Bouazizi’s heavy eyelids parted as the Muezzin recited the final call for the first Adhan of the day.

“As-salatu Khayrun Minan-nawm”
Prayer is better than sleep

Rising from the torment of another restless night, Bouazizi wiped the sleep from his droopy eyes as his feet touched the cold stone floor.

Throughout the frigid night, the devilish jinn did their work, eagerly jabbing away at Bouazizi with pointed sticks, tormenting his troubled conscience with the worry of his nagging indebtedness. All night the face of the man Bouazizi owed money to haunted him. Bouazizi could see the man’s greasy lips and brown teeth jawing away, inches from his face. He imagined chubby caffeine stained fingers reaching toward him to grab some dinars from Bouazizi’s money box.

Bouazizi turned all night like he was sleeping on a board of spikes. His prayers for a restful night again went unanswered. The pall of a blue fatigue would shadow Bouazizi for most of the day.

Bouazizi’s weariness was compounded by a gnawing hunger. By force of habit, he grudgingly opened the food cupboard with the foreknowledge that it was almost bare. Bouazizi’s premonition proved correct as he surveyed a meager handful of chickpeas, some eggs and a few sparse loaves. It was just enough to feed his dependant family; younger brothers and sisters, cousins and a terminally disabled uncle. That left nothing for Bouazizi but a quick jab to his empty gut. He would start this day without breakfast.

Bouazizi made a living as a street vendor. He hustles to survive. Bouazizi’s father died in a construction accident in Libya when he was three. Since the age of 10, Bouazizi had pushed a cart through the streets of Sidi Bouzid; selling fruit at the public market just a few blocks from the home that he has lived in for almost his entire life.

At 27 years of age, Bouazizi has wrestled the beast of deprivation since his birth. To date, he has bravely fought it to a standstill; but day after day the multi-headed hydra of life has snapped at him. He has squarely met the eyes of the beast with fortitude and resolve; but the sharp fangs of a hardscrabble life has sunken deep into Bouazizi’s spleen. The unjust rules of society are powerful claws that slash away at his flesh, bleeding him dry: while the spiked tendrils of poverty wrap Bouazizi’s neck, seeking to strangle him.

Bouazizi is a workingman hero; a skilled warrior in the fight for daily bread. He is accustomed to living a life of scarcity. His daily deliverance is the grace of another day of labor and the blessed wages of subsistence.

Though Allah has blessed this man with fortitude the acuteness of terminal want and the constant struggle to survive has its limits for any man; even for strong champions like Bouazizi.

This morning as Bouazizi washed he peered into a mirror, closely examining new wrinkles on his stubble strewn face. He fingered his deep black curls dashed with growing streaks of gray. He studied them through the gaze of heavy bloodshot eyes. He looked upward as if to implore Allah to salve the bruises of daily life.

Bouazizi braced himself with the splash of a cold water slap to his face. He wiped his cheeks clean with the tail of his shirt. He dipped his toothbrush into a box of baking powder and scoured an aching back molar in need of a root canal. Bouazizi should see a dentist but it is a luxury he cannot afford so he packed an aspirin on top of the infected tooth. The dissolving aspirin invaded his mouth coating his tongue with a bitter effervescence.

Bouazizi liked the taste and was grateful for the expectation of a dulled pain. He smiled into the mirror to check his chipped front tooth while pinching a cigarette **** from an ashtray. The roach had one hit left in it. He lit it with a long hard drag that consumed a good part of the filter. Bouazizi’s first smoke of the day was more filter then tobacco but it shocked his lungs into the coughing flow of another day.

Bouazizi put on his jacket, slipped into his knockoff NB sneakers and reached for a green apple on a nearby table. He took a big bite and began to chew away the pain of his toothache.

Bouazizi stepped into the street to catch the sun rising over the rooftops. He believed that seeing the sunrise was a good omen that augured well for that day’s business. A sunbeam braking over a far distant wall bathed Bouazizi in a golden light and illumined the alley where he parked his cart holding his remaining stock of week old apples. He lifted the handles and backed his cart out into the street being extra mindful of the cracks in the cobblestone road. Bouazizi sprained his ankle a week ago and it was still tender. Bouazizi had to be careful not to aggravate it with a careless step. Having successfully navigated his cart into the road, Bouazizi made a skillful U Turn and headed up the street limping toward the market.

A winter chill gripped Bouazizi prompting him to zip his jacket up to his neck. The zipper pinched his Adam’s Apple and a few droplets of blood stained his green corduroy jacket. Though it was cold, Bouazizi sensed that spring would arrive early this year triggering a replay of a recurring daydream. Bouazizi imagined himself behind the wheel of a new van on his way to the market. Fresh air and sunshine pouring through the open windows with the cargo space overflowing with fresh vegetables and fruits.

It was a lifelong ambition of Bouazizi to own a van. He dreamed of buying a six cylinder Dodge Caravan. It would be painted red and he would call it The Red Flame. The Red Flame would be fast and powerful and sport chrome spinners. The Red Flame would be filled with music from a Blaupunkt sound system with kick *** speakers. Power windows, air conditioning, leather seats, a moonroof and plenty of space in the back for his produce would complete Bouazizi’s ride.

The Red Flame would be the vehicle Bouazizi required to expand his business beyond the market square. Bouazizi would sell his produce out of the back of the van, moving from neighborhood to neighborhood. No longer would he have to wait for customers to come to his stand in the market. Bouazizi would go to his customers. Bouazizi and the Red Flame would be known in all the neighborhoods throughout the district. Bouazizi shook his head and smiled thinking about all the girls who would like to take rides in the Red Flame. Bouazizi and his Red Flame would be a sight to be noticed and a force to be reckoned with.

“EEEEEYOWWW” a Mercedes horn angrily honked; jarring Bouazizi from the reverie of his daydream. A guy whipping around the corner like a silver streak stuck his head out the window blasting with music yelling, “Hey Mnayek, watch where you push that *******.”

The music faded as the Mercedes roared away. “Barra nikk okhtek” Bouazizi yelled, raising his ******* in the direction of the vanished car. “The big guys in the fancy cars think the road belongs to them”, Bouazizi mumbled to himself.

The insult ****** Bouazizi off, but he was accustomed to them and as he limped along pushing his cart he distracted himself with the amusement of the ascending sun chasing the fleeting shadows of the night, sending them scurrying down narrow alleyways.

Bouazizi imaged himself a character from his favorite movie. He was a giant Transformer, chasing the black shadows of evil away from the city into the desert. After battling evil and conquering the bad guys, he would transform himself back into the regular Bouazizi; selling his produce to the people as he patrolled the highways of Tunisia in the Red Flame, the music blasting out the windows, the chrome spinners flashing in the sunlight. Bouazizi would remain vigilant, always ready to transform the Red Flame to fight the evil doers.

The bumps and potholes in the road jostled Bouazizi’s load of apples. A few fell out of the wooden baskets and were rolling around in the open spaces of the cart. Bouazizi didn’t want to risk bruising them. Damaged merchandise can’t be sold so he was careful to secure his goods and arrange his cart to appeal to women customers. He made sure to display his prized electronic scale in the corner of the cart for all to see.

Bouazizi had a reputation as a fair and generous dealer who always gave good value to his customers. Bouazizi was also known for his kindness. He would give apples to hungry children and families who could not pay. Bouazizi knew the pain of hunger and it brought him great satisfaction to be able to alleviate it in others.

As a man who valued fairness, Bouazizi was particularly proud of his electronic scale. Bouazizi was certain the new measuring device assured all customers that Bouazizi sold just and correct portions. The electronic scale was Bouazizi’s shining lamp. He trusted it. He hung it from the corner post of his cart like it was the beacon of a lighthouse guiding shoppers through the treachery of an unscrupulous market. It would attract all customers who valued fairness to the safe harbor of Bouazizi’s cart.

The electronic scale is Bouazizi’s assurance to his customers that the weights and measures of electronic calculation layed beyond any cloud of doubt. It is a fair, impartial and objective arbiter for any dispute.

Bouazizi believed that the fairness of his scale would distinguish his stand from other produce vendors. Though its purchase put Bouazizi into deep debt, the scale was a source of pride for Bouazizi who believed that it would help his profits to increase and help him to achieve his goal of buying the Red Flame.

As Bouazizi pushed his cart toward the market, he mulled his plan over in his mind for the millionth time. He wasn't great in math but he was able to calculate his financial situation with a degree of precision. His estimations triggered worries that his growing debt to money lenders may be difficult to payoff.

Indebtedness pressed down on Bouazizi’s chest like a mounting pile of stones. It was the source of an ever present fear coercing Bouazizi to live in a constant state of anxiety. His business needed to grow for Bouazizi to get a measure of relief and ultimately prosper from all his hard work. Bouazizi was driven by urgency.

The morning roil of the street was coming alive. Bouazizi quickened his step to secure a good location for his cart at the market. Car horns, the spewing diesel from clunking trucks, the flatulent roar of accelerating buses mixed with the laughs and shrieks of children heading to school composed the rising crescendo of the city square.

As he pushed through the market, Bouazizi inhaled the aromatic eddies of roasting coffee floating on the air. It was a pleasantry Bouazizi looked forward to each morning. The delicious wafts of coffee mingling with the crisp aroma of baking bread instigated a growl from Bouazizi’s empty stomach. He needed to get something to eat. After he got money from his first sale he would by a coffee and some fried dough.

Activity in the market was vigorous, punctuated by the usual arguments of petty territorial disputes between vendors. The disagreements were always amicably resolved, burned away in rising billows of roasting meats and vegetables, the exchange of cigarettes and the plumes of tobacco smoke rising as emanations of peace.

Bouazizi skillfully maneuvered his cart through the market commotion. He slid into his usual space between Aaban and Aameen. His good friend Aaban sold candles, incense, oils and sometimes his wife would make cakes to sell. Aameen was the markets most notorious jokester. He sold hardware and just about anything else he could get his hands on.

Aaban was already burning a few sticks of jasmine incense. It helped to attract customers. The aroma defined the immediate space with the pleasant bouquet of a spring garden. Bouazizi liked the smell and appreciated the increased traffic it brought to his apple cart.

“Hey Basboosa#, do you have any cigarettes?“, Aameen asked as he pulled out a lighter. Bouazizi shook the tip of a Kent from an almost empty pack. Aameen grabbed the cigarette with his lips.

“That's three cartons of Kents you owe me, you cheap *******.” Bouazizi answered half jokingly. Aameen mumbled a laugh through a grin tightly gripping the **** as he exhaled smoke from his nose like a fire breathing dragon. Bouazizi also took out a cigarette for himself.

“Aameem, give me a light”, Bouazizi asked.

Aameen tossed him the lighter.

“Keep it Basboosa. I got others.” Aameen smiled as he showed off a newly opened box of disposable lighters to sell on his stand.

“Made in China, Basboosa. They make everything cheap and colorful. I can make some money with these.”

Bouazizi lit his next to last cigarette. He inhaled deeply. The smoke chased away the cool air in Bouazizi’s lungs with a shot of a hot nicotine rush.

“Merci Aameen” Bouazizi answered. He put the lighter into the almost empty cigarette pack and put it into his hip pocket. The lighter would protect his last cigarette from being crushed.

The laughter and shouts of the bazaar, the harangue of radio voices shouting anxious verses of Imam’s exhorting the masses to submit and the piecing ramble of nondescript AM music flinging piercing unintelligible static surrounded Bouazizi and his cart as he waited for his first customers of the day.

Bouazizi sensed a nervous commotion rise along the line of vendors. A crowd of tourists and locals milling about parted as if to avoid a slithering asp making its way through their midst. The hoots of vendors and the cackle of the crowd made its way to Bouazizi’s knowing ear. He knew what was coming. It was nothing more then another shakedown by city officials acting as bagmen for petty municipal bureaucrats. They claim to be checking vendor licences but they’re just making the rounds collecting protection money from the vendors. Pocketing bribes and payoffs is the municipal authorities idea of good government. They are skilled at using the power of their office to extort tribute from the working poor.

Bouazizi made the mistake of making eye contact with Madame Hamdi. As the municipal authority in charge of vendors and taxis Madame Hamdi held sway over the lives of the street vendors. She relished the power she had over the men who make a meager living selling goods in the square; and this morning she was moving through the market like a bloodhound hot on the trail of an escaped convict. Two burly henchmen lead the way before her. Bouazizi knew Madame Hamdi’s hounds were coming for him.

Bouazizi knew he was ******. Having just made a payment to his money lender, Bouazizi had no extra dinars to grease the palm of Madame Hamdi. He grabbed the handle bars of his cart to make an escape; but Madame Hamdi cut him off and got right into into Bouazizi’s face.

“Ah little Basboosa where are you going? she asked with the tone of playful contempt.

“I suppose you still have no license to sell, ah Basboosa?” Madame Hamdi questioned with the air of a soulless inquisitor.

“You know Madame Hamdi, cart vendors do not need a license.” Bouazizi feebly protested, not daring to look into her eyes.

“Basboosa, you know we can overlook your violations with a small fine for your laxity” a dismissive Madame Hamdi offered.

Bouazizi’s sense of guilt would not permit him to lift his eyes. His head remained bowed. Bouazizi stood convicted of being one of the impoverished.

“I have no spare dinars to offer Madame Hamdi, My pockets are empty, full of holes. My money falls into everyone’s palm but my own. I’m sorry Madame Hamdi. I’ll take my cart home”. He lifted the handlebars in an attempt to escape. One of Madame Hamdi’s henchmen stepped in front of his cart while the other pushed Bouazizi away from it.

“Either you pay me a vendor tax for a license or I will confiscate your goods Basboosa”, Madame Hamdi warned as she lifted Bouazizi’s scale off its hook.

“This will be the first to go”, she said grinning as she examined the scale. “We’ll just keep this.”
Like a mother lion protecting a defenseless cub from the snapping jaws of a pack of ravenous hyenas, Bouazizi lunged to retrieve his prized scale from the clutches of Madame Hamdi. Reaching for it, he touched the scale with his fingertips just as Madame Hamdi delivered a vicious slap to Bouazizi’s cheek. It halted him like a thunderbolt from Zeus.

A henchman overturned Bouazizi’s cart, scatter

The Checkout Line

I wish to speak with you
ten years from now, you'll be ten years behind.

The words and meanings you carry in your pants, the pick-pocket steals your hopes from time.
and the visions of empty trash receptacles
with their late evening drunken lovers' bouts, at restless end tables. And the bums with their ******* attitudes **** covered clothes, and soiled minds

the clarity of the curbside drunk, picking up shades of filtered cigarettes of twilight scandalous
pickup lovers in their evening best.

And to talk with you ten years from now, you'll be ten years behind.

They're Green Beret head ornaments
detailing the porcelain platforms of Delft
Lining up for one last line to carry them into another faded sunrise at dawn's forgotten memory of yester night
and they walk their gallows holding pride fully their flags of exalted countrymen.

The republic of teacups of literary proficiency.
Wearing the necklaces of paid tolls to an afterlife they find in the miniscule car crashes of engagement with a grinless driving mate in a neighboring car in its pass into the forethought of turned corners.
Where they befell the great disappointment of failure in the frosted eyes of their fathers' expectations.

Who carried the shame of their mother's incessant discontent through short skirts, and high heels.

Who disapproved of the **** whom wore the sneak-out-of-the-house-wear clothing line, and traveled by night over turbulent asphalt by way of sidecar through turn and turnabout hand-over-hand contracts of lover's affection, and slept in tall grasses of wet nightfall with views of San Francisco, and were trapped in the inescapable Alcatraz and Statesville of unconsenting parents and their curfews,

through trials and trails of Skittles leading to after school Doctor visits in the basement of a doting mother, whilst she sits quietly in her exclusive quilting parties with noble equities of partners in knowledge, listening to Edith Piaf and the like,

All the while condemned to time, trapped in the second hand, hand me downs of the 21st century, decades of decadent introverts with their table top unread notebooks, and old forgotten score cards, and the numbers of scholars of years past,

and to talk with you ten years from now will be my greatest pleasure, for you will be....ten year's behind.


They push the sterile elevator buttons, and descend upon the floor of scents flourishing from their crowded family rooms, only aware of distinctive flavors, in their middle eastern shades of desert gumbo,

Who speak ribbit and alfalfa until midnight of the afternoon, sharing fables of slaughtered giraffes and camels that walked from Kiev to Baghdad in a fortnight,

Who are aware the power is out, but continue to scour for candles in a dark room where candles once burned, where candle wax seals the drawers of where candles can be found. Where once sat gluttonous kings and queens in Sunday attire waiting for words of freedom from the North.

of Florence, Sochi,Shanghai
of Dempster, Foster, Lincoln
of Dodge, Ford, Shelby

Of concrete fortune tellers in 2nd story tenement blocks with hairy legs, and head lice, wearing beautiful sachets of India speaking ribbit and alfalfa.

On their unbirthdays they walk the fish tanks wearing their birthday suits to remind them who serves the food on the floors of the family room fish mongers tactics.

The old men wear gargoyles on their shoulders.

Lo! Fear has crept the glass marbles of their wisdom and fortune, blearing rocket ships and kazoos on the sidewalks of their Portuguese forefathers.

Where ancestry burns cigarette holes in the short-haired blue carpet, where Hoover breaks flood waters of insignificance across hard headed Evangelical trinities.

Who share construction techniques one early morning at four, where questions of Hammer and **** build intelligence in secondary faces of nameless twilight lovers, who possess bear blankets, and upheavals, finely wired bushes of ***** maturity. Eating *** and check, tongue and pen.

Where police caress emergency flame retardants over the fire between their legs, wielding the chauvinistic blade of comfort in the backseat of a Yellow faced driving patron.

With their innocent daughters with their nubile thighs, and malleable personalities, which require elite words and jewelry. Wearing wheat buns, Longfellow, and squire.

Holding postmarked cellular structure within their mobile anguish.

Who go curling in their showers, pushing afternoon naps and pretentious frou-frou hats over tainted friendships with their girlfriend's brothers with minimum paychecks'.

Through their narcissus and narcosis, their mirrored perceptions of medicinal scripture of Methamphetamine and elegant five-star meat.

Who amend their words with constitutional forgiveness, in their fascist cloth rampages through groves of learning strategies. And the closets, cupboards, and coins
with rubber hearts, steel *****, and gold *****,

Tall-tales of sock puppet hands with friendly sharing ******* techniques, dry with envy, colorful scabs, and coagulation of eccentric ****** endeavors, With their social lubricants and their tile feet wardrobes with B-quality Adidas and Reeboks gods of the souls of us. Who possess piceous syndromes of Ouiji boards in their parent’s basements.

When will fire burn another Bush? Spread the fire walls of Chicago, and part grocery store fields of food. Wrapping towels under the doors of smoke filled lungs, on the fingernails of a sleepover between business executives with the neoprene finish of their sons and daughters who attend finishing school, with resumes of oak furnishings,

And I long to talk with you ten years from now,
For you'll be talking ten years behind.

Who profligate their padded inventories breaking Mohammed and Hearst,
laying the pillows of cirrus minor
waiting for the rain to paint the eyes of the scriptures which waft through concrete corridors,
and scent the air with their exalted personas,

With the different channels of confusions, watching dimple past freckle, eating the palms of our tropical mental vocations to achieve purity from the indignation of those whom are contemptuous for lack of innocence in America,
this America, of lack of peace,
of America hold me,
Let me be.

Whom read the letters off music, blearing Sinatra and Krall, Manson where is your contempt?

Manson where is your manipulation of place settings?, you deserve fork and knife, the wounded commandments that regretfully fall like timber in an abandoned sanctuary of Yellowstone,
Manson, with your claws of the heart.
Manson, with your sheik vulgarity of **** cloaks exposing your ladies undercarriage,

Those who take their pets to walk the aisles of famished eyes,
allowing the dorsals of their backsides to wonder aimlessly through Vietnam and Chinaman,
holding peace of mind aware of their chemical leashes and fifteen calorie mental meals, holding hands, unaware of repercussion,

With their vivid recollections of sprinkler and slide, through dew and beyond,
Holding citrus drinks to themselves, apart from pleasure, trapped with excite from sunsets, and in-between.

Withholding reservation of tongue to lung.
Flowing ribbit and alfalfa, in the corridors of expected fragrance.

and to speak with you of ten years from now, will be a pleasure all my own, for you will be talking ten years behind.

They walked outside climbing over mountains of shrapnel, popped collars
and endless buffets of emotion,
driving Claremont all the way to art gallery premiers
and forever waited for plane crash landings
and the phone calls that never came

Glowing black and white cameras
giving modelesque perceptions to all-you-can-eat eyes
giving cigarettes endless chasms of light

Colored pavement trenches and divots
cliff note alibis
and surgery that lasted until the seamstress had gone into an
endless rest
and
empty cupboards

Classic stools painted with sleepless white smoke and bleached canvas rolling tobacco with the stained yellow window panes of feral tapestry and overindulgent vernacular

Like a satiated cheeseburger weeping smile simple emotion
on November the 18th celebrations
and Wisconsin out of business sales

Too much comfort, stealing switchboards from the the elderly, constantly putting gibberish into
effortless conversation.

Dormant doormats, with the greetings that never
reached as far as coffee table favelas,
arriving to homes of famished
furniture, awaiting temperate lifestyles and the window sill arguments from pedantic literacy

Silver shillings and corporate discovery clogged the persuasive
push and shove
to and from

Killing enterprise
loquacious attempt at too soon
much too soon
too soon for forever

Wall to wall post-card collages
happy reminders of the places never visited by drinks in the hands of
those received

Registered to the clouded skies of clip board artists
this arthritis of envy
of bathtub old age
wrinkled matted faces
logged with quick-fixes, anemia, and heart-break

disposed of off the streets
of youth, wheeling and wailing
rolling down striped stairs
of shock and arraignment
holding the hand rails of a wheelchair
suitcase
packed away in a life

Down I-37
into the ochre autumn fallen down leaves
and left memories behind
their green Syphilis eyeglasses

weeping tumuli
recalcitrant
mulish, furrow of beast and beyond

yelling, screaming, howling
at the prurient puerile tilling
of sheets

****** the voices of words
and vomiting the mind into the pockets of the turbulent perambulations
expelled from meat-packing
whispering condescension
and coercing adolescent obsessions
with fame, glamour, and *****

Creeping out into the naked
light of the Darger scale janitorial
closets, carrying the notorious gowns
of red wine spells, backpacks, and pins

henchmen, plaintiff, and youth

All the while
ripping at the incantations of the soul
whispering ribbit and alfalfa
in the guard-rail scars
of the dawns decadent forgotten

In a wayward adventure in curiosity —
lured away from savvy of cooler judgment,  
he oversteps the bounds of reality 
into a state of altered awareness.

Overwhelmed by a rapid beginning
of a buzzing sensation — The Rush;
emanating from deep inside him, 
surging along the veins streaming 

euphoria through cells of his entire body:  
inside the body, with warm pleasure waves
flushing over the by now tingling skin
soughing off all unpleasant feelings.

Mouth numbed, limbs heavy, and eyeballs 
rolling back from hitherto an unimaginable
state of bliss, he savours the calm explosions
of the pulsating bubbles in his head.

A magical moment of sheer ******* 
rapture—that ends in a lasting sedation—
during which he's dazed with wonderment
while covered by a cozy blanket of content.

He falls in love with the insidious drug.
And he begins to relish its sweet fruition
in a seemly pattern of use that is put
in the shade to protect his best interests.

A stake in normalcy that seeks to confine
his usage of the opioid to a social occasion.
But soon enough he drifts towards a regular
recreational use; indulging on weekends,

floating, flying, and soaring in wonderful
ripples of pure delight, feeling very mellow
and satisfied, in an illusionary paradise of
forgetfulness where nothing hurts any more.

Bit by bit as time goes by his body builds up
a tolerance for the sedative, prompting his
intake of higher and more frequent doses
to feel as well as to sustain the desired effect.

This occurs because his body attempts to
adapt to the presence of the drug by quickly
breaking it up and purging it out of the system,
thus making it less potent as it was before.

At this stage of his drug abuse he's still able to
control whether to use the stuff or not, where
and when to use it, without stress. He could
also abstain from the opioid fairly responsibly.

But at the limits of his body's flexible response
to the dangerous substance, he begins to suffer
from its unpleasant side-effects that show up
a short period of time following his last use.

The pleasurable, but short-term, therapeutic
effects of the hard drug are now being
overshadowed by several of its undesirable
withdrawal symptoms that manifest as:

fatigue, irritability, cold chills/sweat, itchy skin,
muscle spasms and tremors, body ache, and
stomach cramps among others, with an
increase in his body's cravings for the opioid.

The onset of these torturous side-effects of
the stimulant marks the beginning of his body's
physical dependence on it, as he now relies
on the drug to fend off the terrible affliction.

He has bitten at the bait of pleasure oblivious
of the hook beneath it. The once casual user,
who had thought he could quit the habit at will
without stress, has advanced to problematic use.

The drug has become an integral part of a daily
routine that is gradually heading towards chaos.
Regardless, he's still able to go to work and
take care of his day to day responsibilities.

In time, a new sickness begins to fester inside
him: the opioid is tightening its grip on him,
as his body's physical dependence on it
is now generating his addiction to the drug.

This psychological dependence on the drug
has set in with anxiety disorder accompanied
by emotional and behavioural problems:
the duo classic signs of a progressive disorder.

The drug has become something he needs
to sleep or to fully wake up. His sleeping
pattern has also been altered; up at night
and intermittently dozing off during the day.

As dosage of the narcotic rises, so does
the torture of the painful lows and other
symptoms of addiction, making his cravings
for the sedative increasely more intense.

As it is, he's needs several hits of the drug to
make it through the day. All at once he wants
to use! He begins to look forward to using.
He would ingest the drug in risky situations

such as, while at the wheels of his car or
working at his job; always desperate to avoid
withdrawal symptoms as well as to revel in
the bliss of the drug's comforting warmth.

At times he'd skip work 'chasing the dragon':
pursuing the out-of-reach elation levels of
his initial euphoric high, swinging between
feelings of mediocrity and that of ecstasy.

Always, his body would afterwards crash
below baseline, barely able to cater for his
daily needs. The habit has long ceased
to be the fun that it was intended to be.

Like a vicious cycle the relief from the opioid,
which is not justified by external reality,
is being obtained at the cost of the
worsening addiction and a spike in distress

whenever his body is low on the drug.
The more he indulges on the sedative
to calm his racing mind, the more
its comfort zone seems to be desired.

Disoriented in the rigours of his vice,
he strays in the abyss of drug addiction:
a dark, weary place where priority disorder 
is dictated by events outside of his control.

It is this corrupted impulse control that
causes his sick obsession with the narcotic,
rendering him unfit to articulate rational
thoughts: a chronic brain disorder.

In this harmful shift away from reality,  
utmost in his mind is the insidious drug:
over and above his job, his goals, family,
love, friends, hobbies and personal hygiene.

Oddly enough the foremost essentials of life
like water, food, and sleep are also not spared.
He could be ill and he won't care.
No other thoughts can cohabit in his world.

Emotionally invested in his fantasy world,
the toxic substance has kindled in him
an inner turmoil — setting off an overriding
feeling of emptiness that aches in his heart.

The habit much harder to lose than it was
to find: an ongoing effort to wean himself off
the drug is being crushed by a dysphoric mood
and a sickly feeling that intensify in severity.

These horrifying withdrawal symptoms
are a result of the sedative's induced
alterations in the biochemistry of his
brain's system of reward and punishment.

Instead of a mild, blissful flow of the brain's
happy hormones, as is experienced while
one is indulging in a tasty food, on receiving
a great news, or while engaged in any other

kinds of novelty that fill us with a delicious
pleasure, the opioid whose chemical structure
is similar to that of the natural chemical
messengers of the brain, Happy Hormones,

by mimicking these primary drivers of the
brain's reward system the psychoactive 
drug sends a false signal of euphoria to
the complex *****, triggering an instant

and fast secretion of an abnormally large
amount of the 'feel-good hormones', that
begin to surge along its pleasure pathways
overwhelming the reward centre of the brain.

It is this huge outpouring of happy hormones
in the region that elicites in him a sudden
burst of energy, a pleasant state of mild
drowsiness, mental alertness, relaxation, ...

This already intense, euphoric effect of the
opioid is further amplified by the drug's
blocking of the pain partways of the reward
system, thus dulling his emotions and worries

by eliminating any feeling of sorrow, regret,
guilt, fear, or loneliness. Upon intake of the
mood-altering drug, he would feel warm when
cold, calm when angry, bright when grumpy,

filled when hungry and happy when irritable,
with almost a total refrain from the tendency
to view anything in bad light. This dramatic
result makes every normal thing look better

and brings forth a deep sense of satisfaction
as though all his needs have been met.
However, this almost perfectly desirable 
body and mind experience is an artificial

feeling that only lasts a few hours at most.
When the drug's effects wear off, because
the brain, which has come to rely on the steady
supply of happy hormones, cannot adjust

all at once, it gets stuck in overdrive which
results in the withdrawal symptoms. It is so
because his brain, whose system of reward
and punishment has been tampered with,

seeks to counteract and accomodate for
the sweet thrills of the drug's euphoric high,
by secreting much less happy hormones while
the foodgate of pain hormones is thrown open.

Just like a huge surge of happy hormones
elicits unnatural levels of euphorical pleasure,
a spike in flow of pain hormones produce
in him the torturous withdrawal symptoms.

These unwanted side-effects whose rise and
fall are subject to drug levels in the system,
is the debt he has to pay for the supreme
bliss that is relished during his opioid highs.

It is all about his brain seeking to maintain
Homeostasis: a normal, healthy body function.
Once he's able to amerce with penance due,
he'll feel good again with no need for the drug.

Another flip side of the illicit habit is that over
time, the regular surge in happy hormones
disrupts the resilience of the reward region
of the brain, causing physical changes that

have drastically reduced his brain's ability
to produce the 'pleasure juices', or respond
to any stimulus other than the one being
triggered by the psychoactive substance.

This is clearly seen in his lost of interest in
activities that he once enjoyed, since his brain
suffers from lack of happy hormones which
influence one's capacity to be in a good mood.

Because the narcotic has also disrupted
activities in the control region of the brain,
his whole thought pattern, perspective and
behaviour, all radically change along with it.

It is this reprogramming of his brain that has
altered the interior reality of his mind, in ways
that result in him going into 'survival mode'
in the absence of the drug during a withdrawal.

While in this irritable, aggressive and erratic
state, he would forego anything and everything
to obtain the narcotic because he's thinking
of his drug use the same way an individual 

who is parched with thirst thinks of water.
This desperation in seeking out the drug as
a vital lifeline is due to his compromised brain
'thinking' it needs it as a matter of survival.

A habit he had maintained at the outset
because it made him feel extremely good
has tuned against him, quite often, coercing
him to use for the avoidance of pain.

The sedative as dear and painful to him
as an imbecilic child is to its mother,  
he continues on the foreboding route 
for which he has no power of deviation.

Despairing in the clutches of addiction,
the drugs traumatize him, they infuse
toxins into his spine, and he wouldn't
know whether he's coming or going.

He's kept on saying to himself, 'I'm going
to quit for good after using one last time.'
But that remains to be seen as the drug
goes on dulling his inner light day by day.

In a downward spiral that stuns those 
acquainted with him, he loses his job,
his car is repoed, and he's evicted from
a nice home that had been stripped bare.

Drowning in unpaid bills and desperately
in debt having blown an entire life-savings
on the drug, the loss of everything and a few
remaining friends leaves him fatally devastated.

The dangerous drug has evoked a negative
ripple that is felt throughout all that he's
part of. An awful realization that settles in
with cold clarity, eliciting a lurch of dismay

over his dire ignorance about the drug
which has led to the ugly entrapment.
In deep, sorrowful thoughts consumed
with self-loathing he puts a curse upon

the day he first laid eyes on the hard drug.
With the best resolve he's able to muster,
driven by exasperation to kick the habit,
he strives to make his will like stone —

a facade that is soon razed by his urgent need
for the ****** to stave off withdrawal. With a
burden of guilt and shame that can't be faced
he retreats into the haze of his own misery.

With more problems and stresses than ever
he plunges from troubled life to no life,
completely losing touch with reality as the
disorder assumes a more dangerous form.

His fixation on the ****** has taken a turn for
the worst. Besides his strong cravings for it
to ward off withdrawal as well as to experience
its euphoric high again, it has become more

crucial than ever for him to keep his emotions
constantly desensitised to life, by numbing
the agony of living to ease the passage of
day with purchased relief from the sedative.

Locked in this highly destructive pattern
of drug use, he would stop at nothing
to feed the habit: he would cheat, steal,
lie or betray no matter who to get his 'fix'.

Like the spreading of cancer in the body,  
his affliction has metastasized way 
beyond him, chipping away at the sense
of wellbeing of everyone around him.

As frequent and ready targets for theft
his family have to always watch out for him,
in a resentful relations in which they never
could feel at easy with him around their home.

Wallets, jewellery, gadgets, or any other
easy to carry household valuables, that are
not safely locked away, will go missing.
For days at a time he, too, will vanish.

He'd eventually return like the 'prodigal son'.
Always, he's found the door open after
prolonged periods of avoiding home, even
on occasions when he'd been kicked out.

In the many months gone since losing his
source of livelihood, he's been pushed
into a number of rehabilitation facilities,
but as yet has failed to clean up his act.

He's also been in and out of rehab thrice
following hospital discharges for drug
overdose. On the last occasion, he was
found passed out in the family's bathtub.

Timely arrival of the paramedics had saved
his life. Notwithstanding, a nagging urge
to 'use' continues to feed and reinforce
the habit after each discharge from rehab.

It's been most upsetting to the parents
who have had to watch him visibly change
before their eyes: from a good, healthy
son, who had always had his act together,

to as it is, a thin, patchy-skinned loner with
a baffled demeanour — who buries his head
in low self-esteem to conceal the frequent
dilated and glassy pupils from mutual gaze.

Nothing points more to the helplessness 
of the family's plight than having to finally
admit to their little, or no influence, over
the ravages of the stigmatized disorder.

A harrowing experience for a household
whose life-savings, along with compassion
for him, have completely been exhausted
with no more tears remaining to shed.

The hurting family at the end of its tether
confronts him with an ultimatum:
to get his life in order or face the music.
Coldly, they all watch him leave home.

His descent into the final stages of rock-
bottom has been swift. He starts by crashing
on fellow addicts' couches and floors,
but soon his welcome quickly wears out.

Now among the ranks of the homeless the
hobo would wake up feeling sick, and his day
would consist of shoplifting, petty thefts,
begging, and struggling to find others ways

to obtain money in order to feed the habit.
At nights, even on stormy ones, the rough
sleeper would crash wherever there's shelter,
never worrying about waking up the next day.

A hellish existence on the street that has
provoked a string of run-ins with the law. 
Nabbed stealing on ill-fated occasions,
he's manhandled in a most indecent way.

Tired, hungry and sick, the erstwhile ray of
hope, who once had a strong sense of self,
is currently a nervous wreck who envisages
life through the lens of opioid stupor.

Much beyond his ability to ask for help, 
his hurting family proceed to rescue him.
Under the humbling load of drug addiction
he staggers into another rehab facility.

But the often slippery climb to recovery
is never easy. It's yet another chance for him
to submit to a slow and delicate therapy on
his brain, whose structure and functions are

badly impacted by years-long use of the drug.
The healing process is a labour of discipline
and commitment, coupled with patience
in order to allow the brain to adapt back

toward normalcy by gradually regenerating
and rebalancing itself. In a gruelling task he's
expected to learn to care for a body that
now must struggle to work in a different way.

Desiring to put their lives back together many
druggies have been able to crawl their way out
of the murky shadow — a big chunk of them
through the guiding light of structured help.

Amongst them were 'walking corpses' whom
possessed by their 'enough is enough', were
enabled to find the inner fire vitally needed
to rekindle the cold embers of self-image.

There's the fella cast adrift feeling wholly
disconnected from self and the world.
He's mourning the loss of a vital lifeline
that has always helped him cope with life.

He had been through it many times before,
the fatigue, stomach cramps, aches, itchy skin, ...
But, he's in the early stages of withdrawal when
cravings for the narcotic are at their worst.

This initial withdrawal agony is the biggest
hurdle any addict has to overcome in the often
stop-start journey to recovery. If he could
somehow find the courage to suffer through it,

the fierce and ceaseless cravings for the drug
would be considerably reduced, making
them easier for him to deal with. Eventually,
they will dissipate the longer he stays sober.

He's being offered a way out of his captivity,
but he's unable to embrace the opportunity
with open arms because the addiction,
which convinces him the only option available

is to indulge on the drug, is blocking him from
seeing the available escape route. It has shut
off his ability to get up on the inside to face
the seeming overwhelming barriers to sobriety.

Like one in the grip of Stockholm Syndrome,
he has developed a type of trauma bonding
with the treacherous drug: the more it hurts
him, the more his irrational affection for it.

With his consciousness constantly revolving
around the insidious substance, he just
can't imagine a chronic user like him
being sober and happy again without it.

That being the case, he fails to see any point
in struggling to remain sober when in such
times he's beset by an awful illness attended
by a serious depression that is no help.

Regardless of the wreckage of his past,
everything that is dear to him plus the very
essence of life on the line, he's left convinced
that giving up the destructive habit would

mean endless suffering and feeling deprived
for the rest of his already sad existence.
More than any other reasons, he just
won't quit because he's powerless to resist.

In default of any dreams of ever recouping
losses that are manifestly out of reach,
the drug with a firm grip on him serves 
as a buffer to keep his ugly reality at bay.

All that he wants is to return to the 'loving
arms' of the opioid, very much aware that
the feeling of the drug's high now that he's
in pain can be one of the best things ever.

But even so, as tempting as the desire to jump
the healing process may be, he's bitterly
mindful of the horrors of street life that
loom upon him with such frightening aspect.

Savagely trapped with no good choices he
slips into a real fear of relapse. In anguish
withdrawal and cravings plague him daily,
and they won't allow him a moment's peace.

Utterly incapable of rising from the ashes 
to hold it all together—no hope—
nothing to hope for—everything out 
of focus—mind spiraling out of control.

In a fit of extreme anxiety the now rampaging
urge to 'use' prods him, closer and closer,
to the brink of a nervous breakdown. Suddenly,
his need for a 'hit' becomes most vital as.

Sweating profusely and trembling all over
with fear clutching a pilfered smartphone,
forgetful of future suffering the rehab
jumper hurries along the forbidden path.

All alone with the merciless companion: 
nowhere to go and no one to turn to. 
Wretchedly wretched in additive agony
the ****** fades away into nothingness.








AUTHOR'S NOTE


The Abyss Of Drug Addiction is written in 112 non-rhyming quatrains.

The rendition is a poignant story depicting the sad existence of many drug users. The verse uncovers and illuminates, step by step, the different stages of drug addiction and the mental processes of the unable to function drug users.

The paramount aim of the work is to shed some light on the sinister shadow of drug addiction: to unveil to all and sundry, especially teenagers and the youths, the hazards of drug abuse and the vicious downward spiral that can be caused by it. 

Just as the euphoric experience of all kinds of hard drugs differ significantly, so are their withdrawal symptoms. Despite their seeming surface unrelatedness, whichever hard drug it may be, the creation of an illegal and dangerous dependency in users is a common denominator.

[The Rush is described as a feeling very much like a heightened and prolonged ****** ******. A great relieve of tension. It is mostly felt when ****** or any of it's derivatives opioids/opiates is administered intravenously].

In quite a disturbing hyperbole a ****** addict described the drug's EUPHORIC RUSH as follows:
"Take the best (******) ****** you've ever had, multipy it a billion and you're still no where near it... "

welcomed to the idea, once again
by the cool calling that lead me,
barely heard, and hardly felt,
yet, still coercing enough for this.
so i decided to attempt it,
again.
an attempt made at nothing,
when reality says it was something,
as i digress, it was nothing,
and again, it was something
though i'll never name it
what it should be called
because it has a
name.
aspirations brought about
by perspiration and an inclination
that, again, it would be okay
to try and make sense of something
that i've wanted before
and want again.

when you hear politics
you usually think
poli-tricks
as in
the man in the suit
who stands up on stage
speaking false words and
reaping false prais
or the election promises
to End the War, Save the Children, Create More Jobs
Pony's for Everyone.

or the media pundits
who bicker and argue and flaunt
their superiority, their cynicism
over the public nightly
in Prime Time and technicolor lighting
you think of the pyramids
of the gods and the masters
imploring and coercing and driving
us,
faster, faster

of all the wars and drilling just beyond your control
of a separation and distance
from the actions this very instance
which are taken in your name
and worst of all, for most of us
politics, is Out There.
beyond your domain
or beyond your care

but politics is more than
an anonymous ballot drop
in an anonymous ballet box
politics is in the way
you step out your door
and follow that yearning
for something More

politics is in the way
you treat the Other
be it your next door neighbor, the stranger on the street,
or your lifelong brother

politics isn't being politically correct
but it's about having a level of respect
deep enough to accept
that your Words,
shape your World

politics is in connecting the
Me to the We
so that together we might
Be
something more than the sum of our parts

politics is in the conversation you had with
the person behind the cardboard sign
and whether you let them remind
you that God Loves You
and I don't mean God Above
sending you love letters on the wings of a dove
but the God in you and in me
the God we can all feel and see
the God of perfect unity

politics is in the linking of our arms
because although
we may have retreated
the People, United
Will Never Be Defeated

politics isn't in ivory towers behind closed doors
or strictly for super-powers
politics isn't in the oval office
any more than a sarcophagus
because politics isn't a photo op,
kissing babies, or a meet and greet
politics is You and I, together
in the streets
and in the parks
before, during, and after dark

politics is reclamation and restoration
regrowth and renewal
it's in the invisible fibers
which bind and align us
in how we redesign Us
to encompass that which must
become part of our moral compass

because it seems to me
that hierarchy
is a bunch of malarkey
a system of oppression and exploitation
compounded over millenia
of violent suppression and spiritual stagnation
until, Today
where we stand divided
by color class creed
****** preference
and gender id
enframed and maimed by bureaucracy
each of us, alone
doubting our own efficacy
so I tell you,
stand up, and smash your TV

because you won't find revolution
inside of a box
or get it from attending
inflammatory talks
because revolution is more
than overthrowing capital or the state
revolution is in the relationships that we create
within the rotting shell of this system of hate
revolution is in discourse and public debate
in neighborhood assemblies
and Occupations of late
because power, true power
isn't where they told us
power is, and always will be
with us in the polis, the people, el pueblo, rejoice!
and as we begin to awaken,
to this most true realization
remember,
We,
Are Unstoppable
Another World is Possible

I rub my skin raw because of the way your desire scarred its way across my unwilling flesh. You were selfish, you are selfish. You are greed in a human body, and I am paying for it. Triggered by another man the same as you, who put his hands around my neck and seemed confused by the concept of a woman not wanting him. Who quickly decided he didn't care either way, and that I could get him off "willingly" by my own method or be forced in ways I would not survive. There is no such thing as yes when no is taken from you, when you have a choice between two evils and you choose the one you think you can live through. When silence answers questions and "I don't want to do this" is ignored because his **** means more than the choices of the person he's trying to force himself on. That is no man, that is a monster dressed as a high school student pretending consent can be forced. Because you made me decide between you ****** me unprotected or getting you off with something else, and I chose the one I thought I could live with, that wouldn't result in an unwanted life growing inside an unwilling body, a body that wasn't willing at conception and who would probably make the choice to end its budding inside of her before having her rapists child. Because you triggered memories of coercion with your threats, because you made it happen again and afterwards had the ******* nerve to get me some ******* grape juice and hand it to me ******* ******* pouting because I "looked like I hated every minute of that" and you "didn't even get to **** so it wasn't even worth it." Because coercing me into ****** activities under threat of unprotected **** apparently wasn't worth it because you didn't get to **** me, because me telling you no and saying I didn't want to until you got so fed up you wrapped your hands around my neck and squeezed annoyed you. Because you put your **** over my free will, over me as a human being. And I get to suffer because of it. You made me a survivor twice over and you smile at me in the hallways like you're somehow still my friend.

freedom is a funny thing
what would dreams bring
but calamity (and loss
tears superfluous waste of water)

slow treading in treacle
hold absent flora to the wind face
cross eyed glory on a pale mask

no extending big hand
to the child who doles out water
to babes from ***** papercups

scratching scoops of brown mess
amid domesticated fauna
in the middle of nowhere land

feet rubbing for warmth
an ever going stipple wagon
a small blanket the only cover

one scooter holds too many
open beauty closing too soon
supply demand coercing blank stare


impasse holds the keeper hostage
some up - some down
no break from unbroken cycle

the dreamer lives forever on
inside the tightest cage
and knows there's little cure

yet within full ironic view
lies the priceless key to unlock
dark eyes implore me to take you

anything is possible
                                                                ­      yes
                                                       ­               anything
dreamer, dreamer
open dreamer

open your dream wings

Tying a string to loan
Coercing a poor country,
Under the yoke of poverty
To squawk and groan,
Also making
The noose tighter, tighter
So that aid it fails to garner,
Allow a hypocrite donor
To flog the receiver
Into a restricted domain
To every donor’s whim
Saying “Amen.”

Tragically, this way receiver’s
Development wishes
And growths’ talk
Will go up in smoke.

In such manner,
With malfunctioned cog,
Receiver turns
The tail of the donor dog,
.
On the other hand,
For donor’s
Geopolitical advantage,
With preferential treatment
The ingratiating donor’s pet,
Pampered, will enjoy
Jealously -strewn
Dream’s fulfillment
To its heart’s content,
While the pushover
Smothered, maltreatments
Has to suffer.

It is such strings
The pushover-made
Ethiopia managed to cut
To generate much-needed
Over 5000 Megawatt.
Megawatt, which commands,
On the back, many a pat.

In so doing
Ethiopia has set an example
Emerging countries
Could realize
Developmental take off
By own dabble
Ramming home donors’
Double standard is
What they can
Do without, while in
Birth cry bout.

Chopping the string
With a self-esteem knife
Ethiopia born GERD to life
Tapping Abay (Blue Nile)—
A confluence of rivers,
Which are rife.

Ethiopia is
Tapping its gigantic river
That originates from its soil
To do away with women’s
Back-breaking toil.

Ethiopia is harnessing
Its prodigal river
To avoid fetching firewood,
Chocked with smoke,
To prepare food.

Ethiopia is subduing
Its God-bestowed river
To outreach with light
Students that study
Late into the night
For want of
A reading lamp
That use smoky lantern
In far-flung corners of
The country’s
Schools’ map.

Ethiopia is
Forcing the river
Yield a hand
So that
Nation’ demand
Electricity—
Mushrooming industries’
Lifeblood—
Soon, will flow
Like an irrigating flood.

Ethiopia is
Taming the wild river
In a bid
Environment-friendly
GERD starts
Generating hydropower soon
To let the region enjoy
The unprecedented boon.

When GERD materializes,
The heinous, covetous
Donors’ pet ,
Which claims to date
The river is
Its exclusive right
Will be
Coerced to stop
Eclipsing the country’s
Affluence hope.

The less privileged
Round the globe
Which are
Under the same fate
Ethiopia’s
Development ******
Could emulate.

Soon Ethiopia will
Join the club
Countries marked
Industrial hub.

You know something?
Arm twisting
Is the mystery of the string!
So go for bootstrapping
Use shoestring.

I. Parade Square

I can still feel the blisters from the hotplate ground,
the tar off my marred body,
imagine my acid sweat coercing my eyes
to burn with an perverse, masochistic
fire for this
torture
my tongue could never profess.
Running or sprinting blind, and
then a rumble above, force open my eyes to
watch the undercarriage of the SQ A380
hang low like a
ladder.

II. Swimming Pool

Usually we swim here,
or get cooked by the sun,
but there was once we pumped eighty
because the FT was bored and wanted to go
home,
early.

III. Cookhouse

Pre-dawn,
we sit down half-asleep,
milo in hand,
a lump of oily I-don’t-quite-know-what on my plate.
Every table a section-full of once-boys
taking a glimpse at the outside world through flat rectangular
window panes that hang from the ceiling.
At 0600, Channel News Asia plays the National Anthem,
and I wonder why we don’t sing it
anymore.

IV. Range

It is going on two months in this foreign land
Two months of having not shot a single picture

A single snug trigger-click, snap-shot
Burst of colour – bang! – picture

Tangy black three-point-eight-two kilos that
Hang off me like a corpse-like appendage

Two months of wading through picturesque scenery
Lilac cirrus sky, or the sleeping shadows of silhouetted trees

And no chance to shoot any photos
But the picture of simulated ******

As I point and pull, hear the
Trigger-click of my camera go

bang.

V. Grenade Ground

When I picked up the little
inconspicuous
olive thing, and placed it in the pouch
next to my left breast, beside my
heart,
I couldn’t help but ponder
if that was how the Bali
bombers
felt like, moments before they
died.

VI. Beyond the Sphinx bridge

This is another world;
a world filled with so many dark
memories
I cannot write about it.
I would have saved you from drowning in your
waterlogged grave, except
I was drowning
myself.

On the long ride back
to camp,
I gazed into the distant twilight, thinking,
we may sit in the
same
tonner, but in actuality
we all find our own roads
home.

VII. Coy Line

When I shower I close my eyes,
feel the slow trickle of water from
the broken showerhead, and
imagine myself in a hotel villa, or
one of those luxury hotsprings.

When the lights go off I lie back,
gaze out at the orange floodlight that
shines through the panes,
illuminates my teary face,
darkens my world
to a quiet, uneasy
sleep.

VIII. Ferry Terminal

Every book-out
I let the man scan my card,
puff up my shoulders
and catwalk down the dock
with a sense of newfound authority.
I’m a civilian now.

Sit and hear the low rumble of the ferry
get louder and
louder
like a plane on the verge of taking off;
like a soul on the verge of
escape.

We played with words
and peddled euphemisms,
as we hid behind veils.

We had reality
twisted and bent.
We chided and spat
into the winds
of coercing gales.

People often say to me “I wish I could write like you.”
Which to some degree I should find humbling
But if only they knew the truth
That every time I touch the pen I'm afraid of what it might do
Behind the guise of self expression it takes possession
All defenses are torn a sunder in pain under its reign
And I am helpless to stop it
Like I would, even if I could anyway
Each tear in me is subject to its tyranny
I watch every sunset fearfully
As the veil of darkness falls
So do the castle walls
It is then that the pen will begin to possess me again
Coercing confessions of sin
However, as much I hate it
I abhor I love it more
I concede that I need it
There is a stink of distinction
Between me and this ink pen
Yet still somewhat synonymous
Whatever I hide under the surface
Determines its purpose
And it always serves it
Even if it hurts when
I bleed through this pen.

Dreaming in the dream (Broken inception)

-Alexis J. Meighan-
11-12-2013 10:45:45pm

I could try.... Exhale
I could sigh
Read the menu, make my choice
Clear and simple tone in my voice
I make the healthy decision.
The one all the world says work best.
The one the waiter recommended, **** near on knees bent

But yet there's an error on the dish I receive. "That's not what I ordered"
I double checked my choice and even went along with the spectators cohesion, and ample coercing.

"I ordered what you suggested, to be your best
and
Yet I am wrong for being wronged by the establishment's
I need to see your management. This plate of food is an embarrassment
And most of all not what you said I would get"

I ask my mates around the table, a bowl of this is what you praised, yet a plate of Bul+#!t is what she gave
How can you say it is what it is not
When we all want the same dish BUT
Different is what I got and you say its all the same and I assure you madam it is not

Then I am made out to be insane. Patronized!
I am told "we are aware that you believe that you are
entitled to what you claim"
Though the table and server don't feel the same.
I should keep asking for that in-correct entree(They say)

I Demand a bowl of that
Waitress then replies
"yes sir I will obliged"
She returns with plate of this
Again enraged I explain again and again
"That not the F#€@ng bowl of fiddles you keep insisting when I maintain my choice from menu is undermined and obscured with plates of bull$#+t now I want out of this place"

I stand and scowl at all around
throw my napkin on the ground
i can't believe this waitress audacity to mock my effort and good intent
with her insisting insults that my brain lacks presence.
Like I don't know what I want and how to ask.
Exiting the building I look back and I ask
"Are you people all crazy?"
Everyone makes eyes contact to my brow, all wearing mask that resembles cats.

They begin to clap and whistle. And in unison chant
"You can't win, you can't win, you can't win, YOU CAN'T WIN"
I cover my ears and close my eyes then it all stops and to my surprise,
I fix my stare to where I had disappeared to.... Like a dream I am woken in confusion ear to phone,
hearing the unrecognizable babble from a voice in my home.
Then a click, dial tone, a beep as I touch the green button, I raw rush of pain postponed, as it (the sensation) passes,
the calm, the rational, the point where I am aware, that I am alone in thinking I've grown, destitute in comparison to the riches of the idealistic child I saw playing peekaboo with his scars in the mirror,
when now there is always doubt on how we proceed and believe. The doubt that my dreams and my reality, altered state or sober receiving the wrong plate, can it ever get along. always somber from the vast knowledge, always knowing more than I let on.

A good title for a sandy beach, sunset and drum stick, kind of song.

......Xin

They say it is a silent killer
but I have never heard a din so loud as the chemicals consume my brain
the voices in my head screaming for more
coercing my conscience

"just one, wait, that wasn't enough, a little more.. just a little more"

over and over
the cycle repeats
again and again

My heart is racing
my body is numb
I exhale
all the hurt
all the haunting memories
gone

over and over
the cycle repeats
again and again

"just one, wait, that wasn't enough, a little more.. just a little more"

Once she was called storm
her wrath was pure fury
yet cleansing and vital
her nature can be unforgiving
but she would always settle
At times her calm was just
an illusion
The eye of a systematic
cyclone

Once they called her raven
feeding on dead sheep
coercing with wolves
adorned in mystery
hidden behind her long black hair
whispering messages from the gods

Once they called her firefly
her interal beauty shinned in the darkness
although by day she looked rather average
by night her light was pure inspiration
and many tried to catch her as she passed

Many names
many places
many loves
many decievers

but even at her worst they rendered
her beautiful

she's "Too crazy to live,too rare to die."

And all aspects still live
in my heart and mind
a spirit that never dissipates
with time but morphs
into a new name or kind.

Distant It's heard
The nomads
guitar hum its trembled
arias

Its whispered strum violates
ephemerally
ragged
plasticine walls
It penetrates
stale pine
Punctured by
rust-haggard
nails

It travels
through pebbled hearts and
Nestles
in hidden cracks
Coercing
suffocated crumbs
of life
into the night.

The unscrupulous cavalry shuffled aboard narrow lanes,
Cutting in line towards Jager Bomb's tether,  
Cluttered duffel bags concealing cheap champagnes,
Passing cruise ship commuter's ruffled feathers.

With their fake, "excuse me's" en route to the bar,
Coercing the conductor who's been under the weather
With smug smiles and counterfeit Cuban cigars.

Leaving the harbor three sheets to the wind
The cowards commandeered Grandparents pool chairs,
A little past midnight with no foresight of end,
An abrupt brawl broke out, fists flying through air.

A sightseeing whale trip turned into a ship from hell,
The assailants now held in a South of Wales cell.

i am incredibly foolish & repetitive
foolishly repetitive
repetitively foolish;
there is a pebble in my heart,
small but firm,
impenetrably set still,
demanding to be felt
coercing the blood supply to soak it all up
as if blood can seep through
a pebble
it cannot; but it won’t stop
demanding attention
it is smothering
and relentless;
i have shortness of breath
and my heart pounds
like a door slammed shut
and then opened
and then slammed shut
it’s almost as if i can feel the pebble
rattle within the walls
with
each
pound,
welting the vulnerable tissue;
open,
slammed shut,
open,
slammed shut;
we all forget how to cry
when we most need to

Sweet drenching rain
Blanketing I like the warmth of a fire
Soothing and coercing me
Rearranging what I do so desire
  
Removing my direction towards
A tight grip on withered pain
Forcing me towards a reflective solitude
Worse defeated, in my directionless game

Alerting me now so responsive
In cleansing I from greater pain
Sweet drenching rain bury me in your ocean
Of directed waters
Keeping me almost sane

autumnal leaves
frost brittled lattice
under their own weight
crunch

exposed nerves
toes gasp through clay
fatigue threatens clench
yet splayed arms extend

heartwood congeals
coercing ebullience to Earth
intrusting tendril
beneath edged billows
scalping innate patina

I'm itching to tear this body down.

I'm being deafened by this sobriety,
Trying to silence this urge to
Scratch off all this skin
And smear my insides all over these stupid
White walls.

I've gone too long without the razor
To give up now--
But, oh!
The desire to watch my own blood
Drip and
Slip and
Slide down my skin,
Watching it dance around
The freckles and past scars
On my arm.

Isn't it amazing how
Fragile
My first line of defense for my body is? How
Thin
it is? How under several tiny layers
My insides are held in place,
But with one
Slice
They can come tumbling out
So everyone can see the filth
I hide inside?

These silent screams that no one else can hear--
That others deny even exist in my mind--
Are rattling around in my skull,
Calling me,
Coercing me,
Nearly forcing me to--

.

One small cut.

One
Small
Carefully
Controlled
Cut

By my own
Shaking hand.

And finally,
There is silence once again.