Author: litmag_admin

-Albania, 1971-

            The prisoner would remain nameless as far as Besim was concerned. He had first learned his name months ago when he had arrived at the prison. Besim prided himself on knowing the first and last names of each one of the prisoners. He’d try to be generous—to the best of his ability and to the best of their circumstances, but he learned quickly that most of the prisoners had no interest in exchanging niceties with him and that most spit at the officers as soon as their backs were turned. Still, despite subtle displays of protest, they obeyed the rules, too weak and too tired to try their hand at debauchery.

            The prisoner coughed violently. Why, thought Besim to himself, why gamble with your life you simple-minded fool? His fist went numb and then stung as it made contact with the prisoner’s cheekbone. It was dim and cold in the room and the nameless one’s pain echoed off the walls as he grunted and moaned in response. He worked hard to breathe and Besim wondered if he had broken his nose.

            “Get up,” he muttered, as he shook his fist to make the pain go away. The prisoner’s head hung limply to the left and he could’ve passed for dead had it not been for the labored breathing.

            “Get up,” Besim repeated calmly.

            “Do you know why you are here?” Besim asked between breaths as he tried to pull him up and straighten him against the wall. The prisoner didn’t flinch at the sound of his voice. “You were sent to the camp because you cannot be trusted. You were then brought here because you proved us right.”

*

            Edi stopped running and bent over to catch his breath. His adrenaline was draining with the sunlight and in the silence of the forest; reality was beginning to envelop him. His mistakes rose to the surface of his consciousness and his body trembled in the cool evening air.

            I should have waited until after roll call, he thought to himself. I should have waited for darkness to run. The forest was thicker than he had anticipated and he was, at first, grateful he had not taken off into the night. But now he realized his grave mistake in not waiting for the dark, after each person in the camp had been called out and accounted for. He hadn’t been on the run for more than twenty minutes before he heard shouting in the distance, knowing instantly that the woods had been infiltrated with soldiers looking for him.

            Beyond escaping the confines of camp, Edi didn’t have much of a plan and found himself hopelessly lost with the onset of night. There was still a childlike and primitive fear of the dark that he secretly harbored; the old trees blocked out the late sun, and their tangled trunks and abandoned foliage below created a mausoleum-like effect and Edi only hoped he wouldn’t die in the vast wilderness, alone and remembered only as an afterthought, a cautionary tale. He tried to shake off thoughts of his mortality, certain he had left the worst behind him. But the evening’s cacophonous sounds echoed; the sound of snapping twigs and leaves scattering and a slight wind picking up. Edi looked around briefly before setting his aim on one direction and moving towards it.

            He thought about his only companionship at the camp, a priest he had befriended upon his arrival, and found himself wishing more than ever that he wasn’t alone. The priest was different from all the others. Educated and socially aware, he nourished a part of Edi’s mind that Edi didn’t realize had been starving. Their discussions at first were the usual: “Where are you from? Who is your father? Where is he from?” Eventually they began to carry on deeper discussions in broken whispers late into the night. In this country’s new era, religion had become the forbidden fruit—one bite of it and you were destined to a life of destitution, of punishment and deprivation. And while their conversations in daylight veered back and forth between family history and stories of their lives before the camp, after hours there were questions about the afterlife and salvation. Eventually, even those discussions would shift to ghost stories and old family folklore.

            At night when the last family name had been called and accounted for and everyone retired to their homes, Edi would make his way back to the priest and knock twice lightly on the door; twice—never three times. Three knocks foreshadowed an impending death. Quietly the door would open, the priest would smile and stand to the side for Edi to walk in.

            “Did I ever tell you about…” were the priest’s first words and suddenly the night would begin. Edi wasn’t the most enlightened man but he believed his presence had become just as integral to the priest’s life as the priest had become to his.

*

            Edi held his side as he walked in the darkness, the cramp deepening with every breath he took. The forest seemed to grow louder the later it got and Edi wondered how many different animals thrived as nocturnal beings. He tried to recall what made him decide to leave the semblance of security he had accidentally stumbled upon, but nothing seemed to justify his current state of hopelessness. The last discussion he and the priest shared was the first time Edi dominated the conversation, talking about his fears and his insecurities and what he worried would happen to them both if they stayed at the camp. Somehow, through his incessant ramblings, Edi decided he would escape to run through the woods and over the mountains to Serbia and seek asylum. He urged the priest to join him, referring to the trip as an adventure.

            “Have you read anything by Jack London?” He asked the priest. “Have you ever wished you lived in the pages of a story that was so powerful, so exciting, that your life feels like nothing in comparison? As if you’re just waiting for the real part of this existence to begin?”

            The priest studied Edi’s face in the dim light. Edi was a good but simple man. He listened to the priest’s stories like a child weighing every one of his mother’s words. He knew Edi respected him as an older man and as a religious man; this was the first time the priest found Edi sounding provocative. He worried for where Edi’s mind was going, and yet he couldn’t smother the small flame of admiration that he felt deep in his chest.

            “You have a surefire chance of being killed on this run,” he responded. “Stay here and remain with the rest of us. We don’t have it as bad as the others, you know this well. It could be alright.” The priest vowed he’d never forget the look of disappointment on Edi’s face, replaced just as quickly with a look of utter determination.

            “I wasn’t born to be treated like cattle. Neither were you. Neither is anyone else here. I’m leaving whether or not you come with me, but a man can always use a friend on the road.”

            The discussion died down soon after and the priest regaled him once again with stories of the times before the quick rise of communism. He talked and talked until Edi was no longer laughing or responding in return and he realized Edi had fallen asleep, and the priest hoped by morning Edi would wake with a clear mind and a laugh, telling him how he was just overly excited the night before and was kidding around with his talk of running.

*

            “Tell me one thing,” Besim said after taking a long drag on his cigarette. He sat in a chair across the room from the prisoner, who was still slouched on the floor. He was conscious now, however, and he stared back at Besim from where he sat.

            “Tell me one thing,” Besim repeated. “Where did you think you’d end up? What did you think would happen?”

            The prisoner coughed once in response. One, two, three knocks against the concrete wall; he scraped his knuckles on the rough surface before smirking at the officer and found Besim smirking back.

            “You smug son-of-a-bitch. Did you think you’d make it out of the woods alive? And if you did, did you think the Serbs would welcome you with open arms?”

            “Leaving the lion’s den to walk into the wolves’ den,” responded Edi. “Wolves can at least be tamed.” Besim only stared at him.

            They sat on opposite sides of the room studying each other as if they were underwater and the sounds of the outside world were everything on the surface. There was a kind of freedom in Edi’s situation and he realized he was untouchable. He knew they were both killing time until he would be led outside to be lined up against the wall. Perhaps this was the ultimate freedom a person could obtain. The adventure he had so passionately talked to the priest about could be this, and this life was merely a preparation for what lay beyond.

            When he was being carried across the camp after being caught, Edi refused to make eye contact with the priest. He saw him in the distance, amongst the small crowd that had gathered quietly but turned his head and looked straight in front of him as they passed through the crowd. He didn’t want to the priest to see defeat on his face or the sense of regret he harbored. Edi’s final thought before they carried him indoors and shut the door behind him was: well, isn’t this a bitch? And he spit blood on the ground.

*

            Luckily the night sky was clear enough for the moon to shed some light for guidance. Edi felt like an intruder in the wilderness each time his feet disrupted the quiet. He was too large, too loud, and too clumsy to permanently exist there. The deeper into the forest he thought he was going, the deeper he dug into his mind to dust off conversations he’d had with the priest. If he focused enough of his energy on those inner dialogues, he could almost pretend the priest was with him.

            Somewhere in the distance he heard a twig snap. And then another twig. And then another. He stopped and caught his breath, waiting to hear more. In the few moments of silence that followed, Edi quickly tiptoed behind a tree and crouched slowly until he squatted with his head resting on his knees.

            Fuck, they found me, he thought to himself. Fuck. Fuck. They can’t take me. And he began to think about God. He wanted to believe that his close relationship with the priest would grant him protection. He kept his head on his knees and closed his eyes, praying for invisibility.

            Suddenly Edi sat up straight and listened closely. It wasn’t a twig snapping or the sound of footsteps. He listened closely and wondered exactly how dehydrated he had become in the last several hours. Just before he resigned himself to absolute madness and sleep deprivation, he heard it again, clearer and closer. It was his name. Someone said his name. From somewhere in the distance, a voice was calling out to him. Not the priest. Not the officers. It was a voice he knew; the soft, crackly voice—like glass cracking under pressure—of his grandmother who had long since passed. He felt a lump in his throat as he battled with himself; the desire to reach out to her and respond—fighting with the knowledge that he must keep quiet, followed by the realization that he was, in fact, facing his own mortality.

            The corners of his eyes filled with tears as he remembered the endless talk of ghosts and folklore with the priest.

            “Have I ever told you about a neighbor of my mother’s,” began the priest, “who swore she had heard names being shouted one night as she walked home from visiting her sister? She didn’t think anything of it until she realized the names being called were those of the dead.”

            Edi felt his body break out in goosebumps the first time he heard it and again now as he sat bewildered behind the tree. He knew enough not to respond; his grandmother had told him the same lore as a child. A superstitious warning meant to scare children into silence before bedtime, you never respond to your name being called by someone who was deceased.

            The third and final time he heard his name, it caught in the wind and disappeared around him. He didn’t know how long he remained behind that tree, frozen in terror, but when he finally moved, he ran. He hardly noticed the sky beginning to lighten or the tremendous noise he made running through the brush and tripping over roots. Nothing seemed like fantasy anymore, like the folktales he and the priest relished sharing with each other.

            He stopped to briefly catch his breath and squeezed his eyes shut to keep out the possible sight of anything he shouldn’t be seeing. The memory of all those stories and superstitions crept into his mind and when he opened his eyes, Edi thought he saw a movement off to one side of him. He wanted to yell out his grandmother’s name but was scared he might actually be experiencing the impossible. He had always believed in listening to your body and his heart was now fluttering in his chest.

            Why is she doing this to me, he thought as he stood in the middle of a clearing. He heard another twig snap somewhere behind him before closing his eyes and putting his hands up to his ears. In his mind, Edi saw his grandmother as she used to be, long gray hair pinned up into a tight bun. He had always been close to her and wondered if coming face-to-face with his grandmother would be the worst fate to encounter. He opened his eyes and blinked a few times to get rid of the floating dots hovering there. In the distance, in the forest’s darkness he saw a figure moving slowly towards him. Edi choked back tears as he walked towards it, arms back down at his sides.

            “Grandmother…” his voice shook.

            “Over here! I got him! I got him!” Edi recognized the man’s voice from the camp.

            “Please. No,” was all he could mutter while taking a few steps back before he was grabbed and pushed from the side, and he went flying.

*

            He could feel the sunlight even though he saw only darkness. Prior to the walk to the wall, he was blindfolded and led outside. His shoes, worn and thin, created a poor barrier between his feet and the ground. He pressed his toes into the pebbles and ground them around until he created a little crater. He found a strange sense of comfort in the gravelly texture and in the sound the dirt and stones made rubbing against each other. The sound of pebbles skipping and feet being quickly shuffled let him know he was not alone.

            Edi felt a hand press his shoulder roughly, until his tied hands scraped against the wall behind him. He brushed his fingertips lightly against the rough surface and felt the warmth of the sunlight soaked up by the concrete. He pressed his palms against the wall as if gaining energy from the heat, as if he could melt into the structure and hide away there forever. Edi heard words but didn’t process them, didn’t want to give them any weight. Instead, he rubbed his hands against the wall and ground his toe into the ground and used up his last thought on how inanimate objects don’t feel or do, they just are. He felt, for the first time in his life, jealous of something that wasn’t alive.

*

            The priest, though at first considered a prime candidate for relentless harassment and random searches of his home, was diligent about keeping to himself and completing his work to the best of his ability. And because of this—over time—he was eventually left alone and considered one of the more decent prisoners the officers dealt with. His reputation was his ticket into Edi’s home where he was being kept, just before being taken away to the prison.

            He knew he shouldn’t have been shocked by Edi’s condition: swollen eye, blood crusted over his nostrils and upper lip, but he just stared. He let the heat of anger and hopelessness wash over him without flinching and without giving away his sadness to Edi.

            “Well,” whispered Edi, his voice hoarse. “Aren’t you glad you didn’t come?” And he smiled. The priest walked over to him and sat down on the floor.

The priest did something he wouldn’t have risked otherwise, if it hadn’t been for Edi. Leaning forward, he held up his hand and made a small, swift cross in the air and began to murmur a prayer.

            “Tell me something, Father,” Edi interrupted. “Is there really such a thing as Heaven? As Hell?”

            “Whatever you believe there is, there is,” whispered back the priest. “I can’t tell you how exactly those two worlds exist, I’m only certain of the fact that they do. I believe they do.” Edi simply nodded.

            “I heard my grandmother,” said Edi. “Out there. In the woods. She said my name. Just like your stories, I heard my name from someone who was dead. I’m meant to die here,” and his voice caught on the last word and Edi broke down. The priest could do nothing, only blink quickly to keep his tears from falling and put his hand on Edi’s shoulder.

            “You will be alright, Edi. Trust me.” And he squeezed his shoulder.

            As he had promised himself he would do, the priest took out a small piece of paper from his pocket and a pen.

            “Do you want me to write or do you want to do it yourself?”

            “You write, I’ll tell you what to put in there,” responded Edi.

            He began to quickly write down Edi’s words as he spoke them. In this task, he found a purpose he thought he had lost when he first arrived at the camp. It was minor and yet it was what he’d expect of a priest; a final sense of comfort to a man in his final moments. He was going to miss Edi and their nightly talks. Sometimes the priest couldn’t help but wonder if he could’ve prevented him from this fate, but he knew well the stubbornness of man, of that inescapable sin—pride.

            Dear mama, baba…the letter started and continued on to the backside of the page. When they had finished, Edi took a breath and put his head back against the wall. The priest folded the paper and placed it carefully in his pocket. He knew he only had a few more minutes before someone was going to get him.

            “So,” said the priest. “Tell me about your favorite Jack London story.”

“#imaginary,” “#genuine” and “#phenomena” belong to a series titled with words from Marianne Moore’s “Poetry” that I have hashtagged and run through various social media platforms—Reddit and Twitter most often, though Instagram has played a role as well. Each poem is then sculpted from its hashtag’s search results. 

#imaginary

Her name was Nadine. She existed solely to blame things on.
I knew what she looked like. But I didn’t see her.
I understood that some people could be invisible. 

His name was Business Duck. He was the back half of a tugboat
and the front half of Donald Duck. He would do absolutely nothing
except occupy seats that other people wanted to sit in.  

I also had one named Boy for years. I had to intervene
in their arguments many times: you know, kid stuff,
like what to have for dinner or how they should murder everyone.  

I used to just talk to people, as if
there were people with me all the time,
even when I was completely alone. 

One of them was a skeleton dog.
It would race everywhere, and always be beside me.
I practically had a midget vampire following me. 

His name was Splashy. Miss that guy.
I had these black panthers that would run alongside the car,
going into the houses of kids I didn’t like and messing with them.  

My best friend and I each had a fleet of friendly bed bugs.
My Mum would often hear me when I was taking a tinkle speaking to them
and thanking them for helping me shake off my junk. 

I had a husband when I was four.
He was a giant sweater vest named Herman,
and we had a son named Boobie. 

We had two restaurant chains:
Chi Chi Nose Shop, a Chinese restaurant run by mice
in the roofs of cars, and the Nake, a restaurant that you ate in naked. 

Alice was pretty tame, just needed to have a spot saved at the table, car, etc.
Then one day, I just got sick of her, and threw her out the car window
as we were driving, saying, “Goodbye, Alice.” 

I remember what she looked like (a glow worm)
and I remember having conversations with her.
I would make my parents re-open gates and doors, telling them they forgot her. 

I even remember asking her to stop coming around
because I was too old to have friends like her anymore – five –
and when I couldn’t stop thinking about her,  

I tried to flush her down the toilet on a few occasions.
After that I had a star with a face that would float around after me,
or dance around during class to make me laugh.  

He was a blonde version of me
and we ran around on the edges of grass and pavement.
It didn’t take too long for my dad to inform me 

that my friends were the devil’s minions,
and he drew the star I described on a piece of paper
so we could burn it. That was the end of that.

#genuine

Death removes a lot of cover
When you’re covering the world in your thoughts.
It’s not like losing a pen, is it. 

That’s not the argument.
These are the sorts of things I say to people.
I work their job for them so they can stay home and grieve. 

I know you’re hurting.
I’ll be over Tuesday to mow your lawn for you.
I’m all for your fucking off with your secretly soy self. 

I’m talking about YOUR lawn, widow.
Not just some canned cliché that means nothing.
Surely you have more complex feelings about it than “thoughts and prayers”. 

There are no words that will fix it.
It’s not about you. Don’t try to make it about you
By being the one who has to say the deepest, most touching words. 

I’m Christian and personally don’t like this statement.
My child got run over by a car and is dead.
I’m going to write a facebook post about his death 

I’ll be tweeting about his death tomorrow #YOLO
It’s a double standard, and nothing changes: it falls on you.
I didn’t give a damn if they were sincere or not. 

You’re just throwing those emoticons everywhere…
protecting yourself from awkwardness
people use it use it on the internet all the time when someone dies. 

Hey man. I’ve been thinking about your dead mom.
I talked to Jesus about her for a little while. Mostly good stuff.
It felt like a token comment to make her lower her shields in respect 

while her boyfriend was getting a lung transplant
and was in the public eye too much. Shut the fuck up.
I acknowledge you, you’re part of my social group, and I’m not a threat.

#phenomena

A kid I knew lost his backpack and needed a replacement.
He came to school the next day with a big mailbox in his hands
Filled with his books. A couple of days later he added straps to it.  

Voilà, he had a mailbox backpack. He made a million dollars!
When women would wear thongs to show high on their hips,
Kids started to spike up their bangs and bleach them. 

Grown-ups are sporting plastic decorations on their heads
In the shape of vegetables, fruit and flowers.
We had a few kids choke on them from chewing on them. 

If you survived the rubber band installation alone, you were lucky.
But if you snapped them open and slid them against someone’s skin
It was just like a knife. It had a star on it, so I told the gas station attendant  

I was getting another one for free.
She thought I belonged on the short bus.
We wrote a letter demanding reparations  

For having tracked down so many star-labeled pops.
They wrote back essentially saying, very softly,
You kids made this shit up, stop bothering us. 

Every flea market in Florida still sells these to old people.
Mine looked like it could fit a doll when I took it off.
If you stuck two together, it would make a baby. 

I worked at a day care when they got really big.
If someone ripped the bracelet off, you had to perform a sexual act with them.
They were color coded and could range from a hug to anal sex.  

Sixth graders said You have to do it doggy style! to each other.
Girls everywhere when I was in elementary school
Wore pacifiers around their necks like a necklace. 

Like women who purposely shave off their eyebrows,
Only to draw them back on with a pen.
It was pretty cool to color on yourself with those gel pens. 

Have we gotten to the point
Where we no longer understand
How ideas can spread without the Internet?

Winter

Woman wants forever
And man wants heaven
And sometimes not oftentimes
The two wants collide
And both become a cloud
Less often still but sometimes
They die, actually die
Before it can rain
And the world stays dry
And everything remains
Just fine

Rome, February 2015

Then a white bird comes. A big white bird. And it is close, closing like it is going to land on your head. After the rain has stopped. Wings level with your shoulders. On the rooftop before you’re due to leave. Exactly like it’s on your head. And you in the dark with no umbrella over you. The size of your suitcase. On the roof the night you’re due to go. Before getting lost at the station. The water running to your feet. And the sun lost in the light. And beneath a Roman column. The alleys that curl. And the wind which irons the umbrella. And the umbrella yawning. Life at both sides of the road. And life is always a life. And rain until departure. And the umbrella lifting in the wind. And the sound of the suitcase’s wheels. Gravel then tiles. And the dream of faces in the glass. The taste of thyme in the potatoes. A building the colour of a peach. Mounds of melon beneath shavings of mortadella. And the shavings which curl. And the blacks selling umbrellas. And on the thresholds of the restaurants. Speech a song sung over and over. And a white bird saying farewell. And the umbrellas at the entrances to the restaurants. And the wind at the entrances to the restaurants. And life at the entrances to the restaurants. The size of your suitcase. And life always a life. 

Shipping traffic

The grey ships come from the north,
The snow-white ships come from the pole,
The ships of the south are all broken down.
O harbourmaster sitting on the cloudbanks,
O harbourmaster walking on the water,
Tell those leaping on the equator line
How their flesh might turn to wood,
How their bones might turn to steel,
Until from out their bodies comes a ship,
Its black pushing through the swell. 

Translated from the Arabic by Robin Moger.

The Year of the Tyrant 

Follows on the heels 
Of a half-dozen passes. 
It could easily stun 
Any one. 
It could easily scare 
Away the would-be years 

Whatever fresh claim, 
Whatever new interpretation, 
Is an amazing grace. 
That titanic figure, 
Invents interpretation, 
But remember, we are articulate. 

Am I making my point?

Let’s assess his intrusion. 
Every aspect of what comes close, 
Is just his chosen narrative. 
All of our cranked tendencies, 
Are a cradle to the grave. 
There is no closer deity 
Then the devil before us. 
This is not hyperbole. 

We are standing up to the grand,  
With shoehorns of hope, 
And a future, 
Created by claim. 

We, the damned, 
Are more concerned about the people 
Selfless, unnerving,  
We are not flawless, 
And we are not  
Always good-hearted, 
But we are smart enough  
To not dismiss the lies. 

It is a true act of sorcery. 
Or secrecy. 
Only a tyrant insists he is right.  
Only a tyrant reaches the wide 
Without running, 
And without speed, 
Only to say his fall was measured 
And planned, but don’t believe your eyes. 
We are seeing this. 
This glimpse into a reality unknown. 
Praise what comes 
Because the impossible is possible. 
For only a tyrant feels they are praiseworthy 
This is nothing new, 
The year of the tyrant.

Of Tyrant 2

I heard the church choir 
on West 71^st street. 
I felt: angels  
& then, 
 

despair.

Put on a happy face, Darlin, 
says a man  
while I walk  
with groceries in hand. 
I glare 
& I flare 
then I sooth 
my pocks & 
my strays. 
What do I have  
to hold on to, 
but hardness? 
The constraints, 
are open-mouthed 
with squawk.  
He is everywhere. 
thumbing hate into Sunday.

Chilled Fork

Low Cover

Flat Earther in Repose

For the past year I’ve been mentoring a student at NYU Abu Dhabi, Vamika Sinha, on her hybrid project Cranes, which is a mix of poetry and essays, and has to do with identity and moving through the world as a young woman of colour—a 21^st flâneuse who’s discovering the failures of cosmopolitanism, the burden of hyphens, and how art is a kind of hunger that fills and sustains us. I’m new to teaching, but I doubt this thrill ever diminishes—when you come upon a voice that feels grounded and wise, that’s looking backwards and forwards at the same time, when goddamit, they’re just beginning. Vamika’s voice has a choral effect because she’s in dialogue with so many artists—Coltrane, Teju Cole, Solange, Gloria Anzaldúa, Yasser Alwan, always coming back to the question, “What am I?” A flautist and photographer, she understands the power of the image, but also knows how to riff and jump octaves. She’s less interested in crescendo, more excited by synchronization and that lovely moment that she describes in jazz as “the opposite of foreshadowing…the proclamation of what came before, the hint of an older tune.” She’s building on all that’s come before by pushing up against it or subverting it or singing it some other way, and by doing so, she’s evoking Audre Lorde. She’s smashing down that house and building her own house, and the result is glorious. I can’t wait for the world to discover her.

–Tishani Doshi, author of Girls Are Coming Out of the Woods (Copper Canyon) and Small Days and Nights (Bloomsbury)

blackbrown crush: a sonnet

In praise of all the blessings we wouldn’t get, call upon my breaths,
phone-line gossamer. Make them fervent, & pull
the string in my windpipe, till the monarchs come down
from their clouds into my stomach. In the name of crippled wings,
Messenger, the hours of time split
like filaments on our screens, injera like naan, Hawkins’
‘Body and Soul’, history bleached & sonnets
undone like a corset. For this thread-thing    I wait
which is to say,                                             I want you
to wait for me, how long                               I migrate.

You call & what sun, what slaughter
of delicate, queens toppling & I hope you catch me
with a net as big as the atlantic, sieving
words struggling under the coats of our wings.

(st)ars poetica

in the open city, i move like an eel. i am electric and curved like a smile razored. in the open city, i live on hot food and hot music. i distract myself from weight. in the open city, a man makes a rape inside the womb of a book, and fills it with hot air. the words never deflate. and i believe in wonderlands lying at the bottom of holes, and i believe in blackbrown alices who reach their destination. in the open city, translation is not sold in the shops like rope necklaces. in the open city, i fly without wires making me marionette. look there, some me has fallen and killed their darling self. in the open city, i am flâneuse venus never in retrograde, cinnamon brown flesh and moonless. an open city is the woman itself. free to lay. in the open city, i am a queen on the chessboard, mobile as a dream or dictator. in the open city, memory is no cannibal but a child making jigsaw. in the open city, i can change colors. make blues into hot pink, my brains all alchemist. 

self-portrait as nation-state
after safia elhillo

for a language i choose the pen
filled up                            in red
runny like syrup in spoons 
sticky on my                        lips.
for borders i choose the      seam
running across my mother’s 
stomach, proof of birth, that 
i am         i am an aftermath;
that i did not slip into a life that should
not have been, like that
brother of mine who never  crowned
any territory, only                 bled.
for a culture i breathe          breath 
into plastic dolls
like myself, i give
them songs & color &          ink 
as thick as what flows         within them.
for an anthem, i                   laugh —
jagged, jazzy, juicing 
a child’s voice ripening        towards 
its own self – colored           soul
stained. & for my people     i give
them throats full, to speak 
i belong you belong         i belong to you & to me.

            And but Tweed was all like, “Yo, you gotta hear this shit — this shit is stupid!” And Dig’s hanging on to his every word, like “Yeah man, give it to me,” and I’m just hanging low, leaning over the bar, staring at all these bottles of all this Blue Curacao shit and thinking, man should I do another shot? And Tweed’s jabbering away about some cat he knows, “This cap from East New York, this goomba…” But I’m lost, ’cause by this time I’m three sheets to the wind shitfaced. And I’m eyeing the one chick in this place, the goth over there with the punk belt, sitting all by herself, and it’s just about this time I notice my bladder’s full.

            So while Tweed’s arms are flapping like some drunk monkey and Dig’s staring at him like he’s hypnotized, I leave them two by the bar, and they don’t notice me move ’cause it’s like seven beers past two a.m. and who the hell notices shit at that hour? Plus, it feels good to leave ’cause I’m starting to feel like I’m wasting my life with those fools, those fucking morons, and I just need to get away. So I walk into this cloud of cigarette smoke, like someone else’s dream, though they ain’t supposed to be smoking in this place, and somewhere in the back of the cloud is a bathroom, a little stinkhole, with shit around the bowl, writing all over the walls. I whip my dick out and shoot a stream somewhere. It don’t matter where it falls. Everything’s covered with piss anyway. And it feels good coming out, like a little blow job ’cause I’m drunk and stoned, and I start reading the stupid phrases on the wall, like “Arab 4 Life!” and an arrow pointing to it saying, “Fuck all ya cocksuckers!” Plus there’s all this wack shit, like maybe in Polish, lots of Poles in Greenpoint. Some Spanish amigo stuff and the usual suck my cock phone numbers for dope. I took it all in, you know? I was just taking a piss. And like right above the toilet paper was this big black writing that said, “G, you really should stop wasting your life with those two fools,” and I’m thinking what a coincidence, right, since everyone calls me “G” and I was just thinking the same thing when I was next to shithead one and two by the bar.

            So I finished my piss and looked at my face in the cracked mirror, trying to find my eyes behind all the writing. Maybe it was the light, but I was as pale as an Eskimo’s tit. Anyway, I fumbled back to the bar, feeling like crap, totally empty. So I ordered a beer. And Tweed’s still talking about getting laid and high at some party, and there’s this funky techno the DJ’s playing, and I start thinking how odd that this crappy little bar has some DJ playing till two a.m. Even though it was like eighty degrees, the dude’s got this black hoodie over his head, and he’s huddling over the turntable like the Grim Reaper come for your soul. I try to figure him out. Probably some washout clubbie who never got his real break and now he spends his nights high on weed and music, trying to forget the person he never was. Like everyone here, all these fuckers, who’ve got nothing left except beer. The music was cool though, some funky trip hop beats, and it took me out of the mood I was in so I could concentrate on what Tweed was trying to say.

            “When she moved back in wit’ her man,” Tweed said, “that’s when the things got mad crazy.”

            “Yo, you dogged that bitch?” Dig said.

            Tweed smiled like the fucking Buddha, saying, “Man, that shit was so L!”

            They both cracked up while I sat next to them, trying to pretend like I’m into the conversation, drinking my beer and wondering what the fuck I can say to change the topic, to just add something that isn’t about weed or hos or fucking basketball. But Dig jumps in, starts talking about this party he went to, for this chick rap artist, “She passed me an L and said, ‘How you doing?’ and I said, ‘I’m doin’ just fine now…’”

           “L,” their new fucking word. Tweed and Dig pick them up like bums pick up change. And they spend them like crack whores who just won the lottery. And the fucked up thing is I start using them too. Everyone does. They’ve got a way of sneaking into your head. “L,” a blunt, a joint rolled in a cigar. “L,” sick, dope, hot, phat, like mad crazy. “L,” the fucking elevated train. Who knows what the hell it means today? We just say it. That’s how it goes here in Greenpoint.

            So now I’m getting pissed ’cause this is my thing when I’m drunk, I get mad angry, like smash shit, except I never got mad at Tweed and Dig before, but they’re always going on and on about weed and bitches and it just gets so goddamned old, you know? I’m looking for something new and fresh, like the sound the DJ was pumping that said there was more to this bar than their stupid conversation. So I turn my eye to the punk chick in the corner, but she don’t see me or just don’t care, so I down the beer and order another. The bartender’s got this long cigarette hanging from his lip and pours me a beer like I’ve killed his mom, total lack of joy. I smoked some weed a few hours before, had more beers than I could remember, but I can hold my shit, you know? I’m no lightweight. But at that moment I felt a clear light shine in my mind, like I was sober, and I just knew right then that I needed to talk to that girl with the punk belt, that all would be well once I spoke to her.

            I thought maybe I could bum a smoke and that would be my in. So she’s sitting alone just writing in her little book, empty beer glass next to her. And I think, just a quick piss to clear my gnads, make sure I don’t have a booger hanging from my nose, and I’ll be right back. So again I walk through that dream smoke to the bathroom, close the stall door and do my thing. I start reading the walls again. Now the black writing by the toilet paper says, “G, you aren’t listening. You’re just getting fucked up every day and going nowhere. Are you going to change your life or are you just going to waste away?”

            And now this really freaks me out, and I piss on my shoe by accident. I look around the bathroom, thinking, there’s another stall, right? But there isn’t. So maybe Tweed is playing another one of his sick jokes. But, no, he’s at the bar the whole time. He’s six foot four, with a bladder like Kansas. I run my hand over the writing, just to check, but it’s dry. By the little dots at the end of each letter I can tell it’s Sharpie. I used to tag all over the five boroughs with those things. They don’t ever wash off.

            So, fuck it, I think, just some freaky coincidence. Let’s go back and talk to that chick. Maybe she’s into S&M or bondage and likes to dress up in PVC, ’cause chicks with spiked belts like hers usually do. I spring out of the bathroom and slide up to her, and all stupid-like I say, “Hey, got another smoke?” She lifts her eyes to meet mine, and I’m stunned retarded. Her eyes are all shiny, crystal blue, even in the dim smoky light, and I’m totally mesmerized as she keeps me in her stare and reaches into her purse, pulls out a long Camel Light and hands me one. So this is Brooklyn, right, and there’s no smoking in the bars anymore, but no one gives a shit after midnight, especially in this forgotten place. It’s like some prohibition speakeasy, a place of the past, at least that’s what it feels like. So I’m thinking I’m Bogart or somebody, all smooth, all Roaring Twenties, and she’s probably thinking what a dork, and anyway I’m just standing there with this butt in my mouth waiting for her to give me a light.

            Instead, she says, “Sit down.”

            My balls start tingling ’cause my mind’s racing ahead to all the nasty things she’s gonna do to me, like tie me up and spank my bare ass with her belt, and I sit down, lean over and say, “What you drawing there?”

            She turns her sketch book upside down so I can see and she shows me this real sick picture, with bodies all mutilated and demons and dragons and all sorts of evil shit, then I glance back up into her eyes and see what’s so enchanting about them — she’s got this dark power, like a well that sucks you in over the edge. And my cock goes flaccid, just like that. I’m done with her, but before I get to stand she flicks her lighter and sticks the flame before my eyes. Now I’m thinking, should I take a light from this evil girl? And why do I get the feeling like there’s something more to this than just a light? Like some deal with the devil. But, you see, cigarettes are part devil too because before my mind decided, my body’s already leaning in to get the light.

            The nicotine soothes as it goes down, and suddenly my balls are tingly again, and I start making silent excuses why I shouldn’t hate this devil girl. She smiles at me and offers me her beer. I never saw, you know, when she got a new one, but soon I’m drinking again.

            So we start talking about all this trippy shit, like alien abductions and Mayan prophesies and CIA conspiracies. She tells me her soul’s from the Pleiades, that in a past life she was Native American shaman, that she’s gone deep undercover into the Illuminati, and while she’s talking my heart is pounding and my head is spinning like I’ve been dosed with acid. And I know she knows this, this devil girl, she knows the tricks she’s playing with my head, how it’s freaking me out and how she’s sucking me into her power. So I panic. I got to get away from this chick before she destroys my mind, and I’m up in second, through the dream smoke, and back into the bathroom again. And that’s when I remember the writing on the wall.

            Now, get this, I’m not making this up. You’re probably thinking, okay he’s been smoking weed, drinking all night, talking to some crazy chick, he probably just freaked himself out. I tried to tell myself the same. But I swear the next part is true. It gives me goose bumps just thinking about it. I read the writing above the toilet paper dispenser that said, “You’re hopeless, G. Look into the bowl and just die.”

            And I know I shouldn’t. That I should run out of the bathroom and get the fuck away from the bar before I lose my mind, but I’m a tool, a loser, hopeless just like the wall said. So I look down. Before I even flush, the water is spinning, spinning, colored chunks spiraling around, and I’m ready to puke, when I feel like I’m shrinking, and I can’t tear my eyes away from the spinning bowl. It’s like some hypnotist’s spiral, with death at the center. I’ve had some bad trips back in the day, but this was nothing like those. I was ripped from my soul, flushed down that toilet like a piece of dung.

            The next thing I know I’m puking on the floor of the bathroom, my body totally cold, and the toilet above me is overflowing. Somewhere I hear knocking, voices, maybe Tweed’s, and then a boom as someone breaks the lock.

            “Holy shit, you okay, man?” Tweed screams. As he grabs me I hear this commotion at the bar. I try to stand, pushing Tweed off me.

            “It’s the writing!” I say, screaming, spitting up again. “It’s talking to me.”

            And Tweed’s like, “Yo, you just trippin’ man! Chill!”

            I stand by the sink, my whole body shaking, and splash water on my face. I look at myself in the mirror. And the fucked up thing is I’m not pale anymore. My cheeks are flushed like I just ran laps around the bar. In the broken mirror I see the graffitied stall. My stomach turns as I see the scribbling above the toilet paper roll. You’d think I had enough, right? But I have to see what it says now, so I wobble over to the toilet and read. But there’s nothing there, nothing for me. Just some fluff about Republicans liking it up the ass and a poem by Octavio Paz.

            I turn to see Tweed frowning at me, like I’ve disappointed him somehow, and I notice that his hair is different. I remember it being parted on the other side. I follow him out into the bar all shaky, my legs weak, my vision clouded like I’ve been swimming in a chlorine pool all day. The cloud of dream smoke is gone and there’s this small crowd staring at me as I emerge. One stupid kid by the bar claps and cheers. Dig gets up from his stool, finally noticing that there’s something worth his attention going on. He offers me a drink. No, I tell him, sitting by the bar and swallowing gobs of water that the bartender’s pouring by the bucketful. He’s ready and waiting to pour a new glass as soon as I finish the last. He smiles and says, “You okay, kid?” I look at Dig and notice that on his chin he’s got this little red goatee that he didn’t have fucking fifteen minutes before, and instead of talking about weed and whores he says to Tweed, “Nietzsche’s solipsism was really a dialectic with himself.” Then they start talking about shit I didn’t even think they knew, and now I’m really fucking confused because all the bottles of Blue Curacao behind the bar have been replaced with rows and rows of red Grenadine.

            While I was in the bathroom the DJ took off his hoodie and now wears a white wife-beater with the arms cut off, sweat running down his chest, and he’s mixing some trance techno shit while staring right at me.

            The punk girl still sits in her booth, scribbling into her sketch book, when she looks up to meet my eyes. She waves me over. And though I don’t want to go, though I just want to go home and sleep, I walk over anyway and sit down, like I have no control.

            “You okay?” she says.

            “Yeah. Cool,” I say, “Just too much to drink.” But it’s a lie ’cause I’m still in total dread of what just happened, and I’m shivering like it’s twenty degrees.

           “Want to see another drawing?”

            And I think, no, no fucking way, but before I speak she turns her little book around to show me pictures of angels and cherubs and flowery gardens of delight. It reminds me of something from childhood that I can’t quite remember, and my heart breaks at the sight of it. And I’m warm all of a sudden, like hot from the inside. And I start looking right down her crotch where her punk belt is. I notice it’s wrapped the opposite way it was before — I notice these things — and then I glance up into her eyes, her fucking green eyes, not blue anymore, but bright green, like leaves in spring, sucking me into them just like before, only now the feeling is pleasant, blissful, a little heaven, and I want to fall into them forever. Then she grabs my wrist, pulls me slowly towards her, and whispers into my ear, “Do you want another beer?”