highlighting 2

...what happens to the birds
in strong winds like these?
i saw them fly fast from a tree
really fast
the warm (hot) winds today
have blown my sourness
into another place
replaced it with a witchy pleasure
some kind of permission
i wouldn't be surprised
to find an unidentifiable animal
licking its hands in my room
i have already removed a spider
from the shower that curled
into the cup until freed
into the pile of lumber
outside the bathroom window

a meanness in the drama of
the fast, dappled light
i just feel motion

highlighting

...my 27th birthday is on tuesday
and tonight i'm fantasizing
about the afterlife
a dark church with candles
and torches
where your body is whatever
you want (clay!)

thinking of Anne

the spiral staircase
the inflatable classroom
my apple product
fixedness or think
itselfness
fixed against my will
fixed against my
wild potential for
change or inevitable
period
my height fixed
against the answers
on the top shelf
this to me is
damp
to me is time
somewhere before
time's pores

Meanwhile in Russia

Nargiz says to get on the subway
you have to ride an escalator so many stories down
into the earth
and she noticed
there are no advertisements anymore
lining the walls on the way down
closer and closer
to the earth’s core
because of the new campaign for
community health
and cigarettes aren’t displayed for sale
anywhere
they are in a metal cabinet with a big heavy door
you can’t impulse buy them
you have to ask a clerk for a key and
open the heavy door

I’m Going Through Changes

mirrors everywhere
in the Ethiopian restaurant/bar
dim blue haze light
sleepy hookah and top 40 rap in the back
karaoke and hipsters in the front

against a mirrored wall
we talk about the “Green New Deal
is not your friend” idea
half-measures towards dismantling
a system where the US holds the keys
to all kingdoms
Vera from Mexico
brings up an article she read about
an experimental clinic trading healthcare for art
I ask
how would the world over change 
if the US valued music and art
as much as business and military
her cheeks get hot, tone changes
everything the US exports is Fascism
pop music for a profit...withholding medical patents
...my classmates have oil paint but I have a stack of magazines
so I make collages... the US calls the shots for the world 
there is no sense of value in just existing
my brain is too drunk, I agree
I cry a tear for the confusion
she misunderstood my use of the word value?
the rage that I feel and am lumped into
I ask what she’s doing in the states
wasting my life and enjoying my time
I say good, excellent
I hope we’re not fighting cos I agree
are we the same or
noses getting redder
smoking in the cold backyard

L’s brother makes maps
one shows that the places that consume
the most energy and resources per person
have the most militarized borders
protecting that fortress of cushiness
a short term security
for the fucking of the future

how much worse does it have to get
“Science of Revolution”

radicalized middle class millenials

hiding in the massage chair
upstairs room everyone calls
the green room, minty walls
laundry everywhere
big tv with NFL on mute
reading poetry in the massage chair
if I indulge in the chair for too long
will it tenderize me?
there’s a Costco jamón downstairs
after you’re done slicing
you’re supposed to lay the thick strips of fat
back on top of where you sliced to seal it up
the refs are the best part of sports
the stadium falls silent
spot light on the black and white striped shirt
everyone pays respect
to the secret code language
as he announces the call

Focus Travel Inc.

NYC Chinatown is the best painting

how are you gna try to make art when

maybe how are you NOT gna try to make art when

there's the door at 83 Eldridge

faded checkerboard contact paper
two way mirroring like mercury

I reach around for the Mandarin words I know

The Privilege of the Access Class

of spying, of observing

how to observe responsibly

by everything i mean

forging a relationship with
my new cat we sit together
watching the flame flicker
on the attic ceiling
she even makes her eyes
slits while I lean back
on the bed
for the clouds
parading

eyes landing on
migrating birds
you know

when you're a kid
your dad's arms
span the bench like
batwings
his gloved hands and
now California alone

i say its nice out when shits
canceled or
the balloons are horizontal
is not everything clearly
solemn, the pedestal

the sun came out on my last sprint
the first HBCU band to play
ppl say that's great mom says
check your calendars
don't forget the rainbow on that drive
or how the shadows of the blowing leaves
stay on the ground
in the moment of sun
i say it's nice

god is poetry again
for the third time this week
and it's only Thursday

Tuesday morning

feel inappropriate wearing my brother's sweatpants in the graveyard 

but I’ve been coming here my whole life

the dead-end of my old street 
the blue house with the actual well 

Twitch 1er

when you think of your name so hard

it starts to hop away

or crumble

and you’re left with

a cutout thing 

the top of your head

an untied dog

on the 27th

when everything feels

relatively screwed in

i talk to Livia

under the gray sky

make lunch all day

with the same two fingers

i type something

devastating

i'll never learn 

sliding around

like a piano

with the same fingers

the clouds

to be someone's first dog

to be brought home 

tasket

my mind changes like a ball rolling 

a stone picking up dirt

my head the hand or the basket 

raining

I share a birthday with Hemingway and Robin Williams
how annoying is that
not a threat just an emo observation

also the T.Rex album Slider came out on the same day in 1972
and when I'm sad
I sliiiiide

LeafBlowerOnLaptop

speculating that the guys in the kitchen are all older
than the owner of the restaurant
and they’re all his dads like
instead of having kids, he has dads

fruits of labor

Do you want to be loved?
We all need to go to egodeath bootcamp

In my mind I ask my new friend questions constantly
Do you think a truly socialist/communist society would be like a colony of ants or bees?
Do we want to be like a colony of ants?
Rigid, indistinct, but elegant, cohesive, cooperative

Think about how we see bees
We admire their lack of ego
Their communal efforts, what they produce and pollinate
Industrial agriculture is killing them and we lament their extinction

People are scared of uniformity but admire it in the animal kingdom
Because our ideas of freedom are tied to ownership?
Because we wish we could be so selfless?
Where does the letting go start and does it ever end?

I know I am misunderstanding the concepts
but I try