(Yes, better than Harry Potter, get your pitchforks ready)

My first encounter with THG was approximately four years ago, when I had barely turned fourteen, did not consider myself bilingual and was romantically frustrated. Naturally, I made several mistakes at the time. First off, I read the series in translation, since I'm not a native English speaker, and missed out a huge chunk of the significance of the story. Then, as I said, I was romantically frustrated and thus paid such a monstrous amount of attention to the romance aspect of the story that I want to bitchslap myself. Finally, at fourteen, I was still ignorant and uneducated about so many things that I read the series, got hyped for perhaps six months or so, then forgot all about it, save for the occasional rewatch of the movies. In retrospect, this is probably one of the biggest mistakes I've ever made. Now, at the ripe old age of eighteen, a significantly better-read person, waaay more woke, as well as socially aware, I decided to finally read the series in the original and am finally able to put my thoughts together in a coherent, educated review of the series.

The Hunger Games has continuously been compared to a number of other books and series, occasionally put down as inferior and forgettable. In those past few years I managed to read a great part of the newly established young adult dystopian genre and am able to argue that A. The Hunger Games is undoubtedly universal and unrestricted to young adult audiences and that B. it is, without the slightest shade of uncertainty, the best series written in our generation.

While many people draw parallels between The Hunger Games and, say, Battle Royale, the similarities end with the first book, which, while spectacular in execution, seems unoriginal in its very idea. As the series unrolls, however, it is hardly possible to compare it to anything, save for, perhaps, Orwell's 1984. The social depiction and the severe criticism laid down in the very basis of the story are so brutally honest that it fails my understanding how the series was ever allowed to become this popular. What starts out as a story about a nightmarish post-Apocalyptic world works up to be revealed as a cleverly veiled portrayal of our own morally degraded and dilapidated society (if you're looking for proof, seek no further: as the series was turned into several blockbuster movies, public interest was primarily concerned with the supposed love triangle rather than the bitter truths concealed in the narrative). Class segregation, media manipulation, dysfunctional governments are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the realities that The Hunger Games so adroitly mimics. If I were to dissect, chapter by chapter, all three books, I'd probably find myself stiff with terror at the accuracy of the societal portrait drawn by Collins. I strongly advise those of you who haven't read the series between the lines to immediately do so because no matter how many attempts I make to point it out to you, you simply have to read the series with an alert sense of social justice to realize that it doesn't simply ring true, it shakes the ground with rock concert amplifiers true.

Other than the plot that unfolds into a civil war by the third book (the series deals so amazingly with trauma survival and with depicting the atrocities of war that I am still haunted by certain images), the characters of the story are what makes it all the more realistic. Though Hollywood has done a stunningly good job in masking the shocking reality of the fact that these are children - aged twelve through eighteen, innocent casualties paying for the adults' mistakes; children forced into prostitution, fake relationships, children forced into maneuvering through a world of corruption, media brain-washing and propaganda.

Consider Katniss. She is a person of color (olive-skinned, black-haired, gray -eyed, fight me if you will but she is not a white person), disabled (partially deaf, PTSD-sufferer, malnourished), falling somewhere in the gray spectrum both sexually and romantically. As far as representation goes, Katniss is one of the most diverse characters in literature, period. Consider Peeta, his prosthetic leg (which, together with Katniss's deafness, has been conveniently left out of the movies) and his mental trauma in the third book. Consider Annie's mental disability. Consider Beetie in his wheelchair. Consider all the people of color, as well as the fact that people in the Capitol seem to have neglected all sorts of gender stereotypes (e.g. all the men are wearing makeup). There is absolutely no doubt that the series is the most diverse piece of literature out there. Consider this: the typical roles are reversed and Peeta is the damsel in distress whereas Katniss does all the saving.

Furthermore, the alarming lack of religion (in a brutal society reliant on the slaughter of children God serves no purpose), as well as several other factors, such as the undisputed position of authority of President Snow, is suspiciously reminiscent of the already familiar model of a totalitarian society.

The Hunger Games, in other words, is revolutionary in its message, in its diversity, in the execution of its idea, in its universality. I mentioned Harry Potter in the subtitle. While this other series has played a vital role in the shaping of my character, it has gradually receded to the back line for several reasons, one of which is how problematic it actually is. This, though, is a problem for another day. (The Hunger Games is virtually unproblematic and while it may be argued that the LGBTQ society is underrepresented, a momentary counterargument is that *** has a role too insignificant in the general picture of the story to be necessary to be delved into this supposed problem). Where I was going with this is that, at the end of the day, Harry Potter, while largely enjoyed by adults and children alike, is a children's book and contains a moral code for children, it was devised to serve as a moral compass for the generation it was to bring up. The Hunger Games, on the other hand, requires you to already have a moral compass installed in order to understand its message. It is, as I already said, a straightforward critique of a dysfunctional society, aimed at those aware and intelligent enough to pick on it.

As for its aesthetic qualities, the series is written, ominously, in the present tense, tersely and concisely, yet at the same time in a particularly detailed and eloquent manner. It lacks the pretentious prose to which I am usually drawn, yet captivates precisely with the simplicity of its wording, which I believe is a deliberate choice, made so as to anchor the story to the mundane reality of the actual world that surrounds us.

That being said, I would like to sum up that The Hunger Games is, to my mind, perhaps the most successful portrayal of the world nowadays, a book series that should be read with an open mind and a keen sense of social awareness.

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

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

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

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

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

i know of Knausgård -  sure, and i share this concerns for
the art of taking to lumber and chopping,
  as novelists tend to do, write with an axe,
philosophise with a hammer...
          metaphor turned into imagery
counter-turned into literalism...
   i once imagined him not being there -
i once wrote ich kampf, stressing
that it was an indefinite expression
of expression, primarily due to the content
of the pronoun... and i was referring also
to the definite expression (much obliged,
atheism, a- without, and the- with,
or indefinite and definite articulation) -
the English eye sees one stance as definite,
and another as indefinite, and juxtaposes
the two interacting...
                          they duly interchange...
i can say ich kampf and say i internalise
verbs: a movement of the hand,
   a strutting or a waltzing circumstance
of owning a body... that's what it's indefinite...
that's why Sartre slithered in counter to
his expanse in philosophy: because i really loved
his novels...
                          but in terms of a mein or
a mit (including me) struggle i find not
ease... no one dares to devalue ****** as a human,
not talking about the past history in purely human
terms urges the postscript of a dictator,
it actually elevates him to a godly status...
           not realising the human is to make flaws
of what the en masse does: raises him to a godly status...
     Zeus had a beard... not a Charlie Chaplin moustache...
right now he's laughing in his grave...
                      old Aldous ******...
   and aren't dictators born because people find their
surnames a little bit funny? it starts so
innocently...          and then it morphs...
   and it becomes an unstoppable morphing...
    yes... i know of a certain number of fellow
      contemporaries... because i want to? no,
because i have to. like rewatching the 2015 film
android - some films you have to rewatch...
   what's being debated? autism and artificial intelligence...
   hyperactive autism, i grant you that...
        it dawned on me... at autistic person could
fake a normal human response treating it as
      artificial... artificial also means mimicked -
  it means that "smart" guy at a bar reciting poetry
he hasn't written... artificial intelligence or the study of it
or even creating it has nothing original about it...
it's not groundbreaking in the same sense that
discovering champagne or penicillin is...
or l.s.d., because these examples have the magic of
being discovered by chance... humanity has been
artificially simulating intelligence since time
immemorial... it's that natural consequence of not being
endowed with a peacock's array of feathers
   to create a soothing, and sickly gentle wind of a woman
resting in a hammock under the shade of a palm tree...
artificial intelligence was inherent in us...
       it's the unravelling of the historical noumenon of man,
the per se that has only crept up on us,
   and before the reality of such a foundation being
established... the humanities create the "prophetic"
citations of it being true: in the "near" / impeding future.
    if god is a noumenon, then man cannot be a
phenomenon... but he is and paradoxically the two
of mutually compatible on a basis of exclusive rather than
an inclusive naturalisation...
               we are talking nature:
  we are talking god naturalised by the medium
suggesting: for i am bound to create obstacles and test
the body, rather than the mind of man...
    as so is man, also naturalised by the medium
of the elements, saying: for i am bound by a body,
   and have to utilise the body first, to overcome the wind
and the snow and the furthermore, until i reach
the labyrinth of the mind...
  and man has done just that, he has bypassed the struggles
of the body, and created entertainment using
the body that once struggled against the elements...
   for he has created the god Minotaur: and the psychic
labyrinthe... as with the Titans whom the gods
usurped, so too comes the twilight of the gods...
but being usurped by demigods...
       Minotaur was a demigod... who usurped the gods
of the trinity that were Zeus, Poseidon and Hades...
        for only the Greeks could create a Judaic bewilderment
as to why a sign was given unto an infant...
           but that's getting technical...
the film, android (2015)? it supports the misconception,
the anguish of a highly functioning autism...
      whereby showing a woman's carelessness in the realm
of adaptability with what some would claim to be
the beginning point of: overcoming the elements...
sure the odd tsunami and earthquake...
   but there's also the tiger, and winter, and parasite,
   and diseases of so many variations...
              man has not been endowed with complete
control over his surrounding... but in becoming partially
overlord of the ones tamed, he has created a mental
labyrinth... a world of such complexity that will
inevitably produce instances of autistic genius...
                 artificial intelligence is already imbedded in us,
just as cloning and Islam has already existed
(Christianity is too schismatic to be considered a cloning
definition... and Judaism as a monotheistic principle
has a heresy embedded in its orthodoxy that it simply
ignores: reincarnation... the Malachi heresy...
  that a second Elijah comes... and god becomes a half)...
   we see artificial intelligence everywhere...
        if the myth goes that woman fed man the original
lie of Eden... then man has nothing else to do than
attempt to polymer that one single lie...
       and repeat it... a reverse intrusion to what "could"
have been an utopian splendour.
      we all see artificial intelligence rummaging about
in the choices people make... it's called lying
   to gain access to a ****** gratification...
  or as i like to call it: a way to compensate our falling short
of the norm, a norm that focuses upon creating
   the most complex startup a Silicon Valley genius
can't comprehend... a family.
    these times prescribe such a bewilderment...
              families are artefacts of what some believe
precipitated into barbarity so close to us: the 20th century...
        and all those arguments you hear that might
discourage the opposite ***, as in damning your parents
for a piece of seashore **** fest of the *****?
   probably came from a person born from a surrogate
mother... well... an incubator, a very expensive *****...
   homsexuality created the evolution of prostitution,
once bound to the genitals... now bound to the womb...
     i.v.f. kids calling natural kids ******...
   i never liked the matrix movies in all honest...
but we're seeing the reversal of the original idea...
                 in the matrix of knowledge... hearts become
piñata: chockies sweet, sensations abundant,
  the spectrum is yours.
                but this poem isn't really about that...
i can sip a whiskey and actually find these things when
i start to utilise these symbols... it sometimes happens
that they fall through... all i was really thinking about
is the "theoretical" score of 147...
                      i'll call them billiards rather than *****
to excuse a "he-he" Michael Jackson laugh at a chance
of "nuance"...
       yellow (2), green (3), brown (4), blue (5), pink (6), black (7)...
and plenty of red (1)... points in bracket respectively...
                  of course from childhood memory i sided with
ronnie... also from Romford... an obscure town in Essex
that oversees the shard and canary wharf from
a distance...                    but watching snooker as a child...
          not too bad at pub-snooker: i.e. pool...
and that game show when snooker was hot back in
the 1990s... big break, with jim davidson as host...
    and of course: john virgo as the rejuvenated
                         ghost of alex higgins... this whiskey
swiggly is on me al.
                 but this final... ****! at one point it was
a century after a century...
                     chess with mathematics, trigonometry
and Pythagoras in motion...
                                    the gods playing with saturn
and jupiter neptune planetary arrangements...
            i can't word it properly... but it'll definitely sound
better than a concussion after too much rugby and
the rough-stuff of "manhood" strutting with bulging
muscle tensions... rather than this Japanese warrior-monk
in a waistcoat and bow-tie swirling a stick in the air...
           i just thought of one thing...
15 wildebeests on an African savannah...
       out comes one lioness...
    and she nibbles at the pack... and she picks off
the weakest of the 15 wildebeests...
              she nibbles the pack before the pack breaks away...
         she looks left (red) and then looks right (yellow,
green, brown, blue, pink, black) -
                      and she picks at the pack, one by one
they fall... but there are two games going on...
   there's the no-man's land snooker where the game is
about entrenchment, and snookering the opponent
for a foul... and then there's the tsunami snooker...
which kinda looks like one person playing chess...
     with no opponent other than a chance mistake...
misjudgement on the case of instinct and how they ******
well know what angle to fudge the white lioness
                onto the billards... and with what force...
      tsunami snooker, or cascade snooker is basically
a monologue...
                             after seeing 3 centuries in a row
you get to crave classical snook -
                                       the mind games of safety shots...
   and teasing, and tempting, and teasing, and tempting,
before the Rubic cube unravels itself,
   and you find that light at the end of the tunnel...
                        and the black pops into...
i'll be honest, i haven't watched snooker for a long time...
        maybe that's why i feel so enthusiastic about it...
       it's sometimes good to be fed this mundane diet
of sport-fanaticism that football is in accordance with
religious dogma... it's a good thing...
             then you end up watching a game of snooker
and all these things start firing up your brain...
   and you end up saying:
      the Taj Mahal can be there for all i care...
the Grand Canyon can be there for all i care...
                    such things don't really require a photograph
with my gimp-face trying to make other people jealous
by actually being there: only to take a photograph,
rather than feed into the air and the thrill of being there...
        as they say... it's a small world after all...
better get used to it being much bigger inside your head.

Normally after Thanksgiving I just rewatch the parade.
And try to talk my family into playing Christmas charades.
But I wanted to do some early holiday shopping.
And I decided to go do Black Friday and see what was popping.
My nephew said that he wanted the new video game.
I know it was of national fame but I forgot its name.
I said, Don’t worry I got you my nephew.
I will make sure to get a gift that would bless you.

I went to the Walmart and went to stand in line.
But I put on a hoodie because I was ashamed of the time.
Because it was the time of day where I would not be awake.
But I was here to buy presents and not tosteal- take.
So I said that Black Friday would not get the best of me.
And I hoped someone would not see  and think less of me.
Because I would often look at Black Friday on TV and laugh.
Karma must of thought this was extra revenge for me to take this path.

The doors opened, and the rush was like a Mudder race.
And you should have seen the look all up in this brother’s face.
It was a mixture of glee, humor, and I was so terrified.
I was so happy that I made it in one piece here inside.
Mothers were fighting over teddies, but I went for the bigger trophy.
If they didn’t think I would fight for this game, they didn’t know me.
I finally reached the game, but someone snatched it before I could!
She didn’t  look like she played  or had kids who did in the neighborhood.
So it wasn’t even the excuse of I play this game because I have no knees.
I thought I could ask please could I get the game for nephew who has the  diseases.

She put it in her cart, and this action really hurt my heart.
I wanted to get another game, but that would not be smart.
Because if my nephew didn’t like the game, I would be stuck.
But then something happened that told me I have good luck.
The game fell out of her cart and went to the floor too.
I looked around to make sure no one would judge me for what I would do.
I picked it up, because five-second rules did not apply to games.
I paid for it with money, and I left without any shame.

I knew it looked bad, but Black Friday takes away the soul.
I gave it to my cousin, and he said, Did you also get the controls?
I must of forgot in the rush, but I could order it online.
Because I’m sure if I get it in the store, someone would take what was mine.
So I had to return it, because it was also the wrong gaming system.
I vowed never to do Black Friday again, that’s not the lifestyle I’m trying to live in.

“Haha You’re going to have nobody in July”

Flash it back to last summer,
While people are out on beaches, getting tans,
And at camps reinventing themselves,
I’m sitting on the couch with Netflix open,
Watching my favorite show on rewatch
While wishing I could have someone to talk to

Texting just not doing it for me,
But none of my friends are free,
Their off living their lives out in the wild,
With people surrounding them, while being happy in the sun,
While I’m here in the dark, with the only light being my computer screen.

Maybe they were right, I really will have nobody in July,
No one to visit, no one to talk to
Even my sisters are leaving for college in June,
Options running out,
Once again I’m limited to the people on my phone,

The people who don’t want to talk to me,
And answer hours after I text, not caring enough to reply as fast as I do,
Leaving myself to scroll down, video after video,
Wishing that was me, laughing with someone in my room
Instead of being all on my own
Yeah, they were right I’ll have nobody in July,

Even more now that their gone,
One less option that I used to have,
Even though we rarely saw each other face to face,
We still talked at least once every week,
With that gone now, I just don’t know what I’ll do,

I don’t want it to come to scrolling endlessly on my phone,
Unable to read ten pages in one sitting,
Unfinished lyrics, and paragraphs left alone, just as I am
Motivation tossed away as soon as school rolls out,
Nothing left to do except sit on the couch,
Listen to music and wish that someone would text me,
Even though I know they won’t.

Maybe they were right, I really will have nobody in July,
No one to visit, no one to talk to
Even my sisters are leaving for college in June,
Options running out,
Once again I’m limited to the people on my phone,

The people who don’t want to talk to me,
And answer hours after I text, not caring enough to reply as fast as I do,
Leaving myself to scroll down, video after video,
Wishing that was me, laughing with someone in my room
Instead of being all on my own
Yeah, they were right I’ll have nobody in July,

All I have is myself,
And for once I need that to be enough
All I need is to get through the month,
The longest month in summer, when people are practically begging for school back,
Me more than most.
Back in those halls where I talk to someone daily,
Have more than just myself telling me to get work done,

A reason to wake up in the morning,
Instead of two in the afternoon,
While falling asleep at three,
Unable to rest when there's nothing to be tired from,
Expect the endless silence of the communication I wish I could have

Maybe they were right, I really will have nobody in July,
No one to visit, no one to talk to
Even my sisters are leaving for college in June,
Options running out,
Once again I’m limited to the people on my phone,

The people who don’t want to talk to me,
And answer hours after I text, not caring enough to reply as fast as I do,
Leaving myself to scroll down, video after video,
Wishing that was me, laughing with someone in my room
Instead of being all on my own
Yeah, they were right I’ll have nobody in July,

“That was a mean thing to say I’m sorry”

i want someone to notice the way i laugh at the wrong parts of movies
and know what weird thought i had about the scene
to hold my hand and kiss my dimple and write about how witty i am
we can joke about it every time we rewatch it

i want someone to read to me under a fading sky in the wintertime
as our breath curls around our throats and it's hard to keep their voice steady
but the words are pretty, and so are their fingers as they wrap around my hair
sylvia plath for the darker days,
robert frost when the sun starts peeking through

i want someone who will dye my hair in shades of pink and green
our noses curling at the scent of the overwhelming bleach
laughing hysterically as we get high on the fumes and try to be quiet when we hear my mom's footsteps outside the bathroom
i'll cut their bangs choppy to match

i want someone who will sing duets with me to a blown out car stereo
as we drive aimlessly through the nights of this ghost-town-to-be
i'll steal the aux cord more than once, and mess with the windows like a kid
but they'll tolerate it because they like the wind
almost as much as they like me

i want someone to dance with me in the rain like we're in a bad romance novel
and enjoy it anyway because it smells like promises (and i keep those)
we can waltz badly and laugh until it hurts to laugh, and then we'll just sway
i'll splash them with puddles and they'll splash back harder
and we can ditch our clothes and get hypothermia together

maybe one day i'll want them enough to have them

but for now i'll watch movies by myself and still laugh at all the wrong parts, knowing that i'm weirdly clever

i'll read poetry in my own voice under the grey sky cut open by leafless branches, because it's pretty

i'll dye my own hair and cut my own choppy bangs and i'll feel untouchable

i'll scream 'bohemian rhapsody' by myself driving down main street in the middle of the night

and i'll just wait for it to rain so i can catch in my mouth and pretend it was a kiss from the sky

If you knew the landing were made of swords,
Would you jump?

If you saw the bridge collapse, descending to the deep,
Would you follow?

If you had to rewatch your life at heavens gate,
Would you regret?

If you knew my touch were poison,
Would you accept it?

If you knew your actions had consequences,
Would you lie with him again?

Then why do you return to me,
And fall down on your knees
Begging for what I cannot give

If you knew I'd say the same,
Scream at you to leave,
Would you go back and treat me that way again?

listen to chopin and mahler
eat instant noodles
stitch your feelings away on an old pair of jeans
wear sunglasses
appreciate the fact that people like donatella versace have spent their lives creating clothes for people like me and you
rewatch the tigger movie
bake a whole cake and eat it yourself or go on the street and feed strangers
tell the ******* the bus purple definitely is her color
change your hairstyle
draw or scratch your anger away
call a distant friend
ask your little sister what her day was like
walk around your neighbourhood at 12 am and make up stories about what people are doing
embrace chocolate as your lord and savior
remind yourself you no longer look like you did in 6th grade
be grateful you have what you have and be grateful you don't have it as bad as some do
remember that every time you thought you couldn't go on, you did
understand that you don't need anybody to approve you
never forget that you have about 25 billion white blood cells in your body who are protecting you with their lives
be happy for that couple you saw in the park
pet any animal you see, animals are breathing antidepresants
get more sleep
don't say "it could be worse", this brings bad luck; but be glad it's not, after all

I wish I could record
Every word you spoke to me
Every glance you took at me
And rewatch it over and over
Just to feel the
butterflies in my stomach
The redness in my cheeks
The smile on my face that wouldn’t leave
I wanted to replay you
Over and over
I wanted to write a 12 page essay
On the way your hands moved when you spoke
And how you would brush your body
Up against mine
Even though you knew
You weren’t suppose to.
I want to meet you for the first time
A million times
I want to watch you
For the rest of my days
And pray to god this feeling never
Goes away.

I watch,
and rewatch the video from that day.
The one where we were all happy.
The day of our first kiss. We were smiling and laughing.
I still have the pictures that our friends took.
The ones that you helped me hang up, they haven't moved.
I rewatch,
and I stare at the picures,
as I lie in bed, unable to sleep again.
Hoping,
Wishing,
That you'd come back.
But I know you won't,
for you were forbidden to speak to me.
I never knew why,
All I knew was that you started ignoring me.
Your friend was the one to tell me,
and the one to pass on my words to you
"I miss you. Come back when you can, Please
I love you"

Things are getting bad again
It was a long time coming
I try to escape it
But I’m tired of running
Things are getting bad again

How can I outlive this ghost?
How do I know it’s not me?
They say there are things
Lurking in the deep you can’t see
And there are some things we must be
Befriend the ghost

Things are getting bad again
We came down this road
Potholes, sinkholes, dead ends
Rerun and rewatch the episode
Things are getting bad again

Just a matter of time
Like I said before
Like they forewarn
Flirting with It so obscure
I am running out of time
Then in the nick,
I make it out — barely alive

Things are getting bad again

Days like today where I wake up and my astral eyes are not tired, I go outside. I spent most of my summer this year drowning in blankets, sleeping away what days I was not at work. The heat hurt my heart for it reminded me, every day of the summer I was happy. You know, though, I've been happier than that one, and I know I will again so I regret laying in bed when I could have realized that happiness is not a memory just as much as it is not a destination. It's not a cardinal direction, a left then right with an ending. I don't know what happiness is, honestly. I still spend a lot of my time sleeping, pretending to know what's going on and it bothers me. Deeply. Someday I expect my life to fall into place because I was taught that it will with time, but the strides that build the pathway there are all still shaky and I wonder if I can live a life without crutches someday or if I will still be using stilts to convince the world I'm okay. I have it under control. Today was one of those days where I breathed in air that smelled like my 14th year and normally the memories would surge into my veins and I would go insane trying to rewatch clips in my brain from the times I was laughing, in love. I am not watching my life through rose colored lenses anymore, though. I'm living it through green doors. I miss the conquest. I miss the adventure, control. I used to wake up early just to watch the sunrise and now I'm lucky if I see a sunset. All it took was an extra push and suddenly, for 6 months at least, I was someone else. I was floating in time and I could dictacte every feeling I experienced because I ******* tried to. I just need a redo. Today was that. I will try. I always forget that it was not one big mess with a beautiful ending that created the universe, but instead one big bang with millions of years of evolution, that which still included decay- to build what I stand on now. The Earth was not built in a day, nor was I the summer I'm convinced I was my happiest. So I know that it's one step at a time. And I'm ready.

I am slowly, but surely growing.
Everyday I wake up, take my shower,
brush my teeth, and I grow.
I get dressed, drive to school,
Go to my first class, and I grow.
I take notes, I try my best to listen,
I write down my homework, and I grow.
I hug my friends, I see her in the hallway,
I laugh at a dumb joke, and I grow.
I eat sometimes, I hold my friends hand,
I feel at home in his embrace, and I grow.
And then I go back to my house, and I rewatch Pride and Prejudice,
And I FaceTime him every night, and I grow.
I am learning and growing more and more every day,
And sometimes I fall... But I'm learning how to pick myself back up again.
I think that's one of the most important things you can learn about growth.
Even the most beautiful flowers need to be cut, so that in the spring they can grow again.

Sometimes I rewatch Anna's video
Over and over and over again.
And I replace Anna with you:
Having to say those heartbreaking words
With tears welled up and a dying voice.

I kind of die inside.

she was jest one knotch too weird wired for regular folk
her
smile was sorta crooked,
'til she grinned,
then
the whole ****** room lit up like

Christmas Eve and New York New Year on TV

she was thereafter ever after I vanished
in the undamming of the flow,
past the weir on Tenant's Creek.

We walked in the moonlight,
to a famous cavern
where,
Dreamtime, dust stirred in the cave...
hear the sea?

way yonder, hear the ocean?
Sh, touch the dust, ashes of the past,
roll in the dust.
choke
cough choke joke joke
you pass
you pass heko heko finiinish wink.

Morning
Wood pecker rythmn in a hummingbird realm,
one two three for five six seb

seberal cebral lesions appear, pop-outa-gno-where

evil imaginations in your hear, dear reader,
go binge all Purge movies,

then rewatch five seasons of that sup-augmented
puppy show, where each episode is a win,
for the
favorite, in any any child's hierarchy of worth.
Paw
Patrol verses Oscars Oasis--
Get some goodoldfashion ethotical archeo-types
Etched in acid,
splashed in face of the diva asking ever who who who

is fairest of the fair?
not fair?

har har har, fair's fair, in Love 'n' War glory stories,

that end well, all's well.
That ends.

Next is no longer just
around the corner... this junction is some

past all that. Here is where
the rubber met
the road,

the one that leaked and changed reality
for me.

If you were a book, I would never read another. Memorize every line ,recall no other covers
If you were a film , I would adore the sliver screen , get lost in the gleam, rewatch every scene
If you were poetry, I would lose myself in verse, study your form till my eyes hurt

But you are not a object,not something to possess
You are not a art form, there is nothing to perfect
You are not lines on a page, there is nothing to correct
I will try for you , none the less.

there are two types of whiskey,
there's the chockey
  famous grouse,
which i once "tamed"
     as a gouse,
and then there's the smoked
solomon, sorry,
salmon,
                equivalent to bell's...

as there is also an attempt at
humour...

because what did i do while
in kenya?
        ****, slept in the open on
a beach resort throughout
the night,
kept myself chasing shadows,
pretended to be a tourist
with the italians,
  ping-ponged with the germans...

         wrote a
mediocre story addressed to
my grandfather
         about an elephant dunking
its trunk into a bottle of *****...
     and?
          just lounged on a balcony
with a macaque monkey or two,
feeding with satchets of sugar,
telling the grounds keeper
when a pirate baboon became
audacious... shouting:
hey! sling shot that *******
   leech, attached to a whale,
there, here, whereever!
    
                        get off my baboon!

which sounds as ridiculous
as wearing a top-hat...

                   aren't kenyan girls pretty
though?
     i can compare them
to, something the falling of snow
in england, notably essex...
   that paraphrase of glee...
                  ****, just thinking about
it makes me want to rewatch
braveyard...    woah'd! 'n'
blue... ******* picts...
          
               but you know how a kenyan
girl's skin glees, when not oiled
and how the snow in england
also shows?

        ****, jump into the indian
ocean
         and wreck your hand on a coral
protrusion...
        imbediment,
           hell, several nouns later,
digested by a thesaurus...
    
me, climbing into a zoo cage with
a gorilla makes more sense
at this point,
  with me replying:
     let's throw **** at the cage bars
together...
  because? frankly?
       i'm way past practising judo
with you.

         hey... way better:
let's play pope!

           ****** couldn't tell whether i
was blinking, playing darts,
or whether i was actually blind...

     but hey... 'ere come the shades...

           yet the greasy, brown,
buttocks of mombasa,
   dust and prayer, scuttling hundreds
on their bare feet making
   the sand a worthwhile grind
     tool... as if: and it was walked on,
prior to you, prior to you, prior
to you, and prior to you...

macaque monkeys on a balcony
fed sachets of sugar
   with a white boy lounging
bewildered by:
                there's no impetus for me
to craft a cage...
            hell, that was me...
          
and there was also a muhammad
who wanted to invite me
to his crocodile farm....
              boots, boots is all i heard...
oh far gone the snapper,
just a shoe industry...
          first time i witnessed
a woman in a pool swimming in
a burqini...
                   a bit like teaching
a child in his pyjamas being
taught to stay afloat...

                         napkin, two colour
suite... bam!
         a table clotch pulled from
beneath all the table attire,
            and no church bell ringing.
              
i'd love to climb into a zoo cage
with a gorilla these days... why?
dunno...
           just feels appropriate to
          feel like meat these days...
                  after doing a ******* in
and then "having" to meet her son...
or like pulling a black girl,
going back to her home,
with her thugging her children
of her bed,
       her imitation of a ******
by clasping her legs together
ensuring i'd shoot, but not aim...
   and then the poor afro ******
waking me in the night,
and me, having to grab him,
  with touching bodies
      laying him onto myself?

      listen,
  i was sleeping, and he was
just ******* on an imitation
of a ******... where was i going to
put him?!
           sure, afro, frizzly hair,
unfortunate how
    ***** translate on both
        face, head, and ***** region...
             now i know why
growing ****** hair has become
so intimidating to women...

  kenyan women are beautiful though,
like peering at snow
in england in the night...
              a sight of illumination,
seemingly oiled, but not really...
   all you need right now...
  is an oyster, and a tongue.

Let’s wrap ourselves in blankets
And watch the sun come up.
I’ll brew a *** of coffee
And pour us both a cup.

Let’s rewatch our favorite shows,
And munch on ginger snaps.
You’ll brush my hair back from my face
As I sleep in your lap.

Let’s walk down the moonlit shore,
Our fingers intertwined.
I’ll tell you about my family,
You’ll share what’s on your mind.

Let’s go driving in the night,
With no destination.
We’ll sing along to songs we know,
Forgetting our location.

You’ll take me to your secret spot
And I’ll take you to mine.
We’ll slow dance to the crickets’ song
And lose all track of time.

So hurry up and cross my path,
I’d love to share it with you.
Let’s fall helplessly in love
And make this poem true.

Dear Dad,
I've been dying to tell you that I'm gay
tucked away in a box of my childhood toys
you'll find almonds, cashews, and unsalted peanuts
your first son and I are not alike
my favorite color blue, his green
synchronized like gears in a clock
I too am drenched in sweat
I have your oversized cotton t-shirt on
the one I wear to sleep  
I rewatch the video I recorded of Gustavo and I
locked and intertwined
in a shape that's unsuited for your eyes
the same blood running through you
your father and his father
is the same blood that runs through me
resilient, strong and wild like an untamed horse
Hasan, our shared name, my signature
it's similar to yours

there is no way i could have predicted
how life taking me away from you would leave me afflicted
i lie here in my bed and press my form against a "body" pillow - a cruel facsimile
because in truth i would give anything to have my cheek pressed to your chest
resting
blissfully

it gives new gravity to those words we know so well
"and i can't make it on my own
because my heart is in ohio"
because i have left europe behind but i seem to be missing a piece of myself
and i feel its absence like shrapnel

my dearest friend, what can i do?
because i am stuck here, and i am without you
so i rewatch our shows and listen to our songs and read your poetry
but it's still a hollow feeling, as though settling for a forgery
because finding a soul like yours, one who knows me so well, so effortlessly
is comparable to finding a fallen star earthbound
and you wield your empathy and intuition so guilelessly
that letting you in and letting you know me was easy and honestly left me spellbound
because even when i tried to shut you out, you persisted
no matter how stubbornly i resisted
you were gentle and steadfast
and i came to rely on that

so here without you, i am bereft
emotionally destroyed at this theft
of my platonic soul mate from my side
but i will persist holding on to this:
the knowledge that come hell, high water, or the zombie apocalypse
i will see you again

First 8 lines are always free, the rest costs 20 minuters
- Raw, working stock poet tries and guesses, cast
as cares away, in spells… opposing all solid-state profits,
I disagree with most superlatives,
August is far crueler,
everybody knows. As a month,
April is
Seed
come so, see
Time come soon, prythee, swifty, didwe
Harvest, bestness contended for, proud
blue ribbon exceptionality, proved
-fecundity fructifity
consciousness, place in time known
light as punctual mass, echolialy lialy la la
- and also and also and also with you
~~~~ wavy thing, right
;rock on
who pulls past last rituals, past wars,
and war's threats,
defend the wall,
calling all outs in, defend the wall
fend off the opposing mind, in time, attempt
tempting all my desires to lieve be,
the state I'm in, once again
- no, I don't believe we're on the eve
- of destruction, my AI went auto inteleosic
Free am I, paid the life, or fifty years,
first come, first served,
learn the long way,
beats never learning at all.
- warrior spirit, something, like that
- say Maxwell's daemon is squeezin' yer bub-

not worried for my nation, not worried for
my error, nor for my will divided among my

auto refreshing systems, in the system,

set to flow at any speed we may agree, this fast
mean, statistical mean, free path, not
shortest distance, point to pointless whenever,
whatever,
mean free path, meandering, ring ring
beer commercial real life, as many can imagine
this is that good place, rest and relaxation, unwind,
- imagine you enjoy lines that insist, each
- line insists… it is all good, from one POV.
spin down, settle
light as the first point ever made in the game
of life on the line, strings of possibilities,
first free way, no entry fee,
we take -time, this whole thing took all day
to just now a flight of three warships
aim at Miramar, right over my valley
7:30 reread 6 m.
we feel - a sigh, some new sense esthesic
poeisic, sic, ever as it is written, so it is done.

[[[ Relegare. Read the records, find in the archives,
a volume, sealed under pressure,
to hold our emptiness out.

Popt. Popped that bubble, bubble
of thought, full spread to the bezel, white space

-eventually we all fall apart, art, and craft. Raw
reality remains, complicated, many ply, many threads
per centimeter, me-assure, self fi, con science
think
aaaaaaaa we all know knowing does not lead to madness.

Far from the maddened crowd imagined, cast of thousands,
from today, as the mother of the eight billioneth breather,
born after the events near Alamogordo, that mother
is
done been born, it aint you.

[[[[

First place/ Blue Ribbon,
Second place/ Red Ribbon,
Third place, was probably green, but I do not recall.
I never noticed what color I got, I was third.

Got a requisition for the old military mind,
kept it shined, knew it was good for something,-

Some one, ah, yes, Fulton Sheen, asked me, on TV,
just like in the spirit, the way I hear it, no lie
is of the truth, yet, yes, I know,
how lies work, one must believe trust is possible,
not culturally defined, what it is, the wedom
feeling, me and you, bound to find the answer…

F.T.A. wei wu wei wu, too WAYtold you, … meet me
at that ***** colony in Vietnam, give a dam,
rebuild some dikes we blew to hell and gone, gone
awe, the we
still functions, the old military mind, we got the gaba
keeping mean free paths open to any
enquirery counsel of haught, haught, ought not we
- clearing percussive growl- insignificant
respect our predecessors. In deed, rewatch 957 hours

This
Is BBC, from the past yet to be completed in your futurer

------------ bleed through, has dear value here? NOW
Who asks of me a reason for this faith in me?
Waar. Alas. 8 wpm
Dear , God, what
Contention,
dispute
- repute
perhaps "repeatedly" (see re-), + putare
"to judge, suppose, believe, suspect,"
originally "to clean, trim, prune"

From <https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=repute>

Or PIE*pau, punch-
"to cut, strike, stamp" {;}

Content is king.
- moments, instants, we all know
pride, swelling heat, as we are
mostly micky mouse molecules, heated
e-motionally, as volume of conscious thought
shifts into save me, auto, self, image,
hot h2oh yes
rush from rage or shame,
AI puts the blame on Thymus glands planned
final message, at the canker worm's first byte

pre-serving pattern, rage, red-face grimace
peruperu, yaaaah,
-Ma-ow-ri co robbery-gasp
choke, cough, click off. Angery flesh,
where the lie you love ***** your reason
for war to a head, that is shrunken,
to a mathematical point,
to weigh against shame put on you by a contest,
for best…

It's business, busy, busy, busy, we all must be
busy about our master's business,
making disciples, ah, ambiguity, you *****,
discipline my poeisis plea-plea-please

break loose, hold the line at etho- no, esthesic

esthesic, sic, the es, essential esses, complex
enfolding from olden minds loosed in 2022.

The rub. Yes, per haps we rhearrange, create next
from another ify point made,
you know, you just do, right, sci-psi-psy, experientially,
inside
out, gleam, see that gleam, something like the rage
that reddened the last loser's face, that gleam in her eye,
uses twice that power,
one look, one look,
you know, she knows, just iust adjust a second perspective,

megamacro gravity lens, placed just there,

I am asking you,
to play a game, with ghosts of old agreements, oaths
kept,

to the proof of the promise; and not one  

-dared finish the reason strung together, over spreading pearls,
- until the internet ****** him in
- like, 1995
sheen shone in the word serpent, on tele-type roles
to the moon, Alice, Jones, what I miss, 1964
to the moon
as in, wise as, as is the voice, bray
hoo, uses {} these to appear obvious.
- in Kansas, we call these buttermilk skys,
to here 2022, that fast
real as ever.

Trippier than hell. BY FAR, be it known.
This is the soul of a sould out soldier-
monk- protestant dissenter, cursed
son of an itch
no man can scratch alone, be it known.
Be it known, echolalia glossalalial
'armonica.

Humming.

The imaginations, ours, not
the other people, we are not
other people now. We are you,
Dear Reader, from the Dear Diary
classification for emotional connection, sin is losing all connection.
- that is all. That is, the religious ordered     wall
It is, of course, of course,
correctible,
a matter of physics, time in truth,
alls it is.

Time in truth. As a regular thing,
a daily routine,
a quotidian thing that makes peace

seem this easy, for example.
7:48

we had what you only see in the cinema

we had a film kind of love

we had the depth of a play & the soul of a musical

we had the heart of an adventure & spirit of a christmas movie

we had the laughs of a comedy & aches of a drama

we had the possibility of a mystery & excitement of an action

we had the magic of a romance & the wonder of a memoir

we had what you can only seen on the silver screen

we had what you can only read in the scripts

we had what can only be found between well-loved pages, flipped through dozens of times

we were the silent films & black and whites

we were the technicolor revolution

and even though i wish we could have been a happily ever after instead of a coming-of-age, i'll always rewatch it from beginning to end

i always thought this kind of feeling was only in the cinema, but i know now that is is real . . .

Only my grandmother came home to die.
Her centuries old home was built
with a birthing and dying room,
two small bedrooms, a library
and as was custom, no parlor

She went through the process of life
in private but away from the spaces
entirely reserved for birth and death.

Home was a place where she ate,
sat still, stared and meditated
day after day at the place where she
came from and would finally end up.
That was the way it was suppose to be.

On that day, she sat in her old mahogany
birthing chair and closed her eyes
until they no longer fluttered.
Her hand fell on what was my mother’s
old crib, rocking it three times.  
She was moved to the smaller room
long prepared for her body.
Her dying room had no light,
just a small bed with fluffy pillows.

My mother was a living woman.
When she bought her Miami house
near the beach and the bay
she made certain there were
no birthing and dying spaces,
just lots and lots of living areas:
four bedrooms, a sunken living room
that took more than half the space,
a well-breathed kitchen, a good size
open Florida room and beyond that
a screened-in clear blue pool
equal to the size of the living room.
This was the way she knew it was
suppose to be for her and for us.

She died on a flesh covered La-Z-Boy
in the TV-room of a much smaller house,
the arm rest worn through by constant
gripping, the foot rest half kicked off from
the convulsion prior to the hear attack.
I had just returned from seeing
Fatal Attraction at the mall Megaplex.
Thirty-five years later I’ve yet to rewatch it.

My father must have been thinking of his death
when he built his open house atop the charred ruins
of a post Civil War estate with servant quarters and
stables that overlooked Frenchman’s Cove in Maine.
The house was a wing cut from the air and
nailed to the rocky shore. The gentle waters of the bay
ached daily to caress the sighing foundation beneath
as if the water and air always knew and was now
retelling the story of every birth and death in the
front and back spaces  of  their proper time.
My father  found peace there and  called it Tranquility.
But the soil and tide knew from the soft screech
of the sky that he would be denied his wish to die there.  

My father, a doctor, specialized in obstetric anesthesia,
and started his.practice just on the fringe when
birthing rooms were yielding to maternity wards.
On a bright day in his study overlooking the bay,
when he stared looking like he might be
turning the corner on a recent malady,
he turned pale and gray and short of breath.
He was passed from smaller hospital
to bigger hospital until he finally landed
in the University hospital where he taught
for many years, in a private room amidst
the throbbing and beeping of machines
he was intimately comfortable with.

On his second day in hospice, the machines
where disconnected and under the lightest
of anesthetic drugs he took his last sleep.
The interns said it was an honor
to treat him until his last dying breath.

I don’t know if I will pass in a dying room
of my choosing.  it will certainly be far
removed from the room I was born.
Most likely I will die in the wrong place,
like most everyone else. As you have
read, the odds are less than one in three.
that nature or fate or God will get it right.  

Time is too much about different
arrangements of proximity to be relied on.
So much depends on who goes in front of me.
Who is besides me and/or behind me.
Or just elsewhere, missing, soon to come.
it all depends on how attenuated I am
to the living and dying spaces around me.
How undoubtedly some one else
or no one will write or even remember
my ending and beginning

I keep writing because I ...
Rainy grey today
More family feuds
More hate than love

America began in genocide
Slave labor all around
For basketball gratitude
Thank you, Andy Dove

Might rewatch The Batman
Blade Runner 2049
First saw it in Bangkok
Renu Rodthongkam

Silent old monk
Women in Tai Chi
Motorcycle taxis
Nitnoy som tam

            Chan Um

When I’m feeling lonely
I rewatch old movies
So that at least
I’m in the company,
Of the memory, of
My younger self.

When will this pain ****** end. She doesn't even want to be my friend.  She's already getting happier so I guess i can't really complain. My thoughts of this is hurting and driving me insane. I guess I have to try harder though I'm not really sleepin or eating. Rough patch I'm grieving. She doesn't love me anymore, she's already found a safety place. I'm here scrollin through pics of her with tears rushing down my face. Let me suffer alone, I am afraid to touch my phone. All I can do is rewatch the past. So much for life after life because she moved fast.

So I'm hangin' out at Urban Air
My son is playing dodge ball
Jumping on the trampolines
Saturday. Place is packed.

Lots of birthday parties:
Gwen. Aiden. Sophia.
Frederick, Maryland
Quite far from Iraq.

Or maybe not
I like falafel
Hummus and pita
Kobe and Shaq

Cambrian Cai is climbing
I rewatch the Batman
The rain keeps falling
Got my eye on CPAC

      The Empire? I strike back.