Just Keep Smiling

I. Burnout

I’m going to:
Wake up every morning smirking,
When I see my eyes from overworking.
’Cause my white-collar nine to five,
Has put me into fucking overdrive.

Then I’ll:
Do the dishes and make black coffee,
Pay my taxes and do the laundry.
’Cause I love this culture conformity,
God bless American society.

Driving down the I-94,
Empty bottles rattle on the floor,
In my wife’s white Ford Explorer,
When ahead… to my horror —

Did you know that scars can still hurt long after the flesh and skin have been mended?
It has something to do with nerve endings getting trapped in the scar tissue.
This is to say, some wounds never fully heal.

The Greek word for wound is trauma.
I once read a book about the way trauma reshapes your brain.
This is to say, there are some things you can never get over.

✷✷✷

I could open this essay with some tired old cliche about love to tug on the reader’s heartstrings or some highly dramatized “data” about alcoholism designed to scare children and arouse Pentecostal prohibitionist pastors, but the punk in me will not allow the former and whatever is left of the Catholic in me will not allow the latter. The truth is that I am uninterested in the heteronormative definition of love and I am even more uninterested in painting my first real romance in broad black and white strokes; her body always looked most seductive draped in flamboyant, luminous gray.

How could one write about spring
without flirting with beehives
and sunburnt boys who makeout
with beer cans and raven eyed girls

Spring poems don’t exist
if you can’t rhyme sun
with sultry swim suits
that we bought on sale

When December’s pessimism was present
in our christmas letters and batter mixed with
too much egg and not enough eye contact

Y’know, the polka dotted suits sliced into two?
Yes! Those ones! The ones we slid into after school

It’s a cold November night. Thousands of stars swallow the dark cloudless sky, watching over an industrial building sitting in a lone dense forest. A factory of some sort, a place seen as “off-limits” to the residents living nearby.

A stranger’s eyes
dance with mine
as I’m handing him his cash.
But he and his ripped-back pocket
leave before we can exchange numbers.
Before ever getting to say “Hello”.
And like the arrival of time,
he comes as quickly as he goes.
My weary eyes follow him
as he exits through automatic doors
disappearing forever
leaving me behind with a curious heart.
And that’s how life is now.
My eyes dance with a worthy component
but never touching.
People making sure to stay
six feet apart from love,

In the lens of memories.
In Diaspora Palestine,
A photograph reveals-
An uncle with figs
and grapes in his gentle hands.
Amidst an orchard 53 years old.
Blooming with love-

Watered by tears,
of family labor,
in orchard cultivation-
under the sun's warm glow.
It was a haven, a cherished land.

But beyond the lens,
In life’s twisted fate.

By the force of a bomb.
In a land oppressed by those
who believe it’s their right,

I’ve got strings in my hands and a mask on my face like Covid 19
All this shit going on, gotta self-quarantine till I get it together
I’m spiraling out of control
I'm tethered to us,
tethered to love,
emotions like drugs
The hardest pill to swallow is I'm addicted
I need it, without you, I'm livid
reliving my worst decisions

I’m 21 years young, but I know more than I should about hard times.
My clock was built with the same sticks and stones that broke my spine.
I long peace of mind. This is a moment in time I desperately need it.
How do I find peace of mind when my mind is in pieces?

Out of a dream, I'm shot awake. Circles of darkness still linger, blocking out at least 70% of my vision though I see the clock clearly. It’s a quarter past 6 in the morning. My senses begin to unthaw as if they had just been taken out of the freezer. The scent of orange oil candles fills my nose, and the residue from the bottle of Ciroq that I emptied into my system in an attempt to drown my sorrows remains on my taste buds. Stiffness holds my neck captive, letting me know that I had fallen asleep on the couch. I look up slowly so that the light isn't too blinding.