On her arm, the tower of Pisa bumps back and forth with her swollen sleeves.
On her back, standard holometabolous insect flutter flames it’s way heavenward.
Her thighs house songbirds, yellow, flightless—beauty is her.
A cobra draped around her neck; an olive branch psyching back, rearing it's head, infinite.

Her body is a shrine of shadowy ink.
Her cheeks have become temples.
I lie my faith in them alone.

It’s 8am, I’ve slept for about three hours and I’m awake for absolutely no reason, my heart is heavy.

It’s 10am, I fell back to sleep an hour ago and I just woke up. I’m checking my phone in hopes of something special but there’s nothing there.

It’s 11am, I’m getting in the shower and getting ready to go do something before I have to go to work.

It’s 1pm and I’m out venturing with a friend, pretending to enjoy myself but they can tell that I’m not feeling my best. I’m fine.

4pm rolls around and I’m going to work a ****** job with a bunch of people I can hardly stand. The only thing getting me through the night is hope that I’ll check my phone and get something from you.

8pm nothing.

10pm I’m off work now, that wasn’t terrible I guess.

11pm I change out of my work clothes, get comfortable and pour myself a drink a little stronger than usual.

12am still nothing.

1am I’m on my third or fourth drink and I’m feeling kind of drunk right now. Thinking of calling you but psyching myself out. I don’t want to come off as needy.

1:30am My drinks are getting stronger and my self control is getting weaker. I break down.

2:30am I can’t even walk straight anymore, I should probably slow down.

3am I’m not feeling very well now but I don’t want to waste this drink.

4am I’m throwing up and crying and there’s nobody here to help me. All I can think about is how I want your attention.

5am I’m curled up in bed, makeup smeared, I’m anxious and exhausted. I send you a text apologizing for being me and I fall asleep.

It’s 8am, I’ve slept for about three hours and I’m awake for absolutely no reason, my heart is heavy. Still nothing.

constructed mentally, Over time
by our subconscious an imitation
as a defense mechanism built a prison on our visions, with Limitations  

in hopes failure can bring solace avoided is feeling voided
but so is opportunity,
So what good is impunity
if u have no ...immunity

To ******* preventing annuity
Internally u need unity
Cause self doubt can help hold u back when nothing else did so stupidly

U let the biased opinions
poison ur community
a hard lesson To learn when that lessons ur only gratuity

But how can u think Intuitively
When presented with all the theories
The factored potential risk, variables
And that's why I always fear me

Before my enemies or my obstacle
Cause if I'm not mentally stable
I won't be mentally able
And then eventually ill be hateful

Cuz essentially the playful
And light hearted always go
A little further, cuz his approach
And most self confidence shows

That even if he fails, he knows
Hell bounce back brilliantly
its not how many times u Fall,
but if u keep gettin up: Resiliency!

While at the same time learning humility and building these characteristics are prognosticators and measure predictions and see

When u wish on a star, that's me,
Go twinkle twinkle, &don;'t let them
****** ****** all over ur dreams and that includes you, who like them

Self sabotage  when ur self doubt
Comes out psyching ourselves out
Only after discovering someone else
Who made u second guess what u felt

So go in front of a mirror and peer
What appears when u get naked
Your ***** Now that u know u still have em
Take a mental picture and save it


Use the ****, to take life and **** it
break it, then erase it
Cause nothing can be written
About a destiny you didn't make yet

You act to manifest it
Don't eat their ******* reject it
If u already did dont digest it
Throw it up like a bulimic or anorexic

Supermodel.....how rude! Point is
Like H u need preparation fast
So u can get rich enough to payoff
Closeted Skeletons from the past

i’m sitting under my covers writing this & thinking “my handwriting looks ugly” but then i remembered that this will be typed later so it won’t really.
but i care about details, details that fill this paper, details filling my head.
to knick away at someone’s details like a scab you really want to pick at, but your mother told you “no”, that little desire to know & feel more, gnawing at your skin.

it’s scary, ya know. scary, psyching myself out each time, i hate messing up yet i always do.
things get cloudy, so i can’t see where i’m going or what to really say.
but then those clouds, so start to fade and i’m closer to the ground than i thought i was

Last night on the roads of Jupiter there was this motor bike race where Brian Allan went up there to challenge up against scott McDonald and Bridget bromhead and Steve Grigor and Brian's late father Barry and his late Aunty pam
And the greatest boxer that had ever lived Mohammad Ali and
John English was at the tale of the race and as Brian Allan was pushing his weight around up and down up and down up and down and then as the race was progressing all the racers were
Putting pressure on the other races by psyching everyone out
But nobody was annoyed by that so much
Steve took the lead yelling out
Woh oh oh I am a working class man and scott MacDonald was keeping close to Bridget and
Brian's Aunty pam and Jon English sang Hollywood seven
Party all night as well as during the day and Brian Allan was keeping pretty close to Ali and he pedalled to the MAX and his abs were pushing upwards
And Steve Grigor said you are still alive and you should continue your writing because you were great and Brian put on the pressure on Steve saying
I will win this race and Bridget caught up to Brian but Jon English sped up past them
And won the race and Brian and Bridget were a drawn second
And the other racers were coming in bit by bit and John
English sang all together now
Yesterday was a memory
It might have been when rock and roll never forgets forgives or regrets nothing comes easy
Try to make it all together now
And Patrick came up to Brian and said let's fly up ahead and Pat flew too fast and Brian was
Giving his body a workout
But he stopped the bike and
Woke up dudes

It’s monsoon season here in New Haven,
gone, are the banked, fluorescent colors of sunset.

This feeling hit me, like a rogue wave.
“We have to go out tonight,” I announced, to no one in particular.

I think I’d hit my capacity for monotony.
Lisa looked up from her book.

“The moment has to happen,” I continued,
with an animal-like awareness of the immediate,

“For the ****** ****** imaginary
and as something to cherish in backward gaze.”

“I’m for that.” Lisa shrugged, almost indifferently - she was used to my purple prose.
“I’m buying,” I announced, to no one in particular.

“Then let’s DO this thing!” Sunny called-out from her room.
“Where are we going?” Leong asked, poking her head out of her room.

—-

I took an m-cat practice test earlier today.

In the dorm, before breakfast and the test, I was staring in the mirror.
“Hey you, where ya been—how ya been?” I asked myself.
I followed up with, “Are you ready for this—are you up for this?”
Lisa stuck her head in the bathroom, “Psyching yourself up?” she asked.
She’d be taking the test later too.

—-----

The tests took about 6 hours. I’ve taken the downloadable ‘practice tests’ but not strictly on-the-clock. There’s just something about sitting at that official, green terminal - on an uncomfortable plastic chair, being timed by officiously grim and callously indifferent bureaucrats. (#chefskiss)

I felt like the young, haunted governess in ‘The Turn of the *****’ by Henry James. Except my ghosts were my entire, immediate family - who’ve taken this test before me and done really well.
My mom’s apparition hovered over my shoulders - making a snarky noise when I picked certain answers.
My spectral brother sat by a window, feet-up on the desk in front of him, boredly checking his watch.
My intangible sister sat at an empty terminal, as if she too, were taking the tests, and finally Step (my stepfather’s doppelgänger) ghosted in, like a Spielberg effect, through the closed classroom door, periodically, to voice his support.
The place seemed positively crowded.

I got a 507 (out of a possible 528), in the 76th percentile (they said). Not good enough (yet).
I’ll take the real test in July (sigh).

the hike in lovely Yangmingshan
             all afternoon in Gamla Stan
               maybe music is the Midnight Sun
    
                  and if it is, then She’s the One!

As teachers,
(and I know some are back already, sorry)
we are doing the equivalent
of sportsfolk psyching up

Our judo coach is shaking and slapping
while we, in denial, are still mowing lawns
and planning actual meals from recipes

In our dreams, the Bueller…?
Bueller…? Bueller…?
reels are already playing
with our classes disobeying to our faces

So for everyone’s sake
ease us in please
keep us keen and we’ll deal with your progeny
‘til Halloween

Buyer beware
Oh, you're in for a scare
When I tell you your hair
Does not need that much care
That your phone
Doesn't need to cost
More than your home
That those things that you own
And you don't even use
Are as faulty and paltry
As what's on the news
That your new pair of shoes
Is the bare feet of poverty,
Your right to choose
Is some Lot in Life's Lottery
Stocking your shelves
With the Keebler Elve's spells
And stuffing your stockings each year,
Jingle bells
Someone else's expense
Isn't worth your two cents
You dispense it like dreams
Of the white picket fence
While the industry picks at your pockets
Unheeded
Insurances claim extra coverage is needed
To breathe and to read
The fine print on the label
Approved FDA chemical
Farm to table
Just turn a blind eye
To the advertise lies
Inundating your eyes
With disguised dollar signs
Like some supersize fries
Fill you up for five minutes
Then leave you as empty
As when you first bit it
The infinite Amazon
Shopping mall pantheon
Built to the corporate gods
Of Emoticon
Keeping you spending, and clicking,
And liking,
And posting,
And boasting,
But mostly just psyching
You out of reality
Plastic-wrapped packaging
Boxed in a fallacy
Now shipping free
Who they want you to be
Just a product to brand
For the others to see
You consuming it all so
Conspicuously

I was contemplating
What it will be like
When I move up to middle school
Next year.....




I’m freaking terrified.




It’s so different!
I’ll have to memorize a locker number,
A class schedule,
I may not have lunch with my friends,
I think we may even have to shower
In a room with OTHER PEOPLE
After gym!
Really psyching myself out

And now I’m perseverating
Over different electives
And the kind of decisions I have to make
I already know that I want to take French
But I have no idea what else
I’ll have to decide
And I am
AWFUL
At deciding things

I’m sorry this is such a rant
I just had to get that stuff down
If anyone has any advice leave it in the comments
Have a great day!