[Intro: Big Sean]
I look up
Yeah and I take my time, *****
I'mma take my time, whoa
Power moves only, *****

[Verse 1: Big Sean]
Boy I'm 'bout my business on business, I drink liquor on liquor
I had women on women, yeah that's bunk bed *******
I've done lived more than an eighty year old man still kickin'
Cause they live for some moments, and I live for a livin'
But this for the girls who barely let me get to first base
On some ground ball ****
Cause now I run my city on some town hall ****
They prayin' on my *******' downfall *****, like a drought, but
You gon' get this rain like it's May weather
G.O.O.D. Music, Ye weather
Champagne just tastes better
They told me I never boy, never say never
Swear flow special like an infant's first steps
I got paid then reversed debts
Then I finally found a girl that reverse stress
So now I'm talkin' to the reaper to reverse death
Yep, so I can kick it with my granddad, take him for a ride
Show him I made somethin' out myself and not just tried
Show him the house I bought the fam, let him tour inside
No matter how far ahead I get, I always feel behind
In my mind, but **** tryin' and not doin'
Cause not doin' is somethin' a ***** not doin'
I said **** tryin' and not doin'
Cause not doin' is somethin' a ***** not doin'
I grew up to Em, B.I.G. and Pac *****, and got ruined
So until I got the same crib B.I.G. had in that Juicy vid
*****, I can't *******' stop movin'
Go against me, you won't stop losin'
From the city where every month is May-Day at home, spray your dome
****** get sprayed up like AK was cologne for a paycheck or loan
Yeah I know that **** ain't fair
They say Detroit ain't got a chance, we ain't even got a mayor
You write your name with a Sharpie, I write mine in stone
I knew the world was for the taking and wouldn't take long
We on, tryna be better than everybody that's better than everybody
Rep Detroit, everybody, Detroit versus everybody
I'm so ******' first class, I could spit up on every pilot
The city's my Metropolis, feel it, it's metabolic
And I'm over ****** sayin' they're the hottest ******
Then run to the hottest ****** just to stay hot
I'm one of the hottest because I flame drop
Drop fire, and not because I'm name dropping, Hall of Fame droppin'
And I ain't takin' **** from nobody unless they're OG's
Cause that ain't the way of a OG
So I G-O collect more G's, every dollar
Never changed though, I'm just the new version of old me
Forever hot headed but never got cold feet
Got up in the game won't look back at my old seats
Clique so deep we take up the whole street
I need a ***** so bad that she take up my whole week, Sean Don

[Bridge: Kendrick Lamar]
Miscellaneous minds are never explainin' their minds
Devilish grin for my alias aliens to respond
Peddlin' sin, thinkin' maybe when you get old you realize
I'm not gonna fold or demise
(I don't smoke crack, ******* I sell it!)
*****, everything I rap is a quarter piece to your melon
So if you have a relapse, just relax and pop in my disc
Don't you pop me no ******* pill, I'mma a pop you and give you this

[Verse 2: Kendrick Lamar]
Tell Flex to drop a bomb on this ****
So many bombs, ring the alarm like Vietnam on this ****
So many bombs, make Farrakhan think that Saddam in this *****
One at a time, I line them up
And bomb on they mom while she watching the kids
I'm in a destruction mode if the gold exists
I'm important like the Pope, I'm a Muslim on pork
I'm Makaveli's offspring, I'm the king of New York
King of the Coast, one hand, I juggle them both
The juggernaut's all in your jugular, you take me for jokes
Live in the basement, church pews and funeral faces
Cartier bracelets for my women friends, I'm in Vegas
Who the **** y'all thought it's supposed to be?
If Phil Jackson came back, still no coachin' me
I'm uncoachable, I'm unsociable, **** y'all clubs
**** y'all pictures, your Instagram can gobble these nuts
Gobble **** up til you hiccup, my big homie Kurupt
This the same flow that put the rap game on a crutch (West x6)
I've seen ****** transform like villain Decepticons
Mollies'll prolly turn these ****** to ******* Lindsay Lohan
A bunch of rich *** white girls looking for parties
Playing with Barbies, wreck the Porsche before you give them the car key
Judgment to the monarchy, blessings to Paul McCartney
You called me a black Beatle, I'm either that or a Marley
(I don't smoke crack, *******, I sell it)
I'm dressed in all black, this is not for the fan of Elvis
I'm aiming straight for your pelvis, you can't stomach me
You plan on stumpin' me? ***** I’ve been jumped before you put a gun on me
***** I put one on yours, I'm Sean Connery
James Bonding with none of you ******, climbing 100 mil in front of me
And I'm gonna get it even if you're in the way
And if you're in it, better run for Pete's sake
I heard the barbershops be in great debates all the time
Bout who's the best MC? Kendrick, Jigga and Nas
Eminem, Andre 3000, the rest of y'all
New ****** just new ******, don't get involved
And I ain't rocking no more designer ****
White T’s and Nike Cortez, this red Corvettes anonymous
I'm usually homeboys with the same ****** I'm rhymin' with
But this is hip-hop and them ****** should know what time it is
And that goes for Jermaine Cole, Big KRIT, Wale
Pusha T, Meek Millz, A$AP Rocky, Drake
Big Sean, Jay Electron', Tyler, Mac Miller
I got love for you all but I'm tryna ****** you ******
Trying to make sure your core fans never heard of you ******
They don't wanna hear not one more noun or verb from you ******
What is competition? I'm trying to raise the bar high
Who tryna jump and get it? You're better off trying to skydive
Out the exit window of 5 G5’s with 5 grand
With your granddad as the pilot he drunk as **** trying land
With the hand full of arthritis and popping prosthetic leg
Bumpin Pac in the cockpit so the **** that pops in his head
Is an option of violence, someone heard the stewardess said
That your parachute is a latex ****** hooked to a dread
West Coast

[Verse 3: Jay Electronica]
You could check my name on the books
I Earth, Wind, and Fire’d the verse, then rained on the hook
The legend of Dorothy Flowers proclaimed from the roof
The tale of a magnificent king who came from the nooks
Of the wild magnolia, mother of many soldiers
We live by every single word she ever told us
Watch over your shoulders
And keep a tin of beans for when the weather turns the coldest
The Lord is our shepherd, so our cup runneth over
Put your trust in the Lord but tether your Chevy Nova
I’m spittin' this **** for closure
And God is my witness, so you could get it from Hova
To all you magicians that’s fidgeting with the cobra
I’m silent as a rock, ‘cause I came from a rock
That’s why I came with the rock, then signed my name on the Roc
Draw a line around some Earth, then put my name on the plot
Cause I endured a lot of pain for everything that I got
The eyelashes like umbrellas when it rains from the heart
And the tissue is like an angel kissin you in the dark
You go from blind sight to hindsight, passion of the Christ
Right, to baskin' in the limelight, it take time to get your mind right
Jay Electricity, PBS mysteries
In a lofty place, tangling with Satan over history
You can’t say **** to me - Alhamdulillah
It’s strictly by faith that we made it this far

What I fear isn’t hairy eight legged creatures crawling into my mouth at night
What I fear isn’t the whole “Something’s gonna come out of the dark and eat me,” while I’m trying to get a glass of water in the middle of the night.
Nor even when my father angrily yells at me
Because in all honesty he starts regurgitating spit from his mouth making it so hard to take him seriously when he’s drooling.

What I’m afraid of is…
            I’m afraid of tomorrow…
You see,
            Once upon a time
On a Saturday Night
I was so excited to finally finish writing my second chapter of my fan fiction
Talking to a few friends.
And relaxing from my stressful day of a Saturday.
Then suddenly a wild message about financial aid appears,
Now,
            This isn’t where my fears start coming to life
            This isn’t even where my thoughts were being provoked.
This was just a simple conversation about financial aid information.
You see,|
My friend knows little about financial aid and my friend asked about the information I know.
I thought, “Well I have limited knowledge on this…I’ll give my friend my best answers and hope it turns out alright.”
Well,
            Things didn’t turn out the way I had imagined it.
You see,
            This private conversation evolved into a group chat
And even the financial aid information conversation evolved into, “How are you
going to pay for your college expenses?”

You see,
            I don’t fear of creatures with eight legs,
            I don’t fear of monsters in the darkness
            I don’t even fear of my father’s angry tone!
I fear what tomorrow’s going to be
I fear that my future will only just be a dream.

It’s so hard to be focusing on where I’m going to be at next year when this year looks like the saddest thing on Earth.
It’s so hard to concentrate on tomorrow when today looks like a horrible nightmare.

Today,
            I’m stressed
I’m not stressed about my grades
            I know I work harder than the average student.
I’m not stressed about the guy I might like
            Because right now,
            A boyfriend is not what I be needing.

I’m stressed that I may not get a job
I’m stressed that my dad may lose his
I’m stressed that my mom can’t find another
I’m stressed that I won’t be able to pay for my ACT Ticket
I’m stressed that I won’t be able to afford my SAT Subject Ticket
I’m stressed that I won’t be able to pay for my college apps
And I’m stressed that I can’t get fee waver
Because according to the government my parents make too much for me to have
one
            When in reality
                        My family barely survives on a paycheck.
It’s getting harder and harder to survive on that paycheck
Because presently speaking
            It’s getting harder and harder to pay to keep on living.

And because I don’t have a job yet,
            My parents are still forced to pay for me to keep on living.
I’m stressed that I’m not going to have a tomorrow
I’m stressed that I’m not going to go to a college to pay college expenses for
I’m stressed that this fear is going to keep controlling my life!

But…
I can’t let that happen…
            I can’t let this fear run my life.
‘Cause sooner or later its going to run it down tot eh ground and I won’t be able to recover from that
I can’t let this fear consume me,
Because I’ll never find a way out.


I fear something…
I don’t fear eight hairy legged creatures crawling into my mouth at night,
I don’t fear monsters eating me alive while I’m trying to get something to drink.
Nor do I fear my dad yelling at me.
I fear of tomorrow.

I can’t focus on where I’m going to be at next year when today is all foggy with no sign of light.

(October 17th, 2013, I think is when I wrote this.)

There aren’t many things
that I’m good at.
I have bad grades.
I’m aware of this, but they
still insist on shouting as if
three letter F’s
determine my worth
as well as my ability.
I’m not athletic,
never been remotely decent
at sports,
picked last for soccer,
football, basketball,
and everything else,
tried to do parkour once-
however,
that hope quickly dissolved
when I discovered
that it was still nerve-wracking
for me to climb a fence.
(One of the many gifts
that comes with a severe
lack of coordination.)
I’m not a quiet person.
I don’t know
how to hold my tongue
most of the time.
So when my father’s paycheck
is cut shorter and shorter,
when he makes little enough as it is,
my stay-at-home mother
fighting her demons of
the severe depression and anxiety
that she passed down to me
as well as her (auditory) hallucinations,
her BPD,
her physical disabilities,
not making a paycheck at all,
and my school supplies
consist of 50-cent notebooks
that fall apart,
and 75-cent pens,
I get a little… “upset”.
I’ve played guitar for three years.
Sometimes, it’s what I’m best at,
playing strings of notes
and minor chords
that come together to form
beautiful harmonies-
but more often than not,
every note is sour…
Another thing I’m not good at.
But I am a writer.
People don’t pay attention
to teenagers, they say
We’re so full of ourselves,
We think we’re so important,
they say
We need to communicate,
but when we try
all they hear
is whining, and complaining.
Teenagers telling their friends
in passing conversation
that they’re suicidal,
that they hurt themselves,
just to see who will notice-
who will listen-
and of course, no one does.
Nobody notices that
teenagers are the voice
of our generation,
and our generation,
as such,
is royally ******
because nobody pays attention.
There aren’t many things
that I’m good at.
But I am a writer.
And I have
a voice,
a pen…
And paper torn
from a 50-cent notebook.

You scribble down the name of a drug I can't pronounce
Is that an A or an O?
And send me on my way
It seems like that's how you send all of us off these days
Do you really know my life?
Would you even take the time to listen?
I have my doubts
and I'm sticking with them
Because frankly,
all you're concerned about
is the paycheck you'll be getting.

Baby Boomers: 25% of America’s population, all born in the years between 1946 and 1964 who continue to live off Social Security.
     All right, but what is Social Security and from where does it come? Taxes. Taxes that come out of your (yes, YOUR) hard earned paycheck. About 14% of your paycheck, actually. You, my fellow working Americans, are paying for little Miss Norma from down the road to migrate to Florida during these treacherous cold, winter months, along with the flock of 47 million other Baby Boomers who live in America. As well as paying for their food and shelter and ever-growing medical bills and for them to continue living. We are paying retirees to take our money.
     In 2012, 21% of America’s budget went to the Baby Boomers, or Social Security--that is 773 billion dollars. In 2013, however, the retirees gained grounds and are now being paid 860 billion dollars a year for the next two years.
     Why are we paying little Miss Norma and her 47 million retired friends to have a vacation, time off, a break, whatever you wish to call “running away from responsibilities”, when they are neither contributing to nor bettering society? What responsibilities are they running away from?  Why do we continue to slave away every day to earn a paycheck that funds the lives of people who are of no benefit to the country? Because this is the United States of America and it is the duty of us young folks to cater to the needs of the geriatric community!
     Well America, it is time for a change.
The retirement age in America is about 61 years of age, and with retirement comes Social Security benefits. BUT, I propose, instead of receiving the benefits of Social Security, the retirees are given something else.
     That something else? A pill.
     A euthanization pill.
     Baby Boomers are ******* America dry, and it is time to eliminate them.
     It is logical, really. Why spend excessive amounts of money on people who are too frail and too weak to work or enrich our country? Seriously, why?
     Living a life unable to work, unable to do once-favorite activities that arthritis now prohibits, unable to visit with long deceased friends and family cannot, I imagine, be fulfilling. By euthanizing them we are doing them (and ourselves) a favor: we are ending their misery (and also saving ourselves from paying them 860 billion dollars for the next two years).
     Think of the country! Think of the possibilities! Think of the debt!
     Being no longer threatened by the looming responsibility of needing to fork over more than 20% of money to Baby Boomers that the country doesn’t actually have to give, we are enabling ourselves to use that very same money to pay off the ever-increasing debt!
     The national debt as of February 2014 is well over 17 trillion dollars, and thanks to Social Security and the people living off it, the amount does not stop growing. We, as Americans, must say good-bye to our dear old grannies, and say hello to a debt free life.

You stripped my soul,
Ripped me from my shoes
Where I stood
in innocence.
You extracted my childlike traits,
Treated my body
As your ******* paycheck.

My whole future
Was laid out in front me.
Now you fabricated a dent in it,
One that has shattered me
Forever.
I used to smile,
Be full of life,
Slept at night,
My body never reeked the incessant scent
of the lifeless souls you sold me to.

My heart ached everyday,
I longed for home, where safety was waiting for me.
Everyday I was a raindrop,
Trying to cling onto the window of hope,
But always slipped away.

You don’t understand the pain,
You’re only in it for the hunnits
Please understand,
That my dehumanization is not worthy
For what you gain.

My body became an abstract canvas,
For your ugly pleasures.
Bruised, bloodied, beaten, and battered.
Cuts and aches line my delicate skin,
But to you all my pain is fake.

You slapped my delicate face,
every time I asked for my precious prize of my childhood,
every time clear oceans surged out of my eyes.
“Shut the hell up!” You yelled
As I let out wails of agony.
You stepped all over me
Like I was a used cigarette.
You ignored my shrieking screams,
Actually,
You loved it.

You forced me
To comply with their beastly gratifications,
Only in return for your abundant riches.
You stepped on me,
like I was a *****, grimy, muddy puddle,
over and over
Even so,
I was still considered desirable.

I am NOT your canvas.
I am NOT your paycheck.
I am NOT your plaything.
I am worthy of honor,
worthy of respectful awe and delicacy.

I did not feel the worth of a human being anymore.
I felt ill treated, broken, bent, demeaned.
You stripped my soul, and,
Deprived me of my self respect.
And I will never
Ever
Be the same.

The only thought
That seeps into my mind
At sunrise and the brink of midnight,
Is that
I
Was someone’s *****.

Listen to the pleas of
Children,
their ribbons shriveling up.
Spouses,
their vows rupturing.
Siblings,
their hearts torn apart.
Parents,
Bawling for their sanities,
Waiting to rejoice
With their miraculous bundles of joy—

You can pretend
That the black gloss
On my lashes
Will glue my eyes shut-
Make me blind to truth;
To ‘true knowledge.’
Go ahead.
Tell yourself
That my red-painted lips
Only spout nonsense.
It will only make it sweeter
When my wing-lined eyes
Give you whiplash
as I walk past you
To get my degree;
My award;
My paycheck.
Maybe if you’re ‘nice’
I’ll buy you an ice pack.

we have everything and we have nothing
and some men do it in churches
and some men do it by tearing butterflies
in half
and some men do it in Palm Springs
laying it into butterblondes
with Cadillac souls
Cadillacs and butterflies
nothing and everything,
the face melting down to the last puff
in a cellar in Corpus Christi.
there's something for the touts, the nuns,
the grocery clerks and you . . .
something at 8 a.m., something in the library
something in the river,
everything and nothing.
in the slaughterhouse it comes running along
the ceiling on a hook, and you swing it --
one
two
three
and then you've got it, $200 worth of dead
meat, its bones against your bones
something and nothing.
it's always early enough to die and
it's always too late,
and the drill of blood in the basin white
it tells you nothing at all
and the gravediggers playing poker over
5 a.m. coffee, waiting for the grass
to dismiss the frost . . .
they tell you nothing at all.

we have everything and we have nothing --
days with glass edges and the impossible stink
of river moss -- worse than ****;
checkerboard days of moves and countermoves,
****** interest, with as much sense in defeat as
in victory; slow days like mules
******* it slagged and sullen and sun-glazed
up a road where a madman sits waiting among
bluejays and wrens netted in and ****** a flakey
grey.
good days too of wine and shouting, fights
in alleys, fat legs of women striving around
your bowels buried in moans,
the signs in bullrings like diamonds hollering
Mother Capri, violets coming out of the ground
telling you to forget the dead armies and the loves
that robbed you.
days when children say funny and brilliant things
like savages trying to send you a message through
their bodies while their bodies are still
alive enough to transmit and feel and run up
and down without locks and paychecks and
ideals and possessions and beetle-like
opinions.
days when you can cry all day long in
a green room with the door locked, days
when you can laugh at the breadman
because his legs are too long, days
of looking at hedges . . .

and nothing, and nothing, the days of
the bosses, yellow men
with bad breath and big feet, men
who look like frogs, hyenas, men who walk
as if melody had never been invented, men
who think it is intelligent to hire and fire and
profit, men with expensive wives they possess
like 60 acres of ground to be drilled
or shown-off or to be walled away from
the incompetent, men who'd **** you
because they're crazy and justify it because
it's the law, men who stand in front of
windows 30 feet wide and see nothing,
men with luxury yachts who can sail around
the world and yet never get out of their vest
pockets, men like snails, men like eels, men
like slugs, and not as good . . .
and nothing, getting your last paycheck
at a harbor, at a factory, at a hospital, at an
aircraft plant, at a penny arcade, at a
barbershop, at a job you didn't want
anyway.
income tax, sickness, servility, broken
arms, broken heads -- all the stuffing
come out like an old pillow.

we have everything and we have nothing.
some do it well enough for a while and
then give way. fame gets them or disgust
or age or lack of proper diet or ink
across the eyes or children in college
or new cars or broken backs while skiing
in Switzerland or new politics or new wives
or just natural change and decay --
the man you knew yesterday hooking
for ten rounds or drinking for three days and
three nights by the Sawtooth mountains now
just something under a sheet or a cross
or a stone or under an easy delusion,
or packing a bible or a golf bag or a
briefcase: how they go, how they go! -- all
the ones you thought would never go.

days like this. like your day today.
maybe the rain on the window trying to
get through to you. what do you see today?
what is it? where are you? the best
days are sometimes the first, sometimes
the middle and even sometimes the last.
the vacant lots are not bad, churches in
Europe on postcards are not bad. people in
wax museums frozen into their best sterility
are not bad, horrible but not bad. the
cannon, think of the cannon, and toast for
breakfast the coffee hot enough you
know your tongue is still there, three
geraniums outside a window, trying to be
red and trying to be pink and trying to be
geraniums, no wonder sometimes the women
cry, no wonder the mules don't want
to go up the hill. are you in a hotel room
in Detroit looking for a cigarette? one more
good day. a little bit of it. and as
the nurses come out of the building after
their shift, having had enough, eight nurses
with different names and different places
to go -- walking across the lawn, some of them
want cocoa and a paper, some of them want a
hot bath, some of them want a man, some
of them are hardly thinking at all. enough
and not enough. arcs and pilgrims, oranges
gutters, ferns, antibodies, boxes of
tissue paper.

in the most decent sometimes sun
there is the softsmoke feeling from urns
and the canned sound of old battleplanes
and if you go inside and run your finger
along the window ledge you'll find
dirt, maybe even earth.
and if you look out the window
there will be the day, and as you
get older you'll keep looking
keep looking
******* your ******* little
ah ah   no no   maybe

some do it naturally
some obscenely
everywhere.

Valor Gates poured her younger siblings cereal, they sat at their broken kitchen table.  The cereal was stale and she wasnt sure if the milk was spoiled.  Her anxiety was through the roof, her mother hadn't come home last night.  It wasnt anything new, her mom was a drug addict, she would go out to the club and not come home, sometimes not even for days.  She wouldnt call, or text to let Valor know she was okay, or where she was.  She couldn't even call the police the times she went missing for days, because she knew they would call child services, and they would take the twins from her.  Angela Gates was the typical ****** mom, got pregnant at sixteen, she had no way to support a child except through her now ex boyfriend Charles,who she had cheated on, hence Valor.  Charles had sacrificed his teen years to try and raise Valor, he'd been a father to her, and she loved him for it.  He left six years ago, a little bit before the twins were born, they also weren't his.  Valor at ten years old had taken on the mother roll when the twins were born. She'd even named them, Andrew and Abigail.  She thought of them as her own.  She taught them how to read, she'd taught herself to read.  She taught them how to tie their ripped hand down shoes, she hadn't learned tell she was eight.  She taught them how to ride a bike, she didn't know how.  She taught them how to swim, she'd never been to a lake or a pool before that.  Valor went to school part time, then skipped the rest of the day to go to her job at the hardware store.  She got payed minimum wage, her paycheck went to the bills, and the small portion left went to the groceries.  She got the twins clothes from the shelter, or from neighbors whose kids had grown out of them.  She hadn't gotten any new clothes, or new anything since two years ago when Charles bought her some clothes and a cheap ipod for her birthday.  Those gifts had meant everything to her.  Valor sat down in the broken stool by her little brother and patted his little blonde head.  The twins were beautiful Andrew was tall for a six year old with short blonde hair and giant blue eyes.  Abigail was just as gorgeous, she already had thick hair to her tiny waist in tumbles of blonde satin, her eyes though were very different.  One was as blue as Andrews and the other was the same mossy green as Valor's.  Valor wasnt a blonde with blue eyes, she saw her self plain with thick long brown hair, and shining mossy green eyes.  She worked out to stay fit, and she didnt get to eat much in fear that the twins wouldnt get enough food.  She dug out a small cheap phone that Charles had boughten for emergencies , the small screen was blank.  Her mother hadn't stumbled into the house and to her room like always.  Valors heartbeat picked up two notches and sh could hear the blood rushing in her ears.  She had a anxeity disorder that also gave her a bit of OCD.  Her OCD was extreme cleaning.  Everything had to be neat, she thought it was because her life was in such disaray that the one mess she did have control of had to be perfectly in place.  
She debated weather she should call Charles and ask if he'd seen her.

I used to feel ashamed to be put in the category of:
Illegal, immigrant, undocumented,
Or simply not a U.S Citizen

I’ve been oppressed and rejected from:
Jobs, schools and programs,
Because I’m not a red-blooded American

But through God I learned that I should
Be proud of who I am and what country I come from
And that makes me free

Because I still have choices
I still have options
As long as I try, I can smile
As long as I have God
My life is worthwhile
Because I’m His child

I can’t contain myself any more
I’m tired of being broke and poor
I’m going to get that full ride
Into a 4 year college
I’m going to get that steady job security with:
A steady paycheck, that’s re-locatable and it’s fun

I’m tired of lying, hiding, and scamming
To get into organizations, staffing agencies and jobs
That would help my life be healthier

I dislike the fact that you have to
Get married to get a green card
I hate using a fake social security number
Or tax ID on applications that ask for it
I don’t like making up excuses about
Why I don’t qualify for financial aid or unemployment

But I’m going to man up and keep moving forward
It doesn’t matter how much:
Pain, anxiety, frustration, bad attitudes,
Disappointment, confusion, heart break
Or put downs I get in life
I’ll keep fighting the good fight with all my heart
And I’m going to be honest even if hurts me

Because I still have choices
I still have options
As long as I try, I can smile
As long as I have my God,
My life is worthwhile
Because I am His child

By Shannon Pollard
© December 2012

Everyone complains about the "system",
how it is rigged, manipulated and controlled.
But they do not take a moment to listen,
or to take a moment and break the mold.
Work out and do not eat those fries,
then you will say goodbye to those thighs.
Work hard, work long, and get the paycheck,
take a chance and stick out your neck.
Become what you despise,
or stand and rise.
Because you can lie down and die,
and let them walk on you,
curl up and cry,
and let your whole life turn blue.
But your failure is your own fault,
not the systems,
you were not locked in a vault.
You have been duped,
or you are duping,
So stop singing the song the dupees sing.

Updated from my tablet which my white upper class parents bought me to prepare for my pre_paid college

when you are three you will bring home your first tracks of mud from the garden when you sneak out of the door to play. i will wash the grass stains off your socks and tell you to wait for mummy to come out next time too.

when you are four you will bring home your first macaroni necklace from nursery school and try to eat it raw. i will put it around your neck and we will make pasta together, minus the glue.

when you are five you will bring home tears and your first bleeding knee after falling off your tricycle. i will clean up the wound with antiseptic, put on a smiley face band aid and tell you it is okay to cry.

when you are six you will bring home your first finger painting from kindergarten and a white tee shirt that is streaked with a myriad of colour. i will place it on the laundry pile and we will stain canvas with paint coated fingers for the rest of the afternoon.

when you are seven you will bring home your first report card and babble excitedly about the A you got in art class. i will tell you i knew your teacher would love the tiger you drew that had too many teeth.

when you are eight you will bring home your first best friend and you will ask if you can have a sleepover. i will bake you cookies and put up a tent in the backyard so you can fall asleep under the blanket of stars.

when you are nine you will bring home your first 100 on a test and ask me if perfect is a good score. i will hug you and say that no score can be more perfect than you are.

when you are ten you will bring home your first girl guide badge and tell me you need it sewn on your uniform. i will teach you how to use a needle and thread and see your pride at accomplishing the task on your own.  

when you are eleven you will bring home your first medal from a junior fencing competition and tell me you love the foil but you are scared of the older ones who use epees and sabres (even though one day you will be one of them, too). i will hang the medal on your bedpost and show you my rusting sabre in the storeroom and tell you my stories.

when you are twelve you will bring home your first case of chickenpox from the girl who sits next to you in class. i will make you chicken soup and we will make bad puns about poultry for the next two weeks of quarantine.

when you are thirteen you will bring home your first failure on a test paper. i will sit with you in your room and go through your mistakes and we will learn together, because you are more than a number and i never want you to forget that

when you are fourteen you will bring home your first questions about why the girls in school giggle about boys when the name you doodle in your jotter book is the one of your hauntingly beautiful social studies teacher. i will tell you that love is whatever you believe it to be and who you love is less important than why you love them.

when you are fifteen you will bring home your first can of beer in an effort of rebellion and try to hide it in your room. i will get out the wine and we will share it and i will teach you all there is to know about alcohol and being careful around it, and regale you with stories about the fact that i am a happy drunk.

when you are sixteen you will bring home your first attempts at a resumé and tell me you want to find an internship. i will watch you with pride as you make your own way as part of the working crowd for the very first time and learn more than i could ever teach you on my own.

when you are seventeen you will bring home your first girlfriend and introduce her to me, blushing and stammering. i will smile and ask her if she wants any orange juice from the fridge, and watch you give me a grateful grin.

when you are eighteen you will bring home your first college application and all the relevant documents. we will sit down over the kitchen table and discuss the pros and cons of local and international schools.

when you are nineteen you will bring home a suitcase and some assignments when you come back home during break. i will watch you tuck in to local fare ravenously and listen to you dreamily talk about the girl you share your dormitory with.

when you are twenty you will bring home your first paycheck from a part-time job you’re holding while studying for your degree. i will joke with you on what blue chip stocks to invest it in and we will go out for dinner at a swanky restaurant together.

when you are twenty one you will bring home an engagement ring and ask me if it is too young to ask your dormmate turned lover forever. i will remind you that love has no age and preconceptions have no place in devotion.

when you are twenty two you will bring home everything you need to propose to the love of your life. i will watch her stare at you in shock and fall into your arms and cry, and i will smile at the way your breath leaves your lungs, and you cry along with her.

when you are twenty three you will bring home your first pre-wedding jitters and be fretting about tomorrow’s ceremony. i will reassure you that everything will be perfect- even if it isn’t.

when you are twenty four you will bring home your first spare key to your new place and entrust it to me. i will bring over the dishes you and your wife love every sunday and we will have dinner together, talking, teasing, and laughing till we cry.

when you are twenty five you will bring home your first daughter you have adopted from the orphanage.

and daughter, i hope you will tell her the things i have told you.

If we’re honest with ourselves we all have more than enough love to share with those who don’t get enough and the tragedy is that too many of us aren’t aware of just how much beauty we are capable of / we all got magic flowing just under the skin of our fingertips but we’re too scared to touch and be touched / how far apart do we have to get before we realize no matter the distance we create between us we are all still the same / no matter who we pray to or the skin we live in or the place our mothers give birth or where our fathers teach us how to sink or swim / we’re all just trying to get by learning the curves of the laws of survival when the law man and lawyers and judges aren’t playing fair / and the boss man tells us to be grateful for paying us a minimum wage while cutting every corner he can think of to cut pennies that add up to dollars off our paychecks / then jacking up the cost of living with inflation every time he takes another vacation and he’s always off on an island where he’s hiding all his excessive cash so he won’t have to pay any kind of tax / the government has become a soulless corporation killing off what little there is left of the dream and there’s no justice that can’t be bought off with a blindfold full of cash / they say they will let it trickle down but fail to mention the only thing they let go of is poison for the poor that profits the rich/ then they grind down the middle class over the bones of those even lower who are working two to three jobs just so they don’t starve or end up on the streets with the more unfortunate who aren’t getting any of the help they need but somehow are being blamed for their situation with out anyone stopping  to listen to their story / sometimes I just can’t take it as I try to figure out how we allowed all of this to happen in the first place / how did we become so cruel to allow laws to be passed to punish anyone that tries to feed the hungry / how is it wrong to do what is right / I try to breath and think of what can I do to help when I’m living paycheck to paycheck and I got a growing mouth to feed / I want to find someway to live more selfless and try to be more aware but it’s getting hard to look in the mirror because I haven’t lived up to my potential and if I’m completely honest I would have to say I’m afraid of feeling any deeper by being touched by all of the worlds problems because it seems too much to bare / if I don’t make a joke soon I might start crying and never be able to stop / but I cant find anything funny as the world is being split apart by hatred and apathy and greed and violence is spilling from the streets into the school yard / how many more children have to be buried before we do something about the bullets tearing the future of their innocence’s to shreds / you can give your thoughts but without any action they are as useless as your prayers / if we don’t do something soon it will just become part of casual conversion over dinner of who died today and who passed their math quiz / what good is any kind of education to the dead / isn’t that part of the problem our broken schools that teach nothing but the minimum of how to survive by preparing youth for nothing but the skills to work a 9 to 5 / I forgot to make a joke to stop myself from crying and now I might be drowning but I’m trying to float on a thimble full of hope / tell me what good is the love in our hearts when all we do is waste it by taking shallow breaths even though we have more than enough to share

Look into the mirror and Smile
Greet every customer with a warm Smile
Close your eyes alone and Smile
Think about the war and Smile
Imagine your daughter and smile
Leave your troubles at the door and Smile
Black out, wake up without a mother and Smile
Smile for the camera
Smile
Smile
Smile
Look I know you're depressed but Smile
Maybe you'll be happier if you Smile
I heard you can trick your body's chemicals into thinking you're happy if you just Smile
I didn't say be happy, I said Smile

Smoke a cigarette and Smile
Look your ****** in the toes and Smile
Put your makeup on and Smile
Pour a fresh cup of coffee and Smile
Hold their hand, look at the stars and Smile
Shut the **** up and Smile
Sit at the bottom of your shower and Smile
Empty this bottle and Smile
Lose your lifes fourtune at blackjack and Smile
Take this pill and Smile

Stop Smiling
Why are you still Smiling?
Is that all you can ******* do?
SMILE?
Smile
Like this contortion of flesh is taking a punch
Smile
Because this curvature is a war on hatred
Smile
Like a curse word
Like body armor
Like a paycheck

Smile.

Utter the word "long distance" and the first thing that comes to mind afterwards is relationship. After relationship, comes a lover 3,000 miles away that's dedicated to falling asleep on Skype and has Snapchat constantly open to remind you about how their day is going. Time differences. Distance. It all becomes blurred together when it's 4 in the morning here, but 6 in the morning there, and they're asleep but you're not. Welcome to your long distance relationship.

But when it's 4 in the morning here and it's 12 in the afternoon there and there's more than just miles in between us but oceans, you never forget to wish me a happy birthday and if your boss is nice to you that day and adds the extra dollar to your paycheck, there might even be a gift or two for me being sent first class (because who would ever dare fly coach these days?). You'd swim the ocean for me, if I asked. You'd push the countries together. To (platonically) love another person, as the saying goes, is to see the face of God and you are an angel.

There will be days where we don't talk. The days turn into months, and the months turn into years. The longest, I think, was the hardest of year mine--coincidence? But even when the hours begin to add up and it seems like the ocean is getting bigger and bigger, you never cease to tell me that I'm one of the most beautiful people you've ever met (and **** the skinny girls who tell me otherwise). I would have turned the world upside down just to bring us closer together, if I could.

We're too young to not go out and live life with the people who are here, but who's to say that the people who aren't physically here aren't real? I can reach out and touch the girl next to me, but her warmth won't mean as much as when I go home and sign into Skype and your voice is already bouncing through my computer's speakers ready to tell me about your day. We cry together. We dream together. We always said we'd grow old together.

They say you can't really know someone when you've never met them, but I've met you in more ways than I can count. I've met the way you sleep at night (thanks to Skype and time differences), because you snore when you're too tired. I've met the way your eyes light up when you talk about your job, your hobbies, the things you like. From my 13" screen, I've met your siblings, the posters on your walls, the room you sleep in. We depend on technology to meet each other so don't let anyone tell you that technology is ruining lives. It's been saving mine.

So, my friend, thank you for the long nights of telling each other our life stories, learning secrets, learning quirks that no one else has ever noticed (because no one else seemed to care). Thank you for taking my side in almost every situation and for keeping me company as I sleep. Thank you for the birthday serenades over Skype, picking up the phone when I'm drunk and crying, and for growing old with me. For all of the movie nights that we spent on Skype yelling "okay, press play in 3, 2, 1!" and for all of the advice about people you'll never meet, cheers to you, to us, the time, and distance apart.

We sat at the table, waiting for our number to be called.
Their pepperoni pizza, was our most favorite one of all.

Our number is announced, George is carrying the pizza back.
When close, he decides to act, as though he  trips in his tracks.

In slow motion, that pizza, slid so smoothly out of the pan.
George's eyes got big as saucers, he saw the folly of his plan.

There I was in my new outfit, that cost half of my paycheck.
With pizza, upside down on my lap and sauce splashed on my neck.

Amazingly calm, George scooped the pizza up in his hands.
Melted cheese, stretching and stringing, from my pants in gooey strands.

He stood there patting and pressing the pizza back into shape.
That poor pizza looked just like a badly, bulldozered landscape.

It lay there sort of twisted, pepperoni all to one side.
Crust pieces stinking out of it, like a saucy red mudslide.

Then he sat down across from me, silently as if waiting.
I must have looked like a blonde fish, sitting there, just gapping.

Then a chuckle escaped my lips, as his eyes raised to meet mine.
He looked just like a little boy, who just got caught in a crime.

I'm surprised we didn't get kicked out for making such a fuss.
'Cause, next thing you know, the whole place is laughing along with us.

We couldn't stop, there was no way we'd been able.
Not while upsidedown-lap pizza, stared at us from the table

"Girls shouldn't smoke"
I'm sorry sir, say that again?
Tell that to the 15 year old hispanic girl who sold her virtue under the guidance of the traffic lights to pay off her mother's cancer bills.
Tell that to the wife of a man who
beat
beat
beats her, because some nights she refuses to kneel at his supposed genital altar and confess her sins.
Tell that to the girl who has spent 6 months carving her home address into her forearms,  hoping that her Mum would smell the rust and come and rescue her.
Tell that to the girl who was stolenshackleddruggedsold under the consent of her father who used her body as a paycheck to settle his blackjack debt.
To the lonely girl. The ugly girl. The fat girl. The anorexic girl.  The bulimic girl.  The girl.
"Girls shouldn't smoke."
Tell that to the women who find their prayers in the daily grace that is, nicotine.
Just like men do.

Thirty years of monthly
payments for a roof,
garage, and backyard,

The house burns down
the day you pay
it off,

A brand new model,
heated seats, leather
wrapped steering wheel,
more speakers than
you can hear,
pride and joy,
taken from you
by some careless *******,
focused on "Me"
not focused on red
lights or stop
signs.

The frame is bent,
airbags deployed,
the insurance
writes you a check
and sends a form
apology with next
month's bill.

The newest clothes
aren't so new,
once they're washed
twice,

but we base our wealth
on fleeting things,
wood, status symbols
and cotton,

We pay ourselves
by saving money
already spent,
and paying old bills
so we can have new ones,

Wealth isn't tied to these
temporary things, easily
replaced by more
work and money

No

Wealth is created,
easily sustained,
by good night kisses,
road trips just because,
and matching shirts
for family pictures,
things that make us
remember how to be
happy,

because we are all temporary,
but our love is
not so easily
replaced.
So even if
you rent, or
you take
the bus
or you have clothes
in your closet for years

The time spent
with people you love
wil always cover
you until the
next paycheck
you've already spent
anyway.

never a doubt my preference
for dreaming of a muse before paying the rent
or walking along the river and seeing
the nymphs I dream of playfully naked singing
a tune
instead of going to work
again
hiding in the bushes to watch
birds coo
or climbing the highest tree
to view an ocean in the middle of Alabama
I make up
several  mermaids populate this sea
along with serpents
vitriolic pirates sailing away to rob the
scalliwag English
in the Pub about midnight after visiting regions
of my mind
I take sense and remember last time
I had my last pint
too early,
Friday was a scant paycheck, so...

Paycheck, oh paycheck!
How you are missed!
This MoneyNetwork card
Will soon eat my fist.

No proof of deposit
No numbers I can see.
It is all a plot
To cause my insanity.

I cannot prove
That I have been paid.
I can only hope
I can find a hearing aid.

Only verbal knowledge
I now possess.
I thought I got paid
But alas, I regress.

I yearn for my paycheck
That ink-splattered slip
To know I have money
To know I won't have to strip.

Snail trail leading from mouth to heinous ****
let slugs undulate their way across my listerine lips
old jokes like S-Car-Go
and stuff inside me more variable and insuppressible
similar to Inspector Gadget
Matthew Broderick was my mentor
as a child
I am not in pampers any longer
4 P's of teens
***** petrol party and paycheck
that doesn't include pampers
I used to wade in my own ****
that's ******* disgusting to think about now
now an adult
still just wasting time
and wading through my own ****

I got a paycheck
Hooray

Now I can buy a few
Little things today

Perhaps a protein bar
And a green tree
For my car

Lol

Everytime we close our eyes,
Trying to remember our mother's lullabies
Warm tears, sparkling like diamonds
Running down our cheeks, hiding behind eyelids

When we look in the mirror and all we see is hate
There is no one to break our fall except fate

We judge our eyes, ear, and...oh did I mention that nose is fake
You people are fickle, you criticize until we break

They say "God" created us all equal and that beauty is in the eye of the beholder,
But how can you say that, you hypocrite, let that smolder

Because while you sit on a throne of discrimination
We scramble and hide to find our place in this nation

He can't even go home to his family because of his ****** domain
He loves his partner but his fathers inane

She breaks her back at work everyday, does more than any man will ever do in a decade
But still riding on her gender, her paycheck begins to fade

And when you see us crawling, fighting with need
You kick us down for the feeling of greed

He tries to get a job and because of the complexion of his pigment,
They don't hire him, nada, that's the end of this segment

She walks down the street covered from head to toe, with only her eyes to show
It's her beliefs but that doesn't make the ***** looks a lesser blow

We fee; the hurt and the pain everyday.
While you sit on your ***** in Tampa Bay

And when we can't be accepted in society,
We don't know any other way for prosperity

So we find a way to numb the pain
The drugs, the razor biting the skin, the *** with mysterious men
Anything with a gain

Please don't hurt us, please don't shut the door in our faces
Because we always seem to wake up in stranger places

Believe us, because this world should not be dog eat dog, it should be full of empathy
Way past the point of poetic sympathy

Break our bones, our courage, our love but inspite of it all
We fight on so that we're with the ones we love on the day that we fall

Drag us out and hang us like a beacon
Because we are not the ones who should be beaten

We are the kings of the world, no prejudice only love
Because love is love even when push comes to shove

Please enlighten us on how being different is bad
And we promise you, despite the real truth, we won't be mad

He's in love with his boyfriend. He asked him just last week to marry him
Never to break his vows until they bury him

She's a single mom of three kids, always making sure they have a good life
But in spite of it her bosses always cut her down with a knife

And he needs to pay for his wife's kemo
Every night he's struggling to ask from people at his mother's Bingo.

And when she walks down the street, she takes pride in what she believes
Always wondering why the man in the window is angry at what he sees

This is us in every way.
We know you wish this was just friendly foreplay

But we will bury you, smolder you with the ashes of our last exhumation
Without you this world would have a better function

Ok, maybe we're astray from the norm
But who says we won't be the end of this petty storm

Dose us with gasoline, light us a flame,
Watch us burn at the stake like it's a game.

But we'll shine so brightly you won't want to fuss
Because, in the end, you'll finally see US.

Im so awkward
Like I catch people
catching people catch me
Staring at them people
And I pretend like I don't hear them
Saying ***
look at his tattoos
and all he ****** does is smoke cigs
And longboard
I see that in their yuppy *** faces
*** we got so rich and cool
And lost all your freedom
******* and your shrimp platter
and your ****** puma im gonna burns calories on the tredmil
Of every day rich life
My tredmil is living paycheck to paycheck
******* the world
and kissing a girl
cuz really the paychecks pay for our ways to get laid

At some point in our life we grow up
We get jobs
We pay bills
We deal with responsibilties
We age
We mature
Some of us go to college
Some of us skip it
Some of us end up working mcdonalds
while others invent facebook
Some live paycheck to paycheck
Some bask in the glory of never having money problems
Some buy their happiness
Some find their happiness
Some make their happiness
We cover ourselves in make up
We hide behind the faces that we show the world
But know matter what happens to us in life
One thing always remains the same
...
That one thing is
The fact that no matter what
We are human
We are unique
You are human
so remember
you
are
Unique

Hey,it's me!
Can you recall my name?
Can you remember me?

Hi,it's me!
The unpopular girl from school.
The one who was never cool.
The one you took for a fool.

Hello,it's me!
The girl who you said stinks.
The one who never had instinct.
The stupid one who never thinks.

Miss?
Madam?
Is that what you just said?
Funny cause I thought I was
After all the daughter of the help!

Got the New Job Blues
find the politics absurd
but like the paycheck

When my father stepped off the plane twenty years ago and found his way to
The Bronx where his brothers were waiting for him,
It was to live every day plagued by stories of his
Roommates being followed home by wickedly-grinning, knife-brandishing men
That took pleasure in wounding the skin of my uncle who worked
For seven dollars a day, and then sent it all home to his mother.
And I know this isn’t what he wanted for me.
I even know, sometimes, that it’s not what he wanted for himself.
Didn’t want to open a bank account, become a citizen of the internet,
Watch as his labor was digitized and filed away on a supercomputer
And used to calculate the distance from here to the moon.

Last month my taxes contributed to Nike’s two billion dollars in
Government subsidies, my money,
Taken from my pocket and used to make sneakers more expensive than my
Last paycheck.

Sometimes I think I’m America’s mistake,
A child of the New Generation,
Born to emphasize the difference between affect and effect,
But never affect the way change is effected,
And I want, so desperately to be a warrior of my time
But I’ve only been taught to reaffirm the rules of grammar and
Sip coffee in silence as the world turns around me.

Sometimes all I want to do is cry.

It’s easy to blame America for your mistakes,
And it’s easy to say you shouldn’t blame America for your mistakes,
And I think once I find the dividing line, the fence, the border between the two,
I’ll understand what it means to be American.
I’ll know what it means to salute the flag and sing the
Pledge of Allegiance with my head held high and my hand placed
Proudly over my heart.

I hope I never find that line.

In school we’re taught A is for Apple and B is for Blue and C is for
Candy, sickly sweet and only sold out of the backs of white vans in the dead of night.
D is for death, which I still don’t understand,
And E is for easy, something that I, as a woman, must know the meaning of.
In school we’re taught to build city halls and towering skyscrapers
Out of wooden blocks, but I’m seventeen and still don’t know where my last name comes from.
In school, I’m ten, and my teacher is making fun of the spanish music I grew up listening to,
The kind with the classical guitar intro that my father can imitate perfectly,
The kind that made me smile until I was ten and became background noise when I was eleven.

In school, I built bridges out of cardboard boxes.

My father didn’t come here to be an environmental engineer.
My father didn’t come here to beg me to major in astronomy because he wishes he’d done
That instead.
I don’t know why my father came here.
When I ask, he tells me it was for the job opportunities - there’s nothing back home -
But I see it in his eyes when he goes home to the house in Ecuador he’s spent
19 years having built.
I see it in his eyes when we finally have a conversation for the first time all week,
Usually on a Saturday,
Because we’re both too busy during the week to take a moment to breathe and say,
In simple english, “Hi. How are you. Hope you’re doing well.”

Sometimes, it’s too easy to blame America for my mistakes,
But sometimes, America deserves it.
I’ll never know why people are the way they are, and I’ll spend a lifetime wondering,
But I know why I am the way I am,
And sometimes all I can do is hold onto that before it’s taken from me
Like the taxes from my paycheck
That are still paying Nike to feed the world the sick, twisted lie that it’s as easy as breathing to
Just do it.

Sometimes I wish I didn’t care,
Because it’d be easy as rain to comply with complacency and
Maybe then, I’d be able to sit back and watch them destroy themselves
And I wouldn’t have to be a part of it.

I’m told we revolt at dawn, but I’m too busy fielding calls from people who want to know
If I’m going, who won’t go if I’m not, who won’t go unless there’s a crowd they can
Disappear into.
Sometimes I wish I didn’t care, because if I didn’t I could stop being afraid of a world
Where caring is dangerous and sugar pills are the only thing on the
Dining hall menu.
I’m told we revolt at dawn, and when I show up, the sun is barely rising and I lift my head
To the sky and breathe in the scent of rebellion, finally, because it’s about time.

We are all immigrants.
We are all immigrants.
We are all immigrants.

Except, apparently, some of us.

I’m five years old and get to sleep in on the second Monday in October and I’m told
It’s a celebration of when God sailed across the ocean and created the forests
Only five hundred years ago.
And I buy it, of course I do, because I’m five years old and though God already doesn’t exist,
I don’t have any other explanation for why the forests are what they are, or
How I got here, of all places. America.
And I don’t know why I can’t run across the country and back again because I don’t have
A single clue about the concept of space, or time, and then,
When I think about it, how dare they tell me America was found when I’m too young to
Challenge them on it.

We can plan to revolt at dawn, but the police will already be there at midnight,
Waiting for us, and if we can’t walk into the path of resistance and keep going,
We might as well not even try.

My T.V. once told me there’s a magic trick for everything, and apparently,
Breaking out of handcuffs was one of them.
At this point, that might be our best option.

But you can’t major in magic, and breaking out of handcuffs won’t pay the bills.
I don’t have all the answers, and I know that kneeling during the national anthem will
Cause so much White Male Outrage there’ll be headlines for days,
But it’s something.
I care about a lot of things, but staying silent isn’t one of them.

If I’m America’s mistake, then so is my father, and so is the revolution at dawn,
And so is Columbus day.
All I know is I’m seventeen and I still don’t know what comes after
“And to the republic, for which it stands,”
And I hope one day I won’t be criticized for failing to memorize patriotic rhetoric.

We are all immigrants.
We are all immigrants.
Remember, we revolt at dawn.

dissipated and disillusioned worms eating through the last splinters of the rotting universal wood.

the last transmission of regret sent electronically, spluttered,
into a tissue; in a moment of self indulgent *******.

live showings of vicious execution, transmitted directly from the electromagnetic waves into the alpha waves of the young and naive. Desensitization, the last drops of humanity into complete disengagement.

endlessly recycled bohemian ideologies whispered into the ear of the eager idealist. spreading like fire, before burning out into the uncatchable reverie up with the stars, with all the other reveries, shining bright, intangible.

Instant dismissal from the old man, as the big curtain draws. Cynicism and fragmented past, falling on apathetic eyes, a proud man treat with a padded hand. faux sympathetic tones, blushing cheeks on old bones.

Begging with your body crumbling to dust with the disinterested doc, looking at the clock counting the milliseconds to the paycheck. Decomposing until you can be swept under the perpetual rug with the rest, Vacuum.

It was a rainy November night-
it always seemed to be.
There was nothing to do
but drink through our cheap red wine
until our words sloshed together.

Sure, it was slowly killing us,
slowly drowning our livers.
But there was something about the drinking
that made us feel more alive than
anything.

We worked until we had a few bucks,
the few bucks turned into a bottle.
There was never more money,
but there was never not enough.
It wasn't paycheck to paycheck
but bottle to bottle.

Eventually we'd sing Billy Joel
or the Beatles,
happy to have each other,
but even happier to have the wine.

The rain continued on,
the wine continued on,
and our lives-
well, they continued on, too.

I was down on my luck** and had not returned to my job nor had any notion of returning again. I had a plane ticket for Boston that would fly me to Minnesota that was scheduled to depart in twenty days. I had still not yet bought the bus ticket to Boston. I had one hundred dollars to my name. My friend Billy had owed me one hundred dollars as well and gave me one hundred and thirty dollars in 1988 pesos coins as repayment. Knowing that it might be difficult to find a place who would honestly convert them and that their worth fluctuated, I would have much rather he paid me in US dollars but I took them in thanks and didn’t mention it. He knew what I was thinking and told me that if I couldn’t get a fair price that I could mail them to him when he got to Missouri and he would mail me what he owed in cash but until then all of his money was ******* in his trip home and even that was barely enough but that he had checked on their worth and said it should cover the one-hundred he owed. I smiled and we warmly shook hands to seal the deal.  We spent the day riding around in his wrangler and running some final errands for him before he would be gone.
The three years we had known each other might as well have been a lifetime and had felt just as full as one and had gone by just as fast. We ‘d drunk coffee and smoked cigarettes outside of Elizabeth’s bookstore. We’d watched in silence the beautiful women that would walk passed without much attention given to us. We, however, gave great attention to every ***** and bounce and shimmy. There were some gorgeous women that came to the bookstore those years. We shot pool with Bernie, who had the keys to the Mason Lodge and had many great conversations on the fire escape. We played games of chess in the bookstore. We drove around listening to the blues. Sometimes we got together, the three of us, at Billy’s and we’d make a fire and they’d drink coffee because they were old men and had had to stop drinking years before and I would drink some bourbon or wine after a cup or two of coffee and then we’d share a pack of cigarettes between us and we’d feel the warmth of the fire and have some good laughs. Bernie was diagnosed with a rare and terrible cancer in North Carolina on a trip to see his son in the Air force and had been brought back home a few months later and beside his wife and daughter and son fell silently to sleep and never woke up again. I hadn’t gone to see him but Billy said that when he saw him he didn’t mention his condition once and that he even got out of bed and sat with him on the back porch that looked out upon the open land and sky and they talked like nothing was wrong and laughed and said they’d see each other again. Bernie died a week later.
I hadn’t planned it this way but the opening to this story is very much dedicated to Bernie, and Billy, I hope you get safely back to Missouri and that your pesos will help me make it through the fall.
I had not told my mother or my love, Rosalie, that I had left my job. So I made fake work schedules and left the house and returned home at all the appropriate times with a lanyard I had kept from work hanging from my neck and hung it on the doorknob when I got home. During the day there were several options to occupy the eight-hour shifts. The town ran very much so due to the college and I would go up there and browse around the old books called the stacks and take a few with me out onto the grass of the quad and read them. I would read for hours. I got restless every now and then and would even read while I walked in circles up and down and back and forth the crisscrossing paths under the trees of the quad. This was great until I got caught for taking these books from the school at my own leisure and soon it was revealed that I was not a student there and they told me not to come back. Some days I would run along the riverside. I enjoyed long walks on the train tracks around the city with my headphones on and taking pictures. I always had my backpack on, even if nothing was in it, but usually there was a book and a pair of Rosalie’s ******* and on occasion I would take this out and close my eyes to smell them and I would miss her very much. We lived with a few towns between us and she was a very busy and dedicated young woman. She was working in nursing homes and taking care of home patients and going to school full time on top of it and doing clinicals and taking care of her little brother because it takes a lot sometimes for a man to be cured from his drinking habits, which was very much true in their fathers case and her mother was a wild and paranoid woman who refused to believe that her boyfriend was beating Rosalie’s little brother while she was away at work. So Rosalie took great care and love for her brother and also custody.
I, however, had not been so responsible with my life. When I came back from the Army it was not as a hero but I could tell a great hero’s story because I’d known them all but mostly they were characters in stories I’d read in the barracks, or secondhand tales given in extravagant detail during chow and none of them were true but they sounded quite exciting. It made the time at bars when I had gotten home less lonely because I could tell a tale in first person convincingly enough that many an old vet, with his own made up fantasies, would act like they believed me and would share their stories and we didn’t have to sit there thinking about the buddies we lost or the women whom had fallen out of love with us one time or another or the families we were avoiding. I liked going to the bars, but I wouldn’t have had anything to say if it weren’t for those stories.
I met Rosalie a month after having been discharged. She sat in Elizabeth’s bookstore and was studying for a class. I was with Billy at the time and we were outside smoking cigarettes when we saw her walk in.
“Did you see that?” Billy said. I saw her all right. She had gone inside and we were still sipping our coffees and smoking and I was still seeing her, no matter what else walked by or how pretty the sky was or the warmth of the sun.
“That’s a good girl right there,” Billy said, “not like most of these others we see out here, kid.” It annoyed me a little that Billy was still talking about her, egging me on a little. As I had said, I had seen her and he was disrupting my fantasizing and I had known she was a kind girl and I wanted to save my dream of her for a little while longer before I brought it to her.
“I know,” I said.
“Well, go and see about her then!”
“I’ll go”
I had no intention of letting her pass by but there was thunder rumbling in my chest and butterflies in my stomach and I had suddenly become cold even though it was sixty-five degrees out on the sidewalk and something was keeping me from standing. “I’ll have one more smoke and then I’ll go in for more coffee and see her then.”
“Tonto’s nervous! Ha ha ha!” Billy got a kick out of the thought and patted me on the back. “If you want,” He said, “I’ll go say hello for you.” He was still amused.
“You’re twice her age Bill,” I said, “she’d probably call the cops on your old ugly mug”
“The cops may be called because of how well endowed I am and she’ll be screaming and the neighbors will worry about her and call the cops on us”
Billy was always talking about his manhood and I never knew any good rebuttals because I was honest with myself and so I never had a response. I let him brag. All I knew is I had one and I knew it wasn’t large but none of the women I ever slept with ever said it was too small and they all enjoyed lying with me afterwards and talking quite a while before falling to sleep and sometimes the *** had been wild.
The cigarette was finished and I was still nervous but I didn’t want to hesitate any longer. I don’t even think she’d even seen me when she walked into the store.
I went inside and ordered a coffee and looked over to her. She was on a laptop and had a pile of books beside her and some papers and she looked up and our eyes met. I held the glance with her for a little longer than a moment. I was a little embarrassed and she was beautiful and I was wondering what my face looked like to her and if my eyes had been creepy but she lifted a corner of her lips and smiled before looking back to her work and then my shoulders relaxed and I realized I had held my breath. I laughed to myself at my own ridiculousness and let it go and then walked up to her and extended my hand and she took it with a smile and I looked dead into her beautiful hazel eyes again with confidence and we’ve been in love ever since.

The reason for my trip to Minnesota was to see my old friends from the Army: Grady and Hank. We hadn’t seen each other since I was discharged eight years ago and they reached out to me when they could but I wasn’t very good at keeping in touch with them. After I left the Army it was hard for me to talk to them. I felt I was missing out on something and I didn’t want to think of them dying without me and I didn’t like those feelings so I tried to pretend they didn’t exist but they kept me in the loop of things and always asked how I was doing no matter how well I stayed in touch with them or not. It meant much more than they’ll ever know that they did. So when they said they had both gotten out nothing was going to stop me from reconnecting with them. They said they were going to drive east to see me. I called them back.
“Let’s not hang around here in Maine,” I said, “it’ll be the middle of fall and there’s nothing to do around here. Instead of you guys coming all the way out here and then staying for a week let’s make the whole trip a seven-day adventure and you ******* can drop me off home when it’s over?”
“That sounds all well and good Russ but how the hell are you getting out here?”
“I bought a ticket, I’ll be there on the twenty-second of October at eleven.”
“That’s what I like hearing old pal!” Grady said through the phone, “Now that sounds more like the Russ I know. You’ll find me at the airport at eleven. I’ll bring a limousine with a bar and buy a couple of hookers for us”
“No hookers, Grady”
“Yes, hookers!” Grady said, “do you still do blow?”
“No”
“Good. Me neither. Honestly, I don’t do hookers anymore also. But it sounded like a proper celebration didn’t it?”
“It did.”
“Well, then its settled Russ. I’ll see you on the twenty-second of October at eleven PM sharp in a long white limo and I’ll bring the *****, the blow and the ****** and it’ll be like old times.”
“Sounds perfect Grady, I can’t wait.”
We hung up.

The plan was I would spend the night at Grady’s and the next morning we’d get Hank and we’d head for Chicago as soon as we could. One of their friends, Lemon, would be making the trip with us and would be there at Hanks when we got there in the morning. Lemon was an excellent shot with the rifle and a better guitarist and Grady told me I’d get right along with him. He told me he was at the range and the Sergeant was yelling in this black boys ear that he couldn’t shoot worth a ****.
“MY ******* GOT BETTER AIM BOY!” “I CAN HIT YOUR FAT UGLY MOMMA IN THE EYE AT TWICE THE DISTANCE” “YOU COULDN’T HIT PUBERTY IF I DROPPED YOUR ***** FOR YOU!”
The Sergeant, Grady said, went on and on at the top of his lungs yelling at this black guy and we all stopped and stared at him.
“As the Sarg kept hollering the kids rifle kept popping off shots at the target and you’d hear him grab another clip when the other ran out and reload it and then keep shooting but none of us could tell where the shots were going. The Sarg was so loud and the shots had such a rhythm all of us at the range stopped and looked over. There wasn’t a single bullet hole anywhere on the target except directly in the center where every bullet he had shot had gone through and nowhere else.
“Finally Lemon ran out of bullets and the Sarg quit hollering and he called him to attention.”
“Where did you learn to shoot a rifle Jefferson,” The Sergeant inquired.
“Sergeant, I have never shot a rifle before in my life”
“Do you think it’s funny to lie to your Sergeant?”
“No, Sergeant”
“So why are you lying?”
“I’m not lying Sergeant”
“What did you do before you enlisted, Private?”
“I worked on the farm for my father, Sergeant”
“At ease soldier, Staff Sergeant Dominguez would like to have a word with you.”
And that’s how Lemon went to training to become a ****** but he broke his leg in training and got sent home.
“Well ****,” I said, “He must be one helluva guitarist.”

We were to spend a day in Chicago and camp at the Indiana Dunes and then drive to Detroit and spend a day and camp there and then head to Cleveland and Pittsburgh and Philadelphia if we had the time and then go to Boston and they’d drop me off at the train the following morning and I’d go home from there. But all of that was still twenty days away and I was down on my luck and had to save every cent I possibly could for the trip. Rosalie was excited for me. She knew how much I hated being home and that I stayed around to be with her even as much as she said that I shouldn’t let her stop me from doing what I wanted with my life but I really had no clue but I did know that she was the love of my life. She was happy to hear of this adventure and supported me but she didn’t know how broke I was and I hid it well by cooking all of our meals with things at my mothers apartment or my fathers house depending on where she came during her once-a-week sleepovers. She was proud of me for how well I had been with managing my money. There’s nothing to it, I told her.
The summer had been one of the best summers I’d ever had. Rosalie and I got to spend a lot of time together in-between our own lives and every moment had been cherished. I worked often and hard for twelve bucks an hour for more than forty hours a week but had nothing to show for it now. I’d gotten in trouble with the law and the lawyer was costly and so were the fines and the bail, even though I got the bail back I had to dump it into my beautiful old truck and then some because I hadn’t taken the best of care of it. I also spent most of my money on dinners out with Rosalie and I liked buying her little brother things every now and then and I had a terrible habit of buying books. Also, I had a habit of going to the bars on weekends and I wasn’t a modest drinker.
The last paycheck I got was for five hundred dollars and I spent it on a room for a long weekend at an Inn by the ocean for Rosalie and I to end such a good summer properly. Money is for having a good time and is for others. That’s how I’ve always thought it should be spent. When you’re broke, it’s easy to find lots of good times in the simple endeavors and I enjoyed those but I also enjoyed getting away with Rosalie. So when I say I was down on my luck do not think I was unhappy about it, I had lots of good luck before I’d gotten down on it and Rosalie is possibly the best luck a young man could ever come across. Still, I only had one hundred dollars to my name and three 1988 pesos coins that I’m not sure will be worth the other hundred and with twenty days to go. It’s going to be pretty tight.

I want to talk about our time by the ocean now...

(c) 2015