the second
i was born
i took a first breath
the first of many
that would lead to death
a circle
that we must all conform to
but if we breathe to live
and then breath dies
giving a push
to breath
for some new life
is this not immortality
or are we all just
one breath
that has an intake
and finally
ends?






note
after note
is not music
but an ingenuous way
to speak
in an illiterate language
music
is not just
for dancing
but to solve
the mental anxieties
of a troubled soul
i play music
i speak every language


the strobe lights flash
zebras across your body
the other eyes are all watching me
but i am watching you
what a challenge
to soften muscles of rigid determination
that you have sweated to obtain while i stand here with wide hips
that have hugged pleasure, fried potatoes and red salsa
i am
your sensitivity
and you are my
black leather jacket
we are one
you are I
dancing
not to music
no. music
should be respected by
more than just ear
so for now
we dance
to the rythym of our own bodies
how we roll
and slide in expression
and we live
for our bodies
we are one
we dance our bodies
you and I



don’t be distracted
by my black eyeliner
and purple hair.

once upon a time
my transcript was perfect.
i was a star.
and a teacher’s pet.
i had 4 forks and 3 spoons,
and sat with a tissue over my pantyhosed crossed legs.
i have also worn fishnets
and been called
sexy.
in some places i was a prodigy.
and in others, a rebel.

i have been a “dork”.
and a “geek”.
i have been brainy.
i wore glasses that were chunky
and highly
un
sophisticated

i’ve worn lipgloss
and i was popular.
there were boys
aching to court me.

and somewhere else,
i was not much to look at.

i have been innocent.
and called a wild thing.

i’ve been a dancer,
a poet,
a scientist,
a mathematician,
an idiot,
a thinker,
a musician,
an artist,
a writer,
a “chick”.

i have settled,
and here folks
is the big bam ending.

i have become

just
me.




a coward
somehow mates to strength in a group.
a coward will never be proven
in a clique.
i was not a part of them
i didn’t know my fault.
i was the unknown
and i was followed.

i was not a hero,
but i was
alone.

they threw taunts at me
and i dripped of fear,
they were 6
and i was 1.

i wanted to run.
i had to shout.
but instead my pride
made my fist punch.

and it surprised me.

then

i ran.
i ran all the way home
and they followed.
in a group.
all still stunned
that i fought back.

they threw stones at my windows,
as i watched for an hour.
i had bore my soul to them.
they had introduced me
as the new kid.
and
only then
did i began to feel it.





i was an “example”
of the unspoken politics underlying my generation

there are moments
when you learn
who you really are.
and they won’t come with
tae kwon do instruction
or a pHD.


but ,

at school the next day,

they dared

to call

me

a coward.





i think
that if
two people can find love
why
does it matter
if those two people
are of the same sex?
if there is love
and trust
and such a beautiful element
can come to life
i think
it should not matter
how it is found
or where it is found
it can be
between a horse and a turtle
a child and a mother
a man and a man
a woman and a woman
in a mirror
or in a pervert
if there is love
it is energy
and energy
does not judge




we are too lazy
to discover our neighbor’s comedies’
even though every person has their story to tell
we sit
and laugh at a box of static people
and after we’ve even more lonely,
have bloated up from chips,
and reek of boredom,
then.
we switch the confounded thing off

but
we are humans
so it sticks in our head



window

confessions whispered
to a window
the only friend
of a lonely soul

for what other friend
offers sunsets
as supper’s circus performer
or shows the lighting of the stars

hopes are always shattered
when spoken

just as wishes made after
a candle is blown out

why torment
a trusting heart
with uncertainty

window
will never close off a view
shall lack the morality
to be politically correct

window will never
raise up a hand
shooing away your story

talk may be just chatter to one who chatters
but chatter a window knows not of

a window has no passerbys
and seeks to decorate
its plain frame
to lure in a wanderer’s eye
a visitor is always welcome to the sill
and window will delight in the “waste” of your time

window who romances
regardless of age
showed wonders decades ago
and wonders still
oh if i was to have
a lover as this
who decorates
with
such ornate frills
stitching Nature’s mountaintops
matching sky
with perfected hue of blue
a screen no other artisan hopes to weave
simply to impress the one window sees

and window
fluffs clouds
with solidarity
in all their magnificence
as water rises
and gives life to them
we assume they do not live from this
but window
will never fail
to show the truth
not even a thunder’s yell

and window will show
a cloud in arguement
what other
would embrace such pain

window to window
all of varying sights
snowing in sphericals
til come desert night

what other friend
could afford
to
purchase
the world
and leave it open
for us all
with no freedom
but the appreciation
of whatever we shall see,
all that window dreams to be






love me!
i sceam
to the world
and no one
is listening
because
i put on
an outfit
of hate
i talk
tough
and everyone believes me.
when i am too scared
to ask for help
it is not sensed,
that the strong
need a favor
sometimes
i cannot fight
everyone
i pray
asking for it
somebody
love me
anybody
would be
perfect.
even if
nothing is.
because
i
am loved,
it will be





the formula
to what you think
is ease of soul
amounts to a doctorate degree
of something.
and a nice house,
with a golden retriever,
a cat,
some kids,
and a picket fence.
not to mention the expensive marble driveway.
and security camera
at your gates.

this is not for me.
this is not
for the pothead on the street.
this is not for the people you call failures.
this is not the substance of their smiles.
this is not what a guitar sings about.
and this is not what makes
tears fall out of joy.

i am free

inside.

but i wish
you the best of everything.

if you need a neat picket fence
to feel happy.




have i tried
honestly no
drank beers though
my friends claim they saw me drunk
i didn’t feel drunk
no pot
no drugs.
but my morality
is becoming a problem
i have no desire
and yet wish to be objective
how can i write about the world
without not experiencing everything?
i told myself
i’d never drink alcohol, but oh what a mighty taste
Bless beer.
but dammit.
will i be labeled
as a poser
by fellow youths
if i write
about acid
what is this fakeness they hate
“poser” is a form of judgement not fake?
i have no will to care
i’ll write about drugs.
i’ll interview
if you learn about me through a poem
i can imagine drugs




i used to eat
lemons
raw
lemon after lemon
chew chew chew!
as a “child”
i was always alone
different from humans
i used to
talk to trees
and ask them questions
as a “child”
i drew what i saw and wrote what i felt
i used to never scream
and sit obediently in a corner
while my intellectual parents
would converse with their colleagues
as a “child”
i used to
slide down little hills with my amigas Nietzan and Gordon
pretend i was on a skateboard
and sing “surfin USA”
as a “child”
i used to
walk to school with my father
as he quizzed me on my multiplication tables
as a “child”
I’ve taken to lemon slices sprinkled with sugar
I talk to myself now
I have guidelines. and an editor.
I have kept a best friend for 11 years regardless of travel
and have also met humans
which have changed philosophies and my body of bodies
I rebel against every bit of society at times for the sake of rebellion
and at times for the sake of justice
I am trying to find myself
in the myself that I have found so far
I have divorced parents that I love
and memories of happiness alongside pain
I tried childhood even though I never was a
“child”.
but now
i cannot yearn to be 4 feet again.
now,

I used to be
a child


Sour gRAPES?

if loving is breathing
and i am not in love
then why do my lungs
consistently fill with air
if it is better to have loved and lost
than never at all
how could i ever bitter
without knowing the difference
if fire sparks at true love’s kiss
should not
the ashes
be of two lover’s after this
if i am meant to have a soul
why was this mate
never met
if love happens between lunatics and saints alike
and we in a generation of radicals
boast of difference
then is not love
the surest sign of conformity?
if love is indescribable
then why do so many
including myself
seek to explain it?
if loving is the key to happiness
and if a child knows not of such romantic antics
then explain to me a smile
of a child playing in the wind
if love is free
then why do women
insist
diamond ring!
while fathers
purchase flowers to complement the carefully chosen dresses of maidens
at simply a ceremony
of sacred value to two
if love brings laughter to life
and i am loveless
then why do i laugh
and why do i smile
and why do i enjoy all of life
and can never miss
that which i do not know?




it happened
no denial
and yet
my eyes
shake with tears
of not knowing how
or why i let it
you were not
the mistake
i was
in you

in you
discovering
my hipocracy
and contradictions
all my lies
i hid
in something
i thought
no one would find
but you
with the motion
of your hips
and the slope
of your lips
upon me
i gave
all i had
every lie
every possession of me
to you
never imagining
how much

pain
would come
how much of myself
could i give?
how much of myself
do i have left?
nothing
NOTHING!
and to you
i am not the first
nor the last
just another
beautiful thing
in a garden
of beautiful things
many roses
as red as me
as fresh
and i am just
another rose

far less
amounted in beauty
than some
and of a greater scarlet than others
after i bloomed
i am
a brown petal
on your tendrils of memory
no tear can erase
the fact
that i was plucked
from the garden
randomly

with the rest of them
my fragrance
somehow wrapped you up
but what have i done?
i am just
a beautiful rose
in a beautiful garden
of roses just like me



my small
grasp of knowledge
disgusts me
every article
every literary piece of work
just leaves more questions
i must be stupid
not to know such simple things
for example
i want to know
who thought up the idea of a kiss
what crazy fool decided
that a man and a woman should share lips
I am of the Jamuna River
and yet the kama sutra does not answer me this
when i think of sex logically
it really is quite disgusting
a messy sort of deal for beings
who overdose every place with napkins
just what came over
whoever invented common expressions
and here i am
with a pen
borrowing words of webster
this is bound to drive me insane
who are we
and what is this all
dammit
i am 17,
trapped in a 150 year old mind
and still
have not mastered
how to make good coffee




raw war


do something
as our soldiers are marching
on this long walk to freedom
from all the hatred and injustice
do something
to fight the anger
let us battle, but
with our minds
do something
kind for the neighbor beside you
for he is your brethren
when your family is dying
be open to let each and every redeem
themselves
for we are all intertwined
we are feathers
if we shoot arrows
how shall we ever fly?

i am the dear abby
of problematic people
i try to offer advice
or at least make them smile
and i usually succeed
as it shows in the sparks of their eyes
but i am a failure
the one person
who would benefit most
from my attempted kindness
never understands what i’m saying
because i do not have the words
that she needs to hear
i cannot help her
in her pain
when she hates to be alone
the one person
that i would be happy to help for the rest of my life
is not someone
that i can help
when she calls
and begs
it is not frank
and is in undertones
and i am too deaf to hear her pleas
so she says goodbye
still feeling alone
she feels
what i hate for people to feel
and it is all my fault
because i can help all the people in the world
but i cannot help my own mother
and am the only reason
for her pain
and her tears.
i ruined her life
and helped all my friends.
i am nothing
but a fake
abby




Beautiful woman,
I have heard
from them all
of your weep
does the willow
not provide
vines for you to cling?
Gaia will water herself
why must your tears insist?
nobility
why do you sit
slumped within yourself
does our world not grant a throne?
tendrils of black
why do you shadow such a face?
does light
not force his way out of
the sky to illuminate?
legs of proportionate value
why do you bend so jaggedly?
do the smoothest aloe vera stems
not soothe all that is desiccated?
gentle robin
how can a musician not sing?
do our waterfalls
not serve as an adequate drum?
intelligent one
why do you not use your mind?
does the mystery of our galaxies
not spark an interest?
empty one
why do you hunger?
do our satious delicacies
not whiff your desires?
artist of colors
why do you not brush?
do our sunsets
falter in first impression?
passionate malaguena
why have your lips not touched?
do the bodies of our earth
not cause salivation?
lust?
do we all
lack the beauty to be loved?
mother of your thoughts
why have you not borne a child?
do the giggles of a new life
irritate a peaceful calm?
alive are you not?
but why do you not live?
oh beautiful woman
I see why you cry




for my father

to write
of a flower
when one’s roses
do not bloom,
is difficult.
and yet i can imagine
the scent
of a daffodil
that i picked one day
when i was walking
down a street filled with people
shaking
the sun’s warm hand
with their burnt, crisp faces
and i can smell
the daffodil
as i am breathing in a past moment
and i think
that perhaps
i was wrong
to say
that all of life’s troubles
were wrapped up
in a picnic basket
solely for me.
so i decide to dress myself
under the petals
and i remember
that you once
planted a seed for me
and i grew from that seed.
perhaps now,
my affinity
of my growth in the wrong direction
tells your senses
that i am
a weed,
but i know
that just as
i did
you will look
outside your window one day,
see daffodils,
and think of me.

I have so many things
I have so many
I have so
I have
I




i am doubt
in purest form
this is
the job of a rebel:
to take
that which is certain
and raise questions.
though sometimes
i’d rather
build something
on a foundation
of sturdier ground



i am a 17
trapped in a 150 year old mind
and still
i am too stupid
to solve an algorithm
when i haven’t had enough sleep



I am 17
trapped in a 150 year old mind
and still
i have not mastered
how to make good coffee


worth waiting


worth
all the nights
approaching silence
with heavy eyes
sore and aching
for a water
i have never
tasted
cannot touch
anything
without lust
and i know
you
are worth
the tears
and the heartache
of pain
of all the
territory
in my breast
untouched
untamed
worth resisting
all
for you
i will
wait
whoever you may be
i know
worth the agony
lying in my bed
lips kissing
the air
between us
until one day the space
becomes a distance
and a distance becomes the possibility
and the possibility
becomes a reason
to never create such a space
with anyone again
you will show me
how this possibility
becomes the reason
why i have known
it was
worth
waiting