Awkward For anyone who has ever said something in mixed company that made the whole room fall silent: ... That queasy unease of not fitting, have not yet come to terms with strangeness. Alcohol distracting your self-consciousness until you drink yourself right out of the conversation. Awkward, teetering on the edge of creepy. I know this. I'm the best there is at what I do and what I do is very awkward. Give me a sentence and I will stumble over it. Put a beautiful woman in front of me and watch me stumble over her. Babble incoherently, like I am the kung-fu master of social faux-pas, the super-duper Shaolin monk of awkward. Take any moments you ever felt like you made a fool out of yourself tripping over the curb, the ill-advised drunk dial, the ever-popular (WHORE!) Freudian slip I have outdone you. I told one of my good friends I thought she was gelatinous. I think I meant bootilicious, I meant it, as a compliment, it didn't come out that way. This is my life. Once, I got a dragged to a party by a girl who in the past, I thought I was in love with. Did not want to go. Disappointed in myself for falling into old patterns I faked small talk for two hours, tried desperately to find a way to escape. Suddenly there I was, full-on panic attack in the middle of a room full of strangers. Once, my skull split on concrete Maybe my split skull split personalities because the other one Who speaks in whispers of contempt Started to get a lot louder it said “They will never understand you, these people. Do not trust their humanity it is flawed.” The fear of ever having to explain makes me pull away, become quiet, Suspicion is a wall I put around my emotions so no one will be let too far in. I push against that wall. Smack my head into it even as I feel the brick split my skin. Bleed, go vulnerable, make the awkward charming. The thing that makes the girls giggle. Feel its shoulders ease Make it swagger, yeah. Command, the awkward, own this moment, own that shit , like this is who I am and motherfucker what? This moment right here? This is your redemption, This is your revival This is your release This is... (gyah noise x2)

Nerd Love I want a nerd girl I want glasses taped together at the middle love I want superhero on your t-shirt love I want messy, smelly, nervous, awkward flop sweat kind of love I want a girl who can dirty talk in Elvish I want a girl who when she angry screams Khaaaaan! I want a girl who during an orgasm sometimes screams Khaaaan! I want 12-sided die used as anal beads kind of love Okay... maybe that one’s a too much But see I want a girl who understands that comic reading time and watching BSG Are things you do in silence But watching Holy Grail or The Big Lebowski are things you do screaming at the screen The kind of girl who understands that role-playing is something you do with cards and computer games As well as in the bedroom You think you know kinky We will watch Anime then Cosplay on some Blue Angel shit I want a nerd girl who talks about her action figure and vintage Star Wars memorabilia and then stays up late to watch Adult Swim while we cuddle on the couch A girl who measures the milestones in her life with episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer But fuck Buffy I want a Willow Seasons 1-3 Willow If you actually get that reference I will propose marriage to you right now I want a girl who shouts the lines to my poems back to me when I forget them on stage see this is not just about being a nerd this is about devotion Wrap me in your geekiness Show me the depth of your awkwardness And insecurities We’ll dive in Wholeheartedly, together And when we climb back out We’ll make a stop at the backs of my retinas So you can see how beautiful you look through my eyes We will dance Even when we know people are laughing at us Fuck it, because we know people are laughing at us Getting funky fresh with our spastic selves This Is nerd love And when they see our unabashed joy In who we are And how strong we can be together They will be dumbstruck with fear When they realize how hollow their own love is Compared to ours Because only people like you and me know how hard it was just to find each other We will show them, What real love Looks like

Next Gen We say nerd, make obscure pop culture references. The audience smiles because they identify. They laugh, and sometimes we are not sure if it’s with us or at us. The revolution already happened and it was on every movie screen in the country written in box office receipts. It’s Big Bang theory, it’s Family Guy, it’s South Park, it’s Adult Swim, it’s Cartoon Network. But they never ask why. Since humor is our greatest weapon, the easiest defense mechanism, we made jokes to preempt the ones made at our expense. We were never comfortable here, in this world maybe that’s why we spend so much of our lives in others. For my part, The Crow and Gwen Stacy are how I learned to process grief. Peter Parker and Matt Murdock helped me cope with bullies. Green Lantern taught me about the power of will, how every emotion exists in its own wavelength of light and has own power and consequences, kind of like life. Strangers in Paradise taught me about love and friendship. I spent a long time thinking I was David to someone’s Katchoo. Spent even longer being the Katchoo to other people's Davids. Didn't realize I was actually Francine, I've been Francine this whole time. I don’t really care if you get that last part It was comic books that taught me to be more human. But this is just my story and it’s been told before Superheroes may give us something to aspire to, but everything in our lives has become so commercialized, compartmentalized and processed that we are all mutants now. We don’t like telling this story. For some people the word nerd became synonymous with white. So being a nerd became trying to be white. Or nerd became another code word for gay, because it was better to say you were a nerd, than it was to say you were gay. They don’t like hearing this story. So talk about how you like Star Trek again. Make them laugh again. Do a little dance, they like the dance. Leave out the part about Uhura and Kirk being first interracial kiss on television. Forget Ton Stark’s alcoholism, Speedy’s drug addiction, and don’t even mention lesbian Willow. Don’t tell them we escape into fantasy worlds because they still beat the shit out us in bathrooms in the real world. Tell them this is Next Generation and we are all nerds now, that this is a whole new kind of pride poem. This is the remix of the original OG (Old Geek) So hell yeah I am that nerd, these are the things I love, and I don’t care if you get it. This is no longer about being a nerd. This is how we be human.

40 Nerd Letters Dear Boba, I still think of you Dear Heroes, When your second season sucked, I walked away haven't looked back Dear Hermione, You're just too young Dear Shatner, I said horrible things about you Your hair is fine It's your acting I can't stand Dear Zelda, Thank you for the fun times For every thumb blister Dear Willow, I love you, simple But only seasons 1-3 Dear Jar Jar, The nightmares stopped eventually Dear Dude, There will never be enough white russians for me to just abide Dear Rob Liefield, I did read your comics all of them Dear Donkey Kong, I will never stop looking up for barrels ready to run Dear Daredevil, I'll always love you You are all there ever was Dear Michael Bay, It was no one movie your everything is impossible Dear Xander, We are mirrored nerds we will battle this to the end Dear Boba, I still think of you Dear Lexx, I love you, simple discovering you on late night sci-fi channel was a delicious accident Dear Green Lantern, Your power ring came too late I was already in the other room with Daredevil Dear Smallville, No Dear Attack of the Clones, I thought you'd be too shitty They said go anyway they are fools Dear Eliza Dushku, You are the definition of unrequited Dear Nerd Girl, I'm sorry about the whiskey and the tampon I'm sorry I can't stop calling you Dear Monty Python, As soon as you made me smile I was yours Dear Preacher, I liked the book too much Is the movie still happening? Dear Batman and Robin, You were my biggest mistake I'm sure that makes the DVD sales all the more sinister Dear 6 of 9, As you spouted Borg rhetoric I imagined you and me in Pan Far Dear Karen, I'd of swallowed that billy club just like I did the betrayal in "Born Again" I still think of you as Miller's Dear Peter, They say a man never forgets his first redhead how easily time flies Dear Boba, I still think of you Dear Veronica Mars, I'd of broken you in half Dear Cris, I'm sorry I stalked you I'd try to forget me too Dear Transformers, I can't be with you again just accept it Dear Dr. Who, No I can't watch you die again Dear Joss, I wrote a poem about you No one really read it I think its stupid Dear Life-size Darth Vader Statue, I finally stopped wanting you Dear Last Dragon, I was drunk um... actually that's it Dear Des, Maybe it was the Superman t-shirt or the fact you were awkward too You were the first time I learned nerd fantasy girls can come to life Maybe you're still a nerd Call me Dear nerd girl at Nationals, I was your biggest mistake Dear Terry Moore, You are more than Strangers in Paradise more than I could ever put in a poem Dear Boba, I still think of you Dear Boba, I keep pictures of your first action figure in a box each one, in its original package

Battle Cry for the Skinny Fat Guy Oh ye of skinny arms and skinny legs But protruding belly Lo, I sing to you of the skinny fat guy Oh ye paunchy brethren Know that when you order the extra cheese I am with you Know that your indulgences are not evil That you too are sexy Praise be to the women who have love for love handles Gaze Gaze into my cheese gut Be not afraid Tis better to find joy in life To love thy self Than waste away spending hours at the gym And to all the washboard abs of the world The shirtless sweat hogs I drum my belly in defiance, and because I find it soothing And I stand here before you happy and unashamed To tell you That while you’re at the gym I am at the bar, on the beach, and at the poetry slam Talking to your girlfriend Being more emotionally available then you will ever be We are the brave of belly fat We are the heroes of happy hour The cuddling corpulent The soldiers of second helpings We are the freemasons of foodbabies We are the Monday night midnight ice cream sandwich We are smarter than you Will love harder than you Because we had to work so much harder to get there Beware washboards Because paunchy Is coming out Punching!

Play with My Hair I leaned my head onto her shoulder, and she caressed my hair I said, “Don’t do that” “And by don’t do that, I mean, do it again” “But don’t do that” “And by that I mean, do it over and over again” But don’t do it again Because that’s just another thing I won’t get to have tomorrow Another thing we won’t do for each other In the mornings we won’t have together When I was younger, I kept it short because it was easier to manage Still do And also so during sparring matches in Karate I wouldn’t overheat under my headgear Look around, most of us fighters have short hair So no can grab it Use it as an easy way to manipulate your head But your soft caress, fingers running through scalp That’s a much different sensation A different way of manipulating the head Fingers reaching deep into genetic simian memory Social grooming only seems a cruel term when you don’t understand what it really is This is how we build intimacy, family, community, still This is what your mother did to comfort you when you were a child This is what helped you sleep This is what we would have laughed about while dancing The “ow my eye” when you whip around to fast Nuzzling the back of your head while spooning in bed Is really sweet until someone can’t breathe The tiny hairs in the small places that stand up to soft touch Breath, kisses Tracing lines with fingers to learn contours, rhythms This is you build foundations How “someone I’m seeing” becomes “my girlfriend” This where comfort becomes intimacy Where intimacy becomes love This is the scent that blindsides you some idle Sunday morning When you slip on a t-shirt she borrowed when she stayed overnight Never comes out your sheets no matter how many times you wash them This is what you implied when you played with my hair So don’t do that And by do that I mean do it again But don’t do that Unless you intend to do it again And again And again

Dear Nameless You are every girl I have ever had a crush on And there have been, way too many of you Because I can crush so easily Have a weakness for a pretty face and weird quirks A sucker For those little moments The way you once ran your fingers through my hair I didn’t tell you that that time you borrowed my pen And wrote on your hand I liked the idea that you were using my ink on your skin The way we squeeze a little too hard when we hug Hold on too long That time we walked Arms around each other To the train station I would have kissed you Gone home in your arms If not for your drunk co-worker You are the pieces that creep into my dreams Make me able to get through work the next day You are also three years I wasted not noticing others Because I was convinced I was in love with you You are not the same girl each time And this feeling Only lingers so long So if are even remotely interested You better be obvious about it now Because I’m no good with subtle clues And if you are out there wondering whether this letter is about you The answer is yes And also no There is reason it is addressed to “Nameless” If I wanted it to be to you I would have used your name You, are an apology for every could have been Which is to say You also are Julia The only one whose name I am brave enough to say aloud As it is almost certain I will never see you again I sorry you were not the one I know it isn’t fair when I call on you Do not know where your tolerance for it still comes from Do not understand, the continued kindness I do not deserve it There is no rhyme this time And I hide the photograph angel Bury it somewhere in my subconscious Where I can pretend to forget where I put it But in my weaker moments There you are Hovering Like all those photographs I can’t bear to part with Maybe things would be different if we met now Instead of then We could forget all the reasons we could, should, not be together Pretend the word impossible means possible Love, like every never, is now Then I remember how unfair that would be Place you in the box under the bed Where I put all the regrets I prefer not to think about

4 Stages in a Doomed Relationship 1 Initiation In the past, there was a lot of not you in my life so it was easier to not think of you constantly. There were whole days you weren't here at all. Now, there's a lot less not you. In an effort to not think about you I've been thinking about you a lot The other day a friend pointed out I mentioned your name six times in twenty minutes. All I could think was: ”Daaaamn!” I'm in trouble. I know this story. Know exactly where it ends. Know too well my tendency towards self-sabotage It doesn’t matter. I sleep in spurts now. I don't trust this feeling. I've been here before. It's a lie. 2 Infatuation There is a creepy sense of romanticism here. 3 The Semblance of Love She are smile thrown backward against the sky Schoolyard butterflies made out of flames, fluttering up to my chest Every time I hold her hand Her voice a steady rise of warmth through my whole body Scent on the bed the sense memory that spells out the words: “Home,” every time. Body where I still believe God exists. Like it’s the last place he cared enough to show off, every inch a testament to faith in sacred ground. Tucked under the covers holding tight to each other like if we squeeze hard enough we can become one person. There is no place, more peaceful than these moments I think this is all we get, what’s left behind when everything else turns to dust. We are eagles with wings outstretched gliding on updrafts of each other’s empty spaces. Talons clasped together and spiraling. We never notice the ground is coming up fast. 4 The Inevitable I try not to think about it. Know enough to know when there's too much back-story, too much history to deal with. I can't compete with that, shouldn't have to. You are here (heart). This is all the guidance you should have needed. Find myself trying too hard to look happy, trying too hard to smile I swear every time I see someone who looks like you from the back, a little burning sensation lodges itself in the chunk if my heart where you used to live. I don't think I was ever in love with you. That doesn't stop you from invading parts of my subconscious I thought were finally safe. There will always be a piece of that still belongs to you. Women can smell the desperation on me. Feel the cold of your ghostly shadow when I hold them. But I still hope one of them can patch the hole you left fill it up with all this not you I’ve been missing.

Lost Girls Quartet: Wendy, 25-years-old Dear Peter, It was never like this with you. Never knew I would grow to be this. To be where thimble kisses have no place. I now have hips and breasts, have kissed and been kissed and licked and sucked and so many more things in so many places you have never known. I taught you things Peter. I have never stopped teaching. Lost boys become lost men and I have so much more to show you now. I now own the window you once flew into. I own the whole damn estate. I own my life. That’s not to say that there haven’t been downsides. Menstruation can be a pain. I suspect this alone would make someone like you never want to leave childhood, but in truth with all your magic you were never the strongest of us. That was Tinkerbell. Then there is the hoot and holler of the men my age. They can be aggressive when they are drunk. But I know how to take care of myself, being with you taught me that. When one tried to take what would normally be given I told him: “Motherfucker, I’ve fought pirates with hook hands That drunk frat boy stuff don’t mean shit to me” and then I dropkicked him in the face. But Peter, sexuality is a gift. Responsibility is not as dire as you made it out to be. Getting older can be beautiful. You should see my parents now. The way my mother kisses my father softly, sweetly, every night before she goes to bed. The way they have grown weird together, stopped caring what everyone else thinks of them. They are like children again. I think you really love someone when you can't wait to be old with them. I want to be old with you. Peter life is magnificent. Please, leave your Neverland behind. You are missing all of this. Tinkerbell Writes Her Only - and Final - Love Letter to Peter Pan Dear Peter, I loved you once. I don’t know if you ever knew that. I loved Wendy too. The depth of my love knows no gender. No restriction of monogamy. Peter, I was the one who told her to leave. I told her things I never told you. Taught her things you would not believe. If only you would have bothered to ask. You always thought I was mute you silly boy. She needed to leave Peter. Just as I need to stop being your little fantasy girl. Do you have any clue how long fairies live? I’ve been alive for centuries. These eyes have seen empires come and go. The things we could have done together. Have you ever seen a fairy orgasm? It’s like a sunburst. Peter, there have been t-shirts made of my image. I am an icon. You are an afterthought. You have no magic without me and I have been protecting you for years. There is no fairy dust left here for you. No happy thought will save you now. They are coming for you Peter. I hope you have learned to run. Dorothy Gale 3AM Hollywood Boulevard My whole life I have only ever loved three men. I know that must seem hard to believe after all these years, but it’s true. Though I have known straw men, men whose insides I splintered and left crumbled and broken on the floor, who I burned to cinders. It is true I miss them most of all. And what of tin men? Those cold metal-suited men who watch this sing and dance. Who might have rusted under my wet. I suspect not one of them ever found a heart. There have been so many cowardly lions. Scared little boys hiding in men’s clothing, there have been legion, and so many types besides. There have been poppies to help me sleep, and a whole multi-colored plethora of horses and drinks. I have been to all sides of the rainbow now. Auntie Em passed the spring I turned 18. I left Kansas for LA when Toto died two months later. Spent the first few months searching for traces of my two absent parents. I lost my virginity to a 26-year-old bartender on New Year’s Eve. That was over 15 years ago. I now own 13 pairs of ruby slippers. No matter how many times I click my heels I never seem to get home. I am writing this on a bar napkin. Drank too many martinis and have no yellow brick road to lead me home to my studio in the Valley. Eventually some cowardly lion will offer me a ride home. I will wake up in an unfamiliar room in the morning. I will repeat this the next day and the next day. I am well paid for this song and dance I do but I am tired. I never thought I would miss Kansas as much as I do in this moment. Never thought I would ever say those words again yet here I am chanting them like a mantra: There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home. There’s no place like... Alice at 50 Writes to her Old Friend Cheshire I started to agree with the people who tell me it never happened. I think it’s easier that way. They say story, adolescent fantasy, drug-induced frenzy hallucination. Your floating grin, no body, no face, just eyes and teeth, substitution for some face I’ve not allowed myself to see. Years of therapy tell me you are some sort of coping mechanism, the caterpillar a metaphor for some childhood trauma, a giant smoking phallic symbol. The mad-hatter is a drunk father, a overly touchy-feely neighbor. The looking-glass some sort of body acceptance metaphor. The jabberwocky the horror in my own reflection, all different faces for something they tell me I refuse to face. They say all the drink me, eat me should have clued me in. They don’t know. There is no metaphor here, no coping mechanism, nothing funny in my father’s tea and cake, no pedophilic neighbor. I am not in denial about anything. I was there. You know Cheshire, they never believe you. I have a daughter. Since having her I have learned I am not mad, not crazy. They have simply forgotten how to be children. Forgotten a story can exist simply for the sake of its own wonder. Her father only stayed until I told him. He took her from me when she started to tell the stories too. They tell me you are not real. That this cold grey I have known for so long is the real world. That this loneliness is of my own doing, but my child was the only thing I ever created as beautiful as the Wonderland I once knew and she was taken from me. So tell me how is this world, better than yours? At least there, they only ever wanted to take my head. In Wonderland, I was confused, maybe frightened at times, but never broken. They tell me I am broken Cheshire. The white rabbit has been dead for so long now. The last time I saw him alive his watch had cracked. He was crying Cheshire. Knew he had somewhere to be but had no sense of when he needed to be there, whether he had gone there already. He reminded me so much of my father then. They tell me he was. That I should stop hiding behind the stories, to grow up, but this adult world is so ugly. I miss your smile. I miss my friends. The rabbit hole is gone now, or lost, I only know I can’t find it. So I started digging. I buried the white rabbit in the yard. There are so many things buried here. I am falling now. I’ve been falling for so long. I know eventually I will stop. I know I am coming home.

Kingpin 1 “Benjamin Franklin is cold” Benjamin Franklin is on the hundred dollar bill An amount I have never seen in real life I name my pet mouse Benjamin Franklin The spinning of his exercise wheel a squeaky lullaby singing me to sleep I am awakened only by my father’s footsteps as he comes home from his second shift of the day Each step a slow tired crash of lead on wooden floorboards When I leave for school the next morning He is passed out on the couch Mom and dad fight about the usual Money, rent, food Mom screams, then dad screams When he can take it no longer Dad storms out His footsteps make the house tremble He seems a giant to me The worst is when something gets switched off This time, it is the heat Benjamin Franklin is not moving He is frozen stiff 2 “I make a friend of horror” At school, there screams and taunts They call me “fatty” At some point after the tears have begun to soak into the collar of my shirt I fight back I turn my size from something of ridicule to a tool of intimidation After beating my tormentors I get a reputation Smaller kids give me their lunch money as “protection fees” I isolate myself for hours in the library Learning from the mistakes of the past I study war Nietzsche, Sun Tzu, Napoleon, Macarthur, Musashi Learn the language of manipulation I develop vision, principles of leadership “I divide vision into tactics and strategy.” Fists pounding faces until blood spills Maimed limbs, snapped vertebrae Concrete tied to legs thrown in the river These are tactics “Luck is opportunity meeting preparedness” Always practicing and training Building influence Leading by example Embracing horror more than any of your enemies This is strategy I shave my head because a lice infestation in the neighborhood “It adds to the impact of my presence so I leave it that way” A union man gives me fifteen dollars to start a fire A maintenance man gets in the way He goes up too I am twelve years old 3 “I am a magician. I know how to make things disappear. Evidence. My past. People.” 4 “A man without hope, is a man without fear” Heroes are only as good as they are useful A worthy opponent sharpens your skills All heroes must fall We love the fall Build men up just high enough to knock them down Everyone wears masks, has secrets Sides of themselves they hide from others Everyone has confidants, friends, and lovers Every secret has a price I once bought all of one man’s secrets From a former lover turned junkie who needed a fix Junkies are very useful I ruined the same man’s best friend Made him question his faith I use agents whenever possible I met a man named Lester who was good with projectiles Never missed There was another named Mary Had multiple personalities Many of them were very useful The insane have many uses To kill the friend To kill the lover Twice, I did not even need to ask Take the hero’s hope from him A man without fear is easily broken 5 “We created Kingpins” It is your fault It started with Prohibition Post WWI an entire empire built from a single law Bugsy Segal, “Lucky” Luciano, Myer Lansky In the Depression, it was nickel and dime gambling Economic hardship breeds desperation Desperation leads to violence There has always been crime It’s just human nature But you wanted me Needed me I built your cities The infrastructure that keeps them going You made me Idolized me Romanticized me I am Fisk, Scarface, and Soprano I am Capone, Gotti, Amin, I am your pusher, dealer, and supplier Your drugs, your weapons I am your political ideology, your religion I am the secret history of genocide lurking just under the surface I am whatever you need your villain to be I am your Kingpin

In Memorial For Michael, Shannon, George, and Kieth 1 Michael, last in the line of God’s smiting fist It seems you were not with us long enough for people to understand That you drew so much more than just a bunch of pretty pictures Even though, that is probably what you’ll be remembered for Still drawing through cancer-induced bone marrow hell and making it seem easy In your absence we will all sharpen our pencils and strive to be better 2 Shannon, the day I heard I was at a poetry slam It felt like someone had ripped my heart out and stomped on it Could not breathe for 3 minutes, did not want to perform Could only remember the only words I ever said to you: “Beautiful, in every possible sense of the word, beautiful” It is the only epitaph I can offer Only 20 years old, God, what the hell were you thinking? “Beautiful, in every sense of the word...” 3 George, if you don’t understand why this man was a poet Than honestly, we don’t need to be talking to each other In my home “Brain Droppings” and “Napalm and Silly Putty”, were referred to as “the Good Books” All our lives, as performers, we live with the eternal frustration: “Carlin, already did it” We will never forget the Good Words, all 7 of them The holy hymn of the foulmouthed troublemakers of the world Say ‘em with me if you know ‘em: Shit Piss Fuck Cunt Cocksucker Motherfucker Tits 4 Kieth, you didn’t know Kieth Unless you paid real close attention Blink and you’ll miss them roles in Drop Dead Fred and the Royal Tanenbaums Kieth was an actor, a neighbor, and a family friend Lovingly tending to the garden outside our building Purple violets and smile creating a small oasis of beauty in a desert of cold brick and mortar A good feeling in a city to often bereft of them These are the types of everyday constants you grew up with Never expecting one day you would be blindsided while riding the elevator By the fact that you will never experience these things again A comic cover, a poem, a good joke, a smile and a waive They are such small moments The weight of them is so heavy they make the words on this page, seem like a bullshit coping mechanism Cursing ourselves, because this is the best we can do to honor all this love There is light in those moments There is love in these memories That will not die For Michael, for Shannon, for George, and for Kieth This poem is our promise, that we will never stop loving for you

Speaking in Tongues They call it speaking tongues Before there was language there was the beat in cloud claps and stuttergasps our eyes and tongues fluttering like moth wings hypnotized by the light. this is never going to make sense I don’t expect you to understand just feel where I’m coming from feel it ya’ll we’re all struggling to conceptualize this confusion but our language is too limited Asking questions like: Why are we here? George Carlin says: “Plastic, assholes.” Stephen Hawking tells us: philosophy is dead My dad thinks we evolved from when the aliens jettisoned their space toilets. Which makes us all space shit. Like it’s all one big practical joke and God can’t stop laughing He wants us to laugh too ‘cause that’s the fastest way to get to love A language spoken in the vibration of heartstrings It comes out in the moments we still feel like children playing with our toys imagination the fastest way to someplace better Our brains are still trying form this feeling into words but when its gets to our lips there are translation errors Frustrated with these limitations I took to turning the ring on my finger hoping my belief in it would give it power It’s no different than you wearing a cross, a yarmulke Carrying a Koran in your pocket I want to learn sign language Breakdance, hip roll, salsa swing better so I can relearn how to speak clearly with my body know it will never be enough Something more is happening here The perilous line between idea and ideology has left us all running on autopilot babbling in sound bites turned faith into dogmas and religion ricocheting quotations off holy books into the brains of people voices trembling in song and psalm desperate for something, anything an answer When we think we’ve learned the sound of His song we get into wars with anyone who sings different because we’re not evolved enough yet to be comfortable in our own skins Stuck in our mental tidal wave the undertow pulling is out We can feel it now Terrified to let go Dance, sing, love, speak to God or gods It doesn’t matter what you believe if you’re an evangelical, agnostic, or atheist, so long as the belief is true to you. But I don’t want to preach to you because that’s how the repressed, speak to the desperate, just ask any fundamentalist. But the Promised Land is the place where we come back ourselves, own our stories, speak the rhythm, the song and the tongue.

Reflections of Darkness (II) It is a sunny day in 1957, Helmut Gunther invited my father, an army private of 19 to his home for dinner Upon first impression, Helmut’s life was the model of 1950s suburban Americana Beautiful wife, house, two kids and white picket fence Helmut Gunther, picture of the post-war experience Helmut Gunther, proud former member of the Waffen S.S. Nice, safe ex-Nazi How does a teenage mind conceive such contradictions? The good man he met, versus the evil he committed Decades later, as Alzheimer’s slowly steals other memories My father remembers with distinct clarity the disconnect What the author Hannah Arendt called “the fearsome, word-and-thought-defying banality of evil” Only last year, a man my age whose name I will never know Woke up in the morning, ate a bowl of cereal washed his clothes for the last time He listens to music In this moment he and I are not so different We both go to the window Remember times when things seemed different Before mortar shells and gun blasts Stole our childhood Both wish we were faster than bullets But where I pulled away from my faith He went headlong inward Never made it back out Homemade dynamite strapped to his stomach A rational response to the years of horror clawing at his heart The next life promising something better I ate cheese Watched on the news when you took twenty people with you When I go, I’m only taking memories Maybe some cheese These stories are not unique We turned our heads on Darfur and Wounded Knee Forgot Japanese internment Feigned shock at Abu Grahib and Guantanamo We have already done the same to Haiti, to BP, to LaVena Johnson I guarantee we will do the same to Troy Davis The list will only get longer Selective memory is an opiate Collective attention span only as long as the next cable news cycle The half-life of each atrocity getting shorter as it ticks away at the bottom of the screen And it is so easy to assign blame Demonize faceless men so we can delude the one in the mirror Religion has taught us that the solution is to deny, repress Deny, repress So easy to lie to ourselves Darkness is ordinary It is everyday A neighbor inviting an army private to dinner A boy in a small Middle-Eastern village, or small town America Is me At the window Thinking of bullets Fists clenched Eyes squeezed shut Holding

The Apparatus is Damaged (Ask me) Most of the time, I am a walking contradiction The bits and pieces you most often see are the easy parts. But then there are the other parts, they come in the post-accident whispers between dream and memory, The apparatus is damaged, so ask me. Ask me about my childhood look up the word hero see a picture of my mom. Who taught high school English in the South Bronx for longer than many of you have been alive, and raised two kids on a NYC public school teacher’s salary. Ask me about my nice guy status. My disconcerting habit of falling for girls, who prefer girls but aren’t ready to commit to that yet and for some reason need my help to get there. Like the girl who I took on a three day out-of- town trip, would not let me touch her the whole time we were there then told me she masturbated while I was in the shower. Not as a come on, but because she thought that telling me that would be funny. Yeah, I get the crazy ones too. Ask me about my days in junior high school 3 years of pent up rage manifested into crying the first time I beat down someone who teased me. That I sometimes let people have cheap shots on me rather than fight them because I lack an “off switch.” Ask me what bullet wounds look like. How heavy a friend’s gun can feel when you hold the backpack that hides it. Ask me about faith, God, and angels What I know... Is that there are things about me you would be better off not knowing. A history of bits and pieces and lost days I’ve seen a lot done in a name of faith and God. The way a face looks after being pounded into pavement even after the person stops breathing. About the gurgling sound someone makes when they are stabbed in the throat. The way bloods squirts out of man’s thigh after being hit with a pick-axe, as he screams the words “answer me” to his God, over and over again. To stand there and do nothing because you were told: “Don’t get in involved” The way the “angels” can look a lot like you and me after they fall. You can ask me where the stories end, and my life begins, but after head smack blood on concrete that line is a little fuzzy. I may never know the truth about everything that has happened to me. Maybe that’s why I can remember lines from other people’s poems better than I can memorize my own because internalizing these pieces of me and exposing them to you without fear is something I struggle with everyday. So I say things like “beautiful”, “amazing,” and “the apparatus is damaged’ because “I love you,” “brain damage,” and “psychosis” are too terrifying but I’m trying. I’m trying to build something here I don’t what it is yet. I hope to God it still looks like me when it’s finished.