Flattered You're Reading

Insomnia

Lying awake in bed late at night
I stare out the window at a star on the navy skyboard
and think:
I would like to explode out my window
shot like a naked spring into the dark carols
of early morning air.

I don't know who I would meet
or what I would do,
and perhaps once outside
i would recognize the confinements of this fantasy:
it is slightly cold and i haven't brought a jacket;
the wind is strong and it stinks of CO2;
the people I meet here are callous and unafraid
and though they are exceedingly loyal
I may not be on that side of the fence.

Still, these thoughts
don't daunt me.
I refuse to focus on the possible risks
when the BENEFITS I stand reaping
will change the face
of God itself.

Lying awake in bed late at night
how strange it is to have such desires! to be struck
by such intangible fantasies, when

the room is
so peaceful
the lighting
just right
the comforter
nurturing me
like a lover
or a mom.

We weren't worried about grand thoughts of heartfelt impunity, no tightrope walking or heroic dashes could keep us from a margin of error too dull to top, too on the edge to cut through ideology when all our thoughts really scream is, "I do believe I'm concerned," and there is no hope in skipping on one foot, there are no silent "t"s to release this transnational express, we shoot for lag and end up with boredom, we shoot for the mundane and end up in a hole: dry, wet, it doesn't really matter as long as it is coarse, holding up umbrellas to the weather if it's overcast, I am not to be lambasted when I score you as a name brand; I am the ignoramous when I fall back on my latin words because everything's a prefix to the person who's the suffix and we reconnect like molecules, glinting breaking in the sun.

The Moment I Realized You're Smarter Than Me

You were giving a presentation on
the Incas of Peru
in Political History.

Normally,
I don't particularly care about
any topic so dry and ancient,
but today you really had
the entire class hooked.

You threaded us
with tales of peasant rebellions,
and did we know
that their entire literature
is written in knotted string?

Unfortunately -
you said -
the empire crumbled so quickly
at the advance of Francisco Pizarro
that we never found out how to read it,
and so their written knowledge will forever remain to us
a series of enigmatic knots.

As you said this -
a gleam in your eye,
the teacher greedily grabbing at
the gold spilling from your lips -
I began to feel my own knots
locking up at the bottom of my stomach.

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat
and began to look around for an explanation.
"Is this hunger, or some other physical malady?" I wondered.
Perhaps some bitter form of new-world nostalgia?

The Spanish -
you continued -
conquered the Incas in two short weeks
despite the Incas far superior developments
in the fields of
agriculture
mathematics
and map-making.

They did this by
calling out the Inca king
for "peace talks",
and upon getting the monarch in the open
ruthlessly kidnapping and executing him
before the entire royal town.
The Incas scattered in a confused panic,
and the rest -
as they say -
is history.

"You see," you concluded
with a dramatic sweep of your hand,
"sometimes in history,
the more advanced civilization crumbles
before a military might.
The Spanish didn't know
where they were
or what they were doing,
but they still knew how to get from
A
to
B."

The class gave you a mighty applause
and after a moment -
as I processed your final stanza -
I joined the clapping,
those terrible knots
loosening into elegant threads of silk
drawing up and out of my chest
in an exhale of pure relief.

The first draft of my novel is finished.

With all the creative energy I put into this project, I feel completely drained of any reasonable or creative thoughts. There will be no witty outcrops in this message. Rather, I give it to you strictly by the numbers.

"Something for the Long Flight Home"
first draft completed March 13th, 2005, 2:36 A.M.
pages: 255
words: 70,073
characters (spaces not included) : 312, 853
characters (spaces included) : 385, 334
previous novels written by this author: 0
age at time of completion: 21 years, 7 months, 6 days.

And that's how I'm feeling right now. Exhausted and goodnight. Maybe tomorrow I'll write something with a shorter focus. A haiku might be nice. I'm spent.

The Guppy
or
A Safer Kind of Story

One day there was a guppy. This guppy was a young adult and things were finally going his way. He had escaped from his father’s predatory eye and gone on to find great work in a button factory; soon thereafter, love. At the button factory things went superbly, and he was recognized by his superiors as a guppy of great potential. He was quickly promoted to assistant coordinator of internal affairs and was revered by all. Soon after his promotion, his fellow guppies became upset about wages and working conditions, and unionized. The guppy – whose skill and cunning were now widely spoken of – was asked to lead the union, but he declined in favor of a position as head treasurer; he had never been one for politicking. In the end, the union got most of what they wanted and a strike was averted. Thus the guppy went home happily, where he ate his newborn children, as guppies often do.

The Rejection
by Franz Kafka
***
When I meet a pretty girl and beg her: 'Please be so kind and come along with me,' and she goes by without saying a word, what she means is:
<>'Yes, we are both quite right; and to keep us from being irrefutably aware if it we'd better, don't you think, go our separate ways home.'

Today i walked the balcony with open laces.
A stumble stagger trip and woo
I would've flow down 30 feet
to my marble hard final stand.

The porter, waiting below
never liked me
but i get the impression
that moment would have jarred
even him.

But after he recovered from that
life-altering moment
when he realized that mortality
flashes
like a wide-man's pocketbook,
what's standard procedure?


Of course,
the first step would be telling
my brother
my father
my mother

then my friends
my lover
and lastly my acquaintances

After the school cancelled all tests (too much of a distraction)
the more complicated questions would arise:

How do we proceed?
I'd always told my friends
I'd wanted a VIKING
funeral
but in the face of such tragedy
I think few would dare remember.

So, on we would go
to the high school diaries,
poorly written cronicles of
first blowjobs
etc
etc


My brother would get my socks and
after some black clothing
and a teary grounding
I think it would be only appropriate
to check the computer for
my writings, see what I came up with.

Unfortunately
my novel is completely unfinished
most poems unedited

and that which I did complete
could hardly do much more
than put in prominent display
my utter lack of refinement.

"Oh, what a tragedy!
He was so young!
So unfinished