I guess I’m okay… What more can I say?
Forget it—never mind,
You wouldn’t understand anyway,
Would you even know what it's like?
Inside a scattered disconnected mind,
Employed to go on strike?
Where indirect misdirect
The sincerity at play,
When sinusoidal chaos spikes
And past meets the future present day?
As paranoid points outlandishly connect
At intervals of broken lines,
Memory lost in recollect,
An array of misshaped bells
Internally infect the eternal confines
Of infinite distributional decay,
Parallels with no intersect,
Streetwise cells with empty signs,
Burned out lights, potholes, and landmines,
Littered all the way.
How am I to convey that all those times
You let your mind wander away
That I was reading, thinking, dreaming,
Teeming, never idle, never strayed,
Seeing, being, so far and away,
Even the brightest intellect beaming,
Could not grasp the feeling
In the slightest of highest orders reeling,
Wound unbound, or as it would be seeming,
Imperfect, even to the disarray
Of the tamest prefect, whose verdict
Could not predict the reflect,
For in this world, seeing is deceiving,
As the lamest reject, defect,
Increasingly decreasing,
In simplistic bliss obey
Crowned unsound fallacies
That contradict all meaning,
Hiding behind reality, the actualities
Lest, protect the thoughtlessness perceiving,
Let me stop you if I may...
I must interject for I digress,
What nonsense was I weaving?
Forget it—I've lost my mind,
I best be leaving,
What more can I say?
It's periodic I must confess,
You probably don't care anyway,
Yeah, yeah, I'll be okay,
Until next time I guess,
I wouldn't want to be misleading.

It was a hot, sunny, summery day, and the fire trees were in bloom. Their red leaves littered the streets with sunset though the midday light cast contrast on every little awning and ledge.

You were hanging out by the Big Brother store, talking to the friendliest shopkeeper I ever knew, drinking soda and listening to his stories.

From far away I thought you were a boy; your hair was cut so short. It was the first time I ever saw a girl without long hair, and ordinarily I would have been curious, but I had other problems, as you knew. As my little feet marched closer to the store I saw (though I tried to keep my head down) your face, which was so pretty with your huge luminous eyes and your fair soft skin.

I was twelve back then, though, and so were you, so those weren't exactly the things on my mind as I reached the awning of the store, facing the storekeeper and trying my best to get it over with. I was disappointed because you were there; that there was another person to see me. I was even more shy back then than I am now.

I must have made quite the curious first impression on you, huh?

As I said, it was a hot summer's day, and the sky was robin's egg blue, and there I was beside you, about to purchase some juice and biscuits.

And I was soaking wet with water.

My hair and my clothes were heavy and dark and drooping, as if I had just been submerged in a river with all my clothes on. A trail of tiny blue puddles followed me from the gate of our house to where I was, where a big puddle was forming under my feet. I was frowning.

You just stared at me with wide eyes as I told the shopkeeper what I was going to buy. Straight to the point. Oh, and back then I couldn't speak Filipino very well, and so my words had an outlandishly English accent. The friendly shopkeeper was used to it, but you definitely didn't hear me speak Filipino every day. He didn't even ask me why I was giving birth to puddles. He was cool like that.

He handed me the juice and the biscuits. Great. I could splosh back home. But I hazarded to look at you, so ever so shyly I turned my head to look and remember who it was that saw me so I could avoid her.

Then oh man, I blushed. I didn't know you were that pretty with your short hair and your wide eyes and your fair skin.

I'll never forget it; how right then and there you lost it. All this time you were biting your lip while watching me, but then you just giggled and laughed and bent over and laughed some more. I was so embarrassed, but now as I sit remembering that moment, I realise how happy and innocent your laugh was.

Then I made like a dish with a spoon and ran away in a blush as red as the fire trees. I hoped I would never see you again, but of course I did.

I did, sometime later, when we were older, and I remembered you. You didn't let off that you remembered me from sometime past, but I couldn't miss the way you half-smiled and held back a chuckle after you studied my older face.

I never did tell you why I was dripping that day. You never asked. You're cool like that. I swear though, that someday when we meet again I'll tell you, but for now it's my little secret, and you'll be the first to know.

And oh how I was in love with you and, I think, always will be.

My head and my heart
know only one song.

This song has no title
no artist
no album
no genre
unless you consider every person who had ever whispered this song
from cracked lips and dried up throats
or had hummed its tune in monotonous habit until it became nothing
but a humdrum sing-a-long, pass-it-on
religious routine with each letter sounding
outlandishly familiar to something forever etched in their memory.

My mother taught me this song
when I was two years old
because a decade minus eight is the age where you start remembering things like
the shape of your mouth when you’re forming the letter O
how it’s supposed to feel when it’s been struck and
how you’re supposed to not fight back
how you’re supposed to accept that you’re the weak one
how you’re just supposed to always and forever just sing
this one song.

“This
is the song your father
and his father
and his father’s father
and all their grandfathers’ great grandfathers
sang.
This
is the song that began
our end,”
is what my mother told me before she taught me
and before her lips could form the first vowel
before her throat could carry the first syllable
I knew.

I knew that this song
was a fallen hymn
drenched in desperation
its words only there to fill in the deafening silence
and like cheap cement
only meant to repair
but not to mend.
A tune that would put you to sleep
in order for you not to notice
the truth swept up under the rug
A ballad of blood
and ash
enough to fill up your lungs
and flow through your veins until its lies crawled up,
tainted and tattooed your skin
to produce scars for the world to see
scars for the world to label me
and say,
“Ah. She is her mother’s daughter.”

And when my mother finally sang the song,
I could feel the deceit and betrayal electrifying the air
adding to the illusion this twisted symphony
created that this
is the only song we can sing
this
is the only song
we were meant to bring
with us from cradle to grave.
I could hear hatred
notes of ignorance
chords of discord
something was wrong with the harmony
and I cried,
“Change the song!”
My mother sang on.
“Change the song!”
My father started to blend.
“Change the song!”
My grandmother came as a third voice.
“Change the song!”
My grandfather started to tap his feet to the beat.

And I realized that more than three hundred and thirty three years ago
someone had hummed a fa
had pressed a piano key
had written one verse
had been forced to scream out the bridge with chains on their wrists
crevices on their faces left by the tears that ran down the same path
enough times to make riverbeds
had passed the song down to his daughter
and her daughter
and her daughter’s great granddaughters
and had never stopped writing the lyrics since

There was an awkward rest in the song
as if someone had dared to stop continuing
had put the pen down
had tried to write truth instead of lies
but had died with the song of insurgency
and I asked my father whose blood it was
and he answered,
“Someone who asked questions.”
So I asked him who I was
and he answered,
“Nobody.”

But here I stand
here you stand
knowing the truth that has resurfaced
after being smothered by greed and power
century after century
curse after curse
thorn after thorn
I grew up asking questions
and I’m asking them again.
Are you going to be the first one
to erase the words?
Are you going to be the first one
to drown them out with freedom shouts?
Are you going to be the first one
to lay the pen down?
Because if you won’t, then I will
so that one day, my daughters will know
and carry this in their hearts,
Ang  mamatay  nang  dahil  sa  *iyo

She is like no other, always in her necktie.
I knew her before the necktie, before many
the body manipulations, but not all. I'd stare,
engrossingly, at elongated lobes, the wardrobe.
I, now, her technophobe, longing to digital
age do her. "It's complicated," we call it.

How I long to stand next to her at the bus stop,
like we used to do. Waiting, staring, baiting,
glaring, like we used to do, at Fillmore and Haight,
while we'd wait. Didn't care if my bus came and
left, sometimes I'd just wait for hers, to follow
her aboard. I think she liked the way I stalked her.

Me in my blah corporate attire and necktie,
her in her outlandishly wonderful. Going to work  
those days were keen broad bean, where we'd  
convene, sometimes out on the scene, or where
folks ought not be seen. And we'd just look,
for long periods. If we spoke, it was  egg white polite.

But that was then and this is now and now we
chat all naughty fun. I call her my baby, my honey-bun,
my long distance impassioned one. Virtual realities
do often please, something I like about the tease.
If ever again together, I'll be on my knees. She's
my fiancée and we plan to tie the knot.

Guess I'll be tattooing a matching necktie.

I hide because sometimes my thoughts are too powerful

I cover up because maybe I’m just too outlandishly humble

I abide in quiet sanctity maybe cause I just don’t want to deal with the *******

I convene in my small space because I just want to be

I sing and dance in my happy place because that’s my way to be free

I don’t hide…cover…abide…convene…or sing and dance because I lack any social ability

But sometimes you just want to be…

Be with yourself and your own thoughts floating on a cloud of everflowing confidence leading to an over abundance of assurance and resolution

If I don’t love myself who else will

So if I come off that I’m not here

If I come off distant or complacent

Or if I even come off like a *****

It’s because I’m hiding…covering…abiding…convening…singing and dancing with myself

And that’s the person whom I love to be with

As the sun rose,
vermillion on her nose,
weary from the night’s consummation,
she was by the seaside.
She smelled of a fragrance
cheap but astonishingly sweet,
her eyes incredibly melancholic
gazed as far as the sea.
The worry shadowing her face
made it look outlandishly beautiful.
He is sailing to faraway sea
whence many have not returned,
and here she is to see off
her fisherman on a perilous voyage.
Soon the boat crowned the waves
and merged with the horizon.
She turned back for her hamlet,
determined not to cast her eyes on a widow.

LIVING THE FAIRY TALE

make her
a doll's house from
McVities Gingerbread
Cake she absolutely adores
"Yum...yum!"

*

Her dolls line up on the kitchen table. Keeping their greedy eyes on the ingredients, The Golden Syrup gleams in a bowl like a jewel. For this session of cooking with Daddy( always good for a laugh)the lights have..**** them gone...out.

We prepare ourselves by candlelight.
I swear one of the dolls winks and licks her lips in the flickering. The big doll that can wet herself...wets herself.  
Little daughter is wearing a chief's traditional hat many sizes too big for her. She wears it like a crown. She looks like a mushroom come alive.

"Tonight..." I proclaim like the showman that I am to my assembled audience of girl and dolls. "Tonight I shall create before your very own eyes...my very own Jamaican Ginger Cake." I get dolls and girl to say the magic words "Yum Yum YUM!" and hey presto we're off.

Tilly tells the dolls in a loud whisper that "Daddy isn't as good at this as Mummy is!" My pride smarts. I'll show the little blighters I swear and swear to myself.

"Just get on with it!" the dolls scream silently.

Tilly already has a finger( not her own)in the Golden Syrup. She licks the guilty finger and fibs outlandishly "Dolly wanted to taste it!"
The black treacle remains untouched. The dolls don't like it. "Only in the cake!" Tilly confesses.

Soon spices and flour are sifted. Eggs beaten to within an inch of their lives...whisking about the bowl. "Let there be light!" I invoke the Gods and the lights come back. I am indeed favoured.

Tilly falls asleep in the kitchen's fug and warmth...curled about her sleeping cat. The cat is always asleep even when awoke.

The dolls never take their eyes off of me.

Now comes the time when the cake puffs up with pride and sits on its plate like a newly crowned monarch.  It's...it's...not bad for a Dad. But looks a bit the worse for wear..bits falling off here and there...a bit eaten...just a nibble and maybe another little nibble.

"But why Mr. Dempsey..." my Indian grocer demands with amazement "...do you want thirty..THIRTY McVities  Jamaican Ginger Cakes...for why...it's not the end of the world is it...or Brexit?"

"I'm building a house!" I whisper to him as if it is our little secret.

When she awakes..the cat as ever still asleep ...she yawns "Dolls gone..where dolls goned?"

The kitchen looks as immaculate as a conception...as if man has never touched it.

"Shhh...dolls is sleep!" I say sotto voce and adopting her lingo.
"In their own house!" I add for extra measure. Her eyes go wide.

And indeed dolls are lying down with eyes shut tight inside...their newly constructed Jamaica Gingerbread House. All except for the big doll who wet herself and who I have propped up on the loo. Although she is on the loo she finds now she can't go.

"Mmm!" Tilly  mmms. "Dolls have lovely house!" eating the door and half the roof off. Cake in her curls...cake up her nose and in an ear. She eats it with all of her head. "MMMM!" she mmmms again.

"We won't tell if you don't..." the winking doll whispers (like the co-conspirator that she is) waking up in a real life fairy tale "..if you don't tell!"

The next evening... the house eaten...I pop into Mr. Patel's. "Surely not more!" he almost flinches.

"No...just the one this time Mr. Patel...just the one!"

LIVING THE FAIRY TALE

make her
a doll's house from
McVities Gingerbread


Cake she absolutely adores
"Yum...yum!"
living the fairytale

*

Her dolls line up on the kitchen table. Keeping their greedy eyes on the ingredients, The Golden Syrup gleams in a bowl like a jewel. For this session of cooking with Daddy( always good for a laugh)the lights have..**** them gone...out.

We prepare ourselves by candlelight.

I swear one of the dolls winks and licks her lips in the flickering. The big doll that can wet herself...wets herself.  

Little daughter is wearing a chief's traditional hat many sizes too big for her. She wears it like a crown. She looks like a mushroom come alive.

"Tonight..." I proclaim like the showman that I am to my assembled audience of girl and dolls. "Tonight I shall create before your very own eyes...my very own Jamaican Ginger Cake." I get dolls and girl to say the magic words "Yum Yum YUM!" and hey presto we're off.

Tilly tells the dolls in a loud whisper that "Daddy isn't as good at this as Mummy is!" My pride smarts. I'll show the little blighters I swear and swear to myself.

"Just get on with it!" the dolls scream silently.

Tilly already has a finger( not her own)in the Golden Syrup. She licks the guilty finger and fibs outlandishly "Dolly wanted to taste it!"
The black treacle remains untouched. The dolls don't like it. "Only in the cake!" Tilly confesses.

Soon spices and flour are sifted. Eggs beaten to within an inch of their lives...whisking about the bowl. "Let there be light!" I invoke the Gods and the lights come back. I am indeed favoured.

Tilly falls asleep in the kitchen's fug and warmth...curled about her sleeping cat. The cat is always asleep even when awoke.

The dolls never take their eyes off of me.

Now comes the time when the cake puffs up with pride and sits on its plate like a newly crowned monarch.  It's...it's...not bad for a Dad. But looks a bit the worse for wear..bits falling off here and there...a bit eaten...just a nibble and maybe another little nibble.

"But why Mr. Dempsey..." my Indian grocer demands with amazement "...do you want thirty..THIRTY McVities  Jamaican Ginger Cakes...for why...it's not the end of the world is it...or Brexit?"

"I'm building a house!" I whisper to him as if it is our little secret.

When she awakes..the cat as ever still asleep ...she yawns "Dolls gone..where dolls goned?"

The kitchen looks as immaculate as a conception...as if man has never touched it.

"Shhh...dolls is sleep!" I say sotto voce and adopting her lingo.
"In their own house!" I add for extra measure. Her eyes go wide.

And indeed dolls are lying down with eyes shut tight inside...their newly constructed Jamaica Gingerbread House. All except for the big doll who wet herself and who I have propped up on the loo. Although she is on the loo she finds now she can't go.

"Mmm!" Tilly  mmms. "Dolls have lovely house!" eating the door and half the roof off. Cake in her curls...cake up her nose and in an ear. She eats it with all of her head. "MMMM!" she mmmms again.

"We won't tell if you don't..." the winking doll whispers (like the co-conspirator that she is) waking up in a real life fairy tale "..if you don't tell!"

The next evening... the house eaten...I pop into Mr. Patel's. "Surely not more!" he almost flinches.

"No...just the one this time Mr. Patel...just the one!"

His shoes bruised harshly the skin of the street
as he made his way towards me, leaving behind a trail of outlandishly ghastly fumes.
With the letter in hand, his eyes were shaded in by confusion.
His opposition towards his deployment:
He is to be wed tomorrow.
Maybe his deployment could be delayed?
But as I pondered on the matter,
The man took hold of my arm
He mustered pressure
as if he were a snake attempting to intimidate the keeper
                                 "Fix. It."
He stressed both syllables with a sickening hiss.


The air 'round us halted after a breeze
quicken it's pace
crossing the street to the sidewalk over.
His shaded eyes met my hollow eyes.


"I just had this suit dry cleaned."


And with that I snagged his soul.

LIVING THE FAIRY TALE

make her
a doll's house
from McVities Gingerbread

Cake she
absolutely adores
"Yum...yum!"

having her
fairytale and
eating it

*

Her dolls line up on the kitchen table. Keeping their greedy eyes on the ingredients, The Golden Syrup gleams in a bowl like a jewel. For this session of cooking with Daddy( always good for a laugh)the lights have..**** them gone...out.

We prepare ourselves by candlelight.
I swear one of the dolls winks and licks her lips in the flickering. The big doll that can wet herself...wets herself.  
Little daughter is wearing a chief's traditional hat many sizes too big for her. She wears it like a crown. She looks like a mushroom come alive.

"Tonight..." I proclaim like the showman that I am to my assembled audience of girl and dolls. "Tonight I shall create before your very own eyes...my very own Jamaican Ginger Cake." I get dolls and girl to say the magic words "Yum Yum YUM!" and hey presto we're off.

Tilly tells the dolls in a loud whisper that "Daddy isn't as good at this as Mummy is!" My pride smarts. I'll show the little blighters I swear and swear to myself.

"Just get on with it!" the dolls scream silently.

Tilly already has a finger( not her own)in the Golden Syrup. She licks the guilty finger and fibs outlandishly "Dolly wanted to taste it!"
The black treacle remains untouched. The dolls don't like it. "Only in the cake!" Tilly confesses.

Soon spices and flour are sifted. Eggs beaten to within an inch of their lives...whisking about the bowl. "Let there be light!" I invoke the Gods and the lights come back. I am indeed favoured.

Tilly falls asleep in the kitchen's fug and warmth...curled about her sleeping cat. The cat is always asleep even when awoke.

The dolls never take their eyes off of me.

Now comes the time when the cake puffs up with pride and sits on its plate like a newly crowned monarch.  It's...it's...not bad for a Dad. But looks a bit the worse for wear..bits falling off here and there...a bit eaten...just a nibble and maybe another little nibble.

"But why Mr. Dempsey..." my Indian grocer demands with amazement "...do you want thirty..THIRTY McVities  Jamaican Ginger Cakes...for why...it's not the end of the world is it...or Brexit?"

"I'm building a house!" I whisper to him as if it is our little secret.

When she awakes..the cat as ever still asleep ...she yawns "Dolls gone..where dolls goned?"

The kitchen looks as immaculate as a conception...as if man has never touched it.

"Shhh...dolls is sleep!" I say sotto voce and adopting her lingo.
"In their own house!" I add for extra measure. Her eyes go wide.

And indeed dolls are lying down with eyes shut tight inside...their newly constructed Jamaica Gingerbread House. All except for the big doll who wet herself and who I have propped up on the loo. Although she is on the loo she finds now she can't go.

"Mmm!" Tilly  mmms. "Dolls have lovely house!" eating the door and half the roof off. Cake in her curls...cake up her nose and in an ear. She eats it with all of her head. "MMMM!" she mmmms again.

"We won't tell if you don't..." the winking doll whispers (like the co-conspirator that she is) waking up in a real life fairy tale "..if you don't tell!"

The next evening... the house eaten...I pop into Mr. Patel's. "Surely not more!" he almost flinches.

"No...just the one this time Mr. Patel...just the one!"

Dye a picture of an ugly world to that empty gaze
—sort of like your makeup disguise; but not so much the
makeup for shallow beauty standards, overshadowed by
dark eyeshadow. As she puts on a lot of guard, that her
body feels like a suit of armour that emphasize flaws

While her eyes sparkle a quick romance; so much heat
coming out of her pores; hot sweats while he sits next to her,
calls her name, and glances her way… a nocturnal creature,
pressed against the heat of day, pressed against the wall, that
she broke a bottle of hot stuff in her back pocket; to claim
she had a fire ***

To be honest, he’s really the bigger *** of them both,
incapable of hiding his cockiness — pants caught down
they’re so outlandishly unlike; but that makes them like
each other more, and much like the petals that gracefully
descend to the ground: their story of love starts falling aside

Sadness to fall upon you, when you
Are committing such crimes
Run to the nearest comfort that
You've always known

Go to that place where you use others
And reach for the signs to sin
Maybe some day you will find peace
Because this life you have lived was
Outlandishly miserable
As it should have been, on your own accord.

This is Spinal tap
bamboozling, binding, bleeding, bombing...
ripped from every dog eared
and book marked page
recounting latest ill fated fiasco,
now peppering my life and hard times
causing quite an ache – fiercely teasing
(the fire cat) curative panaceas  
sans almond sunset, chamomile,
Osage Tea for the Tillerman.

I tell myself Yukon try
grabbing at straws
with all your might to no avail
even enlisting Strain gauge
in tandem donning
common cents equipage
with a bunch of bootlegged banshees
freed from their cage
and as last ditch resort
drafting electric eels.

Yours truly as shock absorber quite astute
accompanied by Jack and the Giant
beanstalk golems to boot
or lion eye zing tiger
(perhaps named Tony,
mean to the bone, but...oh so cute,
who dwells in a tony neighborhood),
swishing (Nike like) tail,
and held up ala playing the flute
an unseen hellacious, ferocious, atrocious

or outlandishly jowly, egregious beast,
who expelled offal asphyxiating
noxious, odious, pernicious, et cetra odor
from a moon unit sized Glute
yea, I could also allude
to some Monty Python flying dragon,
who gives nada hoot,
somehow remotely controlling
any errant cyber wayfaring day tripper
simultaneously while droning
sheepishly not to ram into ewe.

These high speed U-Haul trucks
combine all the above scenario,
to glean mental state of mine
aye know really *****,
which gagging induces
the worst instance of reflux
making little rheum for ordinarily
phlegmatic ** hum (what me worry
Alfred E. Neuman
persona non grata) guy.

Sum total of available funds
(since being defrauded to the hilt)
to qualify for credit card,
would only feebly meet Karma
credit rating as risky business
approximating the quacking
of red hot inflamed ducks
(my apologies to PETA, Paul, Luke...),
they madly flap wings, yawping beaks,
visa vis masterfully discovered on par
with orange iz the new black
evidenced courtesy Wu Tang clan  
in no way, shape, nor form
unrelated to que clucks clan.

Whew...only then
(after reviewing the situation)
panoply of mystical elements of breath aired
per millennia times two resonated
veritable pantheon of superstitions
fired imagination as catalyst
viz **** sapiens forehead
tugging simian beard,
whence bygone agents provocateurs
fueled tens of previous generations
bred Manichaeism credo,
a nebulous ethos sans early humanity
vetted dual chaired

spirit world wide web populated
with ******* Roman sol invictus
wrought fiery brimstone who dared
assert antiestablishmentarian dogma
got hounded to whit; the bowels
of hellish firmament most
and/or many feared,
they would be pitched headlong
into said purported fiendish furnace,
thus particular obeisance payed
to morays; any voracious
marine coastal eel of the family Muraenidae,
esp Muraena helena, marked
with brilliant patterns and colours.

Specious conversation
Of day in and day out
The lives of many
Concerned with who did what
How he or she
Said this or that

He was
45
She was 19
She did not know
He had two other
Lady loves

Nor, that he was 260 pounds
And balding, gray haired
Barely able to walk a mile
She loved him for his kindness
He loved her for her hips
And her *******

As did he love the others
For their buxom figures
Alas, he did not love himself
And thus he hid from them
His fatal flaws
Behind a screen

Joking of how stress
Is more potent than
His addiction
To the nicotine
That blackened his lungs
And bragging to a young man
Far more genuine
Just as he wished he was

She was 36
She looked 50
She worked two jobs
At 10 an hour
To support her fleeting family
Wishing she was struggling
A bit more with finance

Wishing her son was not taken
By the grasp of a depressant drug
Injected in the veins
Ten too many times

As did she wish
She could abscond from the local crimes
And live in luxury
Not far away, but in a safer place

So, I told her
Of my story of success
And how my brother
Had lived through
What her son had not survived
I had no words to comfort her

They were each 17
Constricted from individuality
By the strong grip of capitalism

They spoke in envy
Of how an older coworker
Was brazen enough to be accepted
For his long hair, and baggy jeans
Paid more, not for his drive and resolve
But his familiarity


I did not respect them
Until I came to understand
They only wished to be like me
Untied from the system
Outlandishly myself

I thought, "How tiny minds might think,
In vapid ways
To cope with the meaninglessness
Of their existence."

Not now, though
I see the truth
They move through their lives
Step by step, one foot ahead of the other
Working toward what I have taken for granted

He asked me for a cigarette
Offering his last seventy two cents

I gave it freely
Not to **** him more quickly
But to quell his demons
So he could live another day
Believing in the world
Which crippled him

I have come to understand
that insignificant, trivial things
hold importance in numbers.

Most people live
to be a part of something greater,
but in recognizing the bigger picture,
I have failed to see the purpose
of smaller things until now.
I never sought to belong.
I never wished to contribute
to arbitrary, mechanical actions.

However, I know now
that to become greater,
I must find something worth being small for.

In order to be what my identity stipulates,
first I have to achieve the stature
to exceed my shadow,
so that I might stand tall and bask in the brightness.