Lunch Special: 

Sweet and Sour Wisdom served 

    hot or cold

         with your choice of 

Comedy, Tragedy, or Philosophy

try not to lose your agenda.

it will feel like you lost

your head.

the whole day will pass by you

like you're underwater, you're

swimming, swimming,

people are talking and their lips are moving,

but all you hear are distant gargles.

they're fish, but they don't know it.

you're a fish, and you're the only one

in the deep blue sea.

I found out something new today!

I have an ability,

An ability to be forgotten!

I can make a void in their memories,

And they'll forget all the good times we shared,

And everything we've ever done together.

What do you mean "no"?

Of course I have the ability to be forgotten!

People always say they remember me,

Or else why am I always left out or forgotten?

I was born into this world,

With an umbilical cord

Wrapped around my tiny neck.

So it's no surprise when I tried

To hang myself on the bedroom blinds,

Or when I tried to suffocate myself

With a plastic bag.

I was born suicidal.

I could eat the concrete

If I make one wrong swerve

But I feel

Dangerously free

Dangerously serene

Heat stabs my cheeks, radiates my veins

Pumps my heart

I join the wind

I am colored over like the sky

I see everything 

That man is like a god

just sitting near you listening

close to your voice—delirium—

your laughter dripping mercury

between my ribs and into

my kinetic heart. You turn

to me and I am god and

godless, full of words and

voiceless as my tongue dies and

lithe flame ignites beneath

my skin, consuming light and

sound from senseless

senses sweat erupts and

shivers grip my shoulders I

am paler than the palest grass

with swelling tiny deaths.

Sometimes I steal myself away

Retreat in thoughts of yesterday

Ignite the flame--control the spark

Rewrite, recast a different play.

The car is off, the street is dark

Lit homes reverberate a bark

From some kept dog in some backyard

Or maybe from a nearby park.

The autumn night is coming hard

On heels of sun's abandoned guard

The shiver outward, inward too

I turn the key, tear up the card.

Memories, frozen, always true

But the mind can heat, recast a few

Imagination is ever new.

Imagination is ever new.

Democracy Deferred

What happens to voters' voices that go unheard?

Do they fall flat

Like a forest that's now clear?

Or metastasize like a cancer--

And produce fear?

Do they reek of desperation?

Or appear illuminated--

like a constellation?

Maybe they just wax and wane

like the minds' of the insane.

Or do they reign?

Original Poem by Langston Hughes

Dream Deferred

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

Like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore--

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over--

like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags 

like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

drugs. 

chemicals.

a bunch of 

molecules 

stuck together.

changedme

savedme

mademe

whole.

i can't live

without it.

i don't want to live

without it.

will i ever live

without 

it.

family history

of addiction

drugsalcoholmoneysex

you name it!

we got it!

(let me just check

real quick

behind the counter)

the closet is full. 

we hide skeletons

under our feet. 

ignore the crunch

of glassy sadness.

Grief sits on my shoulder. a friend with a

familiar face.

i know you. 

he nods. entwines pieces of my ancestors

between my teeth.

under my tongue.

scatters the dust of

yesterday's mistakes

in my hair.

under my fingernails.

this legacy is

heavy

and dead.

like a corpse

tied to my ankles.