Episode 008: At War with the Nature of My Juice

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1. Pomegranate Juice

Sweet and sour. 
Puckered tongues and stained fingertips. 
I had a great line here, 
but I deleted it in revision. 
I tend to ramble, 
and I drop in images from things I've learned. 
And I've learned a lot. 
So much crime in the world today. 
Makes me want to hide under the covers. 
But you can't stay there, 
because you got shit to do. 
You brutalize the umami 
on my taste buds. 
I'm sucking down hydrogen monoxide 
to restore my sanity. 
Turned out. Dropped in. The state I'm in. 
California. 
He sighs loudly from his lips, 
and the halitosis is intense. 
I'm glad this doesn't apply to me, 
because I'd be freaking out right now. 
How much gas did I use to get here? 
And how do I get back? 
I'll never know when it ends. 
When the next door splinters 
in the hallway of my belligerent head. 
All I could think of the moment I moved in, 
is that I came full circle to my childhood. 
Front lawns with no grass, 
only broken cars. 
Margarita salt was the common candy 
on the playground. 
We didn't know any better. 
Margarita salt's pretty good on its own. 
McMansions filled my eyes for over a decade, 
but i felt safer buried in its conformity. 
A funny observation, 
because I never felt like that before.
Scrawny. 
Tall for an American born Asian. 
The only Filipino in every class I was in. 
I never culturally fit in 
with the Mexicans, Blacks, 
and the eventual white flight from the South Side. 
The dread of what I left behind 
so long ago returned. 
My car got broken into at Denny's. 
Stared at. 
Silently judged. 
Dismissed. 
I'm ready to go. 
I think I know what home is. 
I think. 
Cool guys walk away from explosions. 
Not me. 
I stare into the fire. 
Drawn to the heat. 
Like the spiders at the door to hell. 
I must be the only academic 
who hates statistics. 
Numbers bore me. 
Money is quantified by numbers, 
and I never have any. 
I've come full circle 
in two years. 
Where do I go from here? 
Writing poems 
looks like I'm taking notes. 
No shame. They don't know me. 
I can give anything to sleep right now. 
I haven't had a day off 
in over three weeks. 
I thrive on Red Bulls. 
Prayers. 
I sleep when I can get it. 
With my dog at my feet. 
He wakes up too easily. 
Bouncing like a butiki 
to rob me of my dreams. 
The Sandman works twice as hard 
when we snuggle. 
Twisted dreams 
peppered with Wilhelm screams.

2. The Transitory Nature of Self

It seems as though I am 
in a constant state of transition. 
People come, people go, 
but nothing ever really changes. 
Perpetual motion until a greater force 
propels me in another direction. 
I ache to find stability in earthquake-friendly regions. 
Why do I open myself to such heartache? 
I must have been a masochist in another time, another place
doomed to repeat 
the biological imperative of limbo, 
my karmic punishment for some unknown wrong. 
So, I'll continue to feel hopeful 
for something else.

3. always at war (with myself).

A constant battle to march 
to the beat of their drum. 
Fighting a noble war, the away team. 
Don't even know I am here. 
Things got to get better. 
Fall in line. 
March two, three, four. 
Don't cry your own tears (At night).
 Tried to play the game, lost the plot. 
Got up, lost the plot. 
Tried to make my world in my image. 
Lower the defense stat, 
for I am defeated. 
Take my pound of flesh. 
Ain't got no fight left. 
These war games 
forgot me how to dream.

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