Fresh off existence, a friendly resistance.
Rhyming is like sighing
it’s all funny business!
Taxes relapses reshapes and prolapses.
A spinning sort of yearning
unbecoming and surly.
In the wee hours of night
big, brash, and burly
with no ending in sight.
Used to flip these switches!
Used to drill those fillings!
Used to fill up and use up
and bring in the killings!
In the stark lips of persistence
kissing me dreamily
this missed opportunity
or maybe it’s still waiting for me.
For this strict contemplation,
a musical sort of apparition
coming down from the mountain
******* and sounding so sweet!
An insatiable appetite
of the body, c*nt, and brain
of the swimming, shining,
sinking, climbing,
failing, hoping,
reaching, groping.
Trying oh so trying
to hang on real tight,
but the flower in the bud
wants to burst open on sight!
Both the Dragon and the Phoenix
are bound to take flight!

Bennu comes at exactly the right moment.
A piece of time encapsulated by the plumage of
snowy white feathers and a long, elegant neck,
long gangly feet tapered,
resting on the top of a streetlight on red.
Barring this existence from further chaos.
This complicated year shot off with a BANG!
And landed in my heart, with bright red eyes, like the streetlight, just a pause until the excitement captures me in its loving embrace.  

This GIANT twisting inside of me,
hopeful, fearful, bittersweet,
strange, lovely, expansive.
The unfurling of Japanese Cherry Blossoms,
slowly, each bud tightly wound tight
until the petals are ready to BURST!
into a glorious pink flower!
So much movement, intense rapture of humanity,
community, friendship, camaraderie, openness,
seeing all the flaws in everyone, and still loving every little bit.

Bennu knows that I was once a robot from another life,
another land, created in another galaxy, solar system, planet; brought here, to earth for one purpose and one purpose only;
to understand what it means to be human
and live in a human body.
Every sense of mine has always been heightened, and it’s overwhelming at times, and elation, bliss, *******,
and stimulating sometimes.
The beauty of Bennu, the Egret or maybe a Crane or a Heron or some other lithe water fowl a striking semblance of peace
in this hectic world where all is undone ready to be made.
The trick to being an adult is to be an adult.
To grow the **** up is to fiercely love each and every part
that has gotten me here,
but also allow each and every version of myself
that is yet to become, exist,
while simultaneously being in the moment.

Prescence is infinite, and so is the afternoon light
bouncing off those soft white feathers.
To love another person as much as I love myself,
well, I’m still working on that…

And on the bough of grate arrest
Sat a lady with toweled unrest
And with it a notebook
Black as soot
Parched and swollen
Stomped, a black boot
And through the Pandemic she wrote and she wrote
About fears of her body being crushed by the throat
With it came sorrows when her family was good
Surrounded by friends online and much food
Surrounded by parents by brother the like
Still she felt trapped
Still she sought light
In a dungeon of her own making
Born of sweat, slime, and drink
Harrowed and shaking
Ghastly to think
That this isn’t the end
Nay, only beginning
Stuck in her bedroom like a warped castle hanging
Velvet ropes shuttered her eye
And garden troves shuttered her thigh
And brains pumped by news
All of the time, er, all of the time
So she shut out the world
As impeachment enclosed
Across the country
Dead justice rose
Not zombies nor corpses not copses the like
Send her the script of a worn phantom tike
She once was a child, now she airs thirty
In ere few years, will she be worthy
Of the spite and malice
Of the spit and chalice
Of the whirlwind that adulthood becomes,
Leering its awful tight grin
Pale teeth embedded into her skin
She wishes, oh she wishes she ere a child again!
How many a time now has she dreamed of escaping
Lockdown, social distancing, shelter in place, resisting
Once a grand circus, now deserted incased
Once crisis inverted, now heavens did race
The lady waited
The lady prayed
The lady wished, and hoped and brayed
The Albatross which was wrapped round her neck
Not by rope but by feathers
So weary and pecked
The actual bird wrapped its corpse round her throat
But she slayed it, sliced the dead bird clean off!
And let it sink into the dirt and decompose to rot
There goes the rhyme
Blessed and recoiled
Well in her prime
She feels so old, so boiled
But the Albatross
A great wanton flight
Unusual, still
That mates for life
And carries no strife
Still, she swung in the knife
And released its rolling sore
Now it burdens her no more
And then the lady mariner saw the light!

I haven’t stayed up this late since college or maybe it was sooner

I just wasn’t paying attention.

It’s 6:15 am on a Sunday morning and I saw the sunrise

covered in a white shawl
like my love life in mourning
but where people dress all in white, not in black
to celebrate.

Like how I will wear a rainbow dress or a colorful suit on my wedding day
to truly reflect
who I am
inside.

Caps Lock and Auto Correct are both a curse and a blessing; so is pulling an all-nighter.

It’s just me and the silent world, ghost birds and distant early traffic.

It’s just me and my lonely heart
empty of all the the racket.

I have given away my favorite college leather jacket
the one with the red yarn
woven on its sleeves,

but it was time
to say goodbye.

Hello adulthood
captured in lockdown
hidden under blue medical masks and KN95 and hand sanitizer and face shields and endless new cycles on TV.

It’s funny how chill the universe seems
under the guise of no sleep.

I forget how this will affect me, maybe it will tear me apart, maybe it will bring me together?

I am weak from the journey my body’s taking me on, a head spin from 1960s, 1970s and 1980s rock to late 90s and 00s emo and strange music that has no genre yet.

I found out that Tool music videos are mini horror films and I cannot stand it or sit through it.

Stanley Kubrick was my fascination last night, as was QAnon and Incel and conspiracy theories and Kdramas and Korean manga and fantasy comics including witches with their hair chopped off. That’s a wrap!

What is “emo” anyways? Emotional?

Yes, I’ve always been emotional and hyper-sensitive and an empathy and a simpatico person. Who will be my match now, after the tables have turned? After the fire has gone out? Who will light my Olympic flames once again and burn me bright?

I have no idea, but I’m ready to find out…

Fatso
You are and you aren’t
Whale
You are more than the labels they give you
Cow
It’s over now
Their insults cannot hurt you
Giant
You are not in middle school anymore
Ugly
They cannot hurt you anymore
Lard
You are a grown-*** woman
almost thirty,
unapologetically queer, hairy,
with curves and ******* and wide hips and pretty dips and
They cannot cypher their words,
syphon their insults by
relating you to a beautiful big creature
Cow, Whale, Lard, Fatso

What is a Lard but a singling
A bright beige soft nosed creature
with brownie eyes and long lashes
like a taper with a hooked nose
soft and long like an elephants
Flappy points of ears
that hear well
with tiny sharp teeth
like a land-locked manatee
or a furry caramel Beluga whale

Their insults only refer you to necessary creatures who give their life to feed you and their intellect to empower you

A Fatso is a bright blue animal that has shimmering rainbow wings (like a dragon) and thin curly white horns and milky grey eyes with a fabulous feathers and a fanned tail of royal purple that soars through the skit at light-speed and can bring the rain with its melodious cries

When they or you or they or you or
They are you you know
Insult you they are not insulting you
because a Lard and a Fatso are both such intelligent creatures
mystical and fervent
glorious and gargantuan
Large, yes
But beautiful all the same
They have sharp teeth and move through the earth or skies whenever and wherever they like
These animals have freedom
Just like how you have freedom
in how you think about yourself
which is
to think of yourself as
the sexist, prettiest, cutest
person alive
now isn’t that great?
now isn’t that grand?

You are gold plated and steel incorporated and glass blown and light shadows thrown and haggling heights and shaved delights and a hairy symphony and a harrowing city of sparkles that twinkle in the night.

You are beautiful
and might
just
save the world one day.

You are a mystical creature of the highest creed
and no one
can tell you
otherwise.

A little bit of hope
goes a long way.

Sometimes the process is painful.

Starts out as a dragon and turns into a jelly cake.

From hard scales to soft jello.

A little bit of hope
goes a long way.

Billie gets it.
What it means to be single.

Open, aware, and calm.
Totally okay
with being alone
and NOT in a romantic/****** relationship right now.

Being single means Freedom.

This year is coming to an end.
Still not normal,
still full of fear and anxiety yet
a little bit of hope
trickles into neon green hair and

dreams and fantasies become one
One. Two. Three.
I’m fine with being a dragon
with its wings clipped.

Or an Barn Owl whose caught in a cage. Stuck in her barn with lots of family and hay.

At least I can see; at least I can hear.
At least I can holler and swear!

I’m healthy, anxious, *****, stuck.
I’m waiting, wishing, wanting, ****.
I’m wilting, frigid, blooming, muck.
I’m growing, changing, holding luck.

A little bit of hope
goes a long way.

And Billie,
I’m counting on you…

I’m counting on you to get me through

the nights of elation and terror.

Ahead
we tread

a year turns and

I scavenge,

I survive.

head pink and shriveled
wrinkled and leathery
shrouded in a gift of brown or grey or black,

cape or black feathers

I take death through my nostrils and
blow it out
eat it up
with no scent

(I am immune to dead flesh scent and have a weak nose)

I scavenge,

I survive.

No matter the circumstances or the star of the world

I laugh at a Global Pandemic

nothing can get me through this tough skin

I have seen death in so many lifetimes

it is a cyclical cycle
passed down through thousands of generations

people
plants
animals
minerals
the earth and all it’s beauty
purging itself
of disease
through disease

Ahead we tread

wary, hearts broken
but I will always be there
with my tar black feathers
and my pink, gray, wrinkled head

wise beyond my years

I say I am immune but I am not immune to fear

that eats away inside me like nothing else

It sits

right below my diaphragm

like a tiny crystal bead or stone

hard

shiny

clear and refracted
sparkling and always embedded
beneath my rib cage

And as I fly up into the bright blue horizon
that chilly, desert wasteland I
flutter and hover
staying between heaven and hell

Living in a sort of purgatory

cleaning up messes and sweeping under the rug

Like a garbage truck
Like the Liver

I dispel rot within my industrial gut
I eat zombies for breakfast
I chomp bones to white powder in my strong black beak
I cough up bone dust like cigar smoke
I throw up green poison
I am immune to rotting flesh
I devour the end
I unleash a new beginning

I am the Vulture

Ugly, yet beautiful at the same exact time

Scary and bold, I go where no bird has ever gone before.

I am not scared of death, I eat it for breakfast.

I scavenge,

I survive.

Ahead, we tread to a new year

and I know one thing for certain.

I am surrounded by white light.
My family is surrounded by white light.
My friends are surrounded by white light.
I am lucky.
I am grateful.
I am healthy and my family is healthy.

I know one thing for certain;
we will all get through this

together.