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Wanderer Jan 2019
There’s celebrating and then there is full immersion
On this almost crazed day of my qued arrival
I rub feet together as though crickets could sing
A glass raised in cheers to however many years
You won’t get me to confess a single thing
Blowing candles, spread confetti across the 16th of January like a ballroom in spring
You can catch me dancing along witching hours edges
Waiting with sly eyes for glittering presents I know you will bring
Wreathed in smiles echoing thank yous and laughter
Only one year older if these wishes were wings
Benji James Apr 2018
Been over seven years
since I've been in the club
What in my mind made me want to come
I wasn't sure that I was still young enough
Even though my mentality,
is probably younger than most the people here
Got grey hairs in my beard
Though I'm only twenty-nine
Kind of let myself go body wise
Haven't even had that much experience in this life
And now I'm entering the prime
Everywhere I look, girls, be dancing
Boys on the prowl looking for lustful romancing
And I'm standing here
Think I'm losing control
Of my mind, body and soul

I'm moving to the music
Feel the sway
Never to old
to feel the music flowing
through these bones
Never to old
To feel my heart beating to the rhythm
All these feelings I've been given
Out on display
Through movements see what the lyrics say

Let the beat come alive
As your body moves in time
Under these flashing lights
And now that these tunes
Have taken me over
I've lost all senses to even care
Just need a night to let my hair down
Not a care in the world now

As I'm lost in the groove
That's when I noticed her
As I look towards your blue-eyed gaze
A feeling lights me up
From a smile that you gave
When I looked your way
Sticking too the moment
as I'm swept across the floor
Through these movements that I make
As melodies remedy everything in me
She glides across the room
Just to tell me what she had to say
And the words that fell from her lips
"Would you like to dance with me?"

I'm moving to the music
Feel the sway
Never to old
to feel the music flowing
through these bones
Never to old
To feel my heart beating to the rhythm
All these feelings I've been given
Out on display
Through movements see what the lyrics say

Let the beat come alive
As your body moves in time
Under these flashing lights
And now that these tunes
Have taken me over
I've lost all senses to even care
Just need a night to let my hair down
Not a care in the world now

The DJ was bringing down the room
With all those dance anthems qued
And as I pulled you closed to my chest
A change of pace
In the playlist, the DJ played
A song that filled the club
As sweet vocals softly and slowly build
To a climactic chill
that runs down your spine
I feel her heartbeat next to mine
The goosebump on my skin
Make my hairs stand like soldiers
So much room to breathe
I feel free
I feel free

I'm moving to the music
Feel the sway
Never to old
to feel the music flowing
through these bones
Never to old
To feel my heart beating to the rhythm
All these feelings I've been given
Out on display
Through movements see what the lyrics say

Let the beat come alive
As your body moves in time
Under these flashing lights
And now that these tunes
Have taken me over
I've lost all senses to even care
Just need a night to let my hair down
Not a care in the world now

©2018 Written By Benji James
when most girls were learning
how to pose **** for pictures,
to be simultaneously ******
and innocence-baited Lolitas

I was learning (mastering)
the art of the keg stand
and jumping into pits filled
mostly with sweaty boys
at punk rock shows
how to hold my own and
not get knocked down

I had this sort of hard shell
though under the surface
I was raw yolk - so thin-skinned,
easy to spill and shatterable

we were drunken cultural rebels
sitting on front porches
of addict-strewn flophouses
******* about the state of things
but not really doing ****
about any of it

I was there, and thus
rather absent from
average female programming
and since then I guess
I've sort of mostly felt
like one of the boys,
not real ****

if I wore a short skirt
it was with combat boots -
just in case someone might
mistake me for some POA
and require a swift steel toe
to the shin, but that
never happened

though I'm sure my style did save me
from lots of ****** advances

in my senior year, I shaved my head
and the girl who sat next to me
in choir class said, oh my god,
what did your boyfriend say?!

and I laughed and told her
he's the one who did it

in all honesty, I really liked
flying under the radar of what
most people considered hot

because when I stopped dating
the guy who was basically
Jack Black from Orange County
(but less drugs, more alcoholism
and also sort of his doppelgänger)

and lost the weight I had put on
trying to keep up with his lifestyle
of perpetual malt liquor, lethargy
and terrible eating habits

and left my hometown
to attend that big name school
and experimented with identity
in a place that has a greater ratio
of young and beautiful people
than any other I've known,

and suddenly felt myself
wanting attention
particularly from a boy who
liked those hot girls

I became one

and got
way too much of it
from him, and everyone else
and I did not know
how to handle it
inside

after I started to wear pants that fit,
channeled my art onto my face,
learned to walk, run and dance
in 5-inch stilettos (like a boss)

though I know most girls
are trained to put themselves
on display from a very young age
to do and say and dress in ways
that encourage this type of
attentive objectification

it always made me feel
not quite comfortable in my skin
I didn't like walking into a club
and feeling every neck crane

I was pretty balanced as a kid,
but became a real tomboy
and then did a 180 -
making up for lost time
with a crash course
at ***** school

I sold out -
learned how to pose
**** for those photos
to contort myself
into what was
expected,
desired

but it never
felt right

and that attention I got
wasn't for what I was -
it was for becoming
a doll of sorts

the role never fit real well
even though I looked the part

and there's this vivid moment
of self-realization I can recall
where I saw it all as I stared
into the bathroom mirror of that boy
I finally won attention from,
tripping on mushrooms,
simultaneously seeing just how

stunningly beautiful I was
and this existential shame
at who and what I had become:
the plastic, the false, the trying
so hard to be pretty when I was
truly radiant underneath...
I think I cried a little
as the walls and me
both melted

and I could have let that marinate,
turned around and walked away from
that ill-fitting role-play,
but I turned my back on that vision
and returned to the living room
and my life of not being myself
with him

I wasn't the hot girl I'd become,
but I also wasn't who I was before
she was also a mask -
not one of ****** glitter
but of hard Rubbermaid
where no one could see
or hurt me

I had to pass through both
my false masculinity and
Barbie-qued femininity
to find what either
means in reality

and now I see
I wanted to be one of the boys
because I had a front-row seat
to how they viewed and spoke
about the hot girls

it's why I never
wanted to be them...
until I did

guess I felt like I was
missing out on something
and I was, but that
was not the thing

that was Sweet'N Low of feminine -
toxic, disgusting and unsatisfying

it is a very different thing
to unfurl in the balance
of fierce and fragile

it takes warrior strength
to be soft and vulnerable,
to follow your instinct when
it tells you to stalk and still
be able to melt in the safety
of another's arms
without feeling

weak

the beautiful strength
in surrendering

I would say I'm sorry
that I hid in faux masculine
and turned out my goddess
but if I hadn't done that
if I hadn't learned
what I am not

I may never have found how
heavenly beautiful and strong
I could feel when I stop trying
to be anything and allow for
my sacred F&M to flow
- authentically -
through me

and one day, I'll master it
and hold myself in balance

perhaps with help
from another's arms to steady
like a good friend supporting
an applause-worthy keg stand
You count the buttons
On his shirt and the eyes
In his closet, as he has a suit of many colors
Like a bird with a ton of rumination
A man and no imagination can never be rich
A man with courage has a soul that can never be poor
He just gives himself to social shambles and eccentric people
Redolent about his hysterical naked self
I seem to forget that childhood was filled with punishment
That turned into a crime, and my soul healed by being with POW
Or the children of war and the creed of a generation
Seemed to hear the elevator muzak, and left me linked to the radio
Tombstones couldn't scream, and the sheer shrieks of podiums resounded
Children were starving with hunger whereas they should have been assigned shrinks
In his closet, there were many skeletons
All them starved to death, and funnily they wore gregarious looks and suits
Constituents of an open book of spells
Changed its text with each levee flooding the Hell gates
Of lawmakers, the conviction of suicidal souls
Someone killed himself again and saved by the tolling hell bell
Heck, I could write better than this, and **** the freewill
Heck, I could call the man on this and ask for the rights of women and children
Heck, I couldn't provide for my own children and heal the heavenly souls facing the hellish war

In his closet, their qued a ****** questioning his own wit

— The End —