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.

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.

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

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,

Black is my afro
Black is my grandma’s sweet tea
Black is my Nina
Black is the past
My ancestors were called Negros
Black is reminding whites that they cant say Nigga
In 2023
And them acting triggered
Black is pain
But black is beauty and gain
Breaking the chains
Black is my change
Black is my Usains
Speaking of running
They wonder why we run
When we are
Judged by 5-0 because our skin
Being treated differently because of our
Oppressors sins
Staring at the ocean

Run from America
Hide from the Shooters
Fight the Government
Losing count
Thinking of all the rounds
They fire
Into the classrooms
Kids not knowing
Their typical Monday will be filled with doom
So many lives lost by senseless shooters
I can name a few
Nikolas Cruz
Seung-Hui Cho
Adam Lanza
Schools telling you to
Run from Cruz
Hide from Cho
Fight Lanza
How?
When the sounds of bullets are flying
Hearts are racing
Schools used to be a safe haven

As the Waves roar
You can’t drown out my voice
Working your 9-5
But I’m what’s on your mind
Fall deeper
I’m singing your song
Greek mythology
Turned into real life
Sitting by the waters
Luring you in
Come closer
Pushed by love and sin
This will be an experience
The depths of my mental
Or the waves
Which one will drown you?
My shyness but my confidence
Will be sure to confuse you
So slip beneath the waves
Where you’ll be swept up
By my sweet curse