Dear Girl I Talk To Daily,

Please never get naked in front of me. I fear I would not be able to take the sight. I have seen you only fully clothed, an archetype of perfection, stylistically speaking. Your oversized sweaters and button downs juxtaposed with your black tights and ankle-high boots, noir. Your body is a mystery to me, your frame a scientific anomaly, a perfect demonstration of human imperfection. Please never remove that sweater, lest I be subjected to your disastrously beautiful collarbone.

You removed your shoes in front of me once, and I almost cried. Your feet bare, your toes bearing marks of walking miles and standing in lines at concerts. Your heels were dry and raw, cracked skin forever ruining that part of your body for me. I pleaded with my eyes for you to never do such a thing again. I think you understood.

You must understand I mean no harm and I mean no disrespect. You make me feel exquisite, special, and controlled. Your body is perfectly imperfect in my head; please don’t let me see just how true that is.

Sincerely,
Your Best Friend Who Still Kinda Wants To Screw You

Vignette

July 30, 2012

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beauty calls

beauty called late last night,
she said she’d like a word,
i said that i didn’t have the time,
she answered, “how absurd!”
i told her to call back later,
that i was not in the mood,
but she refused to let up,
she exclaimed, “how rude!”
i fought with beauty,
as she tried to enter my dreary eyes,
i drew my curtains tightly shut,
but she still just tried and tried,
to enter my mind,
and cultivate a space,
but i flailed my arms,
avoiding her embrace.
she keeps calling and i say,
i have no room for her to stay,
she says that i lack a heart,
and to this i concur.
she asks why i avoid her so,
and to this i say, clear and plain,
without a quiver in my voice,
“with beauty there only comes pain.”

Poetry

July 17, 2012

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If you write in one genre,
I feel bad for you son,
I write in 99 genres,
And hip-hop is one.

Uncategorized

July 17, 2012

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Beetles

After he finished eating, he put his fork upon the table before him. His window was open. He could hear the children out in the schoolyard screaming high-pitched indiscernible curses and incantations at each other, scarcely pausing to breathe. The plate before him was hardly empty, but he could stomach no more. He was still wearing his suit from earlier that day. It was gray outside, cloudy, hopeless, damp. There were no lights on in his apartment and he felt as if his world had suddenly become desaturated of all color. He stood up, cup of water in hand. His shoes clicked noisily on the tile floor, which was white in stark contrast to his all black outfit. He looked out his open window down six floors below to the children running about in the schoolyard. He was not quite high enough for them to appear as ants. They, instead, appeared like beetles, their shiny coats peppered with an early rain and allowing them to stand out against the painted lines in the asphalt. He watched the children, not with envy, but with hope, hope that they would not ever have to feel the way he was feeling at that moment. After a few minutes, a woman wearing a black coat and gray scarf exited the school. She said something, the words only slightly echoing across the adjacent buildings and climbing upwards to his ears. He smiled at the sound. She must be their teacher. She was beautiful.

Earlier that week, Adrian propped his booted foot up onto the curb to retie the sullen and damp laces. It had rained on and off all day, steadily getting colder as if God was testing the patience of every ill-prepared oaf wishing to venture outdoors. Adrian looked at his other boot. Satisfied, he turned to Axl. Axl had hard eyes, as if he’d seen ten world wars in the span of just as many years. His body was skinny, but his bones big. He always had messy hair, thick like an overused paintbrush, and hostile in all directions. At just the right angle, his hair could eclipse the sky. Anyone who knew Axl knew he wouldn’t last too long. The bruises on his body spoke for that fact. The way he always flinched every time there was a loud sound, the way his eyes shifted when confronted with a crowd, and the way his fists clenched when he made eye contact with anyone all spoke of this fact. He didn’t trust people in suits, especially those who sat in cafes reading the newspaper and placing their briefcase in the chair across from them, as if they were meeting with a client. He didn’t trust war veterans, or people over the age of 40. He barely had what you’d call a family, and he barely spoke to anyone, even Adrian. That might be why they were perfect friends, taking walks across town when there was nothing else to do, meandering amongst the shells of buildings and fields of junk and rubble and pipe dreams and sardonic waste. They walked down the middle of dirt streets that used to be paved, occasionally looking over their shoulders like they were doing the inexcusable. They would leap up onto these piles of junk and enter the dilapidated buildings where sunlight scarcely sought pleasure, even in the highest afternoons. These adventures were often followed by falls and rolls in the dirt, muddy clothing and huddled laughter that escaped their lips like songs of victory. The food carts occupying the streets would sell beer by the bottle and sandwiches in pitas. The beer would somehow always be cold, even in the humidity and dankness of the air. The sandwiches were always hot, even if they were produced from the same cart the beer came from. Dirty cash was often used to exchange these goods and services. Other forms of payment sometimes went in the way of a shirt that could be parted with. The friends always walked home with cuts and bruises, swollen eyes and patchwork bandages like they’d been fighting a war with boredom. They were invincible, they were happy, they were free.

That’s why no one expected that day’s events. The possibility always existed, but it was often overlooked.

These ruins were beautiful, they both thought to themselves. The building had once been a university complex. Now it stood on weak foundations and sported meager remnants of a complex curtain wall system. Surprisingly, the front door still stood. It was wide open, clinging to its frame like a climber on the edge of a cliff: safe and steadfast but dangling. This was always the hardest time: the entrance. Once the threshold was passed, the building was theirs. They could walk upon piles of garbage, find items of value to sell to the neighborhood, climb stairs and visit rooms that were once beautiful, and shuffle through broken libraries with dusty books and tarnished computers. This building in particular was extremely high. The levels all stood and could support the weight of two grown boys as far as they could tell. There was an entire corner of the building missing, facing north towards the forest, a natural oasis where civilization didn’t exist and where pain scarcely reached one’s body. Axl wanted to go where the corner was missing. He thought the view would be perfect. He convinced Adrian that they could make it, that it would be worth the trouble. With a hesitant nod, Adrian and Axl started climbing a pile of rubble in the main atrium of the building. It had probably once opened up a view four floors high into a dome. The landings were still visible around the edges where one could look down at the people entering and exiting the building. At the top of the pile, there was an old, dead electrical cable dangling an arm’s length above their heads. Axl grabbed the cable and swung onto the nearest landing, one floor above ground level. Adrian followed suit, but only on relentless insistence from Axl. The two boys gingerly walked across the landing, placing their hands upon the walls for support. They reached a hallway and started walking more comfortably. They passed rooms littered with books and desks and teaching materials. They passed libraries with tarnished stack of manuscripts. They could tell this place was in the process of being cleaned out. It looked far too neat to have been recently bombarded and left to decay. An abandoned staircase was found by Axl, and the two tested its integrity step by step until they were four floors above the classrooms. It was at this height Axl estimated the level where the corner was blown off would be. When the two friends opened the door exiting the staircase, they were left in a corridor much like the one four floors below. However, unlike the corridor four floors below, this one had a beam of light shining distantly down the hallway, illuminating the dancing dust particles. Axl smiled and beckoned his friend after him, jogging slightly faster than Adrian found safe. He called for his friend to slow down, that the floor may not be as sturdy as the ones below. But before he could say anymore, the floor gave way beneath Axl’s feet. The boy fell down a considerable distance before his scream died abruptly in conjunction with a sickening thud. The floors below must not have been there, causing the fall to be tremendous. Adrian closed his eyes, tears forming and slipping down his cheek. He turned to the stairwell and walked down.

It was earlier that day in fact, that Adrian and Axl had seen a group of people shopping in the market about fifty feet below them. The hill they stood upon wasn’t the highest in the city, but it was a favorite of the two friends. Adrian looked at all of the people bustling about; narrowly missing each other as they hurriedly went about their errands.

“They look like ants,” Adrian said.

Axl laughed. “No man. They’re beetles. They look like beetles.”

Short Story

April 17, 2012

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This

This.

This.

This.

This, if for you.

This, is for me.

This is for us.

This is for those who aren’t here,

But still want a chance to watch and hear.

This is for the student, janitor, professor,

minimum wage worker and wanna-be snappy dresser,

This, is for the workaholic and failing business,

This is for the sinners who can’t confess

Because their crime, is that they’re too embarrassed.

This is for those who can’t stand up,

Literally, and figuratively.

This, is for the single mother and her child

This is for the stupid shit we think about before going to bed,

This is for the malnourished and underfed,

This is for the peaceful Palestinian warrior,

This is for their peaceful Israeli supporter,

This is for the struggles of the Arab Spring,

This is for the trouble oil brings

This is for the fight over Kashmir,

And for the lost souls of those we hold dear,

This is for the feeling you get when you read the news,

about murdered journalists, photographers and film crews.

This is for those who don’t feel safe in the neighborhoods they’re in,

This is for the Trayvon Martins,

and the Shaima Alawadi’s.

Because hoodie or hijab,

this has got to stop.

This if for the Tyler Clementi’s

And for the ignorance and hate of the Dharun Ravi’s

This is for those who don’t sign petitions but want to

This is for hearing explosions and having nowhere to run to

This is for the man who accepts bribes and severs ties with honesty.

This is for the rape victim

This is for the bruises on her body

This is for the hours she cries

This is for her feeling that I cannot describe.

This is my failure to empathize.

This is for the suicides,

This is for the homicides

And genocides and infanticides.

This is for the boy who makes a rape joke and doesn’t understand what he did wrong

This is for the one who makes a racist joke and tells his friends to “lighten up”

This is for those who use religion as a shield instead of a tool for peace

This is for unemployment and no heat

This is for those without books

This is for those who lack pens

This is for those who don’t take your depression seriously

This is for the criminals who walk free

And for their victims’ families who can scarcely breathe

This is for the non-profits

Who can’t fund their next project because of bureaucratic bullshit

This is for UNESCO,

This is for the prisoners in Guantanamo,

The youngest of whom is 13.

This is for those who, for crying out loud, can’t speak

This is for the orphans and the abandoned

This is for the child soldiers

This is for the apathy of humankind

This is for the first world not recognizing its brothers and sisters in the third world

This is for the insane, institutionalized, and wild

This is for the screaming mother with her head on the coffin of her child

This is for anyone who can’t honestly say, “I am free.”

This is for me

This is for you

This is for us

Poetry

March 26, 2012

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let’s get naked

i think all of life’s best things are done naked
you should try organizing all of your books,
naked
you should lie in bed reading a book,
naked
you should clean your bathroom right before you shower,
naked
so if you fall you can laugh in the dirt
you should party naked,
you should sleep naked,
you should make love naked (obviously)
and you should write naked, too.
but DO NOT cook naked…trust me!
i’d like to run a marathon naked
write a book naked
make a sculpture naked
go swimming naked
and they have a name for that
it’s called awesome!
so let’s get naked,
i said let’s get naked!
you can do it by yourself,
or with one person,
or with a group, whatever!
you can do it from the moment you wake up,
through the morning,
through the high-sunned afternoon,
into the dusk and evening,
and if you must leave the house,
throw on some oppressive garb,
and meander to your car, or job, or class, or yoga, etc.
i really don’t see the need for these expensive pieces of cloth that hinder us from our freedom.
they let david stand naked in florence
and no one complains.
i wish i could stand contraposto at my window,
naked
ya know, just to see if anyone notices
and my hope is,
that you will take this as a call to action,
start a faction of naked peoples,
who take sharpies and draw pretty tattoos on each other’s bodies,
and i know, i know, i know
our bodies are temples,
and our bodies are holy,
and our bodies are sacred,
but that’s the precise reason why i wrote this poem,
naked.

Uncategorized

March 19, 2012

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the dead friend*

last friday night,
we decided to have a séance at my friend richard’s house,
we were channelling the ghost of our good friend patrick.
who sadly left us last year when he was struck by a motor vehicle while attempting to cross the street.
the driver was not drunk, but she was on her cell phone.
so after the surprise and tears and hugs and regrets
we tried to fill that hole so gracelessly left in all of us.
we had parties and chanted his name,
and argued about who’s wedding he’d be the best man at,
we all took photos of him and placed them in our wallets,
slipped them in our back pockets and apologized every time we sat down.
so we sat down, last friday night at richard’s dining room table
holding hands and shutting our eyes.
letting rich’s shamen-psychic-psychotic aunt chant and summon the ghost of our good friend.
she’d ask if patrick was with us,
tell him to knock twice for yes and knock once for no.
and we all hoped he’d knock once because
well
patrick thought seances were bullshit.
patrick was the kind of guy who’d say,
“i don’t have time for superstitions, i’m too busy riding my bike.”
he wouldn’t read horoscopes or pass notes
or check facebook because he’d be too busy reading books.
he didn’t spend his life staring at screens he spent his life on them,
holding up signs and pledging for peace
making a difference one raised fist at a time.
like patrick always said, “take it with a grain of salt, it’ll taste better.”
so we tasted that seance.
and when patrick did not respond, we smiled
and took turns laughing out loud.
we went home and drank red wine and toasted to our dear friend
we asked, “do you miss us? knock twice for yes,
once for no.”

*not based on real persons*

Poetry, Uncategorized

March 19, 2012

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