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.

Probability isn’t the luck it deserves for wanting desperately to be noticed by any appeals. Generating new focuses never thought possible. If so… Who is the recipient? Who is the lawmaker? Who being the justice department? Goods to making essential markers on productive velocities. Justification is outweighed by department alone. Growing ever scarcer without benefiting attitudes in place. Conjecturing solvent pleasures across many fields. Fields of accessory dependents ensuring a collective term is agreeable. Except, what if probability is outweighed not by something further from its own attitude? What if it can’t benefit itself? In question, becoming misshaped, mispronounced, or misinterpreted. Depending on who’s right, or who’s wrong shouldn’t matter until claims are assured. Propagating across the many fields of accessory dependents. Dependents outweighing the logic one is misshaped by. Demonstrating probabilities mispronouncing sense of terms for oneself. Wrapping up in a crumbled conjecture. Propagating a newer field of already surveyed products. Truth is in the stream that propagates those fields. Accessory moments dependent on gaining tension through the rise of the recipient. That’s the only way probability will ever learn. Hence why it shuts down if it ever involved itself. Itself without its own recipient. Its own justice department. Lawmaker without any dependent ideas would ever appeal to its own logical making, if it’s never dependent on itself. Only flashing the accessory dependent on other influences. Influences going way down the line of certainties without pleasure. Urges relapse. Furthering its own clustered rut! One without mistakes diverging deeper into uncertainties. Taking risks isn’t noticeable. When probability taking risks enough to (blush) down the line of certainties without an aim involved. Scattering their rut from within. But how does it involve probability? It doesn’t. Probability is the representation of how one constant judge itself for pleasure. When pleasurable actions are dependent with a blank impression never sought out. To focused on probability. When probability isn’t fruitful by its own design either. Only way it works. Never looking back in itself. A reflection of tempted attitudes fluttering in a swift, but rigid wind. Wind never tempted by its own sway. If one is to admit what they aren’t even aware of changing. Another shutdown happens! Justifications for probabilities own reckoning depends on other solvents. Solvents who don’t even understand the probabilities of there own life makings. Able to learn what is dependent onto others. Never within themselves directing their starry performance. What happens when things are finally noticeable within probabilities that will exceed probable actions of the force that dictates fates majority complexes? Complexes without variety. Varieties misshaped by mishappenings of trust. Which includes a basic awareness of some factor never hesitating to judge within the core of being itself. A view fate designs in its weapon of probability very well. What is fate up to…? Never can guess when probability shuts down all appliances out of contact with no one but itself left in the dark. Probability is. Everything has just become disowned. Fate exchanging glances with itself for one last second, before rapping up this little diverse expression. Pinpointing its weapon of probability without knowing why that is? Hinting at fate not being the only recipient to follow in its weapons obstructed desires.

I.
The people look like flowers at last - sick thoughts of dead men strike the clock winding backwards and ignite to illuminate my approach,
The people look like,
Cigarette burns,
Bullet wounds,
Casualties of Rollins' war with himself,
Of Ellis' numb utopia,
Of the Bukowski cynic suicide,
Of the thoughtless progeny of deadbeat generations desperate to push back,
Every street corner is holy, baptized in the blood of those who died believing,
A thousand fists moved to release a thousand frustrations, and a celebrity endorsement for each overdose death,
Angel mine, abate your gutter wars and mob mentalities,
The tattoo ink has dried and the clubs are closed for the night,
Where are the revolutionaries to go now?

II.
The revenge of the skinhead minority,
The born again soul of a fallen brother,
The madman defiant in publicized rage, the faces of the enemy painted with crosshairs on TV screens,
And the damaged finally able to stand on their own,
Damaged and unrepentant,
Damaged and brilliant,
Damaged with criminal record eyes,
with paranoia brain, with X's tattooed into calloused knuckles,
with track marked arms,
Damaged, the unstoppable tide of the righteous youth - caricatured in the spray painted stencils of their testaments

III.
The spoiled children of an undefinable zeitgeist with nothing to lose,
In ecstasy binges these angels hallucinated manifest destiny through non prescription lenses,
Studying traffic patterns I remember how people are afraid to merge and everybody is looking for just the right amount of trouble,
A fire dies and another is born almost immediately,
Careless ramblings in careless county - a land I'm sure was promised to someone, somewhere, sometime
But after the gold rush nobody could cash out fast enough,
I can't cash out fast enough -
Every girl has got the guilty smile of a teenage runaway living out a Janis Joplin fantasy, and all the boys line up like addicts itching to cop,
The air is so heavy nobody can hold a thought - and when I speak, It's the accent, they say, they can always tell,

IV.
Taxi rides in laser show utopia,
Sicilian saint newly minted tells me about the ******* machine and it's ravenous posturing -
be present & be seen,
Fake it till you make it,
Cop killers singing confessions for beer on the street corner,
While the socialist manifests itself in mispronounced beverages and faux-marked Russian volumes,
avant-garde hyperrealism & ritualistic sacrifice,
There was something about *** and dying on the radio I couldn't be bothered to hear,
A drunken brawl over a bad bet made, disappointing street race, police sirens distant growing moreso,
In ****** bars where ladies always drink free, I rewatch the fall of a ***** old man from the penthouse to the street all over again,
If you haven't figured it out by now,
Don't try

V.
In dreams I walk the Pacific Coast Highway dead of night, barefooted soul alive and naked in the Western night like a Jim Morrison poem, the traveler that never arrives, watching the sunrise form halos over the Sierra Nevada, like a girl I know back East who talks a great deal about plans, the best of which never even have an aftertaste of freedom
There is the same sublime anthems playing on every radio and palm trees forming crosses for any messiah who is willing to claim them,
Last train out of Anaheim as the tessellating California skies swell and give, catch and release,
I see the roofs of tenements lit up by Disneyland,
ocean reflecting the glare from Heaven,
faces of the impoverished reflecting the glare from Heaven,
everybody getting sunburned from the glare from Heaven,
I watch the lovers depart for Santa Ana,
Elderly Asian tourists for Irvine,
Hipsters for San Juan,
and the rest of the destitute ******* for Oceanside en route to San Diego,
There but by the grace of God go the drunk kids spilling out of greyhound buses, sitting till dawn contemplating skylines reflected on the bay, finding romance in every moan of living Earth,
wide eyed at possibility of removing themselves from the equation and finding the answer,
Neil Young harmonicas drift listless above Spanish villas,
Everybody talking like something bad was gonna happen but I couldn't see much thru the windows past the tourist burly shouldered slumbering beast,
I think it was somewhere between Yuma and Dallas, with Mexico stretched out like an invitation to an anarchist rally where I was haunted first,
I'm haunted by El Campo Santo, paved over restless Indian graves in the shadow of the hanging tree,
By La Calavera Catrina blessing the sinners as they pass, hollow faced and sunken on the ***** Spanish streets of their ancestral Apartheid home,
I'm haunted by Calvary, 3000 spirits hanging around unsure of what comes next,
I'm haunted by the faces of the beggars I couldn't spare a cigarette for,
In dreams the Western night releases me and I leave California a shade lighter,
And the handful of stars that manage to burn through the haze seem to promise me:
"You may be gone, but your shadow lives on without you"

Hell sometimes can be a comforting thought
When you consider the promise
of some ire of comeuppance
some reasoned placement
of interminable exile
for the ******* who deserve to end up there.
When all is considered,mortal pain working as the ruse
for an endurance of condemnation
(Mothers still wailing in their sleep for closure two generations on)
Mortal oppressors deserve to be confronted by a special kind of fear
It makes sense
The punishment is apt
Guilt has to work both ways.

But that thought is still not a resolution for me
Particularly as the opposite does'nt attract
Given the fact that I've spent the majority of my life
Frightened of Christ.

It has its origins in my own childhood
when I remember back
To when I hurried weary past
the old imposing church
on my way into town
When I was a four-year old believing
If I was'nt quick
The whole-heaving Bulk of it
would tumble flatly
upon my fragile frame
The old road home
eventually winding its way
to my limbo of soothing distractions
that childhood’s orchestra of daydreams
so fleetingly informs.

Senior Infants Religion class did'nt help either
getting to grip with the crucifix and the like
my parents having sheltered me from the harsh realities of martyrdom
and the cold damp mass congregation on empty Sunday mornings
and the scowl of that year's teacher
who had complained that I wrote too much like a spider's web
Giving us throatfuls of original sin and the rhetoric of  Easter Monday
and my childhood innocence
exposed in the opinion spoken aloud
to a classroom of trained apatheticals
that not only did I not believe that Jesus Christ was the son of god
but that he never existed either
perhaps history disproves my claim on the latter
but the former is still full of endless possibility.
(And all this before I read anything about what really went on during the Twentieth Century-Dear accomplice,I can already hear your sweetened cackle.)

Yet still faced with that emblem of womanhood’s inheritance,I accepted my first compromise of all too humane sympathies.
Bleeding Mary Immaculate,she who suffers,she who in her suffering
silently invokes that long,unquestionable certainty of life,that jump-lead rattle of conscience
and contemplation,she whose warm moments in stony acceptance of fate’s misfortunes eventually led me down that scented path where all my troubles truly began.

Christ himself continued to present
(however loud the familial chorus
attempted to reprimand my nurtured,
after-school-scepticism)those same
tingles of spinal sensitivity,that same
epidemic-like aversion,years after I had
left that winter playground where children
splashed puddle water at each other
to make reputations,and shouted mispronounced obscenities
as a means to show they had no time whoever wanted to act adorable that day.
(The first chance they were given they realised the bluff-ladder of office mentality.)

I could never really face staring
into the eyes of the owner
of that sacred heart
for more than five seconds
He accused me of far too much
without having any notion
of who exactly I was
As I got older teachers
tried to convince me
that he really was
full of love and understanding
but those portrait-painted deepest-blue eyes
could lead to a war criminal's breakdown.

And I was’nt willing to take
the sack and ashes
for any man.

To be brown is to
know racism in every shade -
internal,
or
external,
microaggression
or
aggression.

To be brown is
an inquisition,
every time you step foot outside –
“What are you?”
“What does your name mean?”
“Have you tried that restaurant?”
“Have you been back?
“What religion are you?”
“Say something in your language!”

To be brown is
the shame
of either
too much
or not enough,
that you try to
press down, ignore,
forget about -
don’t be so sensitive.

To be brown is
an investment,
the way you are always supposed to
rise and rise and rise,
have the opportunities of the west
and the values of the east,
marry a nice brown heterosexual,
go to graduate school,
have a good career,
earn more money than your parents did,
be safe and settled,
provide for your parents,
your parents,
who only pressure you
and push you
because they want you to be

happy.

To be brown is
diaspora,
the way your tongue
trips over the words of native languages
you never grew up speaking
because English was always taught
first
to generations before you,
the way you weren’t born with
any real community,
and even now
most of your friends
are white,
the way
you have to move in the world
hearing your name
mispronounced in every way imaginable,
the way you
scan the room
for any brown face
because you know
a brown person will
understand,
the way you realize
how often you are the only
brown body
in any space,
queer or straight,
the way you really are a
minority.

To be brown is
reclamation,
the way you learn to
find beauty in the brown and the hair
and the body type,
the way you learn to
let yourself feel Anger
at appropriation,
the way you learn to fight
for identity –
correct the mispronunciations
learn the language,
listen to the music,
cook the food,
wear the clothes,
go back to the country
learn the history,
do what you need to do
in your
imperfect
perfect
way,
****
what anyone says.

To be brown
is to be
enough.

i wonder
how we managed
to convince our hands
not to hold onto each other
when we said goodbye.

now, i'm writing
inside this flying can;
thinking this might be the closest
to a home.

these small seats,
with even smaller legs space.
these funny-shaped windows,
where all you can see are
white clouds,
and sporadically
some lights.
tiny houses,
with even tinier people.

and us,
tiny giants,
reading overpriced perfume catalogs,
listening to mispronounced english,
using disposable low-fidelity headphones,
inside low-light low-love low-cost
low-everything
airplanes.

St. Catharines light in the afternoon: lead oxide, pink white, dry mud shadows.
They lay on her living room carpet and Anthony gloated over Milly
Her cotton nightgown, her long back, and round shoulders: proof at last.
"So this is gloating. It is better to gloat than to doubt. It took me a long time."

Her clean faded quilt brought from the balcony rail: it
Smells of clean laundry and cold air and the thrill of their power.
He’s proud to be the lover of a heroine,
And happy that he can see her this way.”

Picnic kisses tasting of smoked oysters and beer.
There were never friendly kisses of love before?
"Milly, I love hearing how you defied the adults."

He told Hansel and Gretel to her child, who had strep throat,
And told it again, knowing it would work,

Seeing the bookshelves, seeing her notebooks,
Knowing that he would have his life after all:

                      The mispronounced words of a solitary reader,
                       The red skirt on the chair, the gold necklace of coins.


                   Paul Anthony Hutchinson
www.paulanthonyhutchinson.com
Copyright Paul Anthony Hutchinson

I'm at that point after the debate season where
I'm all exhausted and nostalgic because
it's too late to do anything this season
too early to worry about next season and
all my senior friends graduated and
I'll never see them again.

Even scarier is the revelation that this will be me next year.  

What started out as a pleasant diversion
something to do on weekends
has become my social life and my education, and,
to a larger extent than it should be,
my identity.

I will miss playing truth-or-truth
(like truth or dare, only with more difficult decisions).
I will miss making friends because
I can't walk in heels
or mispronounced a word
or I like someone's tie.
I will miss our stupid inside jokes and debating
(and beating)
cute boys, waking up in a new city every weekend.
I will miss long car rides staring at the moonlight
illuminating the patterned clouds,
my headphones in and my best friends sleeping
packed closer-than-comfortable on each other's shoulders.
I know I have another year left, but
a lot of people who made debate what it is
have either graduated or will be graduating this year.

I miss my friends, my mentors, already.
As they leave, the threads that tie me to my city
fray. Already,
a year before it will finally be my turn
to face that door that leads into the unknown of
adult life, the door through which
many of my closest friends have already walked,
I have utterly lost any reluctance
to pass through it.
One friend after another has left
this tiny valley I call home,
and most of my best friends live outside of it.

One more year.

I now understand the way the seniors I looked up to
didn't seem to notice me
or pay me the sort of attention I paid them
when I was busy idealizing and looking up to them --
it's not that I don't care
about the younger kids on my team or my school,
or that I don't appreciate or believe in them,
but they are not a part of my future.
They are not a part of what I will become.  

I face that mysterious door, fighting my way
step by step
through mounds of paperwork and college applications
all for that intangible future
more fresh and beautiful than anything here.
I will go.

And those cute little incoming freshmen will not follow.
If I am to face forward, I must necessarily fix my eyes
on my future, not theirs.
They will do the same in time.

I can't bring myself to obsess over the past
and beat myself up over the relationships
(debationships?)
I should have developed but didn't.
There's no point. I don't mean to sound nihilistic --
in fact, just the opposite.
My future is manifesting itself slowly,
inexorably and inexplicably before me.

Am I making decisions, or is fate
shaping my loves and hates and opportunities?
I don't think it matters.
I choose to gaze at my future as infinite opportunity,
infinite joy spread over infinite possiblities.
As that joy becomes tangible, it also becomes more finite,
but from where I stand I see everything ahead.
I can finally leave everything I have been tied to
and prove to myself I am myself.

To those who are graduating this year:
even if I barely remember you,
if you were a brief conversation
or a random my-friend-dared-me-to-hug-you,
you are awesome.
Our brief, random, enlightening moments
of shared human contact have made me who I am.
I can't explain how much it means to realize
that you're not alone,
that some people care about the same things you do
and care enough to reach out and teach.

To those of you who have time left:
make the most of it.
Talk to the shy kid in the corner;
She's the sweetest.
Talk to the kid who reads Game of Thrones between rounds;
He has the funniest stories.
If you have a cute opponent, ask for their case
and write your number on it.
You only get one shot at this,
and it goes by too fast for you to hold back.
My best memories have come from the most dangerous
and strange decisions --
walking around a dark campus
with a couple of people I barely know,
picking "dare" in truth or dare,
smiling at strangers.

To those of you in the same class as me,
looking forward, bound to your past and present:
thank you.
Thank you
thank you
for existing and being kind to me and regaling me with your stories and emotional problems and memories.
Thank you for not letting me stay depressed
and dragging me outside of myself.
Thank you for making me care, one way or another.
When I stand at my high school graduation
in my school's garish purple and gold,
I will be thinking of a dozen other people
in blue and red and orange and green.
I will be thinking of the people
who made life too precious to spill out on a knife,
too beautiful to be captured in the pages of a book,
too unanticipated to get bored or cynical of.

i do not speak like a poet.
my words are clumsy and callous
and i often trip over my own tongue.
there is no beauty to my words
or thought to my form,
and my voice does not fall soft and slow
like honey song, drizzled sweetly into willing ears.
rather it is raspy and quick-tongued,
laced with mispronounced words and oddly said accents.
my sentences race ragged and jumpy,
with capricious contours and half-finished phrases,
and i often lose my train of thought.
impulsive and unrefined,
i do not speak like a poet.

— but on paper i am a different person

***; is just a word mispronounced on foreign tongues. Either way, it's beautiful.

She hated her mother's voice, her strong accent thick like champurrado.    Her defiance, her identity.    

  She didn't fit in, and her mother's voice was a reminder why.
A constant reminder.   She hated the moment she crossed that border, maybe “I would have been the popular girl at school with a mother in the United States”. But here she was just an illegal.  

  So many postcards, pretty pictures of tall buildings:   “Las Vegas, city of lights”. She dreamed of one day being a tourist,   like them gueras on TV,   with their flashy credit cards, ordering coca light and rare steak. But here, she was just an illegal.

  Her resentment grew like a cactus: green, slimy, tall and filled with thorns. Each microagression a thorn,   each mispronounced word a bullet.

  She remembers that one day   when her English teacher made her read. She caught her as she was about to leave the classroom,   “Miss Cuellar, it's your turn!”   “Dang this pinche vieja is slick!” she thought...   For cacti can't speak, much less read. But they remember. They remember each day they went without water, so their roots grew deep and profound in hostile ground, and they kept themselves strong, they hid themselves,   they stood tall and vulnerable in the middle of nowhere.

  “I am a cactus” she wrote as the first sentence of her English paper about identity, she then deleted those words, what the **** was her teacher going to think? Now this crazy *** illegal thinks she's a plant   so she wrote her name instead. But deep inside she knew she was a cactus in the middle of hostile lands, far away from that precious lake of healing waters where the wind sings and hills are green; far away from that country of dreams, colors and stories. Stories where her existence made sense, stories where she belonged. But here, she was just an illegal.

  So many things would trigger her, the sunset, the heat, people starting conversations,   “don't talk to me, cacti don't talk”   they grow thorns, they grow green, they like to be left alone. But she knew that that was not her natural state, she wanted to be free. Her spirit wanted to run out of that cactus. Why couldn't she be a bird? Un tzentzontle or a humming bird, even if they didn't live as long, they at least get to fly.

But instead there she remained, rooted, guarded and defenseless, no matter how profound her roots were, she was still an illegal: wrong countried, wrong bodied,   multispirited.   One day her skin began to cry,  a deep beautiful wound  from which a flower sprouted.  She had found poetry and realized that while cacti didn't speak they still flourished.
  To be continued..

Yet another in my "Barry Hodges" series

O what a beautiful city is baroque and unspoiled Vilnius,
A veritable rose in the greyness of Eastern Europe,
And a centre of fierce Lithuanian pride and nationalism
Where loathing of Russia comes as part of the national tapestry,
Woven into the heart and soul of each true descendant of Gediminas:
"Tik geras rusų yra miręs rusų!"[note 1]  my Litvak lady love would cry out
In moments of extreme and poetic ******* excitement,
As she farted tunefully through purple quilted haemorrhoids.

O dearest delightful Vilnius, where my obsessive adoration
Of this rather plump but still juicy middle-aged lady
Went unrequited when she was sober, despite the perpetual onslaught
Of my tenderly whispered syllables of love and lust,
Even when my mispronounced tirade of affirmations of desire
Rose to a pointless crescendo, wasted on the midnight hour,
As she shrieked: *"Lietuvių valytojoms yra geriausias pasaulyje!" [note 2],
In a desperate attempt to retain her composure post-******.

O how can I ever forget her egregiously insatiable ****** appetite or
Her immense cantilevered ***** whose glorious silhouette
I can still recall in the silvery moonlight shining through
The toilet window, as I peeped at her through the keyhole,
Watching her wipe between her gorgeous silken ****-cheeks,
With an improvised corner of the unfurled bathroom curtain,
Mysteriously muttering "Jei nėra silkių nereikia valgyti!" [note 3]
As she reviewed the remains of half-digested Cepelinai [note 4]

O woe! All is now finished and dear overweight Valerija is lost to me,
Having fallen drunkenly down an open manhole on Pilies one evening,
And I am left alone to wetly kiss the cryptic letter she left for me,
Staring sadly at the tear-stained smudged ink of her illiterate scrawls.
Yea, mate, her last words of warning and patriotic exhultation were:
"Jei jūsų kūdikis turi imbiero plaukus, mesti jį į upę!" [note 5]
Followed by "Valio už Lietuvos Vermachto karo didvyrių!" [note 6]
And I think they were probably the sanest things she ever said.

Fay rubs her
rosary
between thumb

and finger
the black beads
holding prayers

but she thinks
they also
bring comfort

to her heart
usually
when her dad

loses it
and hits out
because she'd

forgotten
the Latin
of the Creed

mispronounced
Latin prayers
Baruch said

(the Jew boy
from downstairs)
your old man

doesn't know
the essence
of his faith

just the shell
of it all
Baruch said

God was one
for each and all
for the big

and the small
for the good
and the bad

for the wise
and the fool
her father

doesn't like
young Baruch
and forbids

her to talk
or see him
but she does

and meets him
secretly
for their talks

and their walks
in the park
at the old

cinema
Fay puts her
rosary

in the small
cloth pocket
of her dress

her fingers
leaving there
the small but
special prayer.

Marseille, France, 2014

"The Eiffel Tower was built on the backs of men who never knew that love was absent from the world. Especially Paris.”~ Jade Day

NARRATION SEQUENCE:

Hi. My name is Do and strangely enough it is commonly mispronounced. It is often associated with that of English word “do” which is technically an action verb, but that’s besides the point. I am twenty three years of age and am anti-social so when people act like they know me it freaks me out. My main passion is poetry although I have recently discovered an interest in disc jockeying and my passion for it grows more and more each day. Anyway, if you are wondering how I ended up in this asylum you are about to find out.

[Scene Opening]


[Do slowly opens his eyes. He attempts to move his arms but with great struggle. Do lifts his head and glances down only to discover that he was lying upon a white cot while restrained within a straight jacket. Shortly after this discovery he begins rapidly scanning the room. The room was solid white and covered by padded walls from the ceiling to the floor.]


DO: Where the hell am I…?


[Do then attempts to sit up but is unsuccessful. He then accidentally rolls out of  his cot landing on the floor with a hard thud.]

DO: A-a-rgh… **** that hurt…


[ A digital vocalization suddenly began to commence much less to Do’s awareness]


DIGITAL SPEAKER: Mr. Nino, personnel of doctoral authority are scheduled to arrive in approximately one minute. 59, 58, 57, 56, 55

DO: No! Where am I? Please just tell me where I am!


DIGITAL SPEAKER VOICE: 49, 48, 47, 46, 45


DO: I’ve got to get out of here…. I need to get home!


[Do attempts to stand. He successfully rises to his feet and starts running. Mistaking a padded wall for the door he blindly runs toward it. He hits the wall and bounces back two feet and on to his back again.]


DO: Arrghh, my back…


DIGITAL SPEAKER VOICE: 20, 19, 18, 17, 16, 15


[Do remains laying there]


DIGITAL SPEAKER VOICE: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1…


[The door opens and a man in a white lab coat walks into the room accompanied by a nurse. The man had short, black hair in the style of a crew cut. He also wore small, square glasses with black frames. His skin had sort of a beige color to it along with the creeping annoyance of 5 ‘o clock shadow. He also was wearing black slacks and shoes. The man also had a check pad and a pen in his hand.]


DR. NIGHTMARE: I tell you Anaïs these kids are digging holes. They are digging holes deeper than death.

[Anaïs laughs]


DR. NIGHTMARE: I mean how much time must pass before one of them takes notice? Hmm?

[Dr. Nightmare and Anaïs both laugh in equal succession. Dr. Nightmare then stops and stares bewildered at Do who to his surprise was still lying on the floor.]


DR. NIGHTMARE: Hello there young man.


DO: Hey


DR. NIGHTMARE: The fall must have hurt huh?


DO: You have no idea…

[Dr. Nightmare removes a small flashlight from his coat pocket and carefully begins examining Do’s eyes.]


DR. NIGHTMARE: Your eyes look okay kid. There is nothing out of the ordinary. Here let me help you up.

[Dr. Nightmare helps Do to his feet]

Yeah, I know what it’s like kid. I was once patient who was confined within this very same room that you just so happen to be sitting in right now. I have experienced great waves of panic and fear which eventually escalated into that very same fall that you just experienced. It hurts like a ***** too.  Anaïs could you please grab us some chairs dear?


NURSE YUCKI: Yes, Dr. Nightmare


[Anaïs returns with three white chairs. She sets the chairs down proceeding to sit in one of them.]


DR. NIGHTMARE: Please take a seat kid.

[Both Do and Dr. Nightmare proceed to sit in the chairs]


DO: Who are you and what are you doing here?


DR. NIGHTMARE: Oh, how rude of me for not introducing myself. My name is Archie Moreau though the majority of the staff and patients refer to me as Dr. Nightmare. The lady on my left is referred to as Nurse Yucki.

[Anaïs waves and smiles]


NURSE YUCKI: You can call me Anaïs.


[Do decides to bare a forced smile in response]


DR. NIGHTMARE: We are here to conduct a psychiatric interview as well as a series of tests in order to properly evaluate your mental illness and to identify what type of mental illness you may or may not have.


DO: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! Mental illness? First of all what is this place and why the hell am I here?


DR. NIGHTMARE: My, my, my you really weren’t listening at all were you? I said we are going to conduct an interview and a short series of tests to identify what may or may not be wrong with you. Keyword: May. Calm down won’t you? It’s just a quick, easy and painless process.


DO: Calm down? Calm down? I wake up confined within a straight jacket in a cot in an unfamiliar room within an unfamiliar place and you want me to calm down? You still haven’t told me where I am nor have you told me what has happened to me. I need answers.


DR. NIGHTMARE: Okay, fair enough. Firstly, let me start by saying that this room you speak of is more commonly known as a padded cell. That’s why all the walls are padded so that it is nearly impossible for you to harm yourself. Secondly, do you not retain any memory of the events of the past forty-eight hours?


DO: This is shockingly funny Archie.


DR. NIGHTMARE: I did not say that you could call me Archie.


DO: Okay, Dr. Nightmare. Let’s say that I could remember anything that may or may not have occurred in the past forty-eight hours as you say. Don’t you think that I would have told you?


DR. NIGHTMARE: ****. You really don’t remember a thing do you?


DO: No **** Sherlock we just established that.


DR. NIGHTMARE: You had been unconscious for two days.


DO: And why was that? What happened to me?


DR. NIGHTMARE: You were at a bar. You were sitting and drinking when suddenly you took a knife to your wrist and began to mutilate your flesh. It was unclear why but I particularly remember you exuding a piercing scream. You appeared to be in a great deal of agony both physically and emotionally. Does that refresh your memory a bit?

DO: No, not at all. I still can’t remember a thing. The only thing I can remember is being highly intoxicated.

DR. NIGHTMARE: That’s a start.

DO: Please continue…

DR. NIGHTMARE: As you wish; Shortly after you had publicly wielded your knife, two security guards clad in solid black t-shirts and black slacks rapidly began approaching you. They obviously noticed that you were intoxicated and offered to politely escort you out of the bar accompanied by multiple verbal threats. You resisted. They both attempted to apprehend you. You fought back. The next thing I know one of the guards grabbed both of your arms and folded them behind your back as the other guard punched you in the eye, chest and stomach. The guards then picked you up by your hands and feet and proceeded to toss you out of the bar.


DO: How do you know all of this?


DR. NIGHTMARE: Because I was there that night. I was watching.


[Do looked at Dr. Nightmare with an exceptionally bewildered ****** expression.]


DR. NIGHTMARE: I was the one who brought you to the asylum, Do.

DO: How the hell did you know my name?

DR. NIGHTMARE: Through various methods of frequent networking

DO: Why did you help me?

DR. NIGHTMARE: The night is always darkest before dawn

[Do continues sitting there with a puzzled look on his face]

DR. NIGHTMARE: Are you ready now, Mr. Nino?


TO BE CONTINUED...

In the most quiet voice possible while still being heard
Whisper to yourself a secret out loud, and with a smile.
Please, let it be your own, and not one you've kept for another.
Don't break a promise on my account.

Now, breathe. As if you weren't before-- good, like that.
Do you hear that now? Has the loudness returned to sound?
What was the secret? Not specifics, give me broad themes.
Did it involve a regret, something to have been done and not said?

Your secrets are mine, too. We share them now.
For what paupers we are we are rich in schemes.
Pathological lovers, and our smiles wider than opened meadows.
They might flood this town one day, turn it into a lake.

Did you forget to say, 'I love you'
You shake your head, your mouth quirks.
Eccentric lips kissed to heed a platitude.
Are you breaking up with me?

Why does hope feel restless and final,
does that feeling make sense the way I described?
Is it the contemporary nervousness known as anxiety?
Do you know a healthy person? Are they nice people?

Are you still with me? Willing to listen and reply,
Follow through on my few dictations with glee.
Now that I have your attention it's the last thing I want.
Everything I desire is meant to be unprompted.

If that's true then why did I leave my own surprise birthday?
Oh. Because it's an annual occurrence. There's nothing spontaneous in an anniversary.
Is spontaneity the key to my happiness, or is impulse? How related are the two words?
It's legal to marry your first cousin where I'm from, but we don't talk about that.

Sorry, I'm back. To the whispered secrets again, yes.
But, alright, hold on, I think I have something here for myself.
Is spontaneity the key to my happiness, or is impulse?
Do we lose choice if we're influenced, or ill? Only if you're cited a 5150.

Lost the thread, and mine, too. I'm sorry, this was meant to be for you.

Forgot what I was saying, can you repeat the last thing back to me?
No, before this and that, before I went quiet.
Right. Yeah. I remember now. I'm tired, get the **** out.
But don't leave me, please.

---------------

Morning, darling. Did you sleep well? Were your dreams strange?
Sorry to cut you off, I'd like nothing more than to listen, but I also have images,
the likes from which I cannot wake. Didn't Joyce make a similar remark,
No, his was about history. Am I a plagiarist for having ever read?

Neanderthalic poets were the best, I don't care for their new verses as much.

Brush the slept hair from your face because I saw it in a movie once.
Am I cliche for repetition? Pretentious for lowering myself in the lake
to see the creatures nipping at my toes? I didn't see anything down there.
It's too dark.

"Got a light?"
Scoffing a denial like I'm a better man. It's 2017, who even smokes anymore?
My thoughts are the myriad of flaws in my personality. Each one a used **** ******.
Adrenalinic joy pulsed into a tight fit devoid of any semblance of human contact.
That's my way of saying I hate myself, and the thoughts I think.
"Be happy. Smile more. Travel the world."
So I can be depressed in Egypt with more wrinkles in the old age I didn't want to reach?
This actress has phenomenal range. Who is she again? No, the brunette.

Who gives a **** about a blonde anymore?
I'd like to see her deliver some of my written lines, if you catch my drift.
No, I actually want her to play this character I've been writing.
Is my libido tarnished, or am I still recovering from an assault that only exists in my mind?

Stop talking, you're drowning out my favorite part.
Sorry, nevermind, we lost the station. Look, the state line.
White noise and static. I don't know the radio outside of town.
Why aren't we listening from our phones? I needed the nostalgia to feel bad about my choices.

Yes, it worked. It always does. Kissing cousins get found out,
and I wear my impulses as a tattoo sleeve. That is as scarred wounds on my forearms.
And thighs.
And once my neck, but it healed clean as an only slightly lighter shade of skin.
It took two weeks to heal. The grief from having to continually hide it kept me feeling fine.
Maybe I need to lie, more.
This isn't a picnic for me either. Implying picnics are worthwhile events and not cornerstones of an America that was painted into existence by Norman Rockwell.
The irony of hobos using the same red and white sheets to bundle their lives
as the ones used to create a slice of Americana cheaper than the cardboard cutout
apple pies at your local grocer. Is that even ironic?

**** the bourgeoise. Said a white teen.
Where dead end roads are called cul-de-sacs.
No, I won't judge this family further for your smug confirmation bias.
They are good people and you don't deserve them.
Who cares if dad is an accountant, or that mom is a criminal defense lawyer?
That daughter is addicted to the dopamine of comments and likes.
That son is a *** addict in training, and his next week's girlfriend will regret her nights spent.
Which one is worse? Let's dissect their lives.

They didn't choose their station. Or when it'd all turn to static and scratches.
"Change the station. Turn the dial."
To what? It's all white noise and radio signals, and it's being cut down through the air.
The density of space is frightening.
Did you know neutrinos don't interact with matter in the ways that a photon does?

Oh yeah, tell me about your dreams. I think I've calmed myself enough to nod my head,
with a crooked smile that barely shows my teeth. This is my listening expression.
It worked on our first date when I pretended to be interested in your major and we ****** after
bad garlic bread and cheaper wine. You weren't easy, neither was I.
But we had a fever together and needed to sweat out our impurities.

You told me to take the ****** off. Didn't even know I put one on.
What a minx you were, -- oh, right, your dream. So, what happened when you opened the door?
Oh. You woke up? But, wait, what was behind the door? Where did it lead? Was it locked?
Who directed you to the door, the concierge from that hotel we stayed at during our trip to--
Where was that again? Didn't that guy have a mustache, though? You said the one in your dream--
Yeah, right, of course, I'm sorry.

She brushes her hair before bed. Puts on this mask that smells of avocado.
Tastes nothing like it. Yes, I tried it. Twice. I've huffed kerosene with better flavour.
Oh, it's very bold, has legs. It'll swirl in your nasal cavity for days after you breathe it in,
if you breathe in deep enough. What's the point of getting a shallow high?
Now I think I'm getting somewhere, I desire depth.

Sorry, what were you saying?
Oh. You are leaving me? But the cheap Italian dinners we had.
I think you're overreacting, that doesn't sound right.
Okay, yeah, but. No, I mean-- well, no, there's-- No, but.
Fine.
I'm fine. I'm sorry.

Where did it go wrong? I should have known when she wanted me raw.
Nobody sane wants that from me. Maybe it was when I told her I hated her mother.
She hates that ***** too, the **** am I thinking? Clearly it was when I forgot
the tea she bought from the yearly festival in the hay maze.
We sought to get lost.

Maybe it wasn't a one thing, but the overall of these events.
Occurrences accumulate, and memories carry over into the next day.
Like when she woke first after our supposed one night stand,
and instead of quietly creeping from my bed, which I woke to expect
the lukewarmness of knowing there were two, instead she laid there and watched me sleep.
That bothered me to no end, because in my dreams I have no say in how I look.
What if my brows were comically arched, or expressed an emotion I wasn't feeling.
What if she saw the twitch I took a year during middle school to correct after I was teased.
I failed, a decade of quiet self-ridicule for a muscle that took it upon itself to act without thought--
"Did you know your cheek sometimes droops down as if you've suffered a stroke?"
No, I didn't know that, I've only lived with my face as long as I've known you so I appreciate your observations.
Still, I smiled, and pulled her closer without the thought of gravity.
Now she was letting me go.

We need to unify and get to the root of the problem.
There are four main forces in nature;
electromagnetic, strong nuclear, weak nuclear, and gravitational.
The crux is the unity of conventional with quantum. We don't understand gravity
as it works in a world that relies on thought experiments and metaphor to be
perceived by the general public.
**** the Copenhagen interpretation.

So, she woke up and watched me sleep. She stayed with me in bed and we did nothing but
cure ourselves of sicknesses we had yet to ever diagnose. She asked me where I got my scars.
With the gleam of a subtle sadist she traced them with her fingertips, then her lips.
What a peculiar woman. Why did she ever agree to marry me?
Wait-- no, why is she leaving me is what I should be asking.
Is it the baldness? Doubtful, she's who told me to shave it off in college when it went premature.
She found other places to dig her fingers into me. She was resourceful.
Why is this in the past tense, she's left me, not died.

Why am I feeling surprise when I've anticipated her dislike for me since we shared a Cabernet
I mispronounced when ordering. Why do I only reflect on the one dinner when we had hundreds?
We still have that old bottle. I bought the whole **** thing at the time not knowing you could
purchase by the glass. Looking back I wonder if she took that as a sign, that I wanted her drunk
to ****. Or did she sense my mistake and instead embolden me with the scaffolding needed to
keep up the facade of my crumbling masculinity?

As we got older together we poured more expensive wines into that bottle. It was a whole ordeal.
Every single time, from one bottle to another poured down a slide, which at first we made from stock paper, but then she saw a funnel in the store. We called it our little slide of heaven,
and down came manna.
Even during dinners where we had friends over, their pretensions worse than mine,
we'd simulate an uncorking of a better wine with an app on our phones.
You can download a lot of different sounds.
Our old Cabernet was a twist off.
And we'd see the eyerolls, and pour them a finger less than the rest. Romance deserves alcohol.
And the romantic need it most.

We wrote our own vows. For our marriage, that is, and we renewed them every two years.
We agreed to do that years before the idea of marriage was anything more than a thing
we told ourselves to comfort each other in the idea that the future is anything worth pursuing.
*******, how did we ever make it out of ours 20s with the thoughts we shared?
You crooned to me, once, it was this night where we had walked down to the playground a short half mile from your apartment. I mean, sure, we went there a lot, but this night was different.
Even you agreed the wind blew in a direction that felt strange. We couldn't figure out why
our scarves were billowing in our faces-- do you remember how you tore yours from your neck?
And with all the punctuation of an engagement ring being thrown at the accused you threw
the scarf I bought for you after a three week deliberation on whether the fabric blend would make you itch or if the colour I chose would clash instead of match whatever it was you wore, and it got caught in the wind without the embrace of your beautiful neck and we watched in the dim quiet
of a streetlight glow as the scarf disappeared into the rest of whatever was that way during night.

It took entire moments after we watched it go for either of us to speak. You crooned, like a kettle on a hob, or the hungry moans of a wolf scavenging the last remnants of life in the world, your regret for what you did. You apologized to me, and almost fell to your knees from passion
for your plea. Asking to be forgiven by me.
As if I cared about the money, or the colour. I only worried about your neck and decolletage.
It was cold, and a half mile is a long way to walk without a scarf when you expected to have one.

Instead of giving you mine we shared the one I wore.
Praise Solomon for the nuclear family, because to him divorce meant separation.
So we engineered a response to either of us being a have-not and we became socialists.
You didn't even have a toothbrush at my place, and the only thing we shared was an enjoyment
for ******* with people. Yet, wrapped as mummies in a romantic comedy we stumbled as nervous kids in a three-legged race back home.
Home. Where it was to us then. Your second floor, four bedroom apartment. Or my town house, whose rent was cheaper from a grad student's suicide the semester before.
I lived alone, because I'd tell gullible people stories of ghosts.
You helped me with the idea when I was afraid of having a roommate move in.
They left in tears. We laughed, and proceeded to **** on the floor where he died.
At least, I think it was a he. Is that sexist of me?

"Anybody can **** in a graveyard." I said for pillowtalk,
and that subtle sadism came back to your eyes, and it parted your lips.
But you never said a word.

How about the time.
Remember when?
Of course you do, you were the second billing in the same film as me.
But of course you've made a decision. Who am I to disagree?
Is this the part of the script where I fall to my knees?
Will it count if it's not done as earnestly as I actually feel?
Roleplay always excited me, but did you take my fetish too far by pretending to love me all this time?
I didn't want you to change.
But we grew older together. You barely aged, and I swear you got taller.
Idyllic and ideal, the small town feel of a front porch. And back yard.
Is your Eden elsewhere, Eve? Tell me and we'll leave. I swear to you we'll be okay.
That was something I told you anytime you were upset at something more serious than not.
Anytime you were actually in need, and not only wanting more attention.
It's weird how we come to sense the others in our lives. The conformity of time spent together.
Boarding schools make kids gay. I never knew you, did I?
Of course I did. If not, you're a remarkable actress. You should come to a casting session I'm holding.
In this fantasy I'm a ****** Hollywood producer with enough money to front confidence, and enough debt to break two knees. Meanwhile, in the time before I end up presumed missing and buried shallow in a desert somewhere, I go around and **** the fresh from Kansas teenage girls that get off the Greyhound around the corner from my house.
My ******* God. You're so ******* tight. Jesus ******* Christ.
Sometimes I'd use your actual name in the moment, too heated to remember my own direction.
Take two.
Three.
That's a wrap, we're finished for the day. Until dusk then, my love.

"Oh my god, hon. I was kidding." And she kissed my cheek.
"You're stuck with me, I'm afraid. Plus, the divorce laws in this state are ****.
I wouldn't get anything from you."
You smiled wide and stared at me in expectation.
"Yeah, of course, I knew that."
Why did I feel as if I had been drowned?
Why did that feeling keep me buoyant?
I'm sorry.

Mispronounced chaos sways
With its ellipsis misplaced
And taking away
Its own verdict
That was left displayed
Its own hole
Grown
From displacement
Carrying concrete
Like broken shoulder blades
Mispronounced
Mismatched
Deteriorating outcomes
Commonplace is then found
In its unity
Disuniting it all

on my mother’s side of the family,
we are german immigrants spider webbing out
from jasper, indiana.
those branches of the family tree are the sort of people
who like everything about the midwest
that has always made me chafe,
made me feel like i could never belong here
on the buckle of the bible belt.
for them, i think it’s comfortable,
living in a town where everyone is basically just like them.  

so i sit down for thanksgiving dinner with people
who voted for donald trump.
because people can love me, they can be friends with my family,
eat thanksgiving dinner with us, break bread,
be my own flesh and blood,
and they can still believe deep down somewhere inside of them
that this country belongs more to them than it does to me.
i mean, if they didn’t, what’s the other explanation
to hearing a man on the campaign trail call
latinos rapists and criminals
and threaten to build a wall to keep us out,
and thinking that was something that you were okay
with overlooking in your vote?
they can clap my latino immigrant father’s shoulder in one hand
and build a wall with the other.
and that realization is painful to reconcile
with the pledge i was taught to say everyday,
it’s difficult to reconcile with the american dream as i understood it.

so dear aunt cindy,
you shared posts on facebook are beginning to reek of white supremacy
and i just have to wonder, did you forget me?
when i was sleeping your guest room,
when i was eating thanksgiving dinner at your table,
did you forget where i come from?
did you forget about the half of me in paranavaí,
shifting, drifting away from middle america,
inch by inch, year by year, the product of tectonic plates.
dear aunt cindy, your daughter-in-law is an immigrant, too,
but she’s from europe, she’s white, so maybe that’s different.
dear aunt cindy, i don’t want to believe
every well-wish, birthday card, christmas gift has been a lie
but what am i supposed to think when you like a post on facebook
about white nationalism, about keeping “illegal aliens” out?
see, i don’t want to think that you’ve been lying all these years,
that you don’t care about me because i believe you do,
but when you also believe that this country belongs to you
more than it belongs to immigrants, to latinos,
to those who don’t look like you,
how can you not taste the aftershock of my name in your mouth?
dear aunt cindy, when you hate people like me,
when you hate people who come from where i’m from,
how can i not think you hate me too?

my mother, the furious peacemaker, says that she doesn’t think like that.
but that’s like coming out and telling me you still love me
but you… just don’t get it,
that you don’t think it’s quite normal, quite natural,
like i’m supposed to thank you for not spitting in my face.
maybe aunt cindy does not look at us and see “other”  
my father always says that my people will know me,
but i think if i ever have children they will come out of me
with our family history wiped clean from them.
their names will probably be easier, never mispronounced.
whiter than mine.  
and it’s the guilty reminder that, sometimes,
when it’s dangerous or difficult for me,
i am afforded the privilege of a choice in taking who i am off.
when it’s dangerous or difficult, i don’t have to be latino.
i can disappear.
but even when i am allowed to disappear, to pass,
i cannot scrub my heritage, who i am, off my skin
and i will not be ashamed.
so i tell people who i am,
because if you’ve got a problem with me,
well, then i’d like to know up front.

my mouth
is a box in the attic hidden away
it is the box in the attic with the fragile symbol on it
a warning that it should be handled with care

my mouth
came with a filter
it filtrate the words that I wanted to say the most
but there are days when the filter seems to have a glitch
allowing my thoughts to leave my mouth with full conviction

my mouth
was programmed to have respect
encoded on my tongue are two powerful words
two words that I often use with strangers
but I think my tongue was burned by too much coffee
because every time I needed to use those two words
I always end up two words short

my mouth
skipped its classes
or maybe it didn’t learn anything
especially with the major subjects like How-To-Have-A-Normal-Conversation or What-Is-The-Right-Thing-To-Say or Small-Talk-101
because I always end up with awkward silences and a tongue-tied mouth

my mouth
is a home to a set of perfectly aligned teeth
but maybe my parents shouldn’t have invested their money on my teeth
instead they should have asked the doctor to fix my tongue
so that it would construct the right words they want to hear at the right time
a perfectly fixed tongue that would not answer them back with a mouthful of teen angst

my mouth
is not a home to a powerful voice
it is not soothing or moving
it is a home of mispronounced words from a lost voice
a voice with not enough strength

my mouth
is a place that is not yet explored
an uncharted territory
with a do not enter sign on its chapped lips

my mouth
is unfamiliar with smiles
its corners pulled down by gravity
it does not trust happy
it is home to sighs and strangled cries

my mouth
is the box in the attic filled with hope and a promise
a promise to the body it resides to
that someday its voice will no longer be lost
that someday it will be a mouth that is a home to a smile
the day will come that I would still stumble with my words
but it will carry the message that I want

someday

but today

my mouth
still needs to fix its stutter

it is a mouth full of words not said
it is still hidden in the attic
and is better left sealed and shut

Tentatively I took a step towards you
You caressed my heart in your hands
Your menacing stare beguiled me and I was in awe of your sacred beauty
For once I was lost in a sea of mispronounced words and jumbled sentences
The syntax was filled with errors
And I had never thought I would blink my eyes again
As the tears refused to leave my eyes
They painfully glazed my face
And struck me as terribly arty
I felt as if I were an artist In this play
Grasping my lines
Stuttering over them
Grabbing onto each word
Like a cheap ***** grabs cash
From the man with money
And lusts after the sweet stench of the money she earns
I once was lost
Yet now I am found
By your burning radiant fire eyes
Blazing with sensation and perfection
I love you
And I bask in the blistering heat
Of your pyre
That cleanses and  
Causes death
To my
Old morbid heart
And persuades me with passion
And pursuit
I am yours
in
My sensational romance...

What am I
To a million people
Whose names are numbers
Waiting to be counted?

What am I
Other than a mispronounced name
And a character of no value
Who often becomes forgotten?

What am I
Aside from being a drunken thought
Whose name you scream
And whose heart wrenches at your drunken sight?

What am I
When I become frustrated
At how much I love you
But can't find the right words to say?

What am I
To you
When all I've ever been used to being
Is nothing?

When the seventh salvo of silver flashes
cued the blue floaters for the seventh time,
blotting the smaller letters from their sashes,
I mispronounced “Miss Reading”—made it rhyme

with “misleading.” ******* her press agent,
Miss Information, who steamed out to smoke.
But the style writers covering the pageant
called it an unconscious masterstroke.

So I became the Master of Near Misses.
The work kept coming. “You must be Miss Taken,”
I transproposed to the Pork Products Princess
panel, and you should have seen Miss Bacon.

They at it up, though. It was liberating.
Within a month I didn’t even need
my malaprompter. Cheating was creating.
Believing anything I couldn’t read

I crushed my quadrifocals. People shed
their crosshairs and acquired a layer of fuzz.
Consequence came uncoupled. What I said
I saw, and what I saw was what I was.

*just a cute, funny little poem

Packed my bags
Flew the next week,
Ignoring the doubts,
I got fulfillment to seek.

Misunderstood accent,
Mispronounced name,
Ashes to ashes,
Foolish, its still the same.

Vague history,
Mistakes erased,
Broke and dream poor,
Resolve unfazed.

A new chapter,
closed door,
Figuring it out,
What I want and more.

wrinkled velvet
  scratchy silk
a stain on the laundry list
   lazy verbs
     and mispronounced pronouns
language is a funny thing
  a vocabulary test
    on a lifelong joke
     with no punchline
strange how we can laugh
  at our own misery
or weep uncontrollably
  when we find our hearts
    overfilled with joy
it’s enough to make someone
  believe that maybe
   we don’t really know anything
     about all the things
       we pretend to know
personally I don’t pray
  to a this god
    or a that god
I have my faith invested
  in the wisdom
   of fairy tales
    instead of the studies
      of theology
but i do appreciate any conviction
  that leads someone
    to a life where they
      help compassionately
        give with generosity
          and love more kindly
what else do we have
  but this one brief moment
    this one long
     often agonizing
      brief pause of eternity
       to live this life in
why is so much worry
  about what comes next
    weighing down today
when none of us
  is guaranteed
   to see tomorrow
and what good is a future
  that ignores the rubble
    of the past
the absolute wreckage
  we have left behind
    in our human history
the truth of our mistakes
  has been whitewashed
   again and again
in every new volume
  of every new text book
rewriting villains as hero’s
  neglecting to write down
   their origins and crimes
there is a deliberate madness
  in this process
   an intentional poisoned thread
    placed in the binding
     of the pages
      the spine
       of the book
the truth is still there though
  bleeding through
   the page in braille
only being read by those
  who want to read it
those how refuse
  to let the truth
    of the past
      be replaced
       by a modern lie
but the masses consume
  faster than they learn
and we pride ourselves
   as intelligent
    crown ourselves
     as noble
arrogantly pointing out our ability
  of pattern recognition
while constantly failing
  at not repeating
   the pattern throughout
    our history
      that causes so much
        human misery
and I wish I could laugh
  but my heart doesn’t
   have the vocabulary
    to write a punchline
     in a language it just
      can’t find funny anymore

I heard that the coolest kid in the room didn't have any friends.
That kid's always here, but you just never notice them.
They always sat at the back, never saying anything.
Their names on the attendance were messes of mispronounced letters and alphabetical silence.
Silence.
Simply existing was like scribbling on forgotten slips of fading memories.
They are the manifestation of silent thinkers and quiet souls.
They're always here.

But you just never notice them.

if everyone could see inside your head
what embarrassing things would they find?

a school kid prank where your pants fell below your waist

or that time your card was declined

when you mispronounced organism in class

or choking on communion at church

mine would be that I still love my mom
despite everything

the pond is fickle and deep.
Wings graze and kiss
the bouncing drops
of silver.
Our Moon cries in a melancholic
way, and bares its quivering
lip with pride.
I wade in the intertwining vines
and the mispronounced
songs.
Death burns,
and I will peel away my skin.
strip by strip,
to the rhythm of the buzzing pond,
and beating horizon.
Swallow the slimy sun--
cheerful and running.
Death is a growing pain.

A precious piano stands silent and sovereign
in a room of obscure ambience that hangs from Heaven.
Gathered is a crowd familiar by name and face,
and name and face alone.

A prophet stands a step beneath the piano.
His emaciated ideals are better explained in writing.
The crowd uses his mispronounced prophecies as the material
for their mockeries and their jokes.

A glass ceiling makes them naked to ethereal bodies
that do not care to pay attention.
And if such bodies could speak, they would speak
nothing towards them.

Each soul in the room is selling some
stopgap prescription drug that will last a lifetime.

The preacher is selling God, with all His effete side effects;
the fascist sells purpose with some acrid aftertaste;
and the madman sits in the corner with a thousand low-cost answers,
none of which you can fact check.

“You will see!” the prophet exclaims.
  His voice is weak in its strength.
“You will see the rubble of Man’s Creation,
  and the fractured bones of God.”

Lucifer enters with a proud gait
and collects the silent.

BENEATH MY SKIN
my eidetic memory skims through my
mental
encyclopedia
reminiscent old thoughts amassed in
my wikipedia
pops up like a champagne top
i vividly recollect being born black
if you referred to me as dark skin no
tear would drop
racism was not within the range of my
knowledge
egoism and rage were the only thing
that pushed me to edge
the only race i was aware of was
marathon
and the other i uttered was lace in
shoes
throughout my childhood i never
realized the realism
of its catechism
the only -ism subscribed in my recess
was alcoholism
rhythm was the closest i
mispronounced racism
black and white to me was a great wall
television
and human being was great of all
creation
i neither thought being colored would
lead to isolation
nor the hue of my skin was a ticket of
damnation
it was tardy when i got revelation
about the race thing
my ripe mind expeditiously
incorporated the race theme
which flowed across nations like a
mighty stream
the sensation so extreme no longer was
it a dream
my color ceased being my joy and
became pain
my skin grandeur is now a paint of
ignominy
as i quest to replace the slogan of
ignore many
a systematic annihilation that will
bear liberation
the ultimate solution is my fascination
of love for each and every human
being that will
carry no disdain
i seek to liberate my thoughts that
brings me
to my mantra that knows
am black and there is nothing i lack
i cherish the red color in my blood
it's my beauty and my strength
lying beneath my skin

I walk into the room full of viewers, spectators, rich folk, poor folk and saw skin, bones, and a soul.
I didn't see your clothes that you were wearing or the makeup applied to your face.
I didn't see how many natural curls are in your hair or how long your hair had grown.
I didn't see how much money that was in wallet or the car that you pull up to the coffee shop with.

The clerk rung up my order and mispronounced my name. I didn't get angry from a simple mistake from the clerk's effort of bringing a smile to my face with a coffee and a beignet.

I thanked him. I thank the souls that crossed my paths. I thank God for letting our paths crossed because I saw his miracles in my presence living and breathing.

When I finished my coffee, I didn't keep my cup. I only stop for a coffee at the coffee shop. To enjoy this moment in time with others enjoying their coffee as well.

Houses in tall grass.
Another one shut down, the mines.
Boon of pride, swollen like a tick caught in your sock.

Winds blow through yesterday and are colder now.
Ever wonder why some things aren't allowed?

Attention like reception, cut-down by the everything in-between.

The quarry used to be a swimming hole.
Now it's just a hole.
Memories are the only reminders worth remembering.
The second hand embarrassment of a word mispronounced
makes my skin ***** with goosebumps.
Makes my hair stand on anxious end.
Hope no fleas are underneath.

Stay at home. Stay inside. Stay put.
Hole yourself up in your room.
The chance is a drink you'll wake to regret.
The mistake is in believing you know best.

What greatness have you achieved to give yourself advice?
Everything accomplished within four walls you've lived in alone.
Your whole life.

Houses in tall grass.
Sleeping in dusty room.
Tread softly lest you disturb the might-have-beens.
The first step in succeeding is listening to the lessons.

...the morning tv
...when your phone and your earphones connect
...mr. cardiff singing, i carry your heart in my heart sung with every song
...the opening line of your favorite radio show

...your mispronounced name
...everything on mute each time you have coffee
...your hands typing
...your seatmate laughing

...all the steps you take on your afternoon walk
...the moment the day gives way to the night
...thought bubbles on your evening commute
...your eyes closing.

And so it happens again,
the same words, but not,
same actions, but not,
same feelings, but not.
No.
All is unique in these
consecrate circumstances
we two (too) find
ourselves (with)in.
So these lines shirk the page
in a glorious,
albeit mispronounced,
declaration of what is
to come
and what so may
already be,
is it you,
is it me,
what if it's
both?
Will we see?
And what should provide such
inspiration
if not love
or hope thereof?
What could cause such
outpouring
of myself to another,
and her to me,
and ink to pages
as pages fill with ink,
but this?
This fair pairing
we almost are seeking,
which we bare our
hopes and dreams
and stars for the
taking. You.
You can be so many things
to me,
as much as these words
you inspire mean to me,
you can mean
more,
as many pages you will
(maybe, hopefully)
fill,
you can be more.
And as many things
you can be to me,
I must confess,
there are
many things you already are.

I drink the juices of the forbidden fruits
Just to get the high
It sends me to the stratosphere
And through the other side
I see visions of a cotton field
It’s essence soft and white
The skies, a reverent blue
Where dreams have taken flight
Far away, I hear a sound
A melancholy tone
I listen for the drummers beat
Unabashed or known
The outliers, the simpletons, the women filled with moans
The relatives’ adoring eyes
“My, look how much you’ve grown”
But it never ever ends well
A token for your tears
No, it never ever ends well
In time we’ll disappear
All that we have built
Discoveries we’ve found
There’s no more evolution
Over leaps and bounds
So, I’d ask you for your patience
Before you try and pounce
It’s softer where we’re headed
Yet it’s often mispronounced
Open up your vocal chords
Let loose of all that you hold dear
Secrets you’ve never spoken of
For years, and years, and years
Let’s dance in the streets of fire
Let’s go make a scene
Ask me what’s my one desire
After all, it’s just a dream

Misspelled and mispronounced
They (like i) have always wondered
Why?
A “K” and not a “C”
You see,
I have yet to meet a name; a person
Like mine; like me.

“Miss Karleigh”
Written on the envelopes,
The many Birthday cards sent,
I will save forever.
“Dear Karleigh,”
Addressed to me
From my teachers
Who have encouraged me to value
My perspective. My creativity. My self
less ways of living day to day.
To take notes of little things-
Like birthdays.
Of different people
Who see the difference in me
And my name

Seen by sailors passing by
my sonar,
“Karleigh Girl”
My grandfather named it after me,
The boat that sails, and now i sail it for myself
My dad, like his father
Finds comfort in the blues.

He would often forget the words
To the music
Spontaneously sung, and
The chorus would become a collage
Of B.B King lyrics; a song of myself...
Karleigh….Karleigh….Karleigh Girl,
A name with no meaning,
means so much to me.

Collided with the natural
Spelling of Nicole
Dreamt by my mother long ago; how
Ever, she did fail the victory
To the daughter of a sister who wrapped
The baby in blankets, of pink
Bouquets of roses
Given to her after the first dance recital.
She learned so step by step.
Nicole.

Karleigh
Dances to the beat of her own drum
Only the drum is not a drum at all,
But rather the sound of her heartbeat
Abnormal
A 3rd sound they discovered
And when it rains, it pours
And so she pours out her soul
Like a can of paint
To color the world.

Karleigh Nicole.
The N.
I isolate  
In signature
To show that there is meaning to the middle
Of my story
Symbolic letters
To name existence

Of a past life
Where italian spirits roam
The city of Napoli
Mainella
Pronounced with an emphasis on the
“I
Am still learning”
-Michelangelo
At age 87
Whose work i marvel at
The marble
As i walk the streets of Italy
With a name tag
That Maria made for me to wear
Over my heart.

She didn’t spell it right.
But that didn’t bother me.