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Mariah Jan 2015
the year opened on two kinds of olympics:
Sochi and selfie.

we spent months looking for
one missing plane
276 missing girls,
and 43 missing students.

from Ukraine to Mexico,
Palestine to Venezuela,
to Ferguson,
the front of the battle lines
were crammed full.

their stories captivated us,
their movements motivated us.

we snapchatted, we vined and instagrammed,
we remembered their names.

Malala Yousafzai
to Mike Brown.
Eric Garner to Ebola.

we made some friends
and some enemies.

and I think,
when I look back,
years from now,
at the year 2014,
the first thing to come to mind will be,
"I was there."
here's to a great 2015.
Tina Fish Jun 2013
Senseless living in Beirut. Disconnected from routine, from drama. Disconnected from passion and compassion in a stagnant, stagnant, stagnant place. No reassurance for tomorrow, and definitely no reassurance today.

And it all sounds so disheartening, even to yourself. So you put those thoughts on a dark shelf, resting in the cavities of your mind, only to find them oozing out again.

Making arms feel heavy. In a city that’s the perfect size for strolling every step feels like a chore. Like why’d I walk out here on the streets for? There’s no room for me. Too many holes in the street, and I wore these sandals coz they feel light on my feet, but they keep ripping. Dog ****, low-class spit, and high-class ****. It’s **** I tell ya. No room, nothing.

Unless you’re on a list. Then you’ll find endless place for you, and mix with commoners on the dance floors. Rub shoulders with those struggling artists and hidden talents, photographers and such. More images, much.

But still that’s not enough…. if you happen to make it, that is… still not enough. Because that kind of comfort is tough on the soul, and it hurts that you didn’t just go home and save it. You know, save your money, save your time, save your self. Not become someone else. Not finish the night rolled up in bed and thinking over those million things you said, was that the right thing? Perfecting social awkwardness by living it again, but alone. Just let it go, the past is dead.

You think, ‘let me think.’ Let me sink into the things that stimulate my mind, that I find interesting, revealing, revolutionary. And re- re- the process. Reanalyze in a new frame of mind. This isn’t that time, it’s now. I’m all so much more grown up. I can deal with the higher material. My envelopes carry essays, and my mirrors reflect mantras. I use my blade to cut Mongolian chicken.  A unique recipe I found on Pinterest. I’ve got several blogs I read…I’m sure you don’t know them, they’re avant-garde…and I dedicate a hard process into selecting the right documentary, something that’ll illuminate me further. We apply this fervor into knowing more, only to realize how little we can move with that knowledge.

Killer of dreams, Beirut is. This murderer of hope. Like even if you got home, and plugged that DVD in to get your mind off with a laugh and a lay, the electricity finds its way to blast through and ruin a perfectly good evening for you. See it was feeding off your ****** energy and ran a little too highly, and now your wires shot. And somehow it burned through your generator heart. Could we somehow spark the cables with some electricity again? I don’t know…let’s check the trunk for monkeys.

Senseless. Not seeing, not feeling, not tasting, hearing, or smelling of sense. Honestly, just pushed beyond the limit of decent respect. Rather ******, crass, crude, no sense to reason, only nonsense, like gibberish, a terrible two tantrum, nothing to pacify, no milk of poppy or anything else. The alcohol is hit so we can’t rub teething gums. Instead plastic BB guns, manufactured with lead, which I’ve read shouldn’t be given to children under the age of two. But still, this is what we do in Beirut.

I want to root for a winning team. Something that’ll keep me on the edge of my seat so I can leap at the final score. Give me a winning team to root for. Instead divided, and individualistic, the secret to the American dream, that didn’t seem to work. Or collective, and fanatic, fundamentalist and bat-**** problematic, because of loss of self. Now, what’s the fun in that? If those are the teams, don’t put me up to bat. Let me stand in the back, and please pick me last.

Senseless and fast. Each day merges into next, and Lebanon is an eternal vacation. Cheap time chalets and happy time oil rubs. Under setting suns that morph into other ones, instagrammed and timeless on HD…not very revolutionary if we think within the context of things. But still, we never seem to, think.

Rather reignite the old patterns of thought. The ones that brought pearls and Switzerland’s, French nights and Brazilian beats. Ones that won’t have us marching on streets, but rather cater to the revolution of our hearts. It’s called the revolution of love. But I hope you don’t mind I’ve forgotten my glove in the other room… don’t worry baby…I’ll pull out if I feel that I’m cuming too soon… uh oh…(boom).

Was that a bomb? Or fireworks coz we were looking in each other’s eyes? Hide nonsense with senseless pastimes, de-synthesizing further. Falling deeper into this cataclysmic abyss, that leaves no space for sense.

Give me a tissue to wipe it. Clear it away. There’s another day starting and I want to forget that even happened. That I tapped into something and remembered to care. That would make no sense, it’s senseless back there.
lbbueno Aug 2018
I'm everywhere all at once
In my mind I am making love in Chechnya
But I don't call it that
I am writing a speech for my middle school graduation in Texas
Where all I know is brown and white
I listen to the world news in black market USBs
That I got from a guy at a parking lot
Wondering who am I loyal to
My soul or survival
The freed are never free of everything--
No matter where I go
I am still my father’s seed
The way he carried me
I carry his sins
While creating my own breed--
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
It will be Instagrammed

I am an egg
Inside a black hole
I am yet to grow old
Because I am yet to be--
I am here,
But my mind is not
As I lay my head to rest
I raise my hopes to wake up tomorrow
More than I did today
This chap iz a life
long student – groan fizzy
(from being protean entity
at least sustained along minimally
cerebral Mohorovicic continuity
till...post mortality
reincarnating one carbon peculiarity
enigmatic existence eternally

into maternity of wives eternity)
at The University
of Adversity, accruing excessive
Kirkovian priceline annuity
(while in utero, a mere embryo
took correspondence
(college level, some
doctoral material audited)

majority of courses regarding
Art of the Deal
screaming, pacifying,
and crying (as if
experiencing ******
******, thus
viz "FAKE" teary
bully affected game

milking babyhood),
hence subsequently
matriculated half heartedly
performing with
tier rubble grades,
since birth remotely
affected by planetary syzygy,
also a skeptic asper astrology,

but yours truly doth count
lucky stars, that heredity
bequeathed literary ability,
no matter this revelation
came mooch later aboot thirty
something year old, a frequent
guest of her expert *****
nilly (Philly) Delphi

related oracles, asper Minecraft
ordaining claim to flame
ming prominence - fiery,
comet tee of errors,
a modest discovery
made decades since molly
cod dulled boyhood,
though thee woman

addressed as "mommy,"
a trailing rocky eminent
(mebbe, cuz a shortage
of dis "e's) appellation
seemingly decreasing
in popularity, (especially
among deceased)
within the worldwide

web of humanity
yet reference to she,
who did birth me considered
this sole heir: solitary
quiet-natured,
predisposed money
less ness (linkedin
later in son dreary

existence with kindled,
instagrammed, and
facebooked assiduity
didst crest aim ming
corporeal trajectory,
into stratospheric heavenly
vault, where he brewed
quite a portfolio

maneuvering thru back
channels of bureaucracy
which sorely tested
his finite capacity
the general random universality
of entropy, and chaos theory
and well nigh pitched
him to the troubling

zone of delinquency
slapped, spurred, and stirred
with instant karma,
sans initial poker face state
of existence born
of knuckle dragging
skin of teeth i.e. penury
cost mental, physical,

and spiritual actuality
well being, your excellency
sabotaging any
opportunity for gallantry
denied golden app
port tune nitty rescuing

a damsel in distress
which incessant (nasal
cartilage quasi bone
if fied bone chafed against
the figurative grind
stone begat fancy
full notions to this dichotomy
of cellular unity.

— The End —