"whiteboard" poems
I knew a kid in highschool
Rather to say I knew him would be an overstatement,
He was a friend of a friend at most,
The boy that sat directly in front of me in my economics class
Second seat from the right, second to last from the back
The corner of the classroom between the whiteboard wall and the windows
I remember that scene like a diagram,
I couldn’t tell you anything I learned from the class but,
I knew a kid in highschool
He was best friends with my childhood best friend
He wasn’t quiet, wasn’t loud- he was a normal highschool boy
I remember the last words I said to him
Well not quite, I remember the vague idea
Something along the lines of it only gets worse
He was talking about the theoretic project where we role played
Each kid acting out as if they were in the real world
He said he was overwhelmed by the amount of work
I told him it only gets worse
I knew a kid in highschool
He killed himself during the weekend
The Monday they announced in I was sick
I was sick
His obituary isn’t up on the internet anymore
Neither is his facebook, he is nothing but a yearbook page
The page to a book I couldn’t afford
He is a memory on bookshelves filled with dust
I knew a kid in highschool but I had to ask a friend to confirm his existence
That I didn’t just make up a daydreamed suicide
I’m so tired of wondering what’s left of us when we die
I spend most of my life running from evidence of my existence
No photos, no yearbooks, nothing with me or my name
I knew a kid in highschool
Jul 2, 2019
Jul 2, 2019 at 4:28 AM UTC
in the somatic nervous system,
acetylcholine (ACh) stimulates skeletal muscle, causing contraction
action potentials
in the 8am physio lecture,
the biggest on campus
crammed with nursing majors,
and health science hankerers,
public health preachers,
OT saints and angels
amino acid NTs: glutamate (+) GABA (-) aspartate (+) glycine (-)
the prof wrote on a distant whiteboard
too many complained about being lost
she made a joke about feeding *******
to mice for her neuroscience research
amines: serotonin (-) dopamine (-/+) norepinephrine (+/-) epinephrine (+)
STEM-dominated
when i'm just looking
to drop my roots
and press that
good earth into
the spaces between
my toes and
under my nails
but the grounds are a garden
of biodiversity from clippings
gathered by migrant habit-clad
founders more than a century ago
the soil is fertile it is temperate
there are water filters in most residences
there is enough here for me
Feb 21, 2015
Feb 21, 2015 at 3:06 PM UTC
I’m talking to you
in my head
been cultivating this shyness
since I was three years old
talking to inanimate objects
painted smiles, rubber-skinned
metal frames
turning wheels
the family minivan kept me company
as mountains rose and fell
like held breaths
let go.
playing games with pregnant raindrops
rolling down the glass
obsessed with the shark’s fin triangle
the wipers could not
reach.
I’m obsessing over seeing you.
always trying to be invisible
your eyes beginning to skim past I,
they didn’t used too.
*“The voices that once spoke love
but did not mean love.”*
the withered rose living
in the trash,
abandoned friends in the attic
forgotten songs
unfinished books
I am the forgotten
I am the abandoned
I am the left behind
cobweb-and-cotton-dust-collector
the silence connoisseur
I wear loneliness like an unwashed favorite shirt
If I die
Will you read this?
Does anyone else think such things
or is Tonio Kroger my only brother?
I am Kafka’s cockroach,
everyone is waiting for me to die
or to change into what you want me to be.
my name will not be in the history books
by the time my children’s children will have children
I am no one.
Everything fades in this world
like whiteboard-marker on acetate lives.
Desolate corners and garbage
tell stories
art is vandalism, vandalism is art.
and people wear diamonds but they are worth nothing.
and babies inherit their father’s eyes.
I am not yours.
You are not mine.
Isn’t ownership objectification?
If a man owns a clock
does the clock own the man?
Let’s be
money and greed
or
greed and suffering.
one cannot survive
without…
Let’s be
the mismatched pyramids
of wealth and population
form a parallelogram
like bricks on an unstable wall
never falling down.
Apr 15, 2012
Apr 15, 2012 at 7:46 AM UTC
*the state or quality of being elastic.
flexibility; resilience; adaptability: a statement with a great elasticity of meaning.
buoyancy; ability to resist or overcome depression.
Physics. the property of a substance that enables it to change its length, volume, or shape in direct response to a force effecting such a change and to recover its original form upon the removal of the force.*
are you ready?
here it comes!
Slap!
having slapped you
with, to kind attention,
you may now recover
your original form,
when there was
no grief, no distress,
the great clarity
of eying the day's birth,
sweetly and innocently.
once again, you are
buoyant,
molecules of polluted memories,
erased.
wind scattered, gone,
blackboard erased,
whiteboard replaced.
you have been reminded,
even reprimanded,
for forgetting your
elasticity.
life, what ever that be,
is constant motion,
a reshaping of the heart,
for the heart has
no unique shape.
it's adaptation,
it's elasticity,
it's genetic forgive and forget ability,
is legend, is you,
you are legend,
You are elastic.
the human hallmark impressed
in the palms of your hands,
that cannot be erased
by time, fatigue, failure, or anger,
the hands that mold,
re-form for every need,
for every handhold,
for different are:
The hands that open closed fists
The hands that wave hi
The hands that are first to touch
and the last to leave,
waving goodbye,
elastic - tender when tender needed,
strong when strength essences.
so be elastic,
remember to be
ecstatic
remember
when you do,
you need show proofs.
Prove it to me.
Prove it to yourself.
shake, kiss, dare hug,
the one who needs reminding
that life is elastic,
even more than you.
Dec 26, 2013
Dec 26, 2013 at 5:07 AM UTC
Sigh
I tap my pen on the desk like my teacher extracting my freedoms
and plastering it on the whiteboard.
He preaches and preaches about how he lost a game of golf last week
I need to take a dosage of education,
But whenever I take it I forget to check the side affects.
SIDE AFFECTS MAY INCLUDE;
-Boredom
-Faeries pulling down on your eye lids making you fall into the pit of sleep.
-Drifting in a car called imagination across this classroom.
-Hands are under mind control as you draw twisters in your notebook .
-NOTE: when you flip back to your notes when you are studying for a test,
they will be useless
Useless like "excuse me sir but is your love for the Broncos going to be on the test?"
I feel like this teacher is testing me not on the subject,
but how long it takes until one of the students in this class to go postal.
Too soon?
Sorry I should ship off my mouth to my mother
cuz mommas got the magic of Clorox Bleach
momma oh momma, use your powers to clean out my filthy mouth
yet he is still talking,
why is he still talking?
I'm still writing this poem,
Should I be writing notes on his college days
Or should I wait until his head lands on this landing strip
So he get his head can leave the clouds
Feb 4, 2014
Feb 4, 2014 at 6:11 PM UTC
Juliet looks at her watch
feeling bored, Mrs Saad please stop blabbering
Juliet glances at her friends
ah cmon, stop pretending writing notes
Juliet stares at the whiteboard
The alphabets are dancing
The sentences jumbled up
Juliet looks again at her watch
convinced Mrs Saad would never stop
Juliet peeps between Steve and Chris
there is Romeo looking so serious
concentrating in Literature class
Romeo is the most outstanding
His art is most envied
Now Juliet feels ashamed
To win Romeo, she should at least
try to write a stanza of poem
role play a scene from Shakespeare
and write a script for a play...
who would notice her enchanting beauty
In Mrs Saad's literature class
unless she proves the beauty of her brain
in a form of literary texts that convince
and win....
Jun 14, 2013
Jun 14, 2013 at 9:18 PM UTC
- the mornings are dark and you get into your car asleep. mist on the windshield and mist in your eyes. the night is not over and you are not yet grown. the grass is frozen in your headlights and you park your car asleep.
- clocks bigger than your face loom on the walls. they are all two minutes fast and they are faces too, somehow. (except the one down in the back gym. he is an eye and he strikes six every hour.)
- the thunder of footsteps. the thunder of bodies and voices and wind through open doors. you can feel them in your bones but when you open your eyes you are alone and the halls are dark. water rushes from the classrooms and you swim.
- your teacher says that god has brown eyes. when the lecture ends she bares her teeth. (you could swear they're pointed but you've never seen her up close.) her eyes are grey, like yours, she says. so you don't worry.
- in the art room your teacher draws circles on the whiteboard. one inside the other - ringlets, a bullseye. a girl in the back of the class has wild eyes and green hair. she smiles like she knows something and you drop your gaze.
- pencils break in your fists. the halls are a river and you don't know where it's going. your body is a raft so you close your eyes and you don't know where you are.
- you touch hands with the girl from art class. she smiles like she knows something and you shudder. she feels warm inside, like a song, like a comet. you take her hand and hope.
- you sit in the back of the class and the windows shudder but they hold. your teacher says that god walks on all fours and you grimace. books close around you as she lowers herself to the ground.
- your car is asleep and you are dead on your feet. your teacher is gone the next day and the substitute tells you beauty is in the eye of the beholder. you nod your head and you don't know where you are.
Apr 14, 2015
Apr 14, 2015 at 6:43 PM UTC
at the desk, applying for jobs
there is coffee in my cup
and paint in the creases of my fingernails,
on the wall, a whiteboard with new song lyrics
and a list
of things I need to buy,
of course, once I have the money to buy them,
which brings me back to the desk
which an empty bottle of Cabernet Merlot
sits with an empty glass
and notebooks and a mason jar
with cloudy brown-red water
from the bristles of my paintbrushes
my coffee is cold
the french press is in the kitchen
but my flatmate is filming in there
so I’m stuck at my desk
with two sips of cold coffee left,
applying for jobs.
I feel very fragile
right now,
partly because I didn’t go to a job interview
today,
partly because I didn’t go to a job trial,
on friday
though I don’t want to be a waitress
and **** modelling for art classes scares me.
there’s a plant on my windowsill
named Lucy
and she doesn’t have to do anything
and there are two vanilla candles and an incense holder
with lavender incense burning
but **** all the things that
"bring peace"
like small plants, candles, incense, crystals and photographs;
I want a healthy and clean life,
so I have these things
part as a protection
from my own mind
but to be perfectly honest,
I’m at the desk, browsing jobs online,
saving them for later into a bookmark folder entitled
"Wellington Jobs"
instead of actually applying.
Nov 24, 2013
Nov 24, 2013 at 10:08 PM UTC
yesterday my feet rested comfortably on the bar of someone else's chair
and my eyelids slid heavy and the world seemed slow
a graph of survivorship curves glowing blurry on the whiteboard
and then words slid from behind a neatly trimmed white beard
". . . .as our bodies are programmed to die."
as our bodies are programmed to die.
*thousands of miles away
one gleaming thought against a murky sky
(that's how i imagine it anyway--murky, cold,
stagnant air)
a frantic explosion of lean muscle power
and a body launching into the lake.
he was 17 and in that moment gears somewhere in this world shifted,
numbers were crunched and
some profound device processed the seconds, linking and unlinking them with an automatic, well-oiled certainty
he was 17 and the number on his football jersey suited him like wool socks on winter feet
his stride under the lights a weekly prize to all hungry, bleacher-ed, washed-up life-hunters bundled against october-night chill-streaked skies
they drank hot cocoa and he took three sips of gatorade
he was 17 and his smile
and his curls
and we all hear about hospitals but
this feels different because
he was 17 and suddenly,
instantaneously
his body was just a beep
and his skin turned the color of the walls
first the ICU painted quick brushstrokes across his wrists
then it stopped giving a **** at all
and the water rushed endlessly, heartlessly.
when I shift through memories and
find his seven-year old face in my mind, i remember a gap
where he'd lost a front tooth and i remember sunlight streaming behind his hair
it was valentine's day and he gave me a small smile and a silver charm bracelet in a powder blue box.*
i shifted my feet
heard the snap of a binder closing
and all i could think about was
the oversimplification of words
and survivorship curves
and 17 years
and
and
piles of numbers spurting from a computer
and an echo of a splash.
Sep 25, 2014
Sep 25, 2014 at 4:32 PM UTC
The hours go by slowly
My eyes are heavy with drugs
No one's around to see this
This hurt, this lying to myself
Please, can someone listen?
I'm finding myself underwater
In a cave where I can barely breathe
A quiet lucidity descends
And I rise
A pine tree lays fallen in a forest
The sky above is black
The air around is littered with a thousand lights
And a buzzing, pulsing
Alien electricity flows through my veins
The rhododendron leaves curve upward
The waterfall is throbbing
And I rise
A life force is hardly essential
In the ghostly barn on the second level
The tresses of her hair fall gently
No more ferns exist
The local bamboo stems from plastic bottles
Red mesh tape resides
And I rise
Pink combat boots melt in the fire
Rocks ring the mats
Wood and rice boil into each other
The old man's beard eats a mouse
Nails scratch a whiteboard
And I rise
Heya laddy, whatcha say?
We can't hear your songs
The red breasted robin weaves a nest
A broom loses its needles
And I rise
The train evades the tracks
White mesh bags float on the ocean
The flames are climbing higher
And I rise
Blue cherries are picked
Purple snails squirm
And I rise
I run up the driveway
And I rise
And I rise
Jan 24, 2013
Jan 24, 2013 at 2:06 AM UTC
The only time I'm not stressed
Is when I've worked myself past the point of breaking
Being too tired to feel is my comfort zone
I feel so at home in running around
I don't rest while I sleep
Instead to-do lists and unfinished problems are scripted into my dreams
Using the backs of my eyelids as a whiteboard for tomorrow's tasks
I can't tell if this constant state of movement is Newton's Law
Or a feable attempt to be enough--for no one but myself
I second guess each right answer, every step forward
My thoughts get a racetrack in lieu of a bed
I know this isn't normal
So imagine what I'd do to be in the moment I'm living
Instead of the somewhere else I always am
Dec 30, 2020
Dec 30, 2020 at 11:37 AM UTC
It’s the morning of a different day—who knew there’d be another?
Lisa and I went on our harbor jog @ 5am—that’s nothing new.
It was, like 44°—we’re enjoying fall’s cold, refreshing bite.
Anyway, my mind wasn’t on it and I nearly stumbled over
a chunk of dark, uneven roadway, made invisible by its function.
Charles, jogging beside me, wordlessly managed to right me
without us losing a step and I smiled my thanks.
argh! I’ve got to get out of my head.
Later, in class, lulled by the comfort of the stiff, wooden chair, my eyes unfocused and the professor’s voice seemed to fade into the backdrop. Suddenly, he was asking me a direct question that seemed almost without context.
Metaphorically slapped back into focus, I scanned the room and the whiteboard for clues before awkwardly—walking the edge of catastrophe—bluffing it out, because, well, I’ve an instinctive reluctance to admit defeat with any sort of grace.
I didn’t sleep well last night. I had dreams—nothing with a defined purpose–just an amalgamate of bonfires and storms in a coastal scrubland with an odor of fresh cedar and a sense of casual vulnerability.
My attention today is like an intermittent pulse.
.
.
Songs for this:
Headz Gone West by Nia Archives
Dark Red by Steve Lacy
Nov 8, 2024
Nov 8, 2024 at 8:13 AM UTC
People see me as a whiteboard,
to be written on,
and passed to the masses,
To whom i am ******
My flaws they try to erase,
as well as the imperfections on my face,
cause i'm a mold-able youth,
or an untouched canvas,
that can be painted,
and displayed,
i'm going to grab that marker,
and make my future less darker,
avoid your drama,
when this picture comes out wrong,
like this picture is not the right shade of black, brown, or white,
if you stare hard enough,
you can see the design in just the right light.
Jan 22, 2013
Jan 22, 2013 at 3:13 AM UTC
In the middle of the minutes
Between nine and ten,
An unknown walked in,
Grasping a pen.
He scribbled a face on the whiteboard wall,
It was a face from the internet:
So we’re brothers after all.
Jan 14, 2013
Jan 14, 2013 at 4:01 AM UTC
I took your photo from the whiteboard
where we keep our memories
safe from being worn and old;
where we remain forever
in youthful pleasure.
I hated how your bright playful eyes
stared back at me in love
and how I couldn't see them anymore.
In a grey picture
I rest my head upon your shoulder,
I'm trying to be my regular goofy self.
Looking at it now,
seeming so far away,
I cough up a laugh.
My nose is stuffy with the memory.
Merrick
Feb 28, 2012
Feb 28, 2012 at 11:13 PM UTC
Surmounting expectations create competition with me and my companions.
People now bumping into each other from exponential expansion.
Existential Conundrum.
It happens.
You have to get a job, be better than everyone else.
You gotta get rich, but donate and be "selfless". Be an entrepreneur with millions that saves dolphins, bungee off the Eiffel Tower with the Prime Minister of Ireland.
Can't help but feel like we were born in a sandbox with too much expected from us, with such little, never promised rewards.
Cardboard presentations with glitter and glue, high scores on the whiteboard.
"Mom, please... I'm bored."
A Mr. or Mrs. Perfect, immune to hangovers and pressure, while keeping a 4.0 who must always be "in the moment", in full control.
Yeah, right. Maybe with a rich football coach who lets you smoke and dope if you run a ball and don't choke... Pray you don't grow old and dash his championship goal.
So when I feel my life is diminutive, worthless with no conviction, I just tell myself that I helped people I never remembered or knew. Nobody really has a clue with all this media, race and religion. Whether you think it's science, fact, or fiction, It's just a temporary illusion of your imagination.
Jan 27, 2015
Jan 27, 2015 at 10:41 PM UTC
Even when blank
you flash with memories.
Mindless doodles,
quickly jotted poems.
Stains of past lessons
still remain.
How many eyes
have gazed out at
your white vastness?
How many hands
have nervously fumbled
with your squeaky markers,
scrambling for answers
inside their own minds?
Do you see us?
Some racing to
take the notes
scribbled upon your
pallor surface,
and others facedown
on the desk,
trying to recover
sleep that was lost.
What have you created?
Perhaps a scientist,
or a few?
A lawyer, a doctor,
maybe two?
Without you,
oh ever-present whiteboard,
I doubt our teachers
would know what to do.
Feb 8, 2013
Feb 8, 2013 at 4:54 PM UTC
there is a whiteboard next to my bed
it says “don’t be lazy”
even though
my mom would say
“we all have to do things we don’t want to do”
but you don’t understand
it’s not that i don’t want to,
it’s that
i can’t.
i wished i forgot to set the alarm
so i would be late for class
but the whiteboard says
“don’t waste your money”
so i force myself
to stare at the wall in the shower
and the wall in the classroom
and the wall in the doctors office
and i force myself
to have conversations
that i am not present for,
to write papers
with words
that i cannot articulate
and this made my mind more tired than it already was.
and so i fell apart,
expecting that you would take care of me.
thats what i’m supposed to do right?
but i messed up somewhere along the way
because you remain
looking anywhere
except my crying eyes
and my tears are fixed on you.
on your hands hoping they will touch me,
and your lips hoping they will tell me
that i will be okay.
Mar 27, 2018
Mar 27, 2018 at 11:57 AM UTC
To: Patty m. and Steve,
cc: Q
Re: what’s a mediocre man to do,
(freshly mind washed by the
requisite hours of deep sleep,
that washed away the webs
and dreads of yesterday’s
factoids, lactoids, and brain plaques(
so he can perchance, begin again,
(with fresh slate, white chalk screeching
on a freshly sponged whiteboard
~
*(or blackboard when he rues the
upcoming with dreaded calendar
notifications notarized notations of
dead lines)*
You see Stevie,
this piety poetry piercing of the soul,
(is a daily face washing, soul scrubbing
of two spies (MadMe vs Metwo) both madder ‘n hell that life has ass-signed him a nother bothersome empty day with the curse
of justifying his existence)
oh yeah baby,
it’s a contest, a contest within,
(and i am appointed and disappointed to be
the Sec’y of the Interior who has the key to
the broom closet, and is/in charge of his
own corners cleanup, and besides a broom,
he ain't got no tools but stale words and he’s gotta figure out nice smelling new combos to
justifying his occupying his
siloed-sole-soully space place)
in the uni(as in sole, one)verse
universe verse, get it?
445am Monday Monday
Feb 24, 2025
Feb 24, 2025 at 4:50 AM UTC
Today it took me two hours
twelve markers
half a roll of paper towels
and seventeen redos
to fill a whiteboard at my place of work
Today I counted steps
in the sidewalk blocks as I walked
1
1, 2
1, 2
1
only having to backtrack and repeat
twice
Today I stood in the tiny wooden doorway
of my apartment's fire escape
for the entire duration of my cigarette
terrified to step foot on the steel grate
all for fear of the lightning in the distance
because after a brief ocular inspection
I was so certain
that there is no god ****** way this building
is up to code in that regard
Today I couldn't help but wonder
what ever has happened in my life
to once again trigger
these neurotic thought patterns
that plague me from time to time
Sep 2, 2016
Sep 2, 2016 at 3:13 AM UTC
"Dry Clean Linen Pants"
A note, a promise
a then-future, now-past version of someone I wanted
to be.
it all seems so silly now
dry cleaning and linen pants belong to generation I haven't grown
into
these things belong in the routine of my grandmother, muttering her to-do list as she wakes. A woman of rhythm.
a note on a whiteboard underneath the word "thursday"
it reads: *dry clean linen pants
more of a promise
to take care of yourself
or at the very least
maintain your
armor.
Nov 29, 2023
Nov 29, 2023 at 5:17 PM UTC
Nanny,
Saying goodbye was the hardest thing I have ever done.
As I tread along the barren corridor that night,
I passed the poorest of souls.
Those whose frenzied hands moved without purpose,
Muttering incomprehensible sounds from their shrunken lips,
As they stared absently at the walls, never truly seeing.
With a clenched jaw, I had to divert my gaze,
Wondering who these people were
Before their lives were stolen by Time,
The unquenchable monster slowly sipping at their youth.
A loving mother, brother, daughter, husband, sister?
Their stories I will never know.
I wondered if you would remember yours…
365
The sign on the door read Christina Cook,
Written hastily on the old whiteboard,
Stained black with the names of those who resided here before.
I will never forget the unbearable sorrow I felt as I entered your room.
Nanny, you used to tell me aging was a natural process,
Like the changing autumn leaves.
But you forgot to tell me that after that beautiful,
Final blaze of glory,
They fall.
Littering the ground in their fading shades of brown,
Disintegrating into powder.
Spread by the wind as ashes.
I held your hand, and felt the leathery skin
That bound your delicate bones.
But, it wasn’t you. Gone was the strong woman,
Mother of 8, grandmother of 19
In your small frame, I found a child.
So proud to flaunt your red-painted nails,
It was always your favourite colour.
You drew the bed sheets down
To expose your barren legs and oversized diaper,
So proud to show me “how skinny” you were getting.
I wept inside for your degenerating body.
On the outside, I smiled and said "you are beautiful".
I swallowed heavily as I kissed your cheek and said goodbye.
Took what might be my final glance
At your weathered face that was once so full with joy.
I love you.
I hated myself for leaving you all alone in that desolate room.
I wished my presence could provide you with comfort,
But I knew I couldn’t.
Fall was fleeting,
Snowflakes were falling,
And you didn’t know me anyways.
Dec 3, 2015
Dec 3, 2015 at 2:47 PM UTC
All I want is a stick-up light, so I can read at night,
between my bedpost and bedside whiteboard
beside the baseboard,
outlet occupied by a black power cord,
the bookshelf, both coffeemakers,
the power strip duct-taped to the cream brick wall,
the bush outside,
the sidewalks, the brick walks,
the burnt caramel steel fences separating Washington babble
from Lyco small talk.
With one touch,
I’m lying against the wall
on acrylic-painted stretched canvases,
photo booth strips, a brick and sky scene,
gouache and ink sketches, that Giant
receipt with teal pen in the margins,
and developed photos of storm
troopers, ****** microwaves,
and forklifts moving trash sofas
around from film class.
Feb 3, 2015
Feb 3, 2015 at 11:12 AM UTC
When I opened the Christmas gifts you got for me and vice versa.
On the way out to eat, you looked over your right shoulder just to observe traffic and all I could think about was how clear your eyes were from my view.
Every single time we say goodbye on the phone.
When we were sitting in Qdoba and you grabbed my hands, stared at me, smiled, and chuckled, insisting I was cute.
We were looking at the Waukesha skyline, and as we turned to get back to your car and escape the December cold, you tripped over the last standing Christmas tree that overlooked the city and I laughed hysterically.
When we raced across the Target parking lot and you beat me by a landslide, but you almost knocked a family over as you hardly stopped yourself from running into them.
The first time we ever skyped, my heart stopped as you looked at your whiteboard, doing homework. I still stop myself from saying it, every time you do.
When I was sitting in the passenger seat of your car in the Target parking lot, and you leaned over and kissed me. No warning. Just the kiss. You pulled back and smiled, forehead to forehead. Neither of us said one word.
When you spoke to me in nothing but Dance Gavin Dance lyrics for practically a whole day.
When you told me that this wasn't the relationship you thought it would be. I bit my tongue and held back tears.
I let you vent.
I let you disconnect.
Jan 1, 2017
Jan 1, 2017 at 9:28 PM UTC