Janie pushes the metal book cart back into its parking space in the Document Delivery Department of the St. Louis Public Library and hangs the last sticky note for October 30, 2012 on the wall by the head of the department’s closed door. She retightens her brown scarf under her chin, tucking the wispy hairs above her ears back into hiding. Having your hair begin to prematurely gray as a teenager has dramatic effects on a person. Her mother wore scarves around her wrists when Janie was growing up and when Janie begin to wear scarves to conceal her salt-and-pepper hair, her mother just smiled. The clock hanging on the wall above the children’s section reads 11:28pm.
Two more minutes.
She reorganized the pens and books on her desk and set the box reading NOTES onto the right corner or her desk with three blue pens and a stack of note cards. Her coworkers learned fast that Janie does not like to talk. She does not like eye contact. She loves the silence, and never ever to ask her about her hair. Her manager gave her the NOTES box after about a month of horrible miscommunication and everyday it fills with requests for books or tasks that Janie has to complete. She completes the tasks one by one, alone, in her back office in the Reference Department and hangs the completed sticky notes on the wall by her manager’s door. She works the night shift and locks the library up every night. When she’s alone she can talk out loud to herself and those are the only voices she cares to hear.
“Goodnight, books. Good night, rooms.” Janie shut the heavy wooden door to the library, placed the color-coded keys in the front right pocket of her jacket, and began her walk to the bus stop one corner away. She avoids the main road, taking her first right onto a side street that she knows would spit her out right beside the bus stop.
“Goodnight Taco Bell Sign. Goodnight Rite-Aide. Goodnight Westside Apartments. Goodnight Jack-o-Lantern smile.” She stopped in the middle of the alley and peered up at the Jack-o-Lantern grinning down at her from the third story window above. “Mother wouldn’t’ve liked your smirk, Jack. She would’ve slapped that **** right off your face.” Janie, satisfied the pumpkin was put in its rightful place, smiled as she trotted on.
“Mother carved smiles into her arms and that’s why Daddy left, it is, it is.” She kicked at a crushed Mountain Dew can as she remembered that night from years ago.

“Mommy?” Janie pushed opened the door to her mother’s bedroom and saw the moving-boxes torn open and all their contents scattered across the floor. She tiptoed through piles of scarves and silverware and corkscrews until she reached the bathroom in her mom’s room.
“Come to us like rain, oh lord, come and stay and sting a while more, oh lord…” her mother’s voice was slipping off the tiled bathroom walls. Janie pushed open the door and saw the blood for the first time pouring from her mother’s wrist. Her mother was naked and perched on the bathroom sink, singing to a red razor blade.
“Mommy?”
“GET OUT!” Her mother jumped from the counter and perched on all fours on the floor. She began to growl and speak in a voice too deep to be coming from her own throat.
“Mommy! It’s Janie!” She began to cry as her mother, still naked and bleeding, twisted and writhed onto her back and began to crawl towards the door that Janie hid behind.


“Thirty-Three percent, dear. Just a thirty-three percent chance.” She shivered trying to clear the last memory of her mother with the words that all the shrinks had echoed to her over the years. “Schizophrenia is directly related to genetics, little is known about the type of Schizophrenia mother was diagnosed with except that it is definitely passed on genetically. But, there is only a thirty-three percent chance you could have it, dear. Thirty-three percent.” The sound of the bus stop ahead reminds her it is time to be silent again.
“Disorganized Schizophrenia.” She mouthed to herself as she stepped back out onto the busy street from her alleyway. She tightened her scarf and saw the bus pull into the pickup spot. She walked forward to the bus, again immersed in her self-imposed silence.
Stepping out of the February cold, Janie removes her wool scarf as the bus doors close behind her.
“Where to baby?” The driver smiles a sticky smile. Her nametag reads, “Shannon” and has a decaying Hello-Kitty sticker in the bottom left corner.
“The Clinton Street drop.” She hands the driver her $2.50 fare and avoids the woman’s questioning eyes. The night drivers are always more talkative, curious.
“Your ticket hon.” She tears Janie a ticket stub. “Everything is pretty dead this late, I’ll have you there in ten minutes top.”
Janie begins to shuffle towards the seats, ignoring the woman.
“You mind if I crank up the music?” The bus driver asks, purple fingernails scratching in her thick blonde hair. “I need to keep my eyes open and blood flowing and music is my fire of choice you know?”
“Sure.” Janie shrugs her bag onto her shoulder and walks on before the woman can say anything else.
“Route E-2, homebound.” Shannon’s voice crackles over the loudspeaker.
She shuffles down the bus towards her usual seat; second from the back right side.  Shannon starts the bus rolling before she reaches her seat and Janie can hear her singing along to “Summertime” by Janis Joplin. The bus floor, today, is sticky because of the morning rain. Two years of riding public transportation has taught Janie that staring at the floor as she walks to her seat is better than the risk of making eye contact. The bus is usually empty this late but if there ever happens to be anyone else on, it’s better not to converse. Safer that way.
She plops into her seat filling the indention that ghosts of past passengers left. The seat is still warm and Janie squirms around until the stranger heat is forgotten. She tightens her scarf and sighs. The brown pleather seatback in front of her is peeling towards the top. Janie leans forward and idly picks at the scab-like dangles of brown as she watches the sodden city canvas roll past her out the foggy window. As she picks, the hole grows. She twists and digs her unpainted nails into the seat until her hands feel wet, warm. Looking down, they are covered in blood and mud.
“What. The. Actual. ****.” she whispers, wiping her hands on her pants leg. She cautiously picks off another piece of pleather and a trickle of deep red begins to run from the seat back, clumps of mud now falling onto her knees. A puddle of blood and mire splatter down her legs and pool around her feet as she picks at the seat. Her white tights are definitely beyond saving now, so she digs faster until her thumbnail catches on something, bends back, and cracks. She gasps and withdraws her shaking hand, watching her own blood mix with the clotting muck in the seat, half of her thumbnail completely stripped off.
Looking around, all else seems normal. The driver is now muttering along to some banter by Kanye West, completely unaware of Janie’s predicament. She closes her eyes.
This is a dream, this is a dream, wake the **** up.
She opens her eyes to see the pool of filth around her feet trickling towards the front of the bus. Panic sets in with a whisper, They’re going to think it was you, your fault, you’ll be thrown in jail.
“But I didn’t do this.” She lashes out to herself. “I didn’t hurt anyone.”
Next stop, E-2. Shannon blares on the intercom.
“It’s just a dream, get your **** together, Janie.” She laughs at herself, manic.
Prove it! Her subconscious screams.
Convinced to end this moment she has to continue; Janie plunges her hand into the pleather grave one more time. Frantic and confused she laughs as she digs, spittle of muck splashing on her bus window.
Faster, faster, faster.
Deeper, deeper, deeper.
Realer, realer, real.
Wake up, now!
Then, as the bus slows, one last chuck of mud splatters to the floor and Janie sees a pink piece of her thumbnail stabbed into the white of a bone in the bottom of the seatback pit. Her white Ked’s were becoming so red they were almost black. She pulls her knees up to her chest and begins to rock back and forth. Clenching shut her eyes she begins to hum. Janie’s sweet soprano harmonizes with the buses deep droning purr, their wet melody interweaving with the driver’s alto and Lil Wayne’s screech made her feel dizzy as the bus turned right.
She take my money when I'm in need
Yeah she's a trifling friend indeed
Oh she's a gold digger way over town
That dig's on me
The bus slows to a stop and the bass is shaking. Janie is cold. She slowly peeks out of her right eye, expecting to be instantly immersed into the same dismal scene. The seatback is whole again. Releasing her knees, her feet fall back to the floor and her shaking fingers stroke the solid pleather.

“Ma’am? We’re at the Clinton Drop.”
Janie hurriedly picks up her bag and flees down the aisle to the bus doors.
“Everything alright, dear?” The bus driver asks, smiling.
“Fine, just fine.”
“You be safe out there tonight. The night is dark and only ghouls stroll the streets this late.”  Shannon laughed as Janie’s jaw dropped. “Happy Halloween, dear. It’s midnight, today is October 31st.”
The bus doors opened and a cold wind ****** the warm bot-air surrounding Janie into the streets. She begrudgingly followed, her mind spinning as she stepped onto the pavement. The doors slammed behind her and she turned to see Shannon pull out a tube of lipstick and smear it, red, across her cracked lips. Shannon made a duck-face in the mirror and reached down to crank up the music as loud as it would go. The bus exhaled and rolled forward, leaving Janie behind as it splashed through the potholes.
She surveys the surrounding midnight gloom and the street is quiet and dark. Even the stars are hidden behind swirling clouds. She begins to hum, hands in her pocket, and shuffle towards her apartment.
“Goodnight, stars. Goodnight, street.”
As she approaches her single-bedroom apartment, digging through her coat pocket for her keys, her thumb pulsates. She grasps the keys and pulls them out as she steps up to the apartment. Sticking the cold, silver key in the lock she looks down at her thumb and in the shadows of the porch sees half of the nail completely missing. She laughs as she pushes the door open to her bare apartment, light flooding out. Without any hesitation she closes the door behind her, sheds her clothes, and slips onto the mattress in the corner of the room gripping her thumb tight. She reaches out for the glass of milk on the floor beside her bed from the morning and it’s still cold. Nursing the milk, surrounded by blankets and solitude, she reminds herself,  “Only a thirty-three percent chance. A nice, small, round number. Small.”  
She sets down the empty glass and curls into the fetal position under the heavy blankets, pointer finger tracing circles on her thumb. Only when she has heated her blanket cocoon enough to feel safe does she remove her scarf and allow her thick white hair to fall around her face.
“Goodnight, room. Goodnight, mother,”

Walking and saying
Things our wellbeing
The soul needing love possessions
Have absolutely no meaning

Playing and praying
Overstaying and Under-paying
Rising sun and Symphonic searching

" Is this the way it is?" Tis the season

But the tightness no business like
searching business
  She is combined and mixed like a song
fully lined both with keynotes somehow
we declined
The feeling that you cannot breathe
or  trust both of us
 we can  bearly **** it all in
My music playing just click my belt buckle
Will start to begin

The soul is not a crime or just a rhyme
I barely cannot breathe
I am in a chuckle, you see his
smile raising up his dimple

Ms. Thumbelina cobblestone
narrow-minded street your
in the tightrope symphonic beat

But its dark outside your ringlets
Waved him on got excitedly mesmerized
His Goblet of wine she curls up in
his body heat brilliantly dazzled
The sky to your dreams he is
reaching your
soft side skin
whats actually within
our souls

So  hooked into your ride not to slide
better grades and goals
The awesomeness symphonic hatter
Victorian divineness
Her paper cut out hearts as real
as they come
The Eastside Symphonic tip of his
Heavenly Bliss private Quarters
What becomes of the broken hearted
Heads or dimes not landing on her stone
Floor heart
The Duke of all trades of the hat he's smart

Cool running ******
Addictions to the mind so fanatic
What a good soul sometimes
He overexaggerates about
love and fate darkness drives him demonic
What are you kidding me
She doesn't rest her heart on his
soul for the burning desires of food
for thought
She keeps piling his poems like any sport
He's her everything she learns to be taught

Searching lips pricing
Red bloodshot eyes of crying onions
She is so fierce controlling
Musically like a Tiger roaring
He is like a design of graphics tattoo
The earring piecing the sweetest taboo

More soul searching
She's the snake purse
to his snake eyes fancy,
he took a ride
Upper-false teeth
The upper west side
have some prideThe dark side
became her thing
The wildflower not to stand to
bloom and bang like her band

Westside sounds came deep
his pride and joy like a parade
and wickedly dark his charade

It was  sneaking up on her backside
And the other side was just hiding
and smiling
She definitely saw the light lamp post how
the smells came stronger the darkness of desire
she was famished not to have vanished

Feeling like a *** roast love continued
She had a gift for her lover, not the
toast who would brag to boost
Two ****** British what
divine glasses at a cost
The symphonic soul
captured them like the
Dark-Knight of words
Symphonic sounds came
hearing names
soulful hummingbirds buzz-net

And there weren't any more
words there was silence
Eating shepherds pie table was set

Taking over another soul that's a lie
just like magic searching for a love
so long ago became tragic
You need more perseverance
Her true love gave her
an incredible sixth sense
of deliverance
The top seat at the concert
classical wicked taste of music
candescent erotically sonic

She had this certain quality
He was a symphonic love bounty
Her lips moved so fitting fantastically
The flower shops caught her eye
She couldn't sense what was real or a lie
The fast pace of the people all worked up.
What a soulful smell music sounds
she faintly known

To her ear wanted to hear only him shown

Besides the faintly illuminated
shapes evergreens were
heartily trimmed
She stood out bright as the ground
She was turning gray losing reality
not to be found or heard
So soulful her lips speak
she was walking with her head up
in the air fancy dancey
How those men could speak.
You could smell all the ethnic
flavors of foods
She felt the search for something
of a Saint, she was trying to
hard to be good
What a Haydn, his wife
was the mad hair driving

Miss Daisy soul of hers crazy curled
inside her book
She's the lady-like curler
How he played through her hair
Hunchback of Notre Dame who was to blame?
How his eyes wondered playing
and observing
But she was holding his stare

like a womanizer and his eyes flew
what a haunting moon
But Samatha the harp shady tree
He said, my fair lady,
He's stringing something together

What! creepypasta but sometimes her powers were weak
The symphonic love potent every other week

Some Gothic man symphonic music started
Playing Rossini Opera he could stand on his head.
She was pinned to his eyes
Pinterest such interest
she was all bloomed like a fly

By witches, flower came he passed her and he knew exactly who she was as is but wait not his?
The pleading the beg humbug far from her tunes of the ladybug

Razzamatazz all body of Jazz jitterbug
He winked she-devil
summoned him on
What a binding spell
She wiped the sweat off her face
She was beautiful with pale
porcelain skin
So alluring walking
with her parasol

I face the neighborhood that took
My mother's life,
The same one that I watched turn
Many cousins into ****** addicts,
I burn but I am not consumed:

I write the pain on a slab of Jade
Watching a fleet of dead roll by,
The names will stand among the tombstones
While in mute heavily grieving the nocturnal,
I am filled with the eternal present.
      The memory is a flame
      On open wounds,
      I am thirsty,
      But there is no water......

Time has done its hardest on me,
My blood courses more deliberate,
My teeth at a grind,
I want to fling all the bullets back,
Take the knife from Victor,
Out of his animal belly,
Out of his organism belly,
His human belly;
Life is an ancient gesture
And the hood is the very survival
Of those unfit for society's expectations.

I am Westside,
And I am still here writing
Away all that was taken,
The words plunge itself like
The needle I took from my arm,
A perfect drug that never quits you
And courses inward only to grow.

I am Westside and I am still here,
I am Westside and I still cry,
All the pain I drink with beer,
I push a fight and try,

I am Westside,
Glory in the hood,
It wasn't the best side,
But I always knew where I stood,

And still I carry on.

Take a ride with me,
Give me your ear, your eyes;
Like stellar days of old,
I will tell no lies.

     You see my days weren't complicated,
When the rivers ran red,
    It was a bullet or the money,
Family gotta stay fed.

Your silent gestures cannot fathom
What was my everyday,
Like the hardened hollows of my soul,
I took my gun to the park to play.

    This was my life
From my chest into these words,
    Every link in the chain,
I am tied down by haunted verbs.

  Kindle old fires
And set your daily a blaze,
I survived with deep wounds,
   To the past I am a slave.

Give me my homiez,
All dead and gone,
Give a sip of that Henny,
I'll drip some on the lawn.

  This is me,
Just an old ****,
I'll remember the tombstones,
On bent knee I the marble a hug.

Today I am whipped
Among all the sorrows,
But being a survivor
Give me hope for all the tomorrows.

The westside,
Like a weary night *****,
No coming back, no coming back,
I can't take no more.....

Pick out a casket
And don't remember my name,
Anonymous me,
A Dedpoet who carried the blame.

To whoever he chooses to love next,
Hold onto him tightly.
Play with his hair,
Fall in love with his dog.
Let him fall asleep on your chest,
Even if you realize the t.v. remote is out of reach and you're stuck watching reruns of old shows.

Learn to at least give a shot to his interests,
If you don't share all of them.
Magic, music, and dnd are his biggest hobbies,
I can't tell you whether or not boy scouts will continue to consume a good chunk of his life,
But if you've the chance, go watch this areas Mic-o-say tribe dance.

Love him with every bone in your body,
And hold him when he cries.
Shush him gently,
Remind him that no matter what his anxiety twists up,
He will eventually be okay.
Remind him that his loved ones are always with him.

Go and listen to him play or sing whenever you can,
Support him at as many competitions and concerts and shows as possible.
Never let his love for music fade away.

Bond with him over it,
Discuss a plan for switching off radio privileges.
Sing with him in the car,
Because even if you think you sound like trash,
Chances are he'll give you constructive criticism while reminding you that even with a mishap,
You will always sound beautiful to him. In tune or not.

Take him on adventures,
But also spend a good amount of time at home-
He's a taurus, after all.

If you go to his moms facebook page,
And even a few of the youth leaders, if you ever meet them at Westside,
You can find adorable pictures of him growing up.

Truth be told, he'll probably someday mention how he used to have braces.
It's not that important of a piece of information,
But it's something to look forward to in those younger pictures.
They made him seem extra nerdy,
In a really cute way.

Again, I remind you, love him.
Love him with absolutely everything and then some.
Love him even if he ever yells at you about not opening up if you have troubles with it,
Love him if he rushes over to you if he has the chance if you're feeling too unsteady on your own.

Let him hold you while you cry,
Teach him what calms you down while you're in the right headspace and he will always remember.
He used to tap my hand in 4/4 time so I could sync my breathing,
Just as an example.

Let him remind you that he's probably a bit more stubborn than you think,
Because even if he's going through hell,
If he truly loves you he will do anything he can to avoid hurting you,
Until the avoidance hurts you more than anything.

But I warn you,
Don't believe all of his promises.
If he says he wants to be there forever-
Unless he's graduated college and is finally settled down in his job field,
Don't fully believe it.

He means no harm by it, but when it comes to love like this he is so young and unexperienced.
If you can, guide him along.

If you, by some strange existance of happening,
Come across this,
And you think I'm just someone crazy…

I was, in his own words, his first real relationship.
And for me, he was the first boy I ever trusted fully,
Outside of my best friend, Kyle.
He was the first boy I truly ever fell deep in love with.

I have learned all of this from seven months,
Seven months of us clicking like puzzle pieces until it all fell apart,
Until I finally couldn't take the questions of whether or not he fully,
Truly, truly wanted to be with me.

To be fair- even with my lack of knowledge on why,
Knowing of his mental illness and the stress from everything he was trying to accomplish at the end of our relationship,
I can't fully blame him for shutting me out anymore.
For, chances are, just being too overwhelmed with trying to balance too much personal life,
With too much work life.

And after the breakup, and until I moved away from him,
I will admit I was.. Rude.
Distasteful.
Very, very angry.

I was angry at him.
I was angry at the world.
I was angry at the situations-
But most of all,
I was angry at me.

I will not hide that,
While I could go and apologize,
Tell him I'll possibly see him on campus if I ever get accepted into his- and my dream- college.

And truth be told I just want to look him in the eyes,
And say, for the first and last time with this meaning,
"Always."

Always…
Always will love you.
Always will support you.
Always will keep our memories together cherished.
Always will remember.

I will always remember,
My dear girl,
The happiness he gave me.

And I will always hope
That he can pass that happiness onto you.

He is a goofball.
He is loving.
He is so, so kind,
And usually very patient.

His best subject is math.
His two favourite go-to, warm weather outfits are either a polo and khaki shorts,
Or a tshirt and gym shorts.

He will wear long sleeved shirts with shorts.
I've seen it so many times.
He only wears jeans when it's warm if he absolutely has to.
His humor is either crude, cracking dad jokes,
Or mocking your whining.

His friend Josh may very well get close to you, too.
Josh is a good man. Do not take his company for granted.
He can offer valuable insight to his best friends brain.
They work very, very similarly.

His hogwarts house is slytherin,
He's allergic to cats,
and after going down to as much as I could see on his moms facebook page a few months into us dating,
I can even tell you his entire natal chart for zodiacs.

Even if he doesn't believe in that hippy dippy ****,
He will amuse you enough to listen to you talk about it if you are.

Send him cute little pictures. Whenever you feel cute, send him one.
He will lavish you with attention.
He will call you gorgeous and beautiful and every other sweet name under the book.

He will love you like no man has ever loved you because he is still so new to this.

My dear,
Love him enough for the both of us.
I beg of you.

I lost him completely already,
I've honestly not even a chance to eber reconcile the friendship with him.
And I have come to terms with that,
I have come to terms with the deep seated love that will remain in my heart for eternity.
So please,
Love him. For me, for you, for him.

Cracks in cover let
Sun in hits like
Bullets

Unwrapped window
Gives solar epiphany
To cocooned child

Flee fluorescent,
Flee faux verve
Doorframe: portal
Extra-terrestrial
World through eaves
Like bug zappers
See-through walls
Most envious glass
****** passage

Cold shoulder, concrete, masonry
Phosphenes gleaming, staggering
Hotfoot, addled eyes
Inverted wavelengths
Gravel clinging, unwise
Scrutinized steps to grass
Great big sigh
Saluting sky
With micro pupils
Torrid shell
Swollen locks
Rejoice

Westside: Central Avenue
Pack up, load up
Truckpower to State Street
Beer, veggie dogs
Corn-on-cob
Bag-of-fruit
Checkout scandal

Three-in-the-front
State to thirty-three
Thirty-three to thirteen
Chauncey, Jacksonville,
Trimble, Glouster,
Bonnie’s Home Cooking
Opposite British Petroleum
Exhausted loan office
Opposite Coal Miner Emeritus

Burr Oak: closed
Margin parking
Bathroom clothes
Tasteful vest
Bathroom tissue to brim
Feet welcome
Pass up close up camp spots
I feel a pull to the valley
Clearing: stop, rest
Crack, chug, more wood
Fire, crack, chug, more wood
Chat, crack, chug

Copper detuned chime
Of that ephemeral vibrato
Drone of nine-volt synth
Into kaput tape deck
& we sing & chant & cackle

Campfire chatter:
Bitter pill
Naïve philosophy
Crack, chug
Empathy
More wood

“So when I was seventeen still going to church there were these events they were called “lock-ins” we stayed the night at the church they took our cells our watches took down every clock & covered the windows so we wouldn’t be aware of anything only God & so there would be lectures & guest speakers & bible readings and discussions & also these ******* bizarre activities like they would turn off all the lights light a **** ton of candles & they would blindfold us and give us a little piece of paper and a little pencil and they’d tell us in a omniscient little voice to write down one sin we’ve committed on the little piece of paper fold it & nail it (still blindfolded) to this huge wooden cross with this little hammer & I guarantee every one of us wrote down *******.  

Now that I think of it the whole thing was about ******* every speaker had some story of how they used to ******* all the time and how they were released of the devils hold and that ******* is a sin and will send you to hell and all of us kids were boys and every single adult was a woman they all looked at us like they read our paper like we were sinners like we would always be sinners just slimy ******* who would always ******* (like we would ever understand what it felt to be a woman or what a woman felt like) & their eyes were gleaming with such shallow sympathy that you knew they were true god fearing Christians”

(All at once)
Stab, chug, crack, chug
Stab, chug, crack, chug
Stab, chug, crack, chug

Bliss

The streets come alive when so many
Sleep softly into their dreams.
      The newer L.E.D. street lights pierce
The secrets on the Old 90.
    The women that the sun does not touch
Is aglow in the moonlit pavements,
Because she is a nocturnal,
     To be seen by those who cannot see
The bright sun, she shares herself
With the secrets, only known to those
That never stay.
    
       And to better fit into the list,
To better know the secret is to become
Something other than what is expected,
      A desertion of your standardised
Places, where scars can be hidden,
Everyone can dress as royalty,
     This is more common and natural,
Becoming the creature we all seem to
Leave behind.
     And here there are lovers,
Beckoningly fighting one another
For a chance at one night,
An embrace in the eternal momentary.

    And the thirst is deep,
The desire is a window to the stellar
Places, a deep freedom in the nocturnal,
        An occasion set for nightly meetings
Of souls with shadows that seem to chase,
       Street people on the Western venture,
An exchange of souls at home in the night.

We’re on-high - in Lisa’s (parent’s) 50th floor penthouse in Manhattan. The sky outside is a cloudless, blinding powder-blue, infinite and reflective as liquid. A TV news helicopter flew by under her window a few minutes ago.

If you don’t feel God-like looking down on the world from her living room, then you’re probably an atheist. Peter was with us and as we stood, looking out on Central Park and NYC from her balcony, he was suitably impressed by it all - from the chopper ride in from New Haven to the opulent digs.

Peter’s a poor (he exists on a meager stipend) doctoral student from Malibu, California. He grew up simply, in a rustic, one floor, three-bedroom cabin that overlooked the Pacific Ocean. He never had a smart-phone or cable TV growing up and only got glacially slow Internet in high school. He says he really lived in the ocean. His most prized possession is his 70s “Bing Bonzer” surfboard that stands, like a priceless, Egyptian relic in his dorm room.

We got a vibe switch when we came inside and 2Pac’s “Hit ‘Em up” was absolutely airhorning from the stereo system. “Westside, Westside, Westside,” Lisa and I joined in the chorus and clumsy-danced by reflex. Leeza, Lisa’s younger sister, saw us and ran over for a group hug with Lisa and me.

Lisa’s little sister’s 13 now and boy, is she a new-teenager. Her long, deep-red hair, which now has fluorescent blue ends, is tied-up in a ponytail revealing a buzz-undercut. Leeza had just gotten home from school and had already changed from her school uniform to ripped jean shorts, white socks and a black, 2Pac sweatshirt - which her mom reported she wears every single day. When her mom manages to launder that, Leeza rotates to a Jets hoodie - although she’s never watched a football game in her life.

“I’ve got a worried mind,” I confessed to Peter, later, as we were scrunched together, me half on his lap in an easy chair. He gave me a consoling hug.
Our grades came out earlier today and I got an A- in Physics 3. I crumbed in the face of classical mechanics. Is an A- who I am? Yeah, I guess so, and I’ll have to give myself an “F” for dealing with it. I suppose I’m acknowledgeably challenged.
“Can you appeal it?” Peter asked, he was trying to be supportive, but he knows that’s a ridiculous notion.
“It’s a male professor,” I said, “maybe I could send him a voice message and cry,” I updog.
“That would be HOT,” Peter said, in a dream-like whisper.
“Uhgh,” I groaned, “It’s emotional manipulation, it’s NOT ******,” I explained, creeped out.
I haven’t talked to my parents yet. They’re in Poland and don’t know my life is over.

“You deserve to embrace your awesomeness, stand up for who you are and reject the status quo.” Peter offered, “I dare you,” he finished, unable to keep a straight face. “But seriously, you’ll fix it after the break,” he offers in hope.
“Yeah,” I say, somewhat unconvinced, “I know.”

Where the first candle was lit
At midnight mass,
You greaved forward the light
And blessed the joint,
Took a puff and inevitable
Like the cries of the kids
Chasing the raspa man,
Said puff puff pass.

Over summer 95 with
An eternal cusp of weathered
Youth we drove the neighborhood
In the Accord I was given,
At times I believe for graduating Jr High, your unbeatable design
To get us laid was never like the fated quartet moon
That you held in respect almost
Soldier like.

   Remembered C-5 Galaxy and the base we could never get into,
    A roar of sunset glow and the
Colors we flew for our street
Wer more than the rainbow
Could bear,
   A spectrum of a place and
Time that only
A whispered gallantry when
    You took that knife for me,
Always the duo,
Once alone,
Taken with the ways of men.

    I did nothing  with my
Pano, the red handkerchief
That all the homiez through
In a sea of red,
I swear I heard the Taps
Being played by Carlos Santana,
I took a breath and lay
Out a cry,
     One that still runs the barrio,
Mi amigo,
Once the road in a present dream
Taken like the winds
And a memory's glance,
    You are there
And I still,
My Friend,
      Westside intangibles.

It's strange, at times, I find
What books can mean to me.
My life, inside, reflected back
Almost instantly.
They rest on shelves, holding knowledge
Almost timidly.
How can it be, their wisdom rings
In eternity?