For Ricky

*Ricky Williams, Miami Running Back (2002-2003, 2005)

When the news broke and the camera pointed at a torn tent
on the outskirts of Miami where you sat knees-up-to-chest

professing enlightenment, the football world sacked itself
wondering how good your *** really was. Must have been

growing straight from Buddha’s back yard because to give
up 16 million like that, to go from bachelor pad demigod

to hippy hero of the pimply *** smokers, requires some
kind of unfathomable spirituality. I wonder if the Sadhu

could even find a desk big enough for your frame. All 230 pounds
lurching forward with brittle bones towards some kind

of endzone sanctity not represented by a smiling porpoise
but a transcendent 1st and ten where maybe you’d be happy.

After your final game I imagined you’d do what so many
washed up athletes do: find meaning in the parking lot

of a used car palace or open up a Dairy Queen, maybe
join your kids PTA and tell fourth graders stories that

you now half-believe. I didn’t think it be like this: you smoking
****** under a mauled tarpaulin, brushing fly’s away from

dingy dredlocks, running forward, exasperatedly free,
while a nation wonders why you’ve failed us.

When I tell You "*******" - I'm offering everything that I am.

Sometimes in flippant defiance.
Sometimes in submission.
Sometimes in love and appreciation.
Adoringly, exasperatedly, imploringly.

Body, soul, mind, heart, inclusive

******* very much.
It's my kind of declaration.

I run
Away from good fortune
and into the fray
Fortuna favet fortibus
Or so someone once said

I run from the city skies poisoned
by the blinding lights of frivolity
Desperate for blackouts
Rolling and unpredicatble
I hope they last months
So I can fill a mason jar with fire flys

I run from the pretty faces
Claiming exasperatedly that mine is just
Unconventional
And that pretty faces are often
If not always
Attached to liars

I run from the honesty
The unyielding truth that I
have ceased to be me
And have been replaced
by an imposter
Who laughs when I look in the mirror

I run until my lungs gasp
For the air between two stars
And until the blood flowing
In the sinew of my thigh
Begins to burn and clot

I run
Until my legs fall off

Just to crawl across the finish
And pretend that I
am a martyr
For a purpose that kept me running
And I forget now

Lisa and I finally tested covid-free! When we saw our results, we began an impromptu dance that felt like levitation.

Although my covid case seemed much milder, Lisa’s been nothing but supportive. Why just yesterday morning, before we tested, Lisa said, “If you test covid-free before I do, I’ll **** you.” She was holding a spork which gave the threat a specific gravity it might otherwise have lacked.
“Back off, Sweeny,” I said.

We worked the next day, masked - just in case - and I’d swear that Rebecca, my surgeon, almost smiled when she saw me. As funny as Rebecca is, off-hours, once she puts on that white coat - forgetaboutit - she goes to some other, humor-free zone.

That night, we went out to our favorite bar to celebrate our Lazarus-like resurrections.

In the club, as we were walking to the bar, Lisa asked me, “What if we get carded?” I gasped. Never, have I EVER been carded. To even suggest the possibility is to risk breaking a spell that has lasted since I was fifteen years old and first walked in the adult-bar world.

It’s not that I look old, I’ve been told I don't look 21 (although I’m almost 20) - but in dark, bar-light - I just look “right,” like I belong. And let's face it, no bar turns away college girls or charges them a cover - we’re good for business.

I put a hand on Lisa’s shoulder and stopped us in our tracks. “Turn around three times,” I said.
“Why?” She asked. “To break the god-****, bad luck, vu doo you just put on us!” I said exasperatedly. She shrugged and started to turn in a circle. Again I took her by the shoulders, “Counter-clockwise,” I instructed, “don’t you know anything?!” Once she’d broken the jinx, we were free to go on.  The next part can only be poetry.

Behind the bar were shelves of bottles, brightly lit,
with pastel glows that shame the merely silver moon.
Red rums, golden bourbons, begging you to commit,
elixirs that dull every pain and brighten every mood.
Give us your tired, your lonely, and like Houdini
we’ll invoke fun with mystical treats like martinis.

We were basking in those lantern-like glows, like tourists, in heaven, when a bartender said, “What can I get you?” How generous those words were, how open and inviting.

“What’s your name?” I asked, he was wearing a name tag but I leaned in and gave him my friendliest smile. It’s important to establish a personal connection - but you can’t get carried away. He might be gay and decide you’re trailer.

“Brian,” he said. Brian was talking to me, but then he’d noticed Lisa and suddenly, he couldn’t take his eyes off her (Lisa’s an adriana). This bartender wasn’t gay at ALL.

I handed him my black, Centurion, American Express card “Can we set a tab for us?” I motioned to include Lisa, “and please include a 30% tip for yourself.” I smiled. He smiled.
“Oh, and there’ll be a gentleman joining us as well (Charles).”
“Sure.” he said, as he swiped the card on his iPad, adding, “now, what are you having?”

I’m a bit of a bon vivant, where cocktails are concerned but tonight, we’ll keep it vanilla.
“We’ll start with a Cherry coke (for Charles) and,” I looked at Lisa for approval, “Two American Martinis?” She smiled, “Please,” I added, putting my card away.
The coke is psychologically important; it gives the bartender what’s called 'plausible deniability.’
“Do you have a menu?” I said, as he turned to go. “Coming right up,” he said.

We were on a rooftop terrace that overlooked the Boston skyline. To the left, there were tables enclosed in glowing, geodesic bubbles that changed colors and off to the right, a dance space where couples were dancing, and a DJ was spinning ‘Sorja Smith’s - Little things.’

Our drinks arrived and Lisa and I laughingly toasted our covid survival.
At that moment, at least, everything seemed right with the world.

I was in my chemistry class (lecture #2) and the professor was asking a series of questions. At first, hands were flying up, the answers were easy. But as questions got more complex, and the odds of being right fell off, confidence and raised-hands faltered.

I sit the front row because I film the lectures on my iPad, and there I was, doing my usual bit - taking detailed, color coded notes. If the lecturer mentioned something, I noted it, with my #5 mechanical pencil, but that something could become a heading or a bullet-point in a larger tableau. Those, I would color code with one of several gel pens - tracing carefully over the pencil. Later, in review, I might hi-lite these points with neon, phosphorescent highlighters. (I have a strict color coding system).

I tell you all that because it describes how focused I get on my note taking in classes. I don’t usually interact much due to my filming.

Suddenly, I noticed an unusual hush. I looked up and realized, to my trauma, that the professor had addressed me. He was looking fixedly at me, bent over with his hands on his knees (he’s on a platform).

“Pardon?” I said, meekly.
“Don’t just mouth the answer,” he repeated (apparently), exasperatedly, “say it out loud!”

I thought back to his last question and I offered, “Magnesium nitride,” but he tilted his head like he was waiting for more, “gave off ammonia as it mixed with the water?” I finish the answer like a question.

“Exactly!” he said, standing back up after giving his knees a little slap with his palms. “Thanks for JOINING us,” he says, and after checking his seating chart on his lectern, he added, “MS. Vionet.”

I took a shocked umbrage at this (scolding?), my whole body turning a defensive, atomic pink. What did I do - I thought - why was he being so sassy with me?

I doubt he REALLY wants answers just called out.

It might be a long year.

i am, what my friends so sarcastically yet exasperatedly say, 'an idiot'
why?
for many reasons
one being, it takes a solid ten seconds for anything even the slightest bit confusing to dawn on me and when it does it is expressed in the form of an over excited "oh yeah!"
"remember the english homework we got last week?"
.........
"oh yeah!"
two, i cannot drink and not drink to excess- but i'm working on it, i promise you best friends who have looked after me far too much on nights out where we should be dancing but instead they're holding my hands as i throw up ***** and cry over the dog that had wandered into the pub
three- all good things come in threes, right?
i'm an idiot because i care too much
not in the sense that i care too much for my friends and family, or that i care about what other people may think of me
no, i care too much about the boy that has already forgotten about me
i care too much about how he is and where he is and how he is and how he is and
he doesnt care about me
he's living his own life, like everyone else in this world, taking pictures and smoking **** and making friends and drinking coffee and doing what he does best while i sit here writing this poem wondering if he ever loved me
i dont think he did
i was just a distraction from her, who he said he was over but then why were her pictures still up on his wall staring directly at me when we would lie and talk about nothing and everything for hours and i was nowhere to be seen despite how he claimed i was "his favourite person" and now i know how little i meant to him because i am back here drowning and he is safe on land and he does not care
but i do
i'm sorry i'm an idiot
but my friends also say that it is endearing how i react to finally understanding a conversation, i can live with that
my friends say that i'll learn my lesson, and i most definitely have because i'm never drinking ***** again
my friends also say he didnt appreciate me, that he took me for granted and that i deserve better
i'm still working on that part.

man in an orange
jacket, angry
because his bus is late
because he's from
New York
and deserves better
than you. shouts to
nobody
-----------------------
a little girl with her
daddy in line at
the grocery store
say's "daddy a heart!
a heart!"
and points to a drop
of water left by
a bunch of carrots.
he feigns interest
looks exasperatedly
in my direction
I do not humor him.
she is me.
-------------------------
there are a lot
of people with that
face

that face like there's
nothing left of the world
but the space left
by cracks in the sidewalk

is that my face too?

I have to stop living through
metaphors

don't start writing
surrealist poetry.

these days I feel like I
do most of my living
on the bus.

A sailors widow waits at the shore for a ship that will never come,
A teenage girl sobs into her pillow till shes exasperatedly numb.

What is worse, being left by choice or with no choice at all?

She wore a red dress
It was Saturday night
To the football game
To the school donning
Red and white

Red was the color of her lipstick
Red was the color of jealousy as she rocked her hips
But Red was also the color of blood
The color of lust
At a football game
That was a hell of a combination

She was a sorority chick
Reputation of a confused ****
At the game, she said
“Why the **** are we losing?!"
Exasperatedly... And slightly tipsy
Not knowing that she would be watched
By boys who wanted to win
Who just wanted to ****

Red was also the color of passion
Touchdown after touchdown
She celebrates with her friends as it happened
The home team prevailed and won
The boys were staring at her
Waiting to pounce
As her ******* bounced

They were bros
Waiting on her
They were easily drunk
Looking at her plump ****
They had a plan
They struggled to keep it in the pants

She lived on campus
Her friends didn’t
Their beloved team was still undefeated
Before long, they had to go their separate ways
She lived in the Village dorms
It wasn’t far
She was a big girl
She was brave


They rolled up on her
In a slightly used Hyundai
Told her
“Baby girl, do you need a ride?"
She respectfully declined
They asked again
She decided against it
All of a sudden she felt something was wrong
She felt someone come from behind
Next thing she knew, she felt confined


“Hey, baby girl, what’s good?"
The driver said
“Why don’t you go chill with us in our hood?"
Two of them had their hands on her thighs
She wondered was this her demise?
With tears in her eyes
They still had that look
They stopped the car
Evil was afoot

“****, baby girl, why you crying like that?”
One said.
“Yeah, we just wanted to chat.”
Another one continued.
“We just wanted to know if the rumors are true."
And finally the driver said...
“And we want to see it too.”

The bros pounced
They saw red
The color of her bra and *******
Were red
They groped like animals
At her *******
Their scratches were red
Their repeated thrusts
After angry ******
After angry ******
Made her bleed red
Insult
After angry insult
Was venomously red
Their marks of territory
All over her body
Were red


And when they were done...
“Baby girl, mmm.”
They were satisfied.

We were (Leong, Peter, Anna and I) eating at a popular Italian eatery (outdoors) and the check arrived - I swooped across the table and grabbed the check from the waiter. Peter whispers, “You can’t pay for everything the entire weekend.” “Why not?” I say, “It makes me happy.” “There’s no reason to,” he says. “I need a REASON??” I snort, which always makes Leong laugh. “Have you MET me?” I say, shaking my head dubiously. “I’ve met you,” he pronounces, “and you’re a NUT.“ “Thank you,” he says, indicating the check exasperatedly.

Peter’s transfinancial: a rich man trapped in a poor man’s body. He has taste but he exists on a grant and a meager stipend. We’re just friends but I’m holding a bag and he’s not. Besides, he needs a new laptop - badly - and shouldn’t be squandering his grips on me.

Greek-life is on the rise. Maybe it's because those groups offer planned social events or because, with COVID winding down (covid smovid) there’s more going on. There’s a pressure here - to be your most authentic self - to be top academically, socially - to have your calendar filled out. There’s a frantic nature to it. I’m being lowkey rushed for a fraternity (for next year) but I love my roommate situation and I think I’d druther stick with this set I love.

Which begs the question about social time. Should it be methodical, relentless, super planned out? Super planned interactions can seem transactional and not easy going and natural. College social life is so different from high school. College life is so much more charged in every way. The range of people you meet, the broader perspectives, the available options for activities.

I find myself in a search for balance. Private time vs social time. Before covid, you’d go to school and then you’d come home to your room, where you could just hang out. It was a self care place.

At university, a dorm room is less of a “home” where you can be alone and spend that healing time. You never know who's going to be in your living room and what they’re up to. I get claustrophobic when my door is closed so I rely a lot on noise-canceling technology.

A dorm room can seem like those covid lockdown days - there’s little or no separation between academic and private space. I’m just unpacking some thoughts. *shrug