start
set the scene...
somewhere enclosed, close and closed
like a bed
(tight, restricted like, uh, the world all around me, how fitting
now it’s political)
on a morning
and maybe the sun will be rising,
or setting−yes−to represent the ethereal dusk of my cognition,
Say I’m with someone−don’t identify whom−it’s meant to be a mystery:
unfinished, left.

it could be you

and I’ll search the dictionary
for words to make my pseudo-philosophical, imagist, absurdist poem obfuscated, esoteric,
tanquam yet favillous; beyond recognition
So that it sounds like Dr. Seuss,
that is, a Dr. Seuss that knows Althusser, Derrida and the early writings of Flaubert.
add some random enjamb-
ment.  cut out the capitalizationandspacing. start a sentence;
end it. Section break

Oh, I’ll need more words, you know, to remind my peers of my intellectuality,
-out of place words that don’t actually mean anything:
Specificity or
literati
that’s good. Now, to end-

bring it to a close in one all-encompassing word:
(to be read over-dramatically)
pretension.

I seldom indulge in letter writing
Because I consider it
To be a cold and illusory
Means of communication.
I will only send someone a letter
If I'm certain it's going to serve
A definite functional purpose,
Such as that which I'm
Scrupulously concocting at present
Indisputably does.
It's not that I incline
Towards excessive premeditation;
Its rather that I have to subject
My thoughts and emotions
To quasi-military discipline,
As pandemonium is the sole alternative.
I'm the compensatory man par excellence.
                                                              
Deliberation, in my case,
Is a means to an end,
But scarcely by any means,
An end in itself.
This letter possesses not one,
But two, designs.
On one hand, its aim is edification.
Besides that, I plan to include it
In the literary project upon which
I'm presently engaged,
With your permission of course.
Contrary to what you have suspected
In the past,
I never intend to trivialise intimacy
By distilling it into art.
On the contrary, I seek
To apotheosise the same.
                                                              
You see...I lack the necessary
Emotional vitality to do justice
To people and events
That are precious to me;
I am forced, therefore,
To at a later date call
On emotive reserves
Contained within my unconscious
In order to transform
The aforesaid into literary monuments.
You once said that my feelings
Had been interred under six feet
Of lifeless abstractions;
As true as this might be,
The abstractions in question
Come from without
Rather than within me:
                                                              
My youthful spontaneity
Many mistrustfully identified
With self-satisfied inconsiderateness
(A standard case of fallacious reasoning),
And I was consequently
The frequent victim
Of somewhat draconic cerebrations.
I tremble now
In the face of hyperconsciousness.
I've manufactured a mentality,
Riddled with deliberation,
Cankerous with irony;
Still, in its fragility,
Not to say, artificiality,
It can, with supreme facility,
Be wrenched aside to expose
The touch-paper tenderness within.
                                                              
With characteristic extremism,
I've taken ratiocination
To its very limits,
But I've acquainted myself with,
Nay, embraced my antagonist
Only in order to more effectively throttle him.
Being a survivor of the protracted passage
Through the morass of nihilism,
Found deep within
"the hell of my inner being,"
I am more than qualified to say this:
There is no way out
Of the prison of ceaseless sophistry.
There are many things I have left to say,
But I shall only have begun to exist in earnest
When these are far behind me,
In fact, so far as to be all but imperceptible.
                                                              
I long for the time
When I shall have compensated to my satisfaction.
I never desired intellectuality; it was ****** upon me.
Everything I ever dreaded being, I've become
Everything I ever desired to be, I've become.
I'm the sum total of a lifetime's
Fears and fantasies,
Both wish-fulfillment
And dread-consummation incarnate.
I long for the time
When I shall have compensated to my satisfaction.
I never desired intellectuality; it was ****** upon me.  
I'm the sum total of a lifetime's
Fears and fantasies,
Both wish-fulfillment
And dread-consummation incarnate.
I'm the compensatory man par excellence.

Remember those city nights we spent
inhaling the marijuana and halal truck tinted air that fills the space
between the skyscrapers?

Glowing storefronts illuminated
both the skies with their stars glistening quietly under coats of dust
and the streets, dense under ***** and ***** spilled by boys
who yell obscenities to girls
who hang their heads low,
ashamed to be happy to have their push up bras appreciated.

It was the summer we read Catcher in the Rye religiously.
We were overflowing with privilege and hating privilege.
Oh god, how we thought we hated privilege back then.

In June we graduated from middle school,
and you found out your father was cheating on the woman
he cheated on your mother with.
In July you kissed a boy for the first time,
even let him feel you up a little.
I couldn't help getting uneasy,
even though you said it was nothing.

Most nights we couldn’t contain ourselves, shouting ideas
fast as the taxi cabs who'd nearly run our still-growing bodies to the ground,
always in a hurry to get home to their own sleeping children.
We raged rebellion against the red lights.
There was no time to wait around for things as unimportant
as people who weren't us.

In August, I took a klonopin pill from my mom’s drawer
because I couldn’t stop the dread beneath my skull.
It made me sleepy.

We were so filled with poems and wine copped at art galleries
where we’d feigned intellectuality,
that we'd see a *** on a subway train
and call him a vagabond.

Back then we thought we knew how life worked
like the palms of each others hands.
By September, albeit, our fingers were calloused
from the time we climbed a playground's wire fence,
twisted the caps off beer bottles,
and swung from the Monkey Bars.

eight, nine
nine, eight, nine
Hello, father, spare me a dime,
and pay the mime with
five landmines;
******* the bridge if
we've got time.

Appalachian Yeti-man:
set fire to the trashcan.
Call me hobo-stan,
and if the beard fits
grow it.

Show it;
show me the D.
Dentistry,
stay with me;
Explain for free:
"Dichotomy
of the mind"
thoughtfully,
for a time.

Robot-o me,
Mr. Oregato.
Set phasers to ****
stunningly.
Make fun of he
for bad grammar
and intellectuality.
He dumber;
me smarter.
She's aderall;
I'm martyr.

Destroy my innards,
Captain.
I need them not.
She leaves me rot,
and he feeds me Scott.

Scottie doesn't know
that Fiona and me
eat him in a van while
he's sleeping.
Cannibal,
call me Hannibal,
and she's the Jane to my
Tarzan,
pulling the fruits of
my loom.

Not long ago, the writer of these lines,
In the mad pride of intellectuality,
Maintained “the power of words”—denied that ever
A thought arose within the human brain
Beyond the utterance of the human tongue:
And now, as if in mockery of that boast,
Two words—two foreign soft dissyllables—
Italian tones, made only to be murmured
By angels dreaming in the moonlit “dew
That hangs like chains of pearl on Hermon hill,”—
Have stirred from out the abysses of his heart,
Unthought-like thoughts that are the souls of thought,
Richer, far wilder, far diviner visions
Than even the seraph harper, Israfel,
(Who has “the sweetest voice of all God’s creatures,”)
Could hope to utter. And I! my spells are broken.
The pen falls powerless from my shivering hand.
With thy dear name as text, though hidden by thee,
I cannot write—I cannot speak or think—
Alas, I cannot feel; for ’tis not feeling,
This standing motionless upon the golden
Threshold of the wide-open gate of dreams,
Gazing, entranced, adown the gorgeous vista,
And thrilling as I see, upon the right,
Upon the left, and all the way along,
Amid empurpled vapors, far away
To where the prospect terminates—thee only!

Dear Picture-in-my-head,

I wish I had you for my reality instead.



Your star spangled banners,

your dim faded lights,

that alan walker music

misty, misty night.



Him,

from the corner of eyesight

letting his frown drop,

asking me in. Our time.



An audacious vivacity,

the merry sliding down of unhinged desires.

A mating of intellectuality,

less of skinny lust, discarded mask and pride.



Wafting smell of earth drenched in season’s first rain,

halting words breaking the initial stranger pace.

Cups of ginger tea than ***** and ice,

living the moment than getting drowned in haze.



I could whisper my secret wishes -the one that involves a mountain top,

a leather jacket, bullet ride

an unfaltering speech – woman of the moment,

a potential done right.



You could tell me about that night you cried,

That misunderstood age

Your favourite cartoons,

And their funny ways.



We could draw the clouds on our palms,

The ones that compliment a picturgasmic sunset

Feel the lightness of solitude,

the sweetened somethings in the nothing.



The breeze would crash against me,

Before it hit you softly in the face,

And it would feel just right,

To let you have a bit of me this night.



It would be good, or even better;

but it’s just stuck in letters.

For it’s a trapped swansong – in a party with people I barely know,

and wouldn’t want to, at the end of the night.

He brought me 76 roses
One for each sunrise we’ve seen
The snow falling
Not in unique patterns
But awkward clumps
But I like them that way
They seem more real
And with him
I hoped everything was real

He brought me to an art gallery
Where we carefully took notes
Graphite stained hands
Touched and shared thoughts
On this painting and that
Joking at our intellectuality
And he bought me a poster
Of Dali’s Persistence of Memory
And an ebony frame
Which he helped me put up
Onto my wall
Above my bed
So I could see it each day
As the flowers bloomed
Outside

In August was waves
Where we held hands
Perfectly sculpted for one another
And watched waves roll by
And sand tickle toes
Not a word exchanged
No need for it
Our scents mixing
Into the fresh air
Billowing by
A hint of lemonade
And beer from down the way

He took me on a picnic
In the middle of October
We sat under the stars
While the trees carefully
Cried tears of leaves
On us
Entwining us
Bonding us into one
As we covered ourselves in blanket
A makeshift house
To guard us against all
And we could hide away
Just the two of us

Winter came once more
Lights dangling on front doors
And that night
He took me to a café
And we sat until 2am
Reading our novels
Though it was hard to concentrate
So instead we ordered
Cappuccinos
And talked the night away
About nothing and everything
While snow fell
Not in unique patterns
But awkward clumps
But I like them that way
They seem more real
And with him
I hoped everything was real

unbearable secrets
negotiating bearable truths as
                         day brakes in
                       everyday life of
                     rural experiments

         taken by the
huge momentum of lifes
            eventualities

               broken by the
        roughness of modern
         intellectuality as the
       devided forgetfulness
                                              grows­ into
elegant white memories

Creativity and ambition is real
And the feeling of risk and intelligence
Are asking for damnation please, placidly
Birds among many things that chirp around your soul that wakes up the dead
Cheering up the party with the talk of apartheid, black and white
Competition is the last word, and talk of lost causes and intellectuality
Est mir leid
I'm up in my knees with Bukowski, they call me old-school Burroughs, the Kerouac rings in the philosophical Barry Manilow
Barry Levinson, please don't make my death bed, you're plot points make sense ambivalently too in case I touch upon Bacchus
The dichotomy of the bridling ***, I suppose you switched with the surface of the country full of dunes and locusts
The swamp of the divorcee storm saves it for the orgie and the promiscuous dollar ride and melee

It’s ok to be harmlessly pretentious
give your ideas and life some credit
& venerate your ideas with research
don’t browbeat others with negativity
or a misjudged sense of intellectuality
but don’t be afraid to aim for lofty ideas
perhaps ideas that are hard to fully grasp
even seemingly beyond your comprehension
the most interesting ideas usually work that way
immerse yourself in the terminology of your interest
until you can understand the language of their glossary
eventually writing new sentences that become paragraphs
until what seemed like a pretense becomes the present tense.

Henny-yussly mischeevyuss
He orfed growshurries irregardless
Of the rawshussness and disgustment
Of the masonairy surrounding him.
We consistiountly tried to keep aholt
Of his mumbeulizing narrativation,
But he was dissensibly non-coherent
With a naturalistic talent to devaricate.

He was consistively disassembling,
Misindicating his intellectuality
And his irreality noissomely aloud.
Of his malapropicisms he was proud.
His crassy disaparagements reeked
And his ununderstandments peaked
They pointed out his misconstumblement
About his privates and the government.

His blabbermouthedness notoriastic
Rerendered him atombombastical.
His practicication of the irradical
Was mostly piraticalish; nastical.
His pernowncements so disapplaudable
Too bad his words were so megaudible
Unpossible, hyperdisgustisizing,
To the point of indisguising.

Golden pools of false luck and sinister emotions caress your broken soul and temporarily mend the aching parts that seem to make up more than half of you while dark brown fields of hope are your anchor as you let go of all the cares bottled up inside. Sighs of relief fill the air as you embrace soft skin and soak into the comfort that easily flows from the golden pools and sighs of relief fill the air as you feel the pull of the anchor holding you in place that allows you to release every anxiety ever experienced. Safe. You feel safe. This must be love because complex emotional connections mean more to the both of you and innocent touch with a single kiss are enough for a life time of separation. Why? Because it meant more to look at him and know his thoughts than to feel him and only know his carnal desires. Emotional no mental stimulation in general was more fascinating than the anatomy of a boy. And a girl. To know who the other was past physical interaction past superficial  touch. It was better to know he wanted me past my physicality and more for my intellectuality. Beauty. Redefined by him as intelligence and the ability to stimulate minds rather than look good on a magazine cover.

this weight.

it's been on my shoulders for most of my life.

its constantly weighing me down and it seems to get heavier the more
stressed i begin to feel.

i don't want to believe they're responsibilities and the high expectations i hold for myself, but they are.

which ******* *****.

why do i have to live my life stressing over an exam that won't matter in several years when i could be worrying about the imminent plummet of this planet called earth.

this world, this planet, Earth.

it could die any time soon.

it could suddenly implode on itself, it could instantly fall to its inevitable doom due to pollution, overcrowded populations, human pollution.

this world that we deem as "home" could instantly disappear and we would go along with it.

but here i am

stuck worrying about an exam that determines whether or not i get college credit for the class.

stuck worrying about how my grades look in comparison to everyone else in my classes.

stuck stressing over the fact that i am not worthy enough to my parents because my level of intellectuality just isn't high enough for them.

stuck stressing over how i don't know what my friends think of me and whether or not they actually hate me even in the slightest.

i've conditioned myself to worry

about the absolute wrong things.

i despise that humans are identified based on their intelligible intellectualism rather than the amount of knowledge they've gained by simply living.

we all live in a world where, for some reason, numbers matter more than the youth's, young adult's, adult's mental and emotional health.

everyone is so worried about how much money they have because that's what they need to survive.

we need money in order to have that false sense of security.

money.

it's all we care about.

but in order to get that money, we must go through the hells and stresses and anxieties and depression episodes that is known as

the american educational system.

why must i worry about the letter grades when i could worry about the fact that people are dying.

that this planet of ours is dying.

that we don't know enough about the universe to even deem it as safe.

i and many others have this weight of over achieving expectations and responsibilities.

i have to do good in school or else i'll be seen as a failure.

i have to get straight A's or my parents will be disappointed in me.

i have to get a high education or else i won't be eligible for college.

and if i don't go to college, i don't have a degree and i don't get a job and i have no money and i will eventually die off as no one.

i'd absolutely hate to die knowing i stressed over some ******* letter and number grades when i could've explored my purpose and my meaning for living and why i drive myself to continue living.

yet, i will be too old to discover those things because i decided to dedicate all of my precious time to anxiety attacks and depression episodes because i failed several tests.

why must i and many people worry about this heavy weight on our shoulders.

why must this weight be so awfully heavy.

God is not a myth,
He's the truth,
It seems most think believing in God is denial of reality,
Lack of clarity,
Or even just low intellectuality,
Well is it?
So many events narrate to me the existence of a higher power,
Its not a thing I've not questioned,
I've questioned and questioned.....
And the answers I seek,
Are always beneath all the hearts;
Of the helpless souls who lick their sours of being judged for believing in Him;God
So I wonder;"what does it have to do with me? "
Am just a human being acting weird at times,...
I feel guilty for am straight mentally but all I see in the mirror is a man detrimentally,
Causing my inner self;harm,
Then I realise,
That its wiser to follow my hearts eyes,
For they confirm what my mind already knows but tries to argue against.,
Such is life.

Chaucer was that gentle parfett knight.
Travelling as he went on his pilgrimage
Like a beautifully medievel Kerouac
With a bunch of others on their progress
Telling tales as they went on the holy journey
To that place of worship on the road to poetry
Nothings deep everything is scenery an’ heraldry
Lovely on its pilgrimage to Canterbury
Then some silver stuff takes you on to genius
Written by that bad bad bald guy
In that age of written geniuses
When everything went Einstein in colour
Every relative had an absolute poet
Dreaming of theatres in the round
And other kinds of geometric fashions
For strutting the stuff of the written culture
Beggars were borrowed and the acting got better
Dressed for dying beautifully to a paying audience
Things were on the up when written downtown
Across the boards and curtained signs saying exit
Selling stuff in the aisles to increase the margins
And other kinds of existentially profitable existences
For the written word and the acting sin tax
Made a buck or two worth turning up for
In the bear pit of the wooden O’s auditorium.
Then the lights went out in a very puritan fashion
Of iron buckles on high and mighty hats
Inside heavy shoes were emptier soles
Nailed art to the boards in crucifying style
Paradise was lost but that light still shone
In those dark and dismal times of religion
Where even god was proclaimed a heretic
For daring to be one of life’s creative souls
With an occasional very flashy revelation
Flasing the light and other stuff so fantastically
Behind the shed in the basement of the other Eden
Johnnie was mixing up the stuff from the garden
Still tripping the light show quite fantastic
Transforming colour from darker spaces
That kept the puritans in their prurient places
A voice alone inside the high hat revolution
Didn’t quite do everything all write on the night
Because he thought about it twice in the daytime
Thinking about is okay but seeing it is better
A tale of genius smothered by intellectuality
Was wee Alexander’s thoughtful contribution
Butterflies and wheels and other kinds of deals
Set the scene for the future enlightenment
In the shape of ghosts to haunt eternity
With a grain of sand and a redder rose
An’ other stuff both wonderful and dangerous
Its appeal was so magically tremendous
It remains today to haunts us all so beautifully
In shapes that become everything around us
The surrounding beauty is so alchemical
Transforming water into wine and flowing poetry
The miracle of pouring words transforms us
From passengers to charioteers of fire
On the battlefield for a worlds tomorrow
Where our sweetest songs still remain
Our tears of joy from fleeing pain
Played upon the fields of destruction
Where yesterday will never be tomorrow
Unwritten the sun sings it on the morn
Because tomorrow wants to be here
It’s there on the rise before our very eyes
And nothing’s stopping it except ourselves
The poets wrote it so long ago
And now’s a better time than most to sing it
All together now, ‘the future can be beautiful’

Me, my body, my skin.
It’s all wrong.
The world told me to change my face, make sure nothing’s misplaced.
‘You should be perfect’
My eyes are an ugly color, my nose is too big, my forehead is too large.
The world told me to look through special goggles, look like a model.
‘You should be perfect’
My waist is too large, my hips are too wide, I’m not skinny enough.
The world told me to change the clothes on my body, be as beautiful as a poppy.
‘You should be perfect’
That dress makes you look fat, those clothes are too revealing, not that, it’s too boyish.
The world told me to change my personality, think with less intellectuality.
‘You should be perfect’
My ambitions are too smart for a girl, my attitude is too kind, too trusting.
The world told me to change the way I look through the mirror, see myself clearer.
‘You should be perfect’
My insecurities are unreasonable, I should be happy with myself.
The world told me to have body confidence, have more self-tolerance.
‘You should be perfect’
You are beautiful, you shouldn’t have insecurities.
All while telling me ‘how to be perfect’...
It’s all wrong.
Me, my body, my skin.

For the less capable intellectually, life is a plain struggle, continually.

The same struggle assumes complex forms of description for people endowed with varying degrees of intellectuality.

You’ll grow up with the need to seek attention from those who mean the least to you
For a status that will mean nothing in a few years time
All for a title and name that is insignificant and formed on the basis of validation
You’ll alter parts of yourself to appease to the greater mass
Cut your hair because it’s what everyone besides yourself wants
Wear tighter clothes to gain recognition from boys in the hallways
Attend parties for the mere sake of being noticed
Befriend those you have nothing in common with
Dumb down your intellectuality to seem relatable
See your reflection in the mirror only to resent it
Hate yourself because you've seemingly become everything you detest

This one’s for you
For failing to see the beautiful parts in yourself and embracing them
You are everything you ever needed to be long before they told you to change

-c. alejandra

I am constantly attempting away,
Away from the mentality of judgement of others
Acknowledging my own imperfections
Knowing there has never been a measure of perfection
But just the expression of our intellectuality
However, There has and always is a measure of imperfection
Yet, we rather shy away from reality
And label them failures and ours mistakes
Illusioning/illuding our own mentalities of judgement
The reality is,
There is a reason why we are all different
And that reason should not make any difference
Same as the reason we need many-different ingredients to make one final product

yesterday i told you i loved you
then you didn't speak to me for two ******* years
the sun rose and set and the rope got tighter
drier
it sc sc scratched
your generosity is sublime
but the love lacks immunity
humanity
self explanatory while standing on the chair
the sheets rose to my chin
soft and cool
but the thought of the sauna made me sw sw sweat
my face is in the dirt and it tastes good
earth dirt
and the sssssssssmelllll
i look at the view and see perspective
reflective
surreal comprehensive
lines and shadows
your lips
taste like
bourbon and *******
the dance is surreal
the art clock chimes on the 18th hour
the 18 hour clock
it's perfect
take me back to the underground easy
complexity intellectuality
and the respectability
of the love i told you
yesterday

mission is started and it will be accomplished, you decided to diss so you will  be demolished,
my mind is refined my wordplay is polished,  you’re
getting hit with verse like a hook from a right fist
followed up with a left one uppercut with a twist, try to hit back, unwise just you missed!
playing with fire you get scorched by the flames, third degree and beyond, the burn is your shame, your trapped by my rhyme, stuck in my domain you lose every sense child this is my game.
wilder than  wild i’m too hard to tame, your brain has been warped and never the same, go sit in the corner stay quiet and lame, try to confront me, no never again!

my words are hard and like a diamond they gleam on, you woke up the rhyming inner possessive high demon
you’ve been shut down and off before you even say game on, now all you can do is whine and mindlessly rave on.

news flash mind your self this is just stage one, zero in on your brain cell until the last one is done, i’m bringing you pain mentally this is fun,still playing this game even though i have won.
i shoot straight and quick like a laser, stinging your nerves like a taser, spewing forth word sets like a volcanos geyser, cutting you down fast and quick like a razor, try to keep up you’ll just lock up and seizure.

yes you started but now you are finished, your childish insults reduced and diminished,
you woke up the beast, im the nightmare the menace, i render you mute and stupidly mindless.

i lord over you my superiority
your inferiority only amuses me
you’re falling short to my intellectuality, you’ve been given a rhyming lesson this is the reality.
i’m  your sickness a deplorable disease, blocking all your insults desist and decease. heavy hitting verses knocking you to your knees, coming back at you you begging  stop please, now give up and quit it
i leave you in peace!!