Were my life a knotted ball of yarn,
Everything would make sense.
If I saw math like a knotted ball of yarn,
I would have the patience to work and work and work
At a problem for days;
I would know the steps to follow.

Were my life a knotted ball of yarn,
I would be patient.
I would unravel all of my days slowly
And happily
With measured understanding.

And once I reached the other end
I would die with the peace of accomplishment.

Oh to be the consciousness
Of a shluffed  off skin cell,
Burrowing in the ground
To be used centuries later.

To be that fallen strand of hair
That blew off with the wind--
Now part of of an animal's lair.

To be everywhere at once,
But only in one place.

I am star dust,
A bit of a star long dead
And I do not even know its name.
Is there a record of its place in the universe?
Does anyone know the effect of its gravity
        forming a solar system that too has vanished?

What happened to the consciousness of that star,
Of other beings--

How many bits of souls went into making me?

In Remembrance

I smell gardenia and touch its lustrous leaves,
I remember your garden and your gardenias.
Gardenia: the scent of your home, your love, Grandpa Ralph.

In Church, I touch the Rosary beads as you so often did in life.
When I stepped into the Vatican, where you never walked,
I felt your spirit fluttering around me,
A frizzy energy of excitement.
And each time I pray,
You are with me, Grandma Florence,
My guardian angel.

When I have trouble falling asleep,
I remember the Dumbo stories you told us
About clumsy Longneck, Croc, and Dumbo with the chocolate toothpaste--
A bedtime series that every child dreams of, but so few hear.
And when my mortality hits me like a baseball in my chest,
I remember your words,
"If it happens to everyone, it can't be bad."
You continue to calm me, Grandpa Dick.

Every year at this time, I light candles
In remembrance of you all,
To bring your spirits into the new year with me.
Yet I think about you everyday
So you are present in the electric impulses in my brain,
An energy similar to the one you had in life,
But in different form.
Your energy stays with me still
And will remain with me for the rest of my days.

Pro Evolution Soccer 2009
Is played everyday at my home
And I don't even know which buttons to press.
I recognize and memorize the songs of the set-up menus,
A mirror of daily life and the
Multitudes of decisions we unconsciously and
Constantly make.
These set-up menus,
Which take up more time than the game itself,
Determine the options of fate in the game.
Decisions made in the past
Continue to affect the future.

The game is on daily
And so accurate that I can now recognize soccer players
I have never met or even seen on TV.
Technology allows me access to information
I don't need or had no idea existed.

This video game--
Which critics may write-off as a waste of time--
Shows the ballet in soccer,
The consequences of semi-conscious actions,
And the benefits of working together.

If only Wall Street could apply these lessons,
Taking the time to make good decisions,
Like the set-up menus in PES 2009,
For the benefit of all,
Rather than think only of their individual fame and fortune,
Fucking over the team,
Our economy would not have crashed.

Chaotic half-baked HATEred.
Cigarettes:
A reoccurring chord of annoyance in my life.
Destroying relationships
With my grandmother--brother--boyfriends.

OF COURSE I'M FUCKING JEALOUS OF THIS
POISONOUS SUBSTANCE

It's the most destructive drug in my life and
I HAVE NEVER SMOKED ANYTHING

If I were God, I would have
NEVER invented the
Blasphemous tobacco plant.

No--
It wasn't God--
Tobacco is of the Devil
And millions of people inhale this evil
DAILY.
The Devil--
I fucking hate him, too.

There is another woman in my boyfriend's life.
She is artful and deceiving--
And addictive.
She can penetrate him deeper than I ever could--
Or would.
While I can barely fill his mouth,
She infiltrates his ever alveoli,
Rushing through his veins,
Altering his chemical balance.
She has penetrated me, too;
In a perverted orgy
She has left a dusting of
Black, cancerous ash on my lungs--
A singer's lungs.
While I have the power of
Logic
To persuade him to dump her,
His body cannot live without her.
One day he MUST choose
Between a dichotomy of women:
The angel and the whore,
Timeless images of impossible
Non-existent women.

May he choose the one who brings him
Happiness--
And long life.

FOOD
The "F" is my teeth and lips and mouth,
Masticating and chewing the nutrients of the earth.
The double "OO" mirrors the roundness of my butt cheeks,
Of humongous morning farts.
The "D" is the sound my poop makes
Hitting the water in the toilet
After my body has magically
Separated the bad from the good.
I wish issues of morality could be dealt with
In such a chemical and efficient manner.

FOOD
The roundness of the three letters
Could turn into my body
If I abuse the blessing of my FOOD.

FOOD
Has already been raped by my culture.
Natural, healthy ingredients,
Covered in pesticides,
Filled with preservatives
And artificial flavors--
I doubt that 30% of the FOOD even constitutes natural FOOD.
The flavors have
Weakened and dulled in my memory,
So that FOOD has
Melted into
Legend.

I tasted the caramel in Coca-Cola!
I have been drinking Coke for 16 years,
But I could never pin-point the flavor.
The sticky high fructose corn syrup
Sticks to my teeth.
The can boasts it's the original formula,
But the original included sugar.
Now it's made with an artificial substance
That is powerful enough to dissolve
My teeth.
Bleak destruction masked in bubbles and fake sugar.
But no one questions the ingredients or flavor of this
American classic.

No description necessary! It's Coca-Cola!
Its flavor is Coca-Cola!
Its taste is not to be questioned, not to be analyzed,
Only loved and esteemed as a drink that the tyrannical majority,
Worshiped as a legal and accepted addiction.

I will not blindly drink Coca-Cola.
I will not!
I will analyze and dissect and disagree,
And perhaps
REJECT
Coca-Cola--
For milk.

After taking 2 GREs in a 48-hour period, I decided to get drunk. While I was drunk, I was inspired to write and this is what I came up with.

I. (11/9/08)
I look in the mirror,
Not to please my vanity,
But to search for a glimpse
Of myself when I was young.
Could I have envisioned myself
Drinking?
Is there still a part of my
Five-year-old self here?
Would she be proud of me?
Do I still look like her?
Do I still exhibit that child-like innocence
That can elicit care-free laughter?
I think she is still within me,
Watching my every move,
A personification of my conscious,
Like Jiminy Cricket.
I maintain my ideals for her.
I work towards my goals for her.
She, who has the power of the world
At her fingertips.
She has more potential than all
Of the world's leaders combined.

Hopefully I will make her proud.

II.

Sharp Ice!
An untouched
Wilderness
In a glass.
The artic pole
Glittering at your grasp.
A microcosm on your table!

How fortunate!

I cry at the same time every week,
As precise as a clock ticks away the hours.
These tears will continue to fall,
So I am training them to drip down my cheek
Like the tick of a clock.

Society:
You have stolen my identity.
I used to know who I was,
But you fill my every waking moment
With an endless list of tasks,
Leaving me stressed, anxious, exhausted,
Broken.

It has been oh so long!
Since I had time to do something for me,
Something that I want to do,
That I do not now know
What I would do.

Addressing you thus,
My list of tasks has increased,
I must leave--

Comma:
I don't know where to put you.
I use you as if you're part of my nature,
But then you clutter my page
Until the reader is out of breath
Due to your numerous pauses.

But you have so many rules
That in the end my head spins
Either from lightheadedness from your pauses
Or from trying to understand your bureaucratic laws.

I can't live with you,
But I can't live without you.
I only know I can use you before "but" and "which!"

I am addicted to you
And still you surprise me
With your convoluted intellect.
You will always fill me with awe
And humble me in my ignorance.

The unshaved man with the ripped shirt and dirty fingernails
Is at the library again.
He picks up cigarette buts that were ground into the dirt
And relights them,
Hoping for a taste of tabacco to relax him.
Rejected from society yet forced to view it everyday.
No glass separates him from "normalcy,"
But there is an invisible barrier.

The people see him and move away--
To avoid the smell.
For the passersby, it's as if he doesn't exist,
A mar on a clean dish that everyone ignores.
He is lower than a ghost,
Who can at least solicit emotion.

By ignoring him, people deny him his
Humanity.
However, those who ignore him are more
Inhumane.

They say a definition is simply the description of the opposition.
I am not defined by my sexual organs.
I do not appreciate condescending behavior.
I do not waste away the hours on a sofa
Mindlessly taking in electronic impulses.
I do not enjoy watching a potato sprout
And grow roots.
I do not like staring at the sky as soon as the sun has set,
Wondering where all of the beauty has gone.
I do not like looking at the stars
Contemplating how minute I am in this world, this universe.
I do not like reading great poetry
Knowing that mine is a misuse of the power of language.
I am not the sum of my parts.
I am not a blooming lily,
But I am the scent of one.
And after all of this description of the opposition,
I still am not sure of who I am.

Oh wait,

I'm nobody--
Who are you?