Boats – Now in Video Form!

Gonna start making some of my poems into videos too from here on out, for that sweet, theoretical YouTube cred! Inaugurating this trend is my latest piece, “Boats,” which I’ve decided to unofficially subtitle “A Weirdly Motivational Poem.” Enjoy!

New Poem: “Boats”

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It’ll make sense in a second, I promise.

It occurred to me at one point that people seem to use old-fashioned boats and ships as life metaphors a lot when trying to be hyper-motivational or melodramatic. Whereas I once might’ve been onboard (heh) with that thinking, both extremes of self-expression have become tiresome as I’ve matured into my own personal sense of measured world perspective.

The first line sprung into my head, and because of how both aggressive and goofy it sounded, I decided to flesh out the rest with a similarly blended tone of earnestness and absurdity. It was a hard line to walk without sounding like the very thing I was trying to riff on, so I hope you can still take my advice when I say…

Boats

Fuck boats.
They’re unsubtle, overdone
as a metaphor.
Always held up for their
nobility, all while Caucasian sails
flap in the salty swirls of some zephyr
masquerading as inspiration,
aimless winds as navigation, feigning at a reliable route past
oblivious contemporaries. Such starry-eyed idealism
drawn from a mode of transportation more likely
to make you (sea)sick and stranded than
marked for greatness.
Barnacle-slick, ships just sit
in port, bobbing on a prayer and desperation,
waiting for the right crew to give its aching hull meaning.
No,

be a spaceship.
cloak yourself in steel and ignite
with the apocalyptic fire of determination and pure logic.
Incineration as motivation, every move calculated
and yet cosmically ambitious, a routine
you could set your solar system to as you glow
through an orrery of accomplishments.
Every planet passed is a milestone reached, every nebula blessed
with your glide, something you can look back on and say
“been there, charted that.”
The continents are well and spoken for,
but your own universe
awaits to be seen anew.

Be a submarine—
Flip the script and dive
beneath those waves you’d so shallowly just skim, otherwise.
Pile on the pressure and laugh, compacted,
glad to stare darkness in the face
instead of be blinded by naïve light.
Reach out with methodical claws and feel
between the cold, the crushed, the mistakes
God sweeps under a rug of blood and dust.
There is ambition in descension, the confidence of being able
to face the worst of the world and arise, however hesitantly,
to a sun all others take for granted.

Be a fleet
of fighter jets, greater than the sum of your parts
as you dart, multimillion-dollar throwing stars, off
the glint of midmorning fog and into the obstacle
which keeps you from freedom. Could be a dictator,
could be a deadline or one more Dorito.
Discipline is too much to prop up alone,
because the mind and soul hold court at every instant
and a coup is always one what-if and maybe-later away.
Have your own back. Be your own wingman.
Attack distraction and ask it to thank you.

Christ, be a unicycle.
Deceptively static, idiosyncratic
in you how appear calm and collected
yet ever eager to impress. Entertainment
by mere existence, in all the right ways
and means. Lean forward, move
by impulse alone, and store your momentum
with ease upon arrival.
Success can be humble yet colorful, and there’s nothing more important
than balance.

Just don’t be a boat.
Slow, laden with cargo long since loaded, sagging
ashen casks stacked for reasons forgotten and customers unknown.
Creaking, weakened with the memories of those who rode before
as you slog through the surf, scurvy tickling your teeth
and compass needle spinning like a blender’s blades.
Whatever vehicle you please—you just need
to be strong, not soluble.
Precise, not placid.
Opportunity comes to those who make it sweat
at the sight of engines, angles, angry gears
hyperventilating into an industrial blur, not leisurely dreams
of a vessel lit by candlelight and complaints.
It’s always a new day’s dawn somewhere,
and you don’t want to be caught
floating in the middle of everywhere.

“Quarter” [25th Birthday/2016 Reflection Poem]

quarter

Money on my mind in more ways than one.

Happy New Year! Can’t be any less unhappy than the last year, some would argue… though I already made my balanced stance on that the other day. In any case, while 2016 was pretty solid for me personally, ups and downs bundling into one are a fact of life. Nowhere did that arise more prominently than with me turning 25 years old: the big quarter-century! (DOB: 11/04/1991. Only 90s kids will remember this.)

With that in mind, I promptly set about slowly reflecting–not on the past itself, but on how I was handling what that past meant for who I am and where I’m going. I’d aimed to finish this by 12/31/16, but I realized it was more about my time than the time. And as the holiday season officially waned and the workweek peeked back around the bend, I had a feeling–for better or worse–I would realize some more to say in the fresh light of 2017.

I did. What didn’t change, though, was the new perspective I’m grateful to have honed over these past couple of years in particular. Life is full of regret and want and uncertainty, sure… but we’re only human. And other humans can be here to help.

It’s making myself remember that last part–and what it means to stay confident in the face of time itself–that I hoped to capture here.

 

Quarter

1/16

One down,

three to grow.

 

A hoarder, I feel—

of lessons, stressors, and misadventures

unfit for mixed company.

Because the past is a dream come false:

Every day, we may as well be born anew,

and each second we live becomes another figment

in our children’s past.

 

So please, go easy.

This is my first time getting old,

and so I can’t help feeling like success

has an expiration date, and my hour to sour

is just around the cardboard bend.

You never know what’s the window

to when you’ll win, though.

I’d peer through, but it’s so hard to see

everything again;

to punch out the 2D screen of my memories incarnate

and beckon forth new avenues of inspiration from under the dust—

turn maybes to musts,

just decide instead of deify

my ambitions.

 

When I went home, my fear wasn’t that I didn’t belong there anymore,

it’s that I did.

And yet the posters stayed up,

pictures lingered in a padded hard drive,

and adding any new detail felt like fruitless betrayal:

The end of the world as we show it,

coming to terms with the fact that life is linear

but living hits every dimension.

I made the world

around me a story, immutable

after an arbitrary absence, as if

the repositioning of a picture, a sticker lifted, was going George Lucas—

a match dropped, to let scorch my origins for revisionist history.

 

Now, is writing the symptom or the cure?

Because I ask only that my fantasies be others’;

I want the worlds in my head not to wither,

whether they’re worth it or not—

a Wikipedia page people update, debate over

and over;

I need what I thought I was to survive

who nobody knows I am yet.

I may not be immortal, but

maybe I can be

part of forever.

 

Though, not all is lost.

I’ve improved, to be sure.

I don’t fetishize photocopies,

imprinting stencils of the hundred-and-one that got away

onto every –elle until I’m unable to feel

anything but myself.

I can’t carry a tune, but I won’t keep dragging ones behind me, either

(the kind of songs you don’t listen to

so much as use).

I see there’s a difference between what we want to hear

and what we want to know.

The perpetual emotion machine slows at last,

and I anticipate The Next:

What scents will I associate with where?

What tastes, textures, relevant where never before?

What beautiful threat will I one day want

to hide from?

Even pain can be promising if it’s a change of pace.

 

Until then, dressed to compress

my passions and predilections into the offtime

I can find, in this Art Deco ghetto—

I bide.

As soon as I wake, I check my phone

to see what’s broken

in the world.

As soon as I clock in, I’m already gone.

It’s not resignation if you never sign on.

 

1/8

In second grade,

when change meant nothing

and cheering was a bodily function,

I built a Lego spaceship:

A jagged prism of wings and plastic.

I thought it was so great, I didn’t want anyone

to take it, or break it.

So I secreted it, beneath a craft-supplies cabinet,

and went about my play.

 

I wonder, sometimes, back to it;

whenever I’m taking stock of what matters, what I’ve made.

Is it still there?

Against all odds, it’s not,

but I need that faith,

that privilege of infinity childhood provided.

That I can look back, kneel on primary tiles

in my designer slacks, and extract imagination.

Please don’t let it be just dust and rubber bands.

I’m made for more

than a pithy obituary in the local paper.

This won’t be how I go, much less how I come

to be remembered.

 

3/16

I sleepwalked, is all,

more than just after heavy dinners and big tests.

I didn’t realize it was on me to know this place

I got plopped into—not just putter through

like a Disney dark ride, every day-glo whoa

and manufactured satisfaction.

I thought it made me stable, but perhaps I can’t be any more

than the next schlub with a dream.

I just pray I’m not too late

 

to not just ask questions

but listen to the answers.

Where are my ancestors from?

What were the Fifties like?

Where did you buy that painting in the piano room,

the one that looks like Venice is burning

upon earth’s edge?

And so on, and on and on.

 

I only hope, in always pressing forward,

I didn’t become the caricature of cowardly indifference

in which I painted my past loves.

A tiny tombstone, an emoji-free text,

an oath to be taken between beats of an atrophying heart:

My world is dying, and I need someone alive

to smile when I wonder out loud.

Why won’t what passes for my soul suffice?

 

1/4

So take my hand—callous, callused,

knuckles busted from brick-wall punches

that were only mostly accidents.

Sell me on this life, on change

in the face of bills and sense.

 

I’m ready to give instead of take.

I’m ready to understand.

And to learn what to do

 

if that’s still not enough.

The Bar Prep Poems

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From a rainy day in Buffalo.

I return! While another hiatus from this blog pained me, it was necessary in various ways. First I was studying for the bar exam, then I was taking the bar exam (results pending, could go either way)… and then I spent two weeks abroad for the requisite “barcation”! A trip with family to England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland was just the (plane) ticket; every day was full of exciting moments and Instagram-worthy sights like this:

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A final night near Stratford-Upon-Avon.

But for better or worse, the first of those pictures is more relevant here. For the opening weeks of bar prep, I tried to keep to the Poem-of-the-Week schedule. Eventually, though, my free time didn’t allow for even that, and I was compelled to spend the majority of my time inside nearly all day, nose to the grindstone. Still, I managed to produce a handful of comparatively short poems over a month and a half. Some were, quite honestly, “filler,” but into others I poured with relieving clarity my frustrations about life changes, the prep process, and contemporary world events. For convenience’s sake, I’ve consolidated five of the best “bar prep poems” for this post.

[1] Days

Like a path from campus to a mountain

on the horizon, the only thing separating me

from the past is days.

 

You see me in scenes, a scrapbook clasped shut when backs turn,

but life isn’t a film that ends,

that eclipses with a resolution, then back

on the shelf next to a new time and place

and cast of characters to select,

bound together by glue or gigabytes.

There’s no dividing line between baby teeth and a jaw clenched mid-final

but the one burned by sunsets.

 

So in my head, ten thousand times laid to bed,

I’m still just the kindergartner puzzling over how to count change,

smashing controllers over bad videogames,

screaming atop the stairs when I don’t get my way.

I’m still only the middle-schooler who can’t talk to a crush,

who says gay to complain,

who bullies one boy and punches another sitting down.

I’m surviving high school as I write,

plowing into puberty like a retaining wall,

cradling a pillow when I skip out on the dance,

doodling a dozen would-be book ideas like a whip to ward off the lion of writing them.

Undergrad runs in the background of my mind like a bassline:

Trudging cool Seattle streets alone,

mouthing lines of plaintive pop songs into a smog-lit sky;

always tired, never satisfied.

Sandwiched across square miles

between interchangeable exchange students

and liberal arts darlings who think heartbreak perpetuates the patriarchy.

And higher education still echoes

with every lesson but the ones I paid 100k for:

Nobody actually cares what you do for fun.

If you think they’re too good to be true, you’re right.

Maturity is not taking breaks for weeks straight and still wanting more.

A beautiful view, but no perspective.

 

We can look down that path

and plan a hike.

Boots. Trail mix. A mortgage and diverse portfolio.

Contemplating the climb is tiring enough,

but History isn’t the mountain—

it’s the backpack.

The burden we shrug and slouch under,

of expectations, adulation, admonitions, prescriptions and proscriptions

spilling out of every pouch and zipper.

Every day, every name learned and forgotten,

every skill taught and taken away,

every to-do and what-if determined or discarded—

absent a crack to the head, it’s going nowhere.

Held hostage by memories, there’s no talking down

trying to measure up.

And looking up, to another sunrise

Past the peak,

 

we can shift our legs, try to redistribute the weight—but in vain.

The load only grows,

and this trip, in the end, is solo.

 

[2] Enough

It’s never quite.

Upper back ache, slumped over

the monitor, mind strays—

the key-jangle of studies to come

and Wikipedia search possibilities.

Snap to, for another MCQ,

only to drift again,

shift like the apartment foundation

on leather under summer heat summoning swampass—

as if there’s time for laundry.

 

Preview, view, review,

and still not comprehend it all.

Breaks bend, extend into building a bookshelf

or Swiffering the kitchen.

My mind is a ball on a slight slope, always

in need of nudging to keep it from rolling away.

But I can be distracted by distractions

or by the thought of them;

either way, progress gets put on hold.

 

Surely normal people pay more attention, I say.

Maybe.

Maybe I got this far on charm and chance, a roll of the loaded dice.

Maybe less disciplined parents would’ve put me on Ritalin since middle school.

It’d be cool, in a sense, to pretend my trials are extraordinary,

to install a glass ceiling for my work ethic

and laud those who run across it.

But I have everything I need,

 

for better or worse. The curse

of competence is discontent with just that.

Get a higher percentage. Run another drill.

Reread that sentence. Give me an example.

Every second, an opportunity

to move on, home in, bone up, flesh out,

and doubt, doubt, doubt.

If it turns out I fail, I know who to blame,

 

but it’s the same guy I’ll thank if I win,

until I reach another challenge again.

 

It’s the perfect cycle of panic, a silent fire alarm:

Everything will be okay

as long as I don’t think it will be.

Everything I try will suffice,

as long as I don’t think it’s enough.

 

[3] Catchup

There is confidence in when.

Consecrated delay, a prayer

for the future: another person, inverted

from this one: willing, able, stable.

The invisible blood blister of a torqued shoulderblade

rejuvenated to soft unobtrusiveness;

the paper-eyed dry gaze given a new coat

of sleep, to glaze over anew at the sight

of bullet points and blank lines to fill—

they’ll make more sense tomorrow.

 

Not postponed, just prejudged:

an assumption, wishful unthinking,

that this internet-addled eight-track mind

will digest it like fiber, when experience bangs on a sliding glass door,

mouthing in vain

to prepare for a restless nesting doll

of double-checks and jotted notes.

 

But it can’t all be blamed—we must maintain, whatever break it takes.

Vacuum judiciously. Clean the countertops. Do the dishes.

One wishes for a reason to season the day with chores,

those classic domestic dalliances,

and leave but a peppercorn of practice before bedtime.

All of the withdrawal from a sweaty slump before the computer,

none of the toothache-type guilt

from filling that gap with games.

 

I’ve seen this before,

the weekend’s allure. And sure,

it’s predictable, but that doesn’t mean it’s the same.

Variety is the prize we crank a crane to catch after work,

because that goal won’t come cheap.

But if I can give myself permission to take one evening off,

the rest don’t have to follow.

 

[4] 2016

I know how it feels.

The rush of division.

The high of mighty.

Every catastrophe erupts a pyramid in our midst, and we all tumble down the sides

to make a point with the pain still fresh.

No war without retort anymore,

no riot without secondhand rhetoric,

and the Conversation inflates hate and cowardice until ambiguity asphyxiates.

 

They can’t be blamed.

Terrorism is a natural disaster,

police racing headcases to see who can kill faster,

and so it’s satisfying to put on our passive war paint,

lament the end of humanity and order

from our middle-class palaces.

Pity is mechanical, the sickening cyclical,

as if God ever cared to let hashtags be prayers.

 

But there is peace

in the median, when mean is the mode.

It may not make a great thinkpiece, hitpiece, or placard

thrust aloft in the background of a montage

of martyrs and marauders,

but ambiguity is a luxury long lost.

We can say “ok.” Meh. Maybe. I can see that

both sides have a point, but I’ll sit this one out.

The world has always begged for salvation, sagged at its four corners.

I can all but guarantee the same souls who say “Silence is violence”

crank their earbuds when they pass a homeless person.

 

I understand.

It’s the fear—deep, a hard seed in a bitter fruit—

that the labels we claimed as our base are just ornaments.

That anyone can kiss, kill, donate, or decimate

in the name of a cause we wanted to die (for).

That all we thought was solid is air.

 

It scares us, and so we compare

and contrast: root out the True Scotsmen,

trumpet excuses and exceptions.

Better to err on the side of spiteful

than admit that behind every title,

every Twitter handle or burnished badge, is

a person. Private. Finite. Tired. Trying.

 

We’re lying

when we act like this is as bad as it gets

or as bad as it’s been.

We have the power now to be patient—

to toe the line, keep more than two sides in mind,

and check our facts.

 

I know.

It’s alright.

But this world can still make sense,

if you don’t force it to.

 

[5] I Earn

my inertness.

Tell myself the difference is in the buildup—

a prog rock prelude, not a poppy count-off.

But the end is the same

four chords.

See? Easy enough.

 

Such is hindsight. One’s mind

might perspire—mental hyperventilation—

knuckles digging into bunched-up sweats…

only to lift this skin out of bed and have nothing to hold onto

now that the trial is passed.

 

The perspective, reflected in an invisible thought bubble:

Anyone can play games all day, but I worked for it.

Sure, I can backslide

on diet and discipline,

but at least most folks’ to-do is my back-then.

Burdens buoy me; I tell myself

the effort was there. The obligation was a station

I sat down and refueled at;

not a brick wall I blew through—drive first, take painkillers later.

 

It’s a temperamental tightrope, this balance

between decompression and depression.

A flat affect could be calm or sloth, depending on the audience.

Good thing I’m getting better at social cameras,

though the blooper reel never closes.

 

Don’t tell me I don’t deserve this,

I insist. I could list

everything I went through to get here, but it’s self-imposed.

No more external than drug abuse or loose morals,

just the converse.

Gotta spend money to spend money.

And it’s funny:

 

The less I work, the less there is to work out.

Time decides our priorities for us,

so when I want to do nothing

that matters, the choice falls

to the black-lit sharpened strips of digital time.

 

Let them be

kind.

 

Poem of the Week: “Cornell Scraps”

Apologies for the lack of a poem last week! I had finals… and given the topic and scope of this piece, I decided it needed to wait a touch longer anyway.

Ever since high school, I’ve habitually taken notes. On what? Well… everything. Potential story ideas. Interesting quotes, overheard or imagined. Goofy puns or jokes. Rap lyrics. Concepts for inventions, videogames, and experimental art exhibits. 90% of the time, I have no idea what if any writing I’ll use them in. But, given the fleeting fallibility of memory, I’d always rather jot/type something down and never use it than forget it and be hard up for imagery or snappy dialogue later!

When I moved to Ithaca in 2013 for law school, I started a separate dedicated document just called “Life Scraps.” Later, I renamed it “Cornell Scraps.” Now, with graduation mere days away, I decided to really reflect on these random moments and musings for the first time. In so doing, I saw the potential for a substantial poem. And so, out of what I realized had become forty-odd pages of grievances, late-night confessionals, and idiosyncratic one-offs, I selected and abridged or expanded the most striking lines to produce this.

It’s long, disjointed, and may not make much sense, even by the end. But, for better or worse, that was the last three years!

3years

Three years of Ithaca being gorge-ous.

Cornell Scraps

 

I.

 

Outside my dorm window,

something chitters—cicada or sprinkler.

A bird call like a quick firework’s chirp.

An odor—either paint or rotten apples.

The common room, humid, smells of spirits, aflitter with tiny flies—

but at least they got the best Die Hards.

Cutlery comes and goes from the communal kitchen, like artifacts

passing through some high-tuition Bermuda Triangle.

 

At the dean’s home, a broken basketball backboard

heralds our class’s arrival at the drive.

Crickets congregate about white windowed reception tents,

drooping like jeans over hand-me-down dress shoes.

 

I’d moved in with optimistic discontent but,

walking ‘cross the gorge some evening next,

I felt a great emptiness within, as if

my life were a blurry eye, a voice gone hoarse mid-song,

as clouds closed over tentative night like a flowerbud.

And on weekdays, sudden bouts of belonging

fell swift to chronically displaced dissatisfaction.

I can’t stand Greek Row, but maybe I just lament not having a veranda

and roof to climb onto.

 

Mixer time. At the club,

the floor glows crime-scene UV;

it’s an arms race of debauchery,

and our livers are the battleground.

The nightly grind, never to mind by sunrise.

And that’s just the first week.

 

Fall’s descent brings sticky heat.

Thunder stutters, God

dragging a desk across concrete clouds.

Rain wreaks streaks, plasters the parking lots.

Inside sounds nice, but at a cramped laptop

my hopes are notes on a napkin, crumpled in anticipation

until the words blur to abstraction and all I have are withered strips

with no addressee.

 

Now, not saying class bored me, but I once wondered in one

what guy piled all that bread in a truck for the “We Can’t Stop” video.

Because my soundtrack is Skrillex and Joe Hisaishi,

for a romance with Holly Golightly meets the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,

dressed to the nine-point-fives by Hot Topic and Watson-Kennedy.

So I start to love going to sleep, because that’s the only time

I don’t dream. Rest unassured,

this head is not a pleasant place to be:

strung out on caffeine, blind ambition, and unrequited love,

my brain needs icing down.

I want to live life at the speed of verse—because of course

I would never kill myself. Not when this world still has synthpop,

Emma Watson, POG juice, butterflies,

and the tone it makes when you strike a tuning fork.

But with bedhead that’s passed “restless cop”

and “wacky high school sidekick” straight to “Goku,”

the rock-fountain trickle of my Brita refilling is a bit Sisyphean.

Life’s path feels like a backward shirt: it fits, but something’s off.

 

Winter waxes,

broken pie-crust tire treads in the snow,

and icicles dangle like fangs from parked cars.

Chinese takeout splays across the sidewalk like collapsed partygoers,

disgorging frozen neon pips.

Green signs glare down the halls: “QUIET: EXAMS IN PROGRESS.”

Still, I get to know a gal at the post office

through the letters I send and tees I test.

Granted, it didn’t last—like a bad twist ending,

she was out before a month.

But don’t worry, hon. Some day you will be in New York

and everything will be awesome.

 

Nevertheless, anger breaks in waves—a planned impulse

—and from the crest I see the smooth sailing of adolescence

giving way to rougher waters of adulthood.

Predator or prey, adaption matters, and this ecosystem is more concerned

with cardigans, judicial interns, and Friday night shots

than Spider-Man, postmodernism, and riffing on Xbox One.

And if the girls don’t have their nose up in the air, it’s down in a book.

Resistant, I might’ve cried my vice is beauty, but

after a brief reflection that turned into a soul-search,

contemplating complimenting the strikeouts with Your free time is a lucky guy,

I put passion on a pedestal so high I couldn’t even see it.

Like standing with my back to a chasm, I know

some comfort awaits, biding time in a peripheral vision,

but if I don’t turn and look then it can’t entrance me.

 

But now that backwards shirt is just outgrown,

because setting my own standards isn’t productive—

it’s a tarred-feather coat of doubtful guilt.

An apologist’s résumé: I may have a 3.49 GPA,

but I clean out the sink after I drain the pasta.

Planning exodus from the land of milk and honey

to the land of wine and awkward small talk.

Sometimes I say things just so they’ll die from exposure to air.

With every new social circle drawn, I promise

I won’t be the neurotic guy again,

but finals week makes liars of us all.

 

Body of a jock, brain of a geek, soul of a goth,

schedule of a preppie, dreams of a hippie—I got this.

In NYC, there’s a leaky halal truck towed ‘round the corner,

plastered with an ad for the Heathers musical,

and washed-out, outdated tabloids stock the sides of sidewalk kiosks.

Of my Manhattan Madame I’ve said enough, except that

I don’t mind putting things on the back burner

as long as they weren’t smoking hot.

Sharing sleep and little else, I think of stupid things

to untremble my muscles.

I think of running out of bed

and lying against the wall of the ground-floor grocery store in my boxers.

I think of punching a brick wall.

I think of riding a bike into a fence, rolling over, and playing dead.

It’s like attraction is a garage door opener: enough distance,

and the signal just stops working.

So I can’t wait to go back;

there’s nothing left for me here but one-way sexual tension and dog barks.

 

II.

 

A leaf drags down the street, as if pulled by invisible string from a car ahead.

Flow but no focus:

I still haven’t seen The Muppets Movie, I think

from the back of a reproductive rights panel.

Got a formal text tonight—better put on my dress grammar.

But first, I have to drain complacency like a wound.

All my flights of fancy are in a holding pattern, or grounded outright.

At least, I’ve lost the ability to tell

how much intimacy between my peers is tongue-in-cheek.

I tell myself I won’t live as a dependent clause,

but irony is gonna play hell on archaeologists.

I worry the Internet turns the world into a circle of paranoid, passive potheads

dreaming in dark rooms.

We are hot dog culture: gross and ground-up, but easy to digest.

I’ve got this game I play where I try to see

how many people on Facebook won’t talk to me.

It’s up in the dozens, and I feel like

earlier in life was the film, and now’s just weathering credits

‘til the reel runs out.

 

Going back to sleeping alone is like reverting to DVD from Blu-Ray.

My heart is an open offer

but my grudges have half-lives, and

there’s nothing less interesting than beautiful people complaining.

So it’s fun wondering what I’ll look back on as so simple about this,

especially when true love is like a UFO: you don’t hear about it as much

now that everyone’s got smartphones.

If only I, Inception-like, could just spontaneously be talking to someone.

Until then, I identify as Straight But Not Applying It.

 

All of my takes are double-takes;

I think I’m developing smirk lines

from parties (or, “going friend-fishing”).

I’d say I felt like an empty seat, but people sit by those.

 

Snow floats in whips and whirls, confetti in a quiet blender.

A girl argues with a guy on a porch overlooking a shore of Solo cups—

well-lit, dramatic,

a Disneyland dark-ride of campus life.

Me, moving on is Indy trying to swipe the idol: I gotta really think it over,

and if the replacement’s not the same weight, then bring on the emotional boulder.

So no, Buzzfeed, don’t tell me what my new favorite video is.

Don’t tell me who to hate.

Don’t tell me to nod politely at X times Y celebrity was more interesting than me.

This godlike technology is for education, entertainment—not building new wings

in my inferiority complex.

 

No, I want love like TV seasons.

Maybe it’s The Simpsons: on for decades, haters be damned.

Maybe it’s Firefly: a brilliant idea snuffed out in its prime.

Let’s make it a competition to see who can miss the other the most.

And hey, who do you think buys all those nightmares their daydream dresses?

At the least, someone in this subway, statistically, has to have nudes online.

 

Topside, sirens blurp like the Lord flicking water

beneath the trapezes of power lines.

I could admit I’m not confident, and you won’t mind

out loud—but the thought will still seep in, like a leaky pipe under an abandoned flat,

and I’m recycling-bound like To Current Resident.

If talk is cheap, then revenge fantasies are seashells and bottle caps,

so while I can’t act, I’m quite comfortable shouting in crowded rooms.

Trying to find the right song to unfriend old crushes to

while I move through Zeno’s Breakup:

Music for revoking any fucks previously given,

in tune with the phases of the mood.

Earbud cord peeks between my jeans and shirt like a spiritual insulin kit.

Balance doesn’t always mean staying in the middle;

it depends how heavy each side is.

 

Electric beats thumping out of a juice bar,

people staring at supercomputers,

glass skyscrapers soaring into the clouds…

Ever finally feel you’re living in the future?

Only this era, we’re building the meteor and bringing it down ourselves.

Everyone in my News Feed is closing deals, posing with koalas,

or bungee golfing in Antarctica, and I’m just taking a stroll, thinking

about how weird it is that Scooby-Doo had a laugh track.

 

My patience is the Earth’s crust: it’s thick, but crack it

and there’s nothing but ten thousand miles of fire.

I want to be a monitor, not a processor, never mind that

I once tried to avoid eye contact with a cardboard cutout.

Fluent in fantasy, my brain is a perpetual motion machine

that runs like The Hobbit: fast and distracting, but only ‘cause it’s closer to reality.

And yet my unfinished business as a ghost would probably just be watching

all the videos I bookmarked in undergrad and forgot about.

 

III.

 

The blood moon eclipse.

An aged penny if good,

a molding peach if bad.

Not even the cosmos gets me decisive.

I decided to make all the things I say worth saying

slowly, but I’m still making my goal a worst-case scenario.

 

Something went wrong, somewhere, in the past,

but it wasn’t just me.

Part me, part world, part my reaction to both.

Like short sheets trying to fit a frayed mattress:

pushing, pulling, coming off

at one corner for want of fitting another, never realizing

until I felt for its opposite and found it bare.

Or waking up to tatters beneath me, thinking it so secure the night before.

 

The rain was light yet thick, like falling mist,

suffusing streetlights with amber halos.

Another bar tab not bothered with.

They’re not even interesting assholes, they’re just boring assholes.

 

I lied when I said I’d rather die than do the same job forever,

I think. It just felt good to sound determined by choice for once,

because I need to make things—with my hands,

not my mouth and wallet.

And whether it’s an international bestseller

or the popsicle stick castle that went to shit in fourth grade,

it exists.

Substance.

Fighting back against entropy.

 

So what can you create today

that wasn’t there yesterday,

and that you’ll be proud of tomorrow?

Savoring the world is priceless like a funeral.

Good memory, bad memory—it’s still just a memory.

Not made but replayed,

and in three years,

I’ve repeated enough for a lifetime.

Poem of the Week: Telling Phone

I won’t waste space talking about how significant smartphones are in daily life now, for better or worse. However, with that prevalence, I’ve come to notice certain common signals and phrases they convey can signify much more. Amusing or compelling? You make the call (or text).

tellingphone

 

Telling Phone

Smartphones are the only removable organ

that isn’t vestigial.

We used to read.

We used to dream.

We used to think.

What happened?

Now we just stare

and type.

 

That’s how these poems go,

I suppose.

But technophobia tires.

In this new externalized mind, I find

the best reminders don’t give notifications.

 

Delete all future events.

Personal or professional—a cover closes.

The promise of occupation, docked;

a silent hand stretching into eternity, light-blue to-dos snuffed

like candles a continent away.

What we end today sends soft shockwaves to the future.

 

Ask to join networks.

A pale Post-It note to be known.

The numbers are right in your palm,

so text, message, address.

Put a tie on and try on your best hello,

portfolio in tow—no matter the passion.

Associate is an active verb.

 

Reset Statistics.

A penciled-in schedule of piano ballads,

clickbait binges, and narrowly missed conversations

can add up.

At the first toll, Pavlov’s dogged intent

to stay bent for fear of breaking

into normalcy or nihilism.

But stare down a mirror

and remaster the past,

and how much time you can still unwind will surprise you.

 

Recently Deleted.

Snapshots stockpiled to prove a point

since filed, away.

Desperate headshots, thought better of.

Some moments are paint splattered,

glass shattered: never undone.

But others linger: Bruises,

proving a date’s denouement,

a radical phase’s erasure.

A handheld closet, cleaned out,

still leaves boxes

to soften the edge of our breakthroughs.

 

Update Contacts.

Fetch New Data.

Every so often,

a closed door locks.

Identity’s lineup takes one step to the right

and we proceed: a childhood song forgotten;

certain birthdays unobserved.

Headspace echoes, but not for long.

Friend Requests accepted.

Photo Album uploaded.

Never stop learning, yearning,

and turning: a slow, mental metronome,

with work and worlds opposed.

 

Do Not Disturb.

Low Power Mode.

Everyone deserves a decompression session.

Shutter, blinds-like, the light of obligation

for a spell and a song.

Half-speed for a hoarse heart

and a brain like a PC in overdrive.

And when those windows chunk-chunk open again,

the breeze feels like progress.

Not every day can punch forward,

but some can always kick back.

 

Hide Traffic.
Use True North.

Focus.

I know it’s hard to find

a wall for your awards

when so many corners scream for attention.

The Nietzchean beauty of webcam celebrity,

of viral stars soon to supernova,

of girls with green hair and raccoon eyeshadow—

stare into the amiss long enough,

and a million-to-one shot comes off

as the best bet.

The prospect of apocalypse

from either side of the ozone;

tending to the ending but still paying rent on time.

A symphonic centrifuge

of changing tunes

that pushes away as it straddles you in place.

But you have the tools, if you want to

look for them.

Zoning out or in, paint that target

Day-Glo and go hunting.

If life is binary, divided

into an eternity of switches,

stay green.

The pressure’s necessary,

but it takes a thumbs-up

to power on.

 

Poem of the Week: Summertimes

Summer is getting close! That it’s a beautiful season (at least at my latitude) is a given; that it can be a state of mind is a cliché. Still, I combined both sentiments under the same confessional-meets-inspirational attitude I’ve approached the form with lately and produced what follows.

IMG_2719

Sunset across the Central Park Reservoir, 6/6/2015

Summertimes

If seasons are sentiments,

summer is nostalgia,

even when the memories aren’t ours.

 

Halloween heralds a dry spell,

the last vestige of sugared debauchery

and test-pattern provocation

before winterwear and wool hats

shelter spontaneity.

Not to dismiss Christmas,

but the chances we treasure were taken

outdoors.

Yet this side of the solstice,

it’s too hot to be insincere

in body or mind.

 

By morning, the smog’s a balm,

calmly salving skyscrapers

and alleyways in sleepy haze.

And, adulthood aside,

the city’s so pretty at night:

A leviathan Lite-Brite patchwork

that, tracing the seams by sidewalk or subway,

all but pushes you to take center manhole

and twirl mid-intersection,

taking in a panorama of possibilities,

unburdened by overcoats.

Karaoke. Barcades. Broadway. Stargazing.

Sweat sticks, prickles the scalp,

but anything’s ignorable when you’ve got one thing

to look forward to.

 

But one year, waking in single digits to blinding curtains,

packing week on week with tours and to-dos like a tight suitcase,

changing the bassline of every newfound tune into car horns,

verses to cursing,

the beat to forty thousand footsteps

never headed my direction,

I pined for

 

a pine forest

and cabin in foggy solitude.

The film-pitch future

a dozen Tumblrs promised us Millennials:

A little loft; bereft of box spring,

a mattress buttressed by boughs of Christmas lights

and a standing fan.

Hardback classics scatter ‘cross the shelves and hardwood

in improbable stacks.

A skylight, so glow-in-the-dark stars

can compete with the real ones.

And a throwback van, foldout couch its cargo,

to park and ponder in crystal-cool Vancouver,

the doors as wide as our minds.

 

We could swim

(of course there’s a lake adjacent),

shadows casting sky

on the water, swaying ‘round our ears like a flipped pillow

that relaxes the intermittent chitter of insects unseen

into a cool throb.

Like childhood just went on vacation

and came back with perfect clarity.

 

And, in abstract,

companionship.

A clammy collage of models and male entitlement.

I said I’d settle for a metalhead belle

with a key for a necklace, a nervous system

of mandalic tattoos, Chucks shoes,

a wardrobe full of flannel and beanies,

a septum piercing, hair down to her gauges,

and a look of withering eroticism that says

I have been around the block, boy,

and you are nothing special,

but if I offered to eat a whole pack of Air Heads and then make out,

she’d reply your favorite flavor first.

 

A closet quarter-life crisis.

Development not arrested but under surveillance,

we tell ourselves it could happen.

#LifeGoal. #RelationshipGoal. #Dream.

Pepperoni pizza and Netflix.

Soft-focus photography as a five-year plan,

if only we can finally get on that penny-farthing of conversation.

Can we go forward to the time when…

Ironic it’s the ambient heat and happiness

that out our ennui.

 

 

I writhed under deadlines,

dull stares, and thoughts of forever

at crowded post-semester pregames that left my skin singed

and tank tinged with scents of cannabis and flip-cup flecks.

Partying as pantomime.

When someone asked why I wasn’t more upbeat, I replied

I’m just a different kind of person.

 

Yet, waiting for the wind, I realized

caution can be thrown without it.

Looking back

over the fence, to that growing grass, I decided

I wasn’t buried but planted.

And now, sunglasses on, shorts at the ready,

three months can mean something

more than either amusement or acting it.

Some summers may be legendary,

others mundane,

but there’s no shade to take in desperation.

In flying to the future,

some baggage must stay at the gate.

 

So with the regrets, frets, and what-ifs left to bleach—

all things not considered—

I guess, if I could keep one memory

for when the sun is high and the sky is Kool-Aid blue,

 

It’d be the fire pits.

Campouts, as a kid.

The smells: the blackly savory taste

of a BBQ lit anew, the bellicose tang

of fallen fireworks across my grandparents’ lawn.

The give and pull of comfort,

brother and I racing around the flame to flee the breeze.

Family on mossy, knobby logs, monitoring impaled marshmallows

that’ll either alchemize to gold

or go up in the embers like the Terminator.

The greasy security of copious sunblock still intact:

Head, shoulders, shins and nose.

Two yellow jackets trying my patience in tides.

Smoke and bare knees.

Quiet. Close.

No worries except the Mario level I’m stuck on

and if I ate too many hot dogs.

 

A composite,

probably.

Selective reflection, a doctored Polaroid

in the corner of my mental mirror.

But one unhindered by trying

to right a wrong, race a clock,

or chase a secondhand fantasy.

And that’s warm enough for me.

Poem of the Week: “Home Less”

I went back home to Washington State for Spring Break, and… it didn’t feel like it used to. I’m still not sure if that’s a good or bad thing, but I thought I should “write it out.”

IMG_0777

Home Less

People speak of haunted houses,

but never the reverse.

 

We mistake it at first, home,

for the cabinets, countertops, and plastic toys.

That’s, after all, as far as our goals go,

as far as nimble legs can carry us:

to the playground,

TV room,

town bar.

Postcards, plaques, and photographs

hold fast the roof we sleep beneath—

hoarded mortar to the bricks.

All the world’s a game, and

you must be this tall to exit.

 

But over years,

under fees, degrees, double-digit birthday cakes,

expectations asphyxiate—comparisons oppress.

The mind moves but loops, running

not a marathon but a track:

Even if you notice a new patch of grass,

it’s still a circle.

 

And one day, returning turns nothing at all.

Through the front door,

and the past piles on, quarterback-like:

Memories of memories, of thoughtless acts

and thoughts never acted on.

The gravel avenue, the green, greener grass

remain unchanged,

yet the mailbox peels, the Jeep rusts,

and the dusty halls shine quieter.

Mirthful or mournful,

you can’t go back.

 

Every room is an interrogation room,

wrecked by recollections, recursion of diversions.

The bed’s a confessional,

coaxing midnight doubts and dreams

from uncanny comfort.

Bookshelves elevate what once mattered:

Piggy banks, cracked glasses, collector’s editions uncashed.

Half-sketches, bookmarks bisecting paperbacks,

beg questions:

When does a to-do become a once-was?

When does an ambition become an anecdote?

Branch out enough, and the limb will snap

at the base.

 

So it scares me, like a trust fall in transit,

that with so much behind, I don’t know where I’m headed.

Not depressed but compressed, lifted up

and weighed down at once

by the prospect of prospects.

 

Sure, stability is a privilege,

with a cap on laments.

Still, it’s unrelenting, this discontent

when the contents of my mind

mirror the zip code of my former universe.

A false sense of insecurity must come from somewhere.

 

 

When the beginning of your world starts feeling like its end,

the lucid dream becomes sleep paralysis—

a vacation becomes tourism through history.

There’s no cure for maturity,

but there is a placebo.

Just know

 

home is not a place

but a space, a radius

orbiting wherever we go—

satellites of plans, passions, and aspirations.

Home is not a building

filled with odds and ends and quiet blind spots.

It is building:

A life, a wife, a gig, something big,

or at least bigger than you were

the day before.

 

And until I lay those bricks—

wrap those drafts, earn that office,

let a ring follow a call for once—

there’s no place to rest.

But I’m fine being home less.

 

Poem of the Week: “See, I Can Do It Too”

This poem sat on my computer in various scraps for years. It started out bitter and detached but became inspirational… I think.

Maybe it’s still scraps. But I feel like it works.

See I Can Do it 2

See, I Can Do It Too

 

Beauty is a cold war

 

of cold creams and old dreams.

We’re in an arms race of allurement,

knee-deep in Vaseline and expectations,

dangling a lit match and whispering

you get indifferent first.

 

So no self-effacing, a selfie facing

those well-strung masks.

We can adopt Comedy, poise paralytic:

every post a pick-me-up,

every Snap a sell,

thumbs covering

the drunken nights and irreverent fetishes

so no one can confuse our appearance with our images.

Or, Tragic, revel in dishevelment,

photos filtered but cigarettes not,

for sadness the brand: Preaching peak minimum,

swaddled in ripped jeans, flannel,

and hashtag security blankets

knit in pocket supercomputers.

But either way,

 

fame is cheap.

 

Inflation does that.

It takes lots of work

to be concertedly ignored, or stir guilt

when glossed over.

Caked in Adobe clay, some wait

for the reblog of a lifetime,

the intentional accident,

the headshot launched, Voyager-like,

that’ll unlock their day job,

riding a stream of unconsciousness.

 

And the hope grows but flickers:

batting at shadows, Plato’s Allegory

of the gravely misjudged chances.

Freak flags lower to half mast.

 

But if the internet’s a big sweets machine,

I’d rather be a cake than a cog.

When it comes to popularity, I’m ashamed

to say I’m shameless—Better hell in the Top 40

than heaven with Pitchfork.

So I follow

models, vloggers, icons, artists,

and tell myself I’m a conscientious objectifier:

ready to Like unto others

as they Heart unto me.

 

But at the end of the day,

you’re still only ones and zeroes in my screens,

if not for minds then behinds,

set to amuse on the pot or the bus,

or when my desktop’s froze up,

en route to real life.

Pitch a show, rock a suit, tell a joke—

it’s all been done before,

there’s just quicker memes and more greenscreens now.

And it goes to show how

 

love is contagious,

 

not airborne.

The admiration to spur a fan page rampage;

to call a dox or charity drive with equal ease;

to lob a line or look into a crowd and have catchphrases

echo back at you like grenades full of validation.

And every comments section squabble, an exercise

in mutually assured instruction:

Pity or competition.

Learn your place or take his.

 

I’ve stared at UFOs less spellbound

than those accounts.

Beauty? Fame? Love?

What’s it take,

what strand to grasp

to untie this Gordian knot

or simply cut and run?

I could be you if I wanted to

the sloth’s refrain.

But the truth remains:

 

Bodies can be airbrushed,

voices autotuned,

words ghostwritten,

fashion provided,

and pasts smoothed over.

 

You’re known?

Good for you.

Address to the electric ether

or a mirror, depending

on my motivation.

Because I tell myself

 

it’s all about who you know.

 

Which means it’s all about who

you have the luck to be born of

 

or, just maybe,

the courage to call.

 

 

The Weekly Poem: “ISYMFS”

This is a poem ragging on someone I used to be.

Lifting Music

ISYMFS

Self-pity is exhausting.

Setting up. Dressing down.

Hitting the bench and feeling the burn

of bridges and bones,

red-browed, tearing up.

 

No shuffle mode. Workout routine is key.

Purposeful discontent.

Warm-up: five reps of Radiohead,

creeping through the fake plastic trees.

But we’re just getting started.

 

Ed Sheeran works the chest,

an Iron-Man core of sweat as you power through

the half-hics, clicks of exes’ Facebooks

and photo albums unmodified for years.

Upper back: Motion City Soundtrack,

shrugging at exaggerated inadequacy.

Rack it. Congrats.

Selective rejection sets a beat

to push through pain.

 

Take a break in-between exercises

and stare down the ceiling.

Plead and need and

listen enough, and Achievement Unlocked:

Everything You Deserve.

(At least, that’s the plan.)

 

Legs day takes determination,

bipolar but still the same bar.

Brow furrowed, striding uphill, across town,

head light from wistful intents and retroactive rebellion.

Make it a day to remember—

keep your hopes up high and your head down low.

 

Arms are Snow Patrol:

Balled fists at kisses missed

and arm tensed, “V” for vowing

it’ll never be as good as it was back then.

Crunches: hunching over the PC,

a knuckle-gut feeling as you surveil

the blips and tickers, traffic-like,

for a flirty PM or Verified retweet

suggesting there’s still a chance.

It takes a lot of activity

to be inactive.

 

And Coldplay? Creatine, the chaser

to an evening well-undone.

Don’t forget to stretch

with some neutral Top 40 tune.

It’s okay to go tired to bed,

just not breathless.

 

 

 

 

But, you know what?

 

The gains never come

and the wait never lightens.

Personal trainers are costly,

and spotters hard to come by.

 

So, I’m thinking,

if you try to raise your spirits and it breaks your back,

take some plates off already.

It’s less muscles to smile than frown,

goes the cliché, so hey—

why strain something?

 

Yeah, things not working out is a workout,

but it doesn’t have to be a burnout.

Motivation goes both ways, and so it’s high time

you scaled back—slowed up—

eased down the dumb bells

and said “what the hell,”

 

It’s still your set,

and I know you can lift less.