper", but it's a pretty important story to hear, too.  It lets us remember how we've all felt this way at some point in our lives, as an adoptee.  Most importantly, hearing stories like this helps other adoptees cope and feel that it is okay if their birth families wish to not meet or communicate with them.  It's not the adoptee's fault.  Adoptees who do not have success stories need to hear that this happens to many others and that a giant rejection does not mean he or she is worthless and less "special" than an adoptee who has been fortunate enough to reunite.

Why is it that I so closely tie my identity and then my self-worth to my birth family?  Why can I not be sovereign unto myself?  I am Korean.  Yes, I am.  It doesn't mean I must do, be, act, believe, see, or think in a certain way.  I am human, too.  I choose to have little identities that I see myself as while in different situations, with different people.  Indentity is complex-  it often signifies one thing-- oh that, (points) THAT is a chair. But simultaneoulsy, identity can also be so fluid and flexible -- (points) THAT chair is a folding chair, but this one isn't. But they're both chairs.  Maybe in some situations I can be a folding chair.  I'd like to play around with identity and let the concept roll around in my mind.  The thinking error comes when we think we must be one, same thing at all times. That is when we become stagnant.  How refreshing it is that we get to have such fluid identities!

Like every person on Earth, I have many shades.  I have many identities, and I surrender the long, hard fight to conform to one identity or another. This is my life and this is who I am, so I reserve the right to identitfy with whatever and whomever I see fit to be ME! :-)

at what point wasn't it a way to bypass
the editorial scrutiny...
to directly engage with a reading
public...
why did i think this might be: any good?
i guess i only thought:
i need this out and i can't stash it
like a corpse...
into some damp cellar... like a morally
relativistic monstrosity of a sociopaths'
analogy of: "feels"...
   well, no **** Sherlock!
how i made the following reply...
is beyond me:

- believe me... i had more to write but i felt a sense of restraint... i'd like to see what a terse reply would make you focus on... so i'm scrapping the concept of handicap: heads up... now it all depends what you'll be choosey about... or not... because there's plenty in you reply i could quip about... well... then again: is being witty synonymous with being satirical? i'm not for intelligent / condescending humour on my part... personally i love the dryness of sarcasm... but then again: what's to like about the bluntness of nail-heads? just my take on... what exactly not to like about schadenfreude (what's not to like about schadenfreude)... i'd much prefer a humiliation of a leather gimp suit... so it seems: honesty is the best joke in play... there are too many stereotypes in England too... the best one i heard was by my Glaswegian english teacher in school... ahem... how was copper wire invented? two Scots arguing over a penny... like the stereotypical arsenal of deciphering the Jewry run wild in the realm of the gentiles... with the Scots... being our prized asset of: reverse stereotyping... i guess because knowledge of poor Hebrews is either a mystery or taboo... worse still... a mythology... and here i promised myself restraint... yet i'm experiencing something of a writing block and i... most probably found the most surprising alternative outlet... the eroteme lady - ms. query... so there must be nothing concrete about you... well... i too remember being a teenager prior to 2000 on those hotmail chatrooms where the acronym ASL could get you... all hot & bothered... don't take this the wrong way but i've heard that most writers, poet (i'm a chicken scratching doodler at best) reverted to the medium of correspodence... lucky you, "lucky" that i'm testing the waters on you... but don't worry... i've tested the medium with other people and wondered about their stamina... you are starting to gravitate toward psychiatrist status...  it's so strange though... not writing on abstract... blank... rather: inform sender... it's to them... all that *******, romantic or not... about writing for that one person... sure... **** it... write 'em a letter... don't mind about that trippy-*** poem of yours... you know? apologies if you come across as something of a punching bag for sounds... i hope no typos... well typos can be excused... ah these ****** articles about... wait wait... momentary lucidity... i was going to use some of this in my way of combating my writing block... the troubles in the english language... spelling... "approximation" drop the vowels realise: that's how the Hebrews wrote all along... treating their vowels like diacritical markers... the ****?! i feel like i'm being robbed in plain sight... because Copernicus didn't ******* realise jack-****... they pile it up with their Pope and the execution of ******* Galileo...  ugh... it takes some ******* nerve for these days to allow for this ****-centred kindergarten of events in man's... non-evolving history to continue like some: no ******* dodo exctinction ever took place... (agreed... the following are all faux pas... "invigorations") honey? babe? ms. anonymous gender fluid pronoun neutral... what's the informal, best? ms. avatar ms. harleyquinn the world's stupid? what are american stereotypes of europeans? come to think of it... that cookies is too big to take a bite from... you can't exactly base stereotypes having only seen tourists... since a tourist is a stereotype per se... i'd have to go to california... to get a californian stereotype... to georgia for the georgian stereotype...  wait a minute... Costa Rica... "hint hint"? Latino? that wasn't exactly... it was a fork in the road... the Sephardi... you're working from an avatar canvas... you're making allusions to... what i look like and it's like i'm a mesmerising doppelganger of al pacino... is there a chicago accent? i heard a lot of the ****** diaspora was lodged in that *******... i was terrible at accents... almost always a chamaleon... people still ask me where i'm from... so like this one-stand-up comedian in Edinburgh said... when he was quizzed about the geography of his accent... 'you might recognise my accent... it's... educated'... now that's that... isn't it? i could fake you an indian accent if i wanted to... perhaps a german accent too... but i could fake it... by the way... in these parts... biligualism can be treated as schizophrenia... just saying... somehow integration is not fully deserving the status that: not integrating decides... because... not integrating is... "safety first"... the dodo project alliance...  least of all... i've been dying to by a baseball cap with the Cleveland Indians old logo with chief wahoo... so stereotyping americans... it's beyond hard... it's like stereotyping Russian that are not in the vicinity of Moscow... some are probably Mongol remnants... their own idiosyncratic solipsists to their own... i'll take up my bicycle tomorrow and this drunken tirade will most probably fizzle out... i truly couldn't make up giving a toss about what's internalized americana stereotyping... not that i don't care... i just don't know... the currency of the nation sends me years and years of Ed Gein reinterpretations... what am i supposed to "say"? tomorrow i'll be up early and bothered about my bicycle as if it were a horse... but i'll still want to retain gravity with leaving you with this frankness of a reply... lobster-red probably implies if not simply implores: ginger and freckles... i like to think of suntans as serpents shedding skin... i suntan i'm a copperneck... i like the german sound on this... plus... it's readily available as compounded: kupfernacken... what's better? auburn-tease? kastanienbraunecken? i like the joy you feel with what you already prescribed me with.. that i know so little about you... that while i'm prodding you withhold giving me concreteness.... concreteness would allow me... disadvantage me to focus on "things" that are absolutely not necessary... so: i can focus on whether i'm not being pedantic enough and: misspelling...so... what's the stereotype surrounding Alaskan gurls?!

- thanks for being ascribed in getting my "mojo" back...for now...

- What do you mean? I'm surprised this is the shortest message you've sent. I was getting used to your drunk musings. [I say this with a smile but I know you don't like emojis or silly acronyms, and writing out "laugh out loud" sounds ridiculous... after all, you know how important sounds are to me].

- you just asked one of those questions that... is aligned with asking... 'what are you thinking'? the moral 'ought compass waved me a goodbye and if i haven't broken any laws to pursue the sort of freedom of though i currently enjoy... bypassing the need so stress a "freedom" of speech... writing is an extension of thought: not a prompt / invitation to speak... i'm surprised that you scrutinise the length of my replies... and were we to begin with? in the "easily offended" pile-up? well i'm still getting drunk... you're still an avatar mystery... but at least i'm waging a war on prosaic sobriety to boot... i guess i had to come clean at some point... i never write sober... i don't see the point of being: disengaged from the genuine (a longer version of a one word would have sufficed... but i'm lazy about the spelling... while at the same time... there's this critical theory approach done in some of the newspapers about english spelling... let's see if i get it right... dis-in-genius... for starters... disengenous.. horrid... aaah so terrible... dis-less-advantageous... disadvantageous... oh **** me... i wriggled into that one: all sound and proper...why ask me: what do i "mean"? - it's not that i don't like emojis (well, i don't) but... what the hell... there are better hieroglyphs to focus on than chiseled into pyramid stone: own... happy face... the Chinese were doing ******* x-ray gizmo **** at almost the same time... it's a focus loss... don't even get me started that *** = a Parisian hello with tendering the cheeks with... a labyrinth of smooches... my lips are my pouches blah blah blah... you seem to be enjoying my rants... i gather? i don't even know why to bother with an ask (question doesn't even do justice to how i'm framing this)...  you want to write as little as possible to properly excavate me... well no surprise... if light can't bend around corners... i'll have a look: none-the-less... emphasis on the hyphens... this poor down-trodden word could be helped with some "breathing space"; no? i "mean": 霜... shoo-aang... frost... i have dancing skeletons throwing toothpicks at chopsticks pilled up in an area of pine wood... look at this sort of *******... and here we are... cradling one of the old languages with "holes in letters"... to peer through... O now i see... B: otherwise: ha, ha ha ha... what's **** in Chinese? the Greek prized π... but what P & I look like for a farting, mandarin? hey presto: "@"... not even a western concern for "patriarchy" could have complicated: what's already too complicated... a billion people... a wall... that didn't keep out the Mongols from invading... yet a phonetic encoding system that... would topple each and every pyramid... from Giza to the cleaving of South America from Africa that can be staged at some Aztec "miracle"... i am writing (to) you like a bewildered person... because: why wouldn't i otherwise not be? so what do i mean? hmm... what's that holy trinity of statistical terms... mean... meridian... mode? i think i remember correctly... thank god i'm not going to apologise for being drunk... i've heard the stereotypes of drunkards with no future for thirst... the other thirst... the thirst for something beside their own handicap... i'd also duly convert to Islam too... i was cycling past a mosque and heard the most impossible sound of praise that will never escape me... but by the bottle i did: closer to the Jewry i am... contradictory how that is... don't want to stop drinking... uncircumcised... it's a really magical juggling act that's littered with self-deprecating humour interludes... aligned with norse mythologies... grr... **** me... now i'm attempting to "sell" you a makeshift tinder profile sketch... don't know... never will... never used: don't ask...  but i forgive you... for asking me: what does "it" all mean? it means we're for the thrill of it... it makes sense if we're still gagging for it... and we're not exposed to old-age closure cinematic scripts of solo cinema of memory... i like typing because i have itchy fingers... you'd probably like to hear me speak... no? it's exactly 20 minutes past midnight and i have a date with a bagel at 9am tomorrow morning... i still want another injection of truth in me before i do the  lady nox some justice and sleeping with her fiendish daughters... i mean... who does that... wake you up with a hard-on? never mind... i don't even know how to end this "convo": it can't be with a farewell... or an adieu... or a サヨナラ... oh wait... that's "goodbye, forever"... how does one end a half-way between a musing and a real person on the replying end of "things"... i guess like this: NARA... ナラ... short for narazie...  translated from my mutterzunge as: perhaps loosely... for the time being... for now... how else... to end my tirade?!

- So let me get this a bit straight (as straight as a stray arrow, that is): you only write when you're drunk (I'm the luckiest one to be at the listener - or reader in this case - end of your tirades as you call them... I call them musings); you have a fixation with words, even the ones that you don't know how to spell correctly (except maybe in a language I don't know so I can't really tell), you didn't answer why I'm ascribed to getting your mojo back (where did it go?), and you wake up with a hard-on. Got it!

- i've been lodged into a backlog: ******-town sort of: stalling... give me a few hours... although: ever wonder what: giggles sounds like... in the deafness of the night? i do... i want to reply you like so... like now... like this... maybe i will... maybe i will not... i'm gaging to buy one of those cleveland chiefs baseball caps...the grinning siouxsie chieftan....perhaps i want to relearn "how to": take the GRIN... a little bit more... seriously... no? **** it... i'm drinking as it is... i want to reply you in full throttle... straight arrows... and the welsh V of the longbow-men too to boot... chopsticks straighter... "straighter"... i tend to only write when i'm drunk... i abhor sober prosaic intimidation and... all the lies, subsequently...sober people don't get "drunk" on moral relativism of white lies? and i'm born yesterday, no? you openly venture into... a quest of question within the regards... of being... this only.... i almost wanted you to feel this sort of... an alienating increment... of... how i might pile on more detail... they are musings... i don't take them seriously... about as much relax as is a required: necessary.... i have a fixation with words... jurisprudence to me is merely a game of thesaurus ploy-tow... i spell i don't spell... i'm overtly pedantic... i also felt queasy when testing my eyes at an authentic testimony of the "law"  being "exaggerated"... "tested"... "proved"..i must have: lying eyes... no other eyes do see... no? i have a fixation with "things" beside the usage of ***** and strobe lighting...

you have my attention... don't you? you know... the last time i attempted having a conversation... i was too naive...too young... everything "everything" applied itself to being too predictable... i want to love again: but being in love is almost a weakness... i don't feel like being weak... i guess this is where the rekindling of my "mojo" ends... hello cul de sac...

new paragraph... ever hear(d) of the alpha and the omega "man"? i'm pretty sure you heardf of mr. beta... for all the worth of a totality of... man... i'm last... i'd forever be... last... i don't want to be first... i also don't want to be 2bd sniffing **** and crab-meat-... either...

give me the totality... i'll be satisfied with a "question" of
last... hence the expression: omega man...
didn't hey-zeus say?
i'm the alpha and the omega?

i don't write sober, i'n afraid i might lie...
you're not lucky,..
but you're also not... godzilla....

i "somehow" haven't ascribed you with the sort of details of: explanation that would allow you... to satiate yourself with answers... as to how... why... yllu managed to "mojo" probe me back to life? you.. the Faroe Islands to begin with? you know... they have this gimmick... on the Faroe Isles... it's not a gimmick... it's called// i don't know what's it called... skúvoy? but i'm happy to tease when the whales are slaughtered... the the blood comes a running: the lions also... apparently tease with a yawn... look at this word, though: grindadráp....

ever catch the giggle im der nacht? nein? too italian... no? ******* borrowed pollack: the self-depreciating... loan... not load... of bollocking...

don't believe yourself as being the sole recepient of a reply...

you're not lucky... you're just... available...

terribly botherome... isn't, it?

- i thought i'd make this a two tier reply... it would be a shame to reread what i wrote on one of my "escapades"... perhaps this... hanging-over... ha'h... more like hung, drawn & quartered some time to time... but believably sane, pleasantly morose - at evens with masochism... so reclining into a moral trip-up... i probably mentioned grindadráp - since i still have the window open on the phrase i'm familiar with... Sámal Joensen-Mikines... i most probably ended up giggling in the night... god... i'm just skim reading what i wrote... well good to know that i can only the best thing and sober up: simultaneously returning to a more rigid, conventional... formal use of language: that i might suppose i'm in a confessional booth... a welcome mirage for the time being... while i decide to wither away watching the old firm (a derby soccer match between celtic & rangers)... of note... i had this argument with the natives so time ago... the... Celts... but it's the Boston / Glasgow Çeltics... no? you're a girl that likes sounds... i've been following this current discussion that has reached the heights of printed newspapers... citation, sian griffths (gwif-if-if-ififs) education editor: new spelling ROOLS to make english more predictable for pupils... "we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the feelds..." see... i really admired Charlie Bukowski for a while... until he came out as a lazy slob who would require an editor to correct his spelling... there's dyslexia and there's just plain: hash-browns... for all my worth of idiosyncrasy that i wriggle in as i go along, most of which will not find common ground and a cosmopolitan outlet of users... for me, as someone who acquired this tong'u: i've grown fond of how aesthetically messy this toong can become and how readily available this messiness is... even London can become a ****-joke: Loon'dune... in my mutterzunge sounds are more distinct... apart from the graphemes sz, ch, cz, rz (ż) - i'd have to borrow from a Czech a caron to hide a letter or two: š (sz / the equivalent SHarp in english) and č (cz / CHatter respectively)... all these unique sounds... ą, ę, ć, ń, ó, ś, ź - Wombat ł... anyway... i just thought, sobering up... that you'd like to have a certain bulging volume of fudge to return to... before i take another dive into ms. amber and pass another night as w. h. auden wrote: only the hitlers of this world write at night... sure... herr auden... because the day is for watching football and / or cycling.

- à propos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-L5iefl2QtA

- If you share music can I? I'm sorry that I didn't reply sooner. It's been a **** last week and this week isn't any better yet. I like reading your messages, drunk and sober. When I write in my native language I use the accent over the vowels to emphasize the second-to-last vowel of a word. I love speaking, reading and writing in my native language, though I'm sure that I know much less than you would about languages. Shall we continue talking about sounds? How about sounds in my language? Of course, you have to guess if you haven't already.

- mind you: i had second thoughts about writing this reply... perhaps you can judge for yourself... i'm just not into having double-mystery encounters with an "avatar"... plus i made an emphasis on the point... what music were you not going to share?

sure... but first share your music... i have this thirst for Nick Hornby's high fidelity and being a teenager again... a teenager in love, again...i was probably the most happy-go-anywhere sort of person when i found a vinyl copy of Wardruna's kvitravn in my local HMV... which is: sunrise records and entertainment ltd trading as hmv & fopp.... given i already have the other chapters on cd - copied into mp3... (runaljod - yggdrasil & gap var ginnnunga)...  and given it's so rare to fnd a vinyl of this calibre... that some vinyls comes with an mp3 link... i thought: hell... i'll give this record the proper 3D aura treatment and not listen to it on headphones... or utilise it to "conquer" space... & just walking with it across a market sq. without a plastic bag to stash it in... i might as well have walked with a cat on my shoulder... because... who the hell still buys... well... invests in vinyl? now... coming to the language...second-to-last vowels of  word... you know... you can keep me interested without overplaying this "mystery" game... isn't the use of an avatar enough? i really can't comprehend a language that focuses on second to last vowels... without focusing on vowels: per se... just to reiterate... you didn't share a link to some music... you pitted yourself as American... i can continue being interest without having too many enigmas to sort... i have yet to find a language that only applies accents to, e.g. suppOsE... or maybe i'm just too ignorant to have come across a language that behaves in such a way: unless it's some idiosyncratic variation (of it)... you don't have to remain a complete mystery to me for me to keep engaging... there can be some sort of rooting in reality... otherwise i'll just return to my original purpose of writing: staging myself against a blank canvas and a barrage of sounds that i'll need to "un-spaghetti" into linear streaks.... i'm not going to guess: you'll either tell me or not... i'm currently listening to snake-pit poetry: einar selvik... any one can have a ****** week... for a while i was anticipating you testing whether or not i'd reply not getting a reply from you... and that, somehow, miraculously... i'd continue to creep-up to teasing you again... perhaps that's me dabbling in misnomers... no... you'll need to give me something concrete... i'm already starting to itch with a sensation that i better return to the canvas than keep this conversation... no offence... it's just draining me when something abstract could also be doing: likewise... but it wouldn't end up being a ****-tease... i could possibly create something out of it... not just so more: oh... oh? ** **: what's next?! i know when it becomes a brain-drain... a side project... it has to come with an excuse whereby you'll probably recoil with: but i had a ****** week... granted... but who hasn't...  you could have waited another week until participating in the timeframe of the passing of weeks started to feel good once more... if you only dropped a music suggestion... otherwise... thanks... but... no... this conversation is going nowhere... i think i'm just relocating my writing block elsewhere... all the best: in keeping an aura of mystery... within the realm of avatars and non-accountability... come to think of it... no... this is as fair as i could be.

this supposed "unique" specimen... not really...
i want to focus on what allows me to belong:
beside the unfathomable landmarks
of trees and mountains:
roaming stars that even my demented
grandfather corrected himself on...
satellites... no... roaming stars?!
well... i didn't conjure this **** out of my own
*** for pleasure, either...

back towards... falling asleep while listening
to the Hellraiser soundtrack:
hellbound...
because eerie is how:
i how how: "things"...
i'm so alone at times that it's beyond making
sense: it's about infringing on a god-stature...
status... this omniscient
contradiction that some Elijah bundled up
into... two crows croaked...
the tower of London can entertain 6:
so the king's ******* and the queen's
jewels are left intact...
for the successor to worry about...

we have these conversations but too bad
the girl is playing timid...
and i'm... gargantuan...
the length of a tongue that turns into an eel...
hands like octopus extension...
i could wrap her up in... bubblewrap
and start the puncture pinch-pinch ceremony
of not seeing the bubble float: up-up...

i have a sense of ego like...
a bad l.s.d. trip?!
****-guage-abuse? gauge? sort the ones
for the snoozing zero-toasts
and you have yourself
a new jersey smart: bite-off... not bit... though...

i could never have children:
not because i could never be a good father:
but i'd be a terrible husband...
how do i "know"?
i would never allow myself
to earn the amount:
she'd want to spend...
via solo: i'll spend on ms. cojack amber
and some ******* liquorice vinyl...
and a bicycle...
rubber-teasing: ****-teet-****....
when using the brakes...
when minding my ******* "luck"
on a roundabout with a massive twuck...

plus i'd love to **** more...
i'd love to **** as much more as
the thought-"taboos" discourage me
from doing... so it's a nice adventure: thinking
the next: moral antagonist, antithesis
of "could i"?
central theme? Lo-li-t'ah...
and i'm the second from third removed
uncle of the marquis de sade...
you want... you need... you have to orientate
yourself around the last taboo...
the one that's not associated with...
crispy clean antics of those *******
in their savvy leather gimp suits etc.

"power to the people": *******...
power to who owns what...
i'm starting to conjure up
profanities akin to:
but at least when they owned slaves...
they took care of their slaves...
they wouldn't want a slave to be rotten...
to be despondent...
trouble with freedom is...
my own, self-made... man...
if i were a slave...
i'd learn to bend the rules...
i'd entertain the fantasy of freedom...
while being constrained with...
all the benefactor securities...
i'd be owned but i'd also be:
obligated to a social contract of some sort...

so freely as to nothing be:
so averaging assumptions...
presumptions... so by nothing i unfree myself:
to... sort of quest to: "be"...
while the priestly class held back literacy...
within the timeframe of when
a new literacy emerged... of coding...
so double-up-on-surds... no?

herr gizmo l:)(}{
the realm of the three brackets... )}]...
one literacy replaced the old literacy
but in terms of retaining the old type...
the new type is... not exactly allowing
for movement of... hearts? is, it?
i still have to retain punctuation...
i still need need to perfect it...

but this is not conversational linguinie,
is it?
i stand firm in, stressing:
writing is an extension of thought...
writing is an extension of thought:
it's hardly an invitation to speak...
the past centuries haven't taught us
that literacy is a constraining beast of priests'
fancy?
let me... detail my limbs for you
in stressing this point further:
what good came from the project
of literacy en masse?
graffiti scribbling on brick walls?
out of what beside desperation?

such constraints were employed as
to: the person exercised in completely body:
usage... wouldn't feel like
a ******* hamster of a ******* ferris wheel
when push came to shove...
somehow everything physical became
lesser class: demeaning...
somehow we all turned into *******
fluorescent
      telepathic / telekinetic Chernobyll
monkey sorts...
and the fat "stigmata" is a what?
                  
  this world is gagging for something tragic...
this world is gagging for a world war III...
but... it probably will not...
"advise" itself to experience such a disatrous take
on prospect...
nuance in language can go **** itself...
application of misnomers for added fluidity can:
go **** itself...
you ever come across a choir...
and a great wind...
see a ******* shrink...

don't look at me for inspiration:
perhaps some jokes...
i've been more honest these past two minutes than
i ever was in the passing of a decade...

death the limbo of "sanity"...
esp. when someone memorable has taken off...
who am i left with? "perspectivelly accountable"?
grey-matter fiddle-through middle-man
*******... no?
i'm not sifting through that, murk?
perhaps i'm sieving... sifting... sieving...
sifting... sieving... get a dog! she says, mother, dear...
i tell her: it's legal in Belgium...
her father already cited his complaints...
i'm tired of the ******* optimism...
i'm tired of this "adventure" some cling to when
deciphering "life"...
an overrated statement of too many facts:
that's life...
it's not a ******* frank sinatra:
come as we are... would be: mea culpa...

troublesome sufferings of a tired brain...
too many pop ref. points worth of closure...
i bought a vinyl today...
i walked it down a market place
like it was a puppy...
in a rucksack...

that there's a hope... my mother is crying
this silent agony of truth...
i tell her: it's sensibly legal in the Benelux...
England is ****** by all accounts...
a dog will save me?
i'm becoming rigid... brick-esque...
tide-prone...
moon is the mother of my skies...
i might might what?
fall in love: to fall in love is to allow
oneself to be weak; to be... dependent on
someone: the concept of "other"... no?
recurrrency is pricing on how many times
that's... sensible to try out?
before it fails?

i fall asleep listening to horror movie music...
i'm best coupled to a ******* hyena than
i am to a woman...
to live under a false sense of hope
is a: welcome bypass to otherwisse living
under a truancy of truth...
as the life around me shrinks...
the abounding shadow of me grows...
and not as a patriarch...

oh ****... "i simply, somehow...
just so it happens... fowgot to... encapsulate this
offload whiff a wyme".

She paves the path
Of dynasties carved
With buckets of sludge upon back;
Bent, not unlike her mother’s limb,
But under shinier red flags,
Cloth coated, with lesser blood.

She’d had a hint of gray
She’d not had last time,
She had a newer limp
She’d not had last time,
Her ***** furthered from firm,
Reaching for the ground, a promise,
In years to be wed with,
And yet the underneath
Of it all remained as radiant
As any sun’d ever been;

And come the cloudy day she leaves,
Even mine own eye
Will remain far from dry
As I’d remember freshly cured bacon,
And her tender chopsticks offering life;
She’d saved me once, she’d save me again.

Eat the fourth cookie.
Bring back that fuzzy green sweater with lint ***** so stubborn
that even the strongest lint roller couldn’t break the bond they have with the sweater.
I know you pick your nose in public.
You stutter every time I ask who lives on Mamaroneck Street.
You have burping contests with yourself while you’re on the toilet.
I don’t care how you clip your toenails on today’s newspaper.
I still read it after you’re done.
I love that you paint each nail in a different neon color,
eat chocolate chips and green tea for breakfast,
and salt your apples.
You cry every time you watch Titanic.
I agree Rose should’ve moved to the side and shared the plank with Jack.
You rap to Baby Got Back fifty nine times in a row.
I wish we danced to it more often.
I wish you would tell me what you write in your red book.
I know you pretend you’re Beyonce in concert while working out,
and think Michael Buble wrote haven’t met you yet for you.
I love that you keep the ticket stubs from every single movie we see in the tea jar under your bed.
You smell of cologne every time you walk into the house.
You don’t know how to whisper. You never have.
You tell me you’ll be back by noon but don’t come back till 7 p.m.
You use your knitting needles as chopsticks when we order sushi,
And don’t stamp any of the letters you send your mom.
Even though you have seven wallets, you keep all your money loose in your bag
and throw away all the pennies in the trash.
You pretend your belly-fat is a puppet that can talk and sing,
And you flirt with the waiter for extra hot sauce.
You hate it when I use your cell-phone

And every night you kiss him goodnight at the train station.

We were kids.
You shut the door on me in the pouring rain.
You had this wide-eyed, crazy grin on your face
all the time
amused with yourself
and that was enough.
How did I know
how to tell a boy I liked him?
I just knew your breath smelled like
listerine when you got on the schoolbus
in sleepy half dawn
You sat behind me and sometimes,
if I peeked my eye through the crack between
the seat and window, you'd smile
and share your headphones with me,
a simple song or two from The Postal Service.
On brave days, I'd scoot back to be closer
and breathe you in
in tentative girlish awe.
You laid your head down on my lap
to nap the rest of the trip
and I'd watch you, holding
my breath,
slowly playing
with your orange curls
spilling
through my fingers like sunlight.
Almost a decade later,
I've forgotten the schoolbus.
We're reunited with a group, eating
sushi, laughing until we cry
at my spicy face and the clumsy
way I can't hold chopsticks taunt.
But reaching past you, I brush
your hair on accident and stop short,
the sensation tingling my fingers,
remembering how
more than once I've
gazed at you in wonder.

Morning:
how to undo a bra-strap
(almost-girlfriend).

Afternoon:
how to use chopsticks
(former drama-teacher).

Evening:
how to know if she hasn't yet let go of her baby
(mother).

Ojalá mi cara fuese jazz.
Ojalá mi cara fuese atardecer de cien días
y se perdiese como música en la marea.
Ojalá mis notas fuesen fuego
que corriese raudo por tus venas.
Ojalá se perfumasen en el aire
y  diesen sentido al amanecer del alba.
Ojalá fluyesen como el agua
suavemente rizando la rojez del cielo.
Ojalá fuesen contundentes como la roca
y cayesen a plomo junto a mi corazón muerto.

Ojalá mi cara fuese jazz.
Siempre cambiante, nunca la misma
subebajando en el horizonte.
Tierna y vibrante, siempre difusa
alzándose hacia el cielo con alas desplegadas.
Dulce y salada, externa e interna,
por ósmosis entrando por cada poro.
Pesada y rígida, sólida y pura
cercenando la realidad con su ser preciso.

Ojalá mi cara fuese jazz
siendo lo que no es,
no siendo lo que es.
En cada instante de su espacio manifestándose
en cada punto de su tiempo existiendo.
Única e indivisible, aunque difícilmente alcanzable.
Verdadera mentira que perdura tras los siglos.
Satírica cual elefante boca arriba
dando a luz a lo que siempre ha sido nuestro.

Ojalá mi cara fuese jazz.
Saliendo hacia la luz verdadera
y tornando hacia la oscuridad traicionera.
Volando hacia arriba y en picado,
oteándose a si misma , eterna y cierta.
Creando un nuevo mundo igual a este,
igual de distinto que este a si mismo.
Imitando la certeza de lo incierto.
Pretendiendo con falsedades llegar al verso.

Ojalá mi cara fuese jazz
y fuese objeto de su ser
y fuese sujeto de su haber
y se realizase siempre que le dieses tiempo
y se realizase siempre en lo que siempre fue
y avanzase inmóvil hacia la verdad
y esperase impasible a la mentira.
Ojalá de cada error saliese un mérito,
una esperanza, una virtud siempre precisa.

Ojalá mi cara fuese jazz
tornando el arte arcana en ente nuevo,
aunque sea falso.
En estúpidas epifanías tornando el acto
cual poeta escribiendo estos versos.
Ojalá repetir versos pasados en lenguas nuevas
y llamarse artista.
Mero comentarista y observador
de lo que precedió en tiempo y espacio.

Ojalá mi cara fuese jazz
existiendo con sólo pensarlo
negando el pensamiento mismo,
lógica implacable mintiendo mi rostro,
contradicciones inapelables mintiendo mi ser.
Con precisión matemática ser mentira,
con la etereidad del arte ser verdad.
Ojalá como estafador maestro ante tu mirar
se hiciese música que disfrutar.

Ojalá mi cara fuese jazz,.
Ojalá mi cara no fuese jazz.
Ojalá no tener cara, ni nada.
Ojalá el solo pensarlo me dejase ciega,
sorda para la música de mi rostro.
Ojalá pasar por debajo de una escalera tirada
para no recibir buena suerte.
Ojalá austera o inexistente,
cual dios mirando tu filosofía vana.

Ojalá mi cara fuese jazz
y unificase tantas corrientes
como puede abarcar con sus brazos.
Ojalá pudiese tornar cierta la realidad
por el mero hecho de pensarla, pero no puedo,
pero mi rostro se muestra impasible
ante desdicha tal y sigue avanzando;
regla dorada entre uñas de marfil,
largos palillos para comer la realidad desvirtuada.

Ojalá mi cara fuese jazz
y revolucionase el mundo con su pensar
y desmontase heregías como ciertas.
Ojalá años más tarde siguiese su lucha
contra el infiel divino hasta su muerte,
y como la de un mono con barba
se tornase contra el padre de la ciencia moderna,
y le enseñase a pensar en sueños,
a soñar en vida, a soñar en muerte.

Ojalá mi cara fuese jazz
y se repitiese eternamente para mi suerte,
nunca cambiando, siempre presente.
Ojalá asesinase al padre de todo
y se adueñase de su lugar.
Ojalá existir antes de ser.
Ojalá rodar por la vida sin mirar a los lados,
destruyendo lo que tantas veces nos ha aplastado
y creando la belleza del arte, que es eterna.

//

I wish my face were jazz.
I wish my night were sunset of one hundred days
and it lost itself like music in the tides.
I wish my notes were fire
which ran swift in your veins.
I wish they would perfume itself in the air
and gave meaning to the morning's sunrise.
I wish they flowed like water
softly curling the sky's redness.
I wish they were sturdy like rock
and they plummeted next to my dead heart.

I wish my face were jazz.
Always changing, never the same.
updowning in the horizon.
Tender and vibrating, always diffuse
rising towards the sky with open wings.
Sweet and salty, extern and intern,
by osmosis entering through each pore.
Heavy and rigid, solid and pure
cutting through reality with its precise being.

I wish my face were jazz
being what it is not,
not being what it is.
In every instant of its space manifesting itself
in every point of its time existing.
One and indivisible, although hardly reachable.
True lie which endures beyond centuries.
Satiric like elefant on its head
giving birth to what always has been ours.

I wish my face were jazz.
Going out to the true light
and turning to the treacherous darkness.
Flying upwards and in a dive,
scanning itself, eternal and true.
Creating a new world equal to this,
equally as distinct as this to itself.
Imitating the certainty of the uncertain.
Trying with falseness to reach the verse.

I wish my face were jazz.
and it were object of its being
and it were subject of its having
and it came true always you gave it time
and it came true always in what it always was
and it moved fordward unmoving towards the truth
and it waited impasible the lie.
I wish of every error a merit would come out,
a hope, a virtue ever precise.

I wish my face were jazz
turning arcane art into a new being,
even if false.
Into stupid epiphanies turning the act
as a poet writing this verses.
I wish to repit old verses in new tongues
and to call myself an artist.
Mere commentator and observer
of what preceded it in time and space.

I wish my face were jazz.
Existing with only thinking of it,
negating thought itself,
implacable logic lying my visage,
unnappealable contradictions lying my being.
With mathematical precision being a lie,
with the ethereality of art being the truth.
I wish that like master con artist before your looking
it turned itself into music to enjoy.

I wish my face were jazz.
I wish my face weren't jazz.
I wish I didn't have a face, nor anything.
I wish only thinking of it made me blind,
deaf to the music of my visage.
I wish passing under a fallen ladder
to not receive good luck.
I wish austere or non-existant,
like god looking at your vane philosophy.

I wish my face were jazz,
and it unified so many streams
like it can embrace with its arms.
I wish I could turn reality true
with the mere act of thinking it, but I can't,
but my visage shows itself impassible
before such misfortune and continues onwards;
golden rule among ivory nails,
long chopsticks to eat the desvirtuated reality.

I wish my face were jazz
and it revolucionised the world with its thinking
and it disassembled heressies as true.
I wish years later its fight would continue
against the divine infidel until his death,
and like a bearded monkey's
it would turn itself against the father of modern science,
and it taught him to think in dreams,
to dream in life, to dream in death.

I wish my face were jazz
and it repited itself enternally to my fortune,
never changing, always present.
I wish it assassinated the father of everything
and took its place.
I wish existing before being.
I wish rolling through life without looking sideways,
destroying that which always has crushed us
and creating the beauty of art, which is timeless.

chinese chow-mian
little brown worms
wriggling past soya sauce
skinny dipping into sizzling sauté stew
lavished with molten eggs
strangled by wooden chopsticks silently
heavenly.

In the 4th grade I did a research project on endangered Asian elephants.
I observed her ivory face and elephants bones
And the way her heavy feet flattened the truth as she ran.
She was Amelia Earhart and was deathly afraid of heights but soared through the sky,
Off the swing and thumping onto the gravel.
She wore stripped yellow flats
And fought the boys on the school ground.
Her body all banged up with bruises and scrapes
Were achievements in her book.
Thump as they hit the gravel,
Thump as she walked away.
Her face plastered in foundation
From a cracking foundation
The house of cards she  built on the second heartbeat in her stomach fell softer than the thump thump of his tiny heart
She was an asain elephant afraid of a mouse.
She used to say cherry blossom in Japanese to prove that she was fluent
But I knew her father was american and that she was lying
Hiding his last name behind her mother's as if it brought her shame.
I helped her hide the body of her unnamed child.
Kamikaze pilot diving straight into the ground with a thump.
The planes came crashing down the day I found out and you flew back home
The pacific ocean was a bowl of curry and he was a grain of rice at the bottom
Her chopsticks avoided him with every bite
I watched as this denial gripped her sweaty palms.
Everything she ate came back up her throat.
Vomiting this truth out wasn't something she could endure
The news was a ghost pepper too scorching to swallow even the first time
So she picked the cherry blossom bud from herself and left him to wither before blooming.

when i was born,
you cried to our grandmother
because you wanted a brother
and got stuck with me, instead.
and what a turn of events that became.

when i was a baby,
i busted the back of your teeth out
with a bottle of perfume,
most likely contributing to your
repetitive dreams of your teeth falling out.
sometimes i think of this when you say your "th"s.

when i was a child,
you would pick peppers with our dad
down the street and hold eating competitions
while i squashed berries in my little tyke car.
we played mouse trap on the floor.

when i completed my first decade of life,
you packed your bags, got on a bus,
got married, and were deployed for the first time.
i don't remember much of those days.
i only remember the first phone call,
"yours truly, from iraq."

when i was eleven,
you came home, war torn and ragged
and divorced from an army wife
who was never really a wife at all.
you moved on, in some ways
more than others.
you were different, changed.

when i became a preteen,
i met a girl, and looked at our mom
and i said, "he's going to marry that girl."
and marry her, you did,
and had your first child, too.

when i was a teenager,
you taught me important life lessons
like how i act when i'm drunk
and how to do sake bombs like i belong in asia.
you taught me to eat with chopsticks.
through babysitting, i learned to wait to have a child.

and now, at twenty years old, everything is different.
living down the street from me, then in the old house,
and finally in our mom's house with me,
the dynamics changed.

we became the best friends we'd
always tried to be, but were too distant
to maintain. we gained trust and inside jokes.
you finally gave approval of my boyfriend.
we wreaked havoc and stayed up way too late.

but then you moved five hundred miles away,
and every day my heart feels ripped into pieces.
i miss all the jokes, and you waking me up
to our favorite songs.
i miss my brother. i miss my bubby.
i hope one day one of us will go home.

i. throw away the three boxes of
incense sticks that burn your eyes
when lit. When your father asks
you where they went,
tell him,
they’re a firehazard.

ii. before you board the bus, rush
to the bathroom. dump out the
mi sao your mother made
for you.
repack with lunchables and fruit roll-
ups. hide your wooden chopsticks.

iii. rip the buddha necklace off
your chest. with the imprint of the fat
man digging into your left palm, raise
your right hand and shout, “I’M NOT
A BUDDHIST. my mother was.” to the peers
think all Asians are Buddhists and
all Buddhists are Asian.

iv. When they ask you why ‘Vy’
rhymes with ‘bee’ and not ‘my’,
tell them that Vietnamese and
English are two different
languages. But remember to
apologise for the inconvenience.
Look forward to this question for
the rest of your life.

v. If a substitute asks, “Sorry
if I pronounce this
wrong but is Vy [rhyme with
eye] here?” Do not duck
beneath your desk. Do not
correct them. Tighten your lips
into a smile, look them in the
eye and raise your hand,
"here."

vi. avoid going shopping with
your parents, they will ask you to
bargain with the cashier on
how the lettuce ball s a bit too
small to cost three dollars, and
that they should take off a
dollar. when you refuse, they will
try to communicate in broken
English.
this is your cue to wait out front.

vii. when graduation day comes
and your entire family wants to
attend,
say no. it is not important.
it is important. but your
grandmother will tell everyone that
you are the first, to step foot
into college. avoid
this embarrasssment by telling them
graduation is cancelled.

viii. instead of taking pictures with
your “fresh off the boat” family,
borrow Kelly Tran’s, whose
parents are hip and cool and let
her speak English
at home.

ix. are you Chinese?
no

x. are you Japanese?
no

xi. are you Korean?
no

xii. Are you Asian?
…yes

xiii. what kind of Asian are you?
Vietnamese
… American

xiv. You are not Vietnamese-
American. there is nothing
American about you except your
citizenship.

xv. make sure you choose the
furthest college away from home,
where your mother won’t be able
to send you white rice and
kimchi, among other foods that
your white roommate can’t pronounce.

xvi. no matter where you go,
someone will ask you to “say
something in your language”
they say
"your language"
because one,
they don’t know what language
you speak, two,
they don’t know how to
pronounce it. they just
assume you speak one
besides English.

xvii. when your mother calls
while you have company over
and asks,
"con co nho me khong?", pretend
you don’t understand. take a
glance at the people around you
and firmly reply, “mom i’m
busy. i’ll call you later.” lace it
with enough conviction to fool
wandering ears but with less
compassion so that your mother
knows not to stay up late past three waiting.

xviii. tan your skin, bleach your
hair, forget your native tongue.
remember the boys who leer,
grabbing their crotch, whispering in
your ear, “i’ve got yellow fever,
can you cure me?”

xix. stand in front of the mirror.
open youtube and search, “how
to get rid of an Asian accent”
because no matter how western
you look, your mouth will speak
"duh girl likes pissa" instead of
"the girl likes pizza".

**. schedule a plastic surgery
appointment, fix your nose, jaw,
and monolid eyes. people will
try to stop you, “you are perfect
the way you are! there is no one you-
er than you!” laugh at them.
inform them, “the looks of me is
not what society want people to be.”

xxi. pick up the phone. dial
home. hang up. do this five
times. after the fifth, you will
have convinced yourself that you
don’t miss them. it is just the
alcohol talking.

xxii. before you sign up for this
read the fine print. in addition to
losing your identity, you will lose
yourself. becoming a child of
corrporate America is as easy as it
seems. you just have to let go of
your humanity.

Chinese Firecrackers

Celebrate New Year with firecrackers|
lunch time is good
the smell of food mixing with gunpowder|
loud noises
drown out the clack of chopsticks
red paper
strewn around is all that's left
apart from the ringing in the ears


Malcolm Davidson Feb 12th 2013

Chinese New Year**

Chinese New Year is all around
red lanterns hanging from the trees
people laughing, boisterous
everyone goes home for the holidays
to share rice together
one big family
you can feel it in the air.

Malcolm Davidson Feb 1st 2013

I walk past the old woman
who wears unflattering red lipstick,
vivid as cartoon blood,
and jeweled chopsticks in her hair.
We meet haunted eyes,
full of defiant sorrows.

The pudgy little girl streaks past,
pigtails askew, sandals mismatched
by herself or a harried mother
she is either running to, or away from.

The boy with the closed face,
like a letter that no one opens
for fear of what it might hold,
reaches for the same book I am reaching for.
We smile at one another, surprised.

Such small things bring recognition.
We are the same inside.

outside, my
professor lights a pipe beside the daffodils,
and we make small talk about the cigarette butts in the dirt
and the history of natural science.

He travelled south in a small blue wagon,
for no particular reason
except the summers are dry
and the air is silent,

….



inside mould grows on glass
windows, wood rotting damp
dissipates the rain through its splinters
cracked rooms containing muses, alight
with the glow of creation, reinvention

I am taught to eat with chopsticks at a fast food restaurant
each Friday night; I learn
to break them in two before I eat,
dissect myself in certain manners of precision
indulge in cakes with sprinkles
spires
lining streets
the lamps in the evening
dull for flashes of traffic
souls in sachets about to be added
in a hot drink, or instant frappe
we dissolve



into particles
about
the place in
certain manners of precision
break in two before
we indulge
impart
chromosomes collaborate

in the rooms,
in the mage’s quarters
dollar bills are sniffed and sorted
LSD and Ecstasy crossed, contorted
butterflies have patterns in conversations
on their wings, in teacups, sipping Spanish ***

drag my son up a hill to **** him,
in the ash tree foliage, faces in the sky
and ask of grace
deliver me to the divine class of men
what am I if only captive to contagion?

After all, I spread across windows
like mould each hour multiplying
to become sporadic, spatial,
discovering the heart’s variation

insofar as we are variable
asking Sophie, my daughter, to empty
the dishwasher, I pray she wonders
why we have cups
of coins in our pockets
why we ache

atoms
about
the place in
certain manners of precision
break in two before
we indulge
impart
chromosomes collaborate

because i reduced my language to encode onomatopoeia, and because i didn't allow stresses to be pronounced on letters for the appropriate expressions of deviating local accents (instead concentrating on the snail slogans of organic produce, local, ******): to contrast the inherited Latin encoding system - i used aesthetic encoding to such an extent that i gave birth to dyslexia, or to put simply: over-spelling... i deviated from the other inheritors of the Latin alphabet without stressing certain sounds, hence i conquered the world, and subsequently giving up Hong Kong, became the ****-hole of the world, with 5 year old children being accused of ****** exploitation in the newspapers... i didn't follow the continental drift toward evolving Latin, yet i immersed myself in Darwinism, to preach the doctrine of the evolution of forms, the square remained a square, the circle a circle... the monkey suddenly became a man... and since i preached the universality of man, i was wedged in too many particulars in how i said things to be... which is why i believed in America and decided to exit Project Europe... which is why i became the F. D. Roosevelt island of hopes, isolationism being the cure, sure, everyone is employed, but on 0 hour contracts... which is why someone with enough oil in their head came among and said: Sa-id! we need a hyphen over a letter rather than keep it as a wavering compound awaiting the Oxford nod of approval... it's a shame when you care for the aesthetics, but never provide a system of directness, as in always providing a system of indirectness - meaning there's no mathematics involved in lettering - no stress - all the stress gets turned into exploiting forms that don't nudge into coerced trapeziums of disintegration, means you work more than the 9 to 5 prescription... all because you exploited children during the Victorian age, and left the young of our present age to premature ailments that only old people should succumb to... you can't be Romans just like that! too may oceans, not enough seas... you need to add stresses to the letter you are sorta borrowing rather than plundering, be like the Germans, the French, the Poles, invite the aesthetic scientists to desecrate the temples of Runes... but at the same time plunder the encoding with accents, to simply say: we're above, no matter the success of trade your empire provides... we say it chisel, you say it chive... we build, you cook, the end. but keeping it in naked diacritic lack will expose weaknesses in the physical realm of use when silenced... English needs to stress itself with this phonetic encoding if it's to survive at all... but it's too late for that, i fear... there are too many particular instances of its eccentricity that come as pride a minute from now, and as a landfill site the minute after... they are paying for keeping with the Latin alphabet unabashed to continue without mathematical stresses of saying things... but the times of George V and the empire are long gone... it's just that, or the fact that they don't know what their weakness is... since they battle stresses of phonetic encoding with political egoism on a populist scaling.*

i congest myself on the feline onomatopoeia, between a roar
and a meow - between the matured tree
and the bonsai replica i tend to do my quasi-cartesian thinking -
i don't really have an ego to verb together
things with a pristine causality akin to exercise equalling
perspiration - thought has no verb attachment -
no motivational speech to boot -
being is the same -
i simply concentrated on the exponential
existence of nouns -
like anyone with too much information
i find keeping a respectable investment in
nouns to be the source of my misery -
with such a high number of nouns and a pauper's
share of verbs i will obviously become a slacker
in the former category, as in the latter -
instinctively like a cat, speaking the universal
sound that i silence and then rewrite in
the onomatopoeia form i hardly think and hardly
am, a cat... i just have too many nouns to
take care of, most of which i'd only use
slouched with a book before going to sleep,
and never actually using in my everyday speech,
it's back to the garden of Eden and the fruit of
temptation: aiming for a high propane vocabulary
is like Adam given the fruit, gets a vocabulary
of a chemist, but ends up being a plumber...
no one checks this ****, ever!
i get the part of "we're in this together",
but mediating all our specialisations in a democratic way
will only create more tangents and the trigonometric
tan(gens) graphs of solipsism - offshoots and
somehow always "dark graphs" (σκότογραφυ) -
oddly enough, making the acute omicron into a u
never allowed the upsilon an endeavour into Y (macron
i) with any diacritic, other than the hint in capital
of the mentioned lower-case encoding.
what the **** was i saying? i'm astounded at the
fact that i lost the fluidity, not what i was saying per se,
it seem the per se fluidity got blocked and i had
to reopen the Pandora box yet again... let me have
a while to guess where the narrative should realign
without the reverse of fictional characters as extensions
of the narrator - i.e. poetry's synonym of characters
is personae, meaning that poetry has personae
and fictional prose has characters... the fictional
prose narrator tries to piece a space together with many
characters he's conscious of as inventing...
the poet narrator tries to piece a person together with many
personae he's not conscious of, atypically a schizoid
symptom... or not... ... ... ... ... ... oh right...
the balance of nouns and verbs in the Cartesian sense
of exercise and perspiration, or the fact that Serena Williams
never breaks a sweat... love those thighs...
she never asks for a towel to rub her hands or face dry...
she must be doping with the Russians...
too many nouns surrounding us,
i feel like a proton surrounded by what i thought
was the limit (electrons), but no! oh no! there are
quarks, neutrinos, and ******* violins!
whirling whirlwind strings and chopsticks -
which translated into Chinese just means Chopping Suede Sue;
hey! i got a bell ding-**** knocking on wood just now...
funny how poetry can do that... knock on wood
you end up hearing a seashell tide break open
the coral restrictions with a tsunami gnash on earthly goods.