The best one night stand I've ever had.

I make love when I put my pen to paper
And I arch my back in ecstasy
As rhymes spill out of me
From somewhere deep within
Where lyrical intentions penetrate
Regions of my soul that I can’t understand

Caught unawares in your sidelong glances,
We tango to the death,
Lips locked in verbose gestures that translate
To physical ventures far beneath the carnality
That any sort of human flesh is capable of
Only unholy gestures that demons wouldn’t dare cast
Over the lesser of us mortals

And I am not afraid to betray you if I’m ever locked in Room 101
Staring back at unemotional logic and the hungry, thrashing rats
I will not be afraid to let loose and let my wordy regurgitations of
The intentions that I’ve written in my head spill out
Screaming “Do it to her, not me”
Never would I dream of harming myself to save
Some temporary rapture I find in the release through verses incarnate

There are horses neighing and kicking in my head
As I struggle against reins you’ve tied me up in
Elaborately intricate knots in my back that you’ve put
From too many nights in too many positions
Blinders on so I can only stare straight forward
As your lips form a seductive circle
Repeating the process over and over and over again
Bodies caught in the caustic ties
Of sublime literary inspiration grinding on each other and panting

Your moans are loud as you slip into trances worthy of prophet’s ears
And they make me feel invincible as I’m scribbling madly,
Writing words that are indecipherable
My mind is spinning as you violate my aural senses,
Leaving me in a synesthetic high
Where I can hear the colors you paint in front of me with your airy fingertips,
Leaving traces of moonlight and your back arched in ecstatic revelations
Because of the utter power you have over me
You enthrall me as your lips press forward into my ears
Whispering promises of redemption and fame and acknowledgement
That yes, I do mean something to you
Craving your touch more and more as I beg you,
My dearest muse,
To never leave my side,
Clinging onto your arms and taping your wings down
As if physical bonds could hold something so intangible

Your velvety hands imprinting poetic escapades
In my mind have no fingerprints
Because my problems leave no evidence at the crime scene
I cradle you like sand between my fingertips
Watching you slip and slide away carelessly
Leaving me at dead ends
Unable to finish my thoughts

And I fall into the discord of words jumbled together making no sense
I lose my eloquence, and if you’ll allow me to say so colloquially
You’ve left me with the literary equivalent of blue balls
Tempting me with a potential masterpiece and then vanishing
Before stealing one last, hard kiss that makes my ears ring and cymbals clash in my head
As the marching band gets back into logical formation
Leaving me without the capability for literary expression
My rapturous muse,
My poetic one night stand

pomegranates and laser beams

The lyrical escapades you send me on devilishly seduce me,

taunting me in a journey into the underworld

rivaling that of Persephone’s ecstasy

When she discovered those six pomegranate seeds,

Those six glittering, tempting rubies

Cracking pure joy between her teeth in those little gems

And savoring the scarlet juice that flowed down that perfect ivory throat

That Death himself dared not grasp


Save for six months of the year

and your brown eyes are boring into me from the audience

as you sip pensively on a concoction spiked with alcohol

and my god, it feels so good to know

that you could break me any time you hold me,

your words biting into my skin

your scores breaking my heart

that make me love it all the more when you hurt me

verbally slapping me around

the way that martial arts fighters

break their fists to make them stronger


I’m freaking out

Because the hallway lights are turning off one by one

Until it’s only you and me standing there

and the carnality that reflects in the lightest blue

that I’ve ever seen in my life is absolutely revolting to me

as you embrace me in the vilest of violent kisses,
our bodies traveling epic journeys entangled within each other
that would have put Homer himself to shame


your words worthy of sonnets that Shakespeare couldn’t have composed

You entrance and enthrall me,

But I refuse to be seduced by promises you whisper as

We’re curled up together while you try to assure me

That chivalry and honor and justice do exist
In a world unfamiliar with even the terms

Because they’re more than one syllable long



And we gyrate to the sound of gunfire

Shooting down the bad guy on screen

As you create a new villain in my head,

Haunting me days past your leave

It’s cute how you sheepishly ask me to moan your name,
as if you need some more assurance than the blood
running down between our thighs from
too many nights in a row too roughly
and honestly, I may be a little to drunk to remember it
momentarily blinded by the influence of alcohol
in my mind like the constant pulse of light

That shines in my eyes too early and too clearly

As I stare into the LED of 5:00 AM
It's getting late, and really, I should leave
and your bleary eyes are boring into me
like the laser beams in the bad science fiction movies we watched into the early hours
Seeing right past my lies when I say
that no, you haven't hurt me, and no, I haven't fallen for you,
and yes, this is purely physical between us two

I really should leave now because waking up next to you
is the best feeling in the world
so I must remind you that my love for you, is, after all, on a diet
Walking out the door as “I reclaim'd my buzzard love, to fly
At what, and when, and how, and where I choose.
Now negligent of sports I lie,
And now, as other falconers use,
I spring a man, swear, write, sigh, and weep;
And the game kill'd, or lost, go talk or sleep.”

6/3/89

Once, I lived as a statistic, never bothering to polish the gem
That could have been – would have been – should have been
The life I led in my wildest daydreams because they’re so glorious and impossible
We tremble to even think of them
Dreams that were sparked and sparkled while holding your fingers delicately in my palms
Staring into brown eyes that twinkled in a dimly lit room
Flickering remnants of candles that blew out in the wind long ago when I found my Tristan
Eyes filled with tears he'll never admit ever dropped down from azure skies reflected in amber gazes
Gently bestowed on me the way heartbreak sometimes flutters down from above
Grazing you ever so gently on its descent
Whispering soft promises of tender landings on down pillows

And I angrily demanded you drink to me
This ill-fated toast for two amorous lovers
That could never bring themselves to admit they adored each other until death drew them together

Remember
When we foolishly held hands during grade school?
Your hair was self-consciously spiked up perkily as if it was out to prove something to the world
And years later, you'd confess you'd never have taken that chance
Even though we both knew our feelings for each other
A flurry of fury and hatred and spite and … amorous thoughts
You're gone now, maybe forever, but you can still call me Isolde

And if I ever get a chance to speak to you again,
I'd tell you that I want you to grab life like it’s the last breath you’ll ever take and you’re choking
Because it could be the last time you'll ever be able to again
I mean- we only get one chance consciously at this sort of situation
So take advantage of the quiet in the room to finally let it all out

And find the girl that makes your heart stop breathing
And that lump in your throat start beating
That makes you want to recite poetry that puts Shakespeare and Donne to shame
And you’ll know she’s the one
When her face plays music that creates complex melodies that haven’t even been invented yet

Because I found my Helen days ago
When she wrapped her face in streaks of liquid gold
That surrounded mahogany eyes that glowed and glowered in the starriest nights,
Ruddy cheeks, summer's radiant blush
And laughs that pealed in the peaks of auditoriums
But since my feeble mind isn't capable of contemplating her in anything but a rational fashion
I resort to cogitating and comparing her to the most melodic sound waves
Forming perfect harmonies inside of me when she passes by
And grants me a whiff of her scent that sends me to my knees
I’d jump into oceans and swimmingly crusade across endless seas for a glance at her beauty
And I would take her by force like the last chance at life I’ll ever get to live
In the dreams she’s created for me
Gasping and holding onto that refuge;
That safe place she makes in her chest where the heart should be
Sheltering me between bosoms that hid lungs that never knew of sighs or gasps or breathing

And I will not be discreet
I refuse to bury myself metaphorically
Beneath lyrical escapades that hide my emotions from you ever again
So please
Because I know somewhere that you’re listening
Don’t be afraid to take chances you’ll never have again
Because tomorrow you could die in a car crash
The way it happened on May 5th
And every other day and you never even bother to realize
That it could be you
So I refused to title this poem the days of your death
Because this is a celebration of the life you led
That the rest of us could only wish to emulate in our wildest dreams
Chasing after skyscraper worthy intentions
Because metaphorically or literally-

Breathing but not thinking is no worse than a coffin
Being but not living no worse than being underground

And I know, because once, I lived as a statistic
Letting uncut diamonds in the rough slip out of my fingers
Becoming the quicksand numbers entangling our lives together
Digits after the digits grasping our hands
Interlocking fingers calculating statistics on abacuses that could have been our hearts
Dancing around the hopes we never realized
Because they’re so glorious and impossible
That we tremble to even think of them

a love letter to indie sub-culture

This …
This is a toast to indie sub-culture
and the entire teenage population
that tell me it's okay to sleep with people
if I justify my shenanigans through talk of
sexual liberation and post-gender philosophy
that transcends social boundaries
while the phone is ringing off the hook incessantly interminably
with calls from the boys that look like girls that look like boys
and the shrill screaming of the alarm bells in my head going off won't stop
so find the light switch
turn it on
if just for a moment
so I can see the exit through this mess
and find some light at the end of this tunnel
of regressive insights into my inner psyche

but "why would you speak to me that way
especially when
I always said that I
Haven't got the words for you
all your diction dripping with disdain?
Through the pain
I always tell the truth"

Now there's an anthem worthy of a mobile phone ring-tone
that trendy hipster teenagers can use
to answer their cellular while sneering righteously,
digits grasping technology while fingers dial numbers
to casual hookups while pretending
it means something so much more

and I'm too busy citing references to pages and pages
of analytical essays and indie music
to prove to you that I know more about
Proust and post-structuralism and obscure artists
that really sound like metal scraping on asphalt sometimes
than you do, because I am worried that you will judge me
if I say that it turns out I do like the shit that plays on the radio,
and no, I don’t care that it subjugates women because it’s CATCHY,
that I shop at American Eagle because I
am a middle class consumer whore
and proud of it

that you will deface me on account of the fact
that I recognize your self-righteousness
built on Darfur and social awareness
is really just a facade to make you feel better
about being white, rich, and privileged
in a modern pop culture built on liberal guilt and reverse trends
and hiding behind nebulous and esoteric ramblings
about how the big Other doesn't exist
and what we really need to do is embrace the fact that every action we'll ever take is inherently culturally imperialist anyway
so ... we just shouldn't do anything

But don’t get me wrong,
I don’t mean to cut you down,
So I've been busy pretending to be more in the know than you,
and whoring myself out to hipster sub culture with
pretentious, self righteous, liberal, ivory tower post-modernists
and guys I've known for less than 5 minutes,
and any girl that is willing to make out after a couple drinks
and academic publications that discuss
Palestinian Israeli relations and
Chinese militarization and
Japanese re-armament
to show you really,
I am truly revolutionary and open minded and knowledgeable
but perhaps you're right
that none of this is who I really am
But I figure I can hide that if I use words so big
You won’t understand them
I mean for god's sake,
I can't even pronounce nothin'
Pass that Nietzsche?

So here's a toast to all of you
that know what it's like to be dumb, scared, and privileged
in a world where things like having a place to live
doesn't mean that you won't continue to bitch incessantly
about how your hair doesn't fall the way you'd like it to
swoop dramatically across your face

This is a toast to the middle class youth
Who are disillusioned with the fact that they don't have troubles
This is a toast to those of you who have it good

charlie

You once said that my words were volatile to you
Not volatile in the sense that I am
Explosive, or expressive, or overly emotional
But evanescent, like a puff of smoke
And I thought it was funny that my words were so unique
You had to create a new definition that didn’t exist before for a word that had one
Volatile
That my words were volatile to you

But perhaps I’m dwelling too much on the little things,
Like your pseudo-intellectualism
Or the way you nuzzled my neck so gently
The way you found yourself wanting to see me
Because it's funny how you hold claims to chivalry
In your left hand and hypocrisy in your right
I can still hear your boots clicking down the hallway
But my cowboy rode into the sunset without me
And there will be no knight in shining armor in the morning


Volatile,
You call me volatile,
Overly explosive, or expressive, or emotional
Overly melodramatic or even mediocre,
And I have no justification for the things I feel
Because I missed the memo you sent out about logic overriding emotional impulses
Forgot to forward the email notification that you've never cared for any of my poetry

So peel back the layers you never bothered to deconstruct
Because you’re hidden between the lines that I wrote up
That you can antagonize yourself trying to decipher my words but ignore
The meticulously crafted multi-faceted and maybe even malicious
Three minute love letters to you that you’ve never bothered to read
These volatile expressions of emotion that you never bothered to find out existed

And I am colloquial and I am complicated
I am refined and I am un-adultered
I am that conquest you brag about hooking up with last night
Or maybe one of those that you have to cover up

Because I’m naive and I’m too young to understand
The complexities of the world that you tell me about
But don’t get me wrong, I am most definitely well-cultured
because I can recite John Donne from the back of my head

And I am melodramatic and over-emphatic and too much for you to handle
And I can spend hours and days and weeks
Listing off all the different traits I am
But my words will never be the definition you attributed to them wrongly,
Evanescent, or momentary, or transitory
Volatile

writer's block

I haven’t written for entirely too long
Staring at blank pages that form the
Thinly veiled outline of your face
Taunting me as you juxtaposed lyrics with writer’s block

And, when I lay my head on your shoulder
You smell of all things that are warm in the world
Of comfort, and belonging, and
Puke in the trashcan from a hangover

‘Cause somewhere
Between the too few words spoken and too many rum and cokes
We found ourselves able to express emotions we displaced on each other
The way that a poem never comes to you no matter how much you beg it
Until it strikes you in the head with a flash of sudden inspiration
And you’re shaking until you can wrap your hands around a pen

And wrap your arms around me
The way you swore you’d never let go
Because we were here and now
And you were scared we’d never be again
That you’d
Lose me when morning came

The little flash of humanity that sparks a line
That starts the cogs in your brain
Forming a three minute ten second piece that spills my heart out and
Returns to me in the form of your scores

Your numbers dialing home in my head
My sage
My saint
My spell cast over me
That you would bring lyrical inspiration
Showering me in eloquent promises of some magical effect on my verses
Swearing that my sentences would flow
And my diction would be pristine
My serendipitous muse painting me romantic visions of a quixotic saviour
Just over the horizon that never quite arrived
Because morning dawned on two scared human beings
Who really never knew each other
(‘Cause we were here and now
But we won’t ever be again)

I haven't found myself
I have not
Found myself
Amidst all this chaotic jumbles of verses in my mind
Searching for some penchant of truth and liberation from you
From the ghosts in my past that race behind me
Pounding on the doors of closets where skeletons still rattle close to my heart

I have not found myself
Searching for a replacement for you in my past
For you in my mind
This reality of you I’ve constructed that you’ll never live up to
Relying on other people to solve the problems I can’t deal with

I have not found myself
Wanting to see you as badly as I have tonight

Staring at
Blank pages that formed the thinly veiled outline of your face
Taunting me
As you juxtaposed lyrics with writer’s block

I am

I am the cigarette that you lit
The glassy night where the wind bit your face
As you inhaled everything that could have possibly been bad for you,
Culminating in amber embers
As you told me that you were leaving for the frontlines of war
For the real world

I am
That girl you leave behind
Before you leave for the frontlines of war
Of the real world
I won’t wait for you, I won’t
I promised

And you never bothered to realize
That cutting it off for my sake was for your sake
That numbing emotion doesn’t mean it goes away
It’s just displaced

I am
The daughter you left at home alone
The adulterous wife

And I mean
You can’t really blame me
Since you were never really there anyway
I just wanted love
And I found it in selling myself

I am
the news anchor at 6 pm
That broadcasts destruction and genocide
And statistics of your deaths and political scandals
Calm and cool and collected

I am water wars
Being fought on the wrong side of the map
Where Israeli children play on the side of the wall with lush grass
And Palestinians starve of thirst opposite them

I am graffiti on the bathroom wall reading
Free Palestine,
Israel, now only $29.95

I am
History written by the winner
The conquerer
The imperialist

I am
The comfort woman you found in the war zone
Give me food and shelter, I’ll call you john then never call again
Because there is no obligation to care about me, is there?

I am
A pathological liar
A living satire of the earth
A walking contradiction

And you never bothered to realize
The complexities of my chronological mistruths
That I fed you to cover up
My own insecurities
Was the same intricate cynical web of different personalities I weave

I am
History reworked
In the eyes of the marginalized
The left behind
The poor, the oppressed, the downtrodden speaking for themselves

Alternative modes of thought
Of the modernity and progress that exists beyond
The mainstream

I am
The America you never bothered to realize existed

an engagement to indeterminancy

Give me a reason to believe your words that
fall from the sky,
dropping down like the diamond
tears dripping from the sky's face
flitting about,
vanishing into dust,
making up the dirt that we build our skyscrapers on
all over again,
just to fall from the top to get hurt

Show me some way
that you haven't forsaken me already-
give you another chance
in this game with no take backs.
Eradicate anything
I may or may not have
left for you;
I'll be the one trashing it this time around:
Because I stuck your diamond ring up my nose
as far as it would go
like it was in the hands of an eight year old-
I know it wasn’t a hand me down,
Maybe just cubic zirconia
or a piece of plastic
that you bought from a vending machine;
When I took it out
I bled all over the love letter
that you never wrote me

so is this truly goodbye?

Jonathan

Soft winds nibbled at your fingertips,
coaxing them out of your pockets;
playing with your wispy, flyaway hair
mousy brown, and tinged with the slightest hint
of sunlight and gentle nature

And you’d lean in gently on my shoulder,
whispering that there was nothing beyond
what we could ever know with logic
as your fingers grasped mine in an awkward progression
that led to a sense of belonging -but oh so precariously!
I leaned in to kiss your neck, but you told me that
you were too scared I might bite. We both knew the reason
was because you had been replaced.

Papers flew as the wind lifted up their spirits
that flitted away from sight, out of the window.
Thin air vanished as cars flew past,
picking up white sheets and imprinting on them
lovingly engraved black treads. The bus
creaked slowly to a stop at the red light,
giving us a chance to recoil against the inertia
in our souls, pushing us forward and wanting us to move on
despite our hesitation.

The sun set quickly that night. Rays of pearly,
golden, shimmering cobwebs painted the air against backdrops
of magenta and indigo hues, vanishing quickly
into the regal velvet of the night sky
The wind softly nibbled at our ears as we walked on.
Leaves flew up from the ground, as the wind tousled your hair
that fell into your eyes flecked with golden mahogany

Night shimmered in your doe eyes as you
leant in slowly to whisper eloquent words
explaining the mysteries of the universe,
and mathematical formulas that
demonstrated the utter complexity of its Being,
and how all of it could be summarized in the
codes you found in your proclaimed holiness.

You used your logic to explain why
your lips brushed past mine so quickly.
I asked you to promise me that it never actually happened.
You agreed that it was an illusion as well, and
your turned back faced me as we strayed farther from our past.
I traced your faint outline as you walked home in the rain

And we were alone for the only time in our lives-
for the rest of our lives.

not how i imagined crossing the bar

Do you remember when I climbed on top of your church?
The shingles were slippery from the wailing gales of rain
and the insistent dripping of alcohol from now empty bottles
it was almost cathartic, as if there was some hope for redemption

Do you remember what it was like
when my life slipped through your arms?
I forgot that I never trusted anyone
when for a moment, everything was safe and warm
and you told me everything would be fine if I just let go

I was so safe on the rooftops of the world
and so sure I would be saved even if I fell
but I fell alone.

Funny how I was told that salvation
is about a personal relationship with you,
but perhaps it was just that I was really fucking wasted.
Turns out the shipwreck of a life I was in
was caused by the lack of a pilot

The bright sunset and evenin' star
calling out for me to embrace it
must have been the same one those wise men saw,
although I am told that they were ambulance lights

And believe me when I say I put up a fight
Although I don't find much solace in the fact
that I ended up with a cross right through my midsection
(talk about poetic justice)

I am sure the church got a huge kick out of that
when they started their early morning services.

(Tennyson sure lied about how peaceful
this shit is supposed to be.)

I justify my screams by the fact that I can no longer hear myself
over the blaring shrieks of crashing waves

I almost feel alive
clawing through memories and regrets and spite,
and coldness and desolation
and crystal clear replays over and over of my life

and I hope you feel it every time
hurricane gales hit me in my face down here,
I hope you feel the salt caressing my face as I float away,
drifting every way but gently,

and I hope you miss me,
and I hope you cry.


They don't let you forget anything here.

whitewater rafting in your heart

I am dying to hurl every last word in my system out into the world to prove that I am smarter than I actually am,
and I want to blow you away with my intellect, diction, and syntax in this poem, but I know it's not going to work.

You're smarter than that,
and not so easily swept away-
which sends me down a torrential river
with orange and tan and streaky gold canyons
and white clouds of water rushing past my sides
and attacking my heart and soul,
the way that a razorblade cuts perfectly
into your skin-
and the water's rushing in the boat,
because I didn't take care to check
if the bottom had holes in it;
I'm sinking. Lord, someone save me.
The sun's right up above me, white hot and
glaring down and pushing me forward
despite the cries echoing.
The canyons are tall, and steep, and they glisten
with the sunshine's ferocity
and the water's edge.
Howard Roark would have stood at the edge
without a second thought,
and sometimes I wish I had the courage to
throw my head back and laugh at the world too,
but we aren't in reality; I am still,
the boat is still! I'm bloody fucking sinking
into the tide of salt and water and my angst, and fears
and I'm not sure if I'm more scared to
swim out into the canyon wall or hit the bottom
of the river, down, down, down into the jagged edges
of the rocks and holes here in our indeterminate future,
because it's almost
over.

---

This isn't poetry, it's rambling
with eloquent words that don't fit,
like the little girl in front
of the dressing room mirror,
trying on her grandmother's clothes
with shoes too big, and lipstick nothing but
a red smear across her face,
and a huge fedora and a big purple hat,
and she's content with it, and
so am I, if this gets my point across.

I don't care if you'll never make sense
of this, or anything that I ever do,
because these things aren't meant to be analyzed;
you're right, but please ...
don't go back on your words and
the things you mean but don't say, and
the things you say but don't mean.

Before this light in this life
is blown out, and the candle fades
and becomes a clump of wax and ashes,
deformed and molded into the cracks
of the mahogany table, that's varnished
and shines with a ethereal light,
let's remember that sometimes, we don't
want to see the candle hit the bottom
of the table, because if we did,
we'd go up in flames

and it makes me think of the way
that the sun hits your face, when
we are walking together and the breeze
lifts up our spirits
and flies away, and ... I almost feel free;
not constrained anymore by these earthly means.
You're standing on the sidewalk, and I'm
working my shoe on the edge of the curb-
I might as well bite it;
this could be over for all we know.

It hurts to not just reach out and
hold you 'til the sun don't shine anymore,
and we're just two frozen statues standing
on the side of the road,
but I'm afraid sometimes, that if I squeeze you
too tightly, for too long-if at all
I'm scared you'll break or run away,
and I can't determine which is worse,
to lose you, or to destroy you.

This is holding sand in my fist- loving you is,
because it slips between my fingers
and I can't try to catch it,
the more my other hand reaches out,
the more sand falls down and
disintegrates into ash,
and if I close my hand too tightly,
it-you'll- run away
and playing this game with you,
is like trying to solve a Rubik’s cube,
for every move I make
that builds up something new,
you always come up and brighten my day,
and tear down another wall.

This is fact, not fiction.

you're that door that I never opened

WHY DON'T YOU JUST GO
AND FUCK YOUR REAL GIRLFRIEND.
but not really

not really like I ever needed you in my life,
so get out

Not really.


Not really,
God, please don't go,
I didn't mean that,
don't you dare start walking out
that door
god, please don't start locking
yourself away from me
the key is turning
and my head is spinning
that golden piece of metal
just shut you out
shut me out
of my daydreams
now it's just this nightmare
fashioned out of antique
hand-me-downs
it's almost nostalgic when I think of
how my head crashed against the window
how shattered glass cradled my neck
like a baby
and my screams echoed like the
last call whistles at the station
my train is leaving
on railroads shoddily built,
but my ticket isn't good for two

so I'll just go on and ride alone

but God, please don't go ...
I need you in my life,
please stop turning away
I'll hang onto your
every last word
like that one time I clung to your sleeve
and refused to let go until you kissed me

you never did


and and and
god please don't go
I'm shouting at you through my door
this stainless steel commodity
or was it just a commode
you flushed me out of your life
and I was left without one
see you're a part of me
darlin'
the same way that the
scars you cut in my thighs
are part of me
those four letter love notes
you wrote screaming
at the top of your lungs
are part of me

cause honey
we're like fire and ice

I can't melt without your touch
and every time I see you again
I self destruct
until you turn away
and it's cold
and I'm cold
and we're both lying
next to each other

but I hope you're happy
that we finally fucked
our fluids don't belong together
my thighs are protestin'
and now I'm achin' inside
my body was collateral damage
in the war between you and your self esteem
another casualty you turned into a
statistic in an attempt to boost your self worth

and I told you once
I told you so many times
you're not the one for me
see honey, I don't love you
cause putting out just to see the
light in your eyes one last time is silly
begging you to stay one more night
is beneath my standards
and I want to keep what little self esteem
I have left


that was just a lie
but you ... you promised,

yet she's on her knees
and you're screaming at me

and you have any idea
how much I died inside
when I walked through that door

and you told me to get the fuck out

John's Poem

If I had to quantify
the different ways that I
love you,

I'd first have to qualify
the way that we kiss;

the stars sparkling in the sky
couldn't match the electricity
as our worlds collide
through our lips,
secretly enjoying each other's
irepressible fluidity,
secrets spoken in a tongue
no one can decipher
except for us

and if I had to number
the different ways
that I adore your presence

Iíd have to think about
the way we embrace,
Our touch conveying a sense
of belonging
Not to the world, but just to us
secret codes exchanged
through exchanges of clandestine glances
when we think that the other
isn't looking

now, if I had to personify
the way your hands grasp mine so gently,
blowing through the openings
in my fingers
like a summer breeze
through careless tree leaves,
whispering gently
to meet the roots of our serenity
never forgetting to linger
softly, brushing past my arms
into the angelic crevasses,
where song bursts forth
as you touch my cheek
to explain what words can never cover;
to be able to express how much you love me

internment for your mind

Let me spin you a tale of untold discrimination
That happens daily before my eyes
But is sanctioned by the American nation in your search for
Truth and justice for all, positioning yourself as the savior of
“THE REST OF THE WORLD”
the rest of us minorities are enclosed in a box we can't get out of,
because Asian people, are smart, quiet, and docile

No
I am yellow, and I will tell you
more than enough reasons, why thinking in "yellow" is wrong,
and why everything you've ever thought about me,
about the Asians and slant eyes and Chinese, is WRONG

and I'll lay it down quick in your mind,
so follow this yellow brick road of assumptions,
about me, my ethnicity, the very idea
that having Eastern ancestry MUST mean
I got me some 4.0 GPA and parents
that make me play piano-
that I am something not capable of free thought and free will

Why is it that it’s my genes, and not my own ABILITY
to surpass your mental capacity,
it’s because I am smart, NOT because I’m A-Z-N

So don’t tell me it’s okay it’s acceptance in America
When you take my culture and commodify it for suburban malls
My people objectified through images of geishas and erotic submission
Asian women in the media as a sexual representation
of the exotic foreign industry of human trafficking
Silk bound feet breaking out this time around because this asian woman’s had enough of this

Don’t give me your bullshit about cultural integration
when you stereotype the way I speak and the way I am for marketing purposes
Please explain to me why kimonos are sold next to images of Chinese calligraphy,
why people ask me where I’m from in an attempt to get me to speak a generic “Asianese”

In your search for the static identity of a minority to represent commodified diversity
All of our cultures become one size fit all for our continent
ready made instant noodle gratification for consumer America;
for those of you too lazy to learn what it’s really like

Why you so shocked when I say I’m from America-
why am I perpetually foreign?
Please explain to me why the successful Asian actors
are the ones that are typecasted as bad English speakers and kung fu masters

Don’t tell me that the Asian stereotype’s a positive one
Last time Asian Americans were perpetually foreign,
Japanese internment happened

So don’t tell me to be civilized
With your civil lies talking about freedom,
when you remain free, but dumb-

Don’t you DARE tell me that I’ve got it good
When you drive Asian stereotypes into my mind like we're in Hong Kong
Run down by YOUR ideals of a perfect Asian American,
full of predictable diversity,
where there's a little bit of everything,
but nothing out of the ordinary,
STEREOTYPICAL MINORITIES
This is institutionalized racism.

Inkstains on my heart

I'm going to spill out and regurgitate every last thought I've had of you in the last twenty four hours, from every mark you've left on my skin, every strain in my heart, every stain in my mind, to this ink and pen scratching into this paper, bleeding into the fibers, and staining it forever.

I'm writing my life story in pencil, just to stay safe,
and I've written your name a hundred times over, a hundred different ways,
and I figure it's all right- it's graphite, it'll erase
… but it still leaves a stain, a scar.
I'll press down even harder, and maybe
if I wear away the fibers enough, you'll finally go away,
but then I realize that I wrote so hard,
your name is engraved,
engrained into the cracks of the wooden desk,
reflecting upon itself-
a dull, throbbing pain against the
light bouncing off of the varnish,
into my eyes, blinding me,
and forcing me to smile.

Every time I think of you.

I hate half Asians.

I hate half Asians.
Now before you jump to conclusions,
Gasping in horror, a BLANKET RACIST
One who wants racial purity,
Look at that tiny girl on the podium
An ASIAN NAZI

Let me justify and explain
This conundrum.

Half Asians carry in their physical features
The burdens that EVERY “Asian American” carries,
Embodied in their HALF-slanted eyes
(we full breeds use eyelash glue to give ours the double lids)
Is the acknowledgment
That they belong to every culture,
And no culture, a combination that results
In the decapitation of their identity

Lunch boxes packed with mac and cheese
Eaten with chopsticks
Brown colored hair

“where you from china doll
Ni hao ma
Oh right
You’re not Chinese
YOU’RE A HALFIE”
Disconnected from identities
Wanting to sceam
“I’M NOT FAKE
I’M JUST THE PHYSICAL VERSION
OF THE ASIAN AMERICAN”
… the best of both worlds
Or maybe just one that doesn’t have roots

Trying to find meaning
Shunned by true “Asians”
Not white or black or brown or yellow
With no one to run to
No cultural connections
Maybe speak flawless English
but strangers in new yawk speakin’ slowly to them
maybe speak perfect mandarin
but perpetual foreigner to the Chinese
the yellow mulatto
shamed out of their heritage

you are not one or both,
but neither …
and that is why I hate being half-Asian,
half “American.”

an objection to mass media's portrayal of love

I decided not to slam how I feel about you,
for fear of tainted words marring the meaning
of these perfect emotions,
the way that an oil spill sinks into the ocean slowly,
poisoning it and congealing over everything like an infected scab,
taking no prisoners
and smothering everything with its grotesque black sheen.

And maybe I’m too scared of the fact that this "love" inside of me,
this "love" that I perceive
is now a word tossed around carelessly and treated like trash
in a society where marriage is a quick fix,
and the ceremony a drive-through,
Where 'I love you' means 'please screw me'
and commitment is gone.

And maybe I’m too afraid that if I said, "I'd do anything for you,"
this reality would warp my words.
in a world where morality has become arbitrary
in the 6 o'clock news and MTV
because there is none,
coz' we're over-censored
and not
all at the same time,
in a world where freedom of speech is the excuse for the inability to think.

And maybe I’m too shy for fear that abstinence means
'I'm a prude'
and sex means
'I'm a whore'
where your love life is a scantron
checked
'Slut
Virgin
or
Invisible'.

And maybe I’m terrified that I'm in
too far
too quick
too deep
in a world that is a parody of a soap opera;
with everything overstated and underplayed at the same time,
turned into statistics.
Religions gone to waste because the new mass is the television set
and our golden calf the media that turns fiction into truth
and entertainment into a news source.

And maybe it’s because in our Brave New World
we're disposable--
blink and be discarded;
dropped like a forgotten childhood toy,
trashed like a styrofoam cup--
disregarded in this world where promises break like frail porcelain dolls
and words are meaningless and forgettable.

But most of all,
I decided not to slam how I feel about you
out of respect for you
because in this world where the media is our soma;
where the telescreen has an audience that isn't watched by Big Brother,
but rather,
chooses to watch him,
I know
somewhere,
somehow,
some ONE
must
know better.

Someone like
you.

drafts

You are worse than any writer’s block that I’ve ever encountered;


My god!
You're God?
Your goddess,
That ethereal creature spun of wispy crystal and shimmering light,


That radiance, soft edges, jagged spikes-


Squint your eyes


Let your imagination take over


To glance at this full figured, hot blooded beauty ensures only blindness


The epitomy of clichés, because after all,


There really can be too much of a good thing.



I’m anxious


And struggling to find words that will fit this perception I have of you


This grotesque creation in my mind that you’ve become


The sonnet mutating into free verse with no structure


I can’t predict you- and I hate that


Screaming behind your back


DETEST AND LOATHE AND ENVY AND SPITE


If only because I can never have you



You refuse to answer me,


Evading every word I speak


My use of diction tone syntax imagery transforming into my defeat


There is no way around you except for what simply is,


Refusing to conform to my poetic vices, 


So I bottle these words


Up


Carefully or they may loosen the hold you have on my heart



Eloping with unconventional grammatical structure, 

Because really, who gives a fuck about an oxford comma?

You know my puppy dog stare 


Because I can’t see anything but you when you’re around me


And I’m in your arms


Your fingers resting lightly on my hipbones


Anatomically perfect
Catatonic


Can you even begin to realize what it’s like to be so speechless?


Hurling your entire body out into the world,


But missing the target?



Do you know how it feels when poetry throws you over its shoulders?


When it’s got you pinned up against a wall working you so well


It hurts


And you’re aching in every muscle, 


Begging it to stop, but so afraid of it pulling out


Because you might lose the magic in your verses


Asking you to take a hit
You know you can’t


Recover


From