In the Woods

She took the streetcar and desired to land on a new life

No more fear and regret from the lost past

The old should be buried in a deep end of dark forest

Ahead was hopeful sunshine carpeting across the field

Clear and Free

A boy made a pact with his old and tormented soul

led to believe the beauty was treasured in deep end of a dark forest

He stepped in, palpitated with some newfound truth

Dug in further, tangling roots started to wrap all over

Trapped, he was stuck with the darkest thought—

He deserved the suffers

Once a butterfly she wriggled out of his weaved cocoon of closeted nature

Danced through a world of colorful motions he dreamt and desired—

Beautiful patterns eventually faded. A diva painfully aged

haunted with hallucination

waiting for a net to fall upon

Ahead was a psychedelic path covered with flowers of forest

substance nurtured

Gave away to faceless strangers was an escape to both of them

But emotionless body heat felt lukewarm

like a tapered fire could only spark yet illuminate

Self hatred acted as fungi living off collapsed trunks

Oh how they just couldn’t understand those mad men!

Hitting bottom he decided to venture out to a new land

Determined, even if it took a naked self and infinite wounds

Not giving a damn about covers and consciousness, he wanted OUT

of circling vines of self pities and indulgences

He’d be the butterfly riding wind high and light

away from those misters Kowalski and Mitchell

She just rolled back to that muddy path within the woods

drunk as always; no more clean clothes

She was played out (but he didn’t)

Refusal could be the best source of strength

to discover that ultimate pasture

but she begged him to stay, always whispering eternal resentment at

the deep end of a dark forest

Years later when he took a streetcar from an open field

He spotted her wandering on the street

drunk as always

mind in the woods

A gossamer ghost en blanc with no history

but could always use some kindness from a stranger

He was not the one

He decided to put them all behind

The streetcar slowly yet gently cradled him to

the next destination

Clear and Free

(Conceptual) Relationship

Finally

Winter pass

Mood rise

All feel brighter

Actions move faster

I step up to clean out the messy life

You emerge from the cold thick white

And we finally

say hi

Court

Wait by the phone for that call

back and forth, tug and pull

A mind game worth playing

If it takes two to tango

I wonder who takes the lead

Stand face to face

Hands reach out, fingertips touch

Sparks brighten their faces as if lit by

candles on a dinner table, silver screen in a theater,

full moon in the sky

Smiles

Gazes

Whispers

Kisses

Promises

Until a commitment is

proposed

Love Letter—An Exercise for Romance

Right—

“To try to write love is to confront the muck of language: that region of hysteria where language is both too much and too little, excessive and impoverished”

says Roland Barthes

As I try to articulate, daydream, plan—

The greatest love story of our own time

Would you like to co-write it?

The wedding party will be held at the Riverside Café

The song for the first dance will be the Beatles’ I will

The flowers will be cherry blossoms, irises, lilies, lilacs, lotuses

The Champagne will be Moet Chandon

The ring will be Tiffany’s & Co.

We will stand in front of the glass windows radiating Manhattan skyline

We will adjust each other’s collars from guests’ inadvertent bumping

We will kiss our back palms and exchange “Let’s get outta here” glances

“We two, how long we were fool’d, now transmuted,

We swiftly escape as Nature escapes,” says Walt Whitman

Speech will still be delivered and oohs and ahs will still rise

One day

The words will be heard, but—

“The perfect will be the enemy of the good”

says the anonymous

For now, it is an exercise for romance

And I hope it will be a romance from exercise

XX, Yours

Girlfriend, Defined

She lit a cigarette, serene as white smoke

The relationship was defined as Affair—at this point

No sunglasses; nor trench coat

Her face carried no lines of discomfort or guilt—the fittest composure for a gambler

No make-up either; her skin absorbed every particle of sooty loot without rash outbreak

The only recognition given away on this affair was her hair

Blossoming, Cascading, Erupting, Radiating—the hair’s in love definitely

“He was a boor,” she said

The shameless tyrant approached, demanded, invaded, declared victory

She succumbed as his colony, a door away from his motherland

shared with his wife whose sovereignty stopped outside her front door

“It’s all physical,” she explained

with no qualms, clichés of feeling connected through body heat

Promise minimally kept/Schedule randomly selected/Code delicately planned/Hint deliberately dropped

Emotions were not defined—at this point

Secrecy should dress both of them somewhat decently,

with certain definition

Rough Love

Doors opened

Steps crafted

Under the veil she wanted everything in control

Father witnessed

Vows exchanged

She committed with a band of inscription—

Forever, from March 1999

Later she reminisced

how the petals twirled along red carpet aisle

the light danced under arch of epoch

broken glass twinkled as from edges of a diamond

hymns of gaiety flew

in ecstasy

Years went by

Sweet dreams subsided

Ordinary chores wore off the uniqueness of

staying together

Perpetual familiarity toughened the core of

accepting each other

until it cracked

Later she remembered

How the dainty porcelains thrown smashed windows

let go ferocious flood of light drowning the 10 feet high loft ceiling

with the unbearable confession cut deep scabs bleeding

An end treaty signed

in numb

How come—

the ceremony of moment could be this holy

the dissolution of later this ugly

A Visit

Eighteen years ago I visited Manhattan for the first time with a group of exchange students from my native country Taiwan. I was 15 then. I didn’t understand homosexuality. But I was a natural flame. I kissed a boy who was my roommate. He was surprised. He didn’t say no.

In a balmy Wednesday afternoon we made a trip to the forever jammed Metropolitan Museum. The regal institution—those dramatic vaults and majestic Grecian columns and niftily crafted indoor landscape—intensified my never well-hidden femininity. I wandered and meandered through different halls of history, feeling like May Welland from The Age of Innocence: coyly curious and perhaps demurely coquettish.

The cascading brightness from ceilings felt so effortlessly natural. I glanced the passing images of myself from the reflection of different paintings’ glass surfaces. I couldn’t tell who I really was. I only felt light. I was too young to know any dark reality lurking around.

I didn’t care much to learn anything from our overly zealous geek guide. I was too happy enjoying my inner femaleness from the book characters by either Edith Wharton or Henry James. I was unconsciously swaying my hands to dust off those invisible frills from my non-existent trailing skirt gently caressing hard wood floors.

At some point I lost my fellow tour mates when spending too much time appreciating some exquisitely ornate antiques and jewelries. I was alone and daydreaming. A guy stood across the other side of glass display box. I sensed his ogle without too much hesitation.

He had salt and pepper hair and scruffy chins. A handsome daddy type. He dressed like a photographer with casual easiness. He slightly leaned against the box and his face was lit assortedly from the box’s inside lighting fixture. I could see those gentle lines carved softly around his cheeks. I couldn’t see how intense his desire was from those dark eye sockets.

I stepped back a bit, unsure of this atmospheric transformation from polished delicacy to somewhat raw hunt. I decided to lift my imaginary hoop skirt and strutted away. He followed; inadverdently orbited around every artwork I stopped by.

I wasn’t afraid. Stalking was something I never experienced before. I felt a little reckless in thought but couldn’t stop getting excited at such hide and seek, catch and release. No longer a restrained lady corseted in the19^th century, I morphed into a freewheeling young boy who first visited a gay venue (the Metropolitan Museum!). Skittish, awkward, I was one man’s center of attention and that felt peculiarly satisfied.

His burning gazes set fire every nook, scorched every ground beneath me in the Metropolitan’s universe. Hall after hall, exhibition after exhibition, civilization collapsed, arts and intelligence were destroyed, and we the only two creatures led and followed on that barren earth composed of fumingly burnt mass of visitors. Though my penis was solid as a totemic rock pointing at the perpetual direction of East, my face could only sprinkle few drops of rain smiles. Flirtation and frivolity grew nothing. He didn’t dare to approach me. I was Tadzio to his Gustav; Dorian to Lord Henry; Lolita to Humbert.

Then he disappeared, in the grand hall featuring a gigantic gate with iron bars. He was gone like a poignant line of ghost, left me standing in a human sea of flesh ebbs. Suddenly I felt a strong sting of loneliness. My excitement lapsed. My physical erection withered. Although I didn’t develop a feeling for this guy but I knew something changed forever. My desire for same sex started to come into some shape.

From that moment on I had to wait another 10 years (after I moved to New York for good, after another salt and pepper guy with whom I met at another gay venue, after he gave me physical and emotional fulfillment) to understand a bit better about myself as a homosexual. Those years spent on visits and discoveries weren’t effortlessly natural.

Let There Be Light

I. 

The morning when he walked out of the room, all he could think of was to put an end to some ghostly images which disturbed him for a very long time; those flimsy images were formed into the egregious and frightening human monsters and they always showed up in front of him everywhere; for example, he would shower and see an emerging Capricorn from the drain pipe whose head was distastefully replaced with the girl who always felt like a springtime water lily in the pond at the high school where he was used to being bullied and no one would look at him except that breezy girl who would give him an sympathetic yet futile grimace after she glanced the bruises on his forehead and passed by without saying a word, which was all sympathetic yet futile, which stung but was all he needed, especially back at the moment when he left the room, strutted pompously on the sidewalk, targeted the first building, walked into the lobby, pulled out the .45, and started to shoot the fleeing, screeching, anonymous human monsters, and the acoustics felt just right, like the thematic melody of the video game, called “Let There Be Light”, in which he played a handsome raider and he could use an enhanced shotgun to terminate all those terrorist aliens, who were ethereal but bright. 


II. 

I am a Chinese guy with an effeminate face 
I work as a data entry clerk
I have no spare income to save the world
I jerk off at web porns before sleep

Why can’t you be like Nick Wong and get a job at the Goldman Sachs?
My parents sighed during the ritual Sunday dinner. 
Why can’t you marry me to let me get the green card?
My Vietnamese ex-girlfriend made a fuss at the TGI Friday’s. 
Why don’t you suck my cock? You faggot?
My neighbor onetime cornered me in the staircase. 

Interminable hardworking and meticulous calculations are basic recipes for the Land of Plenty. 
In China, they don’t play by the same rules but I will not start talking about Back When…...

Nowadays bathed in blood can be so easy and accessible
The memory is not even long lasting and nothing is legendary
Still many questions leave unanswered and unsatisfied. 

An afternoon I sat in the living room. 
Thought about the future and unknown
From the TV delivered some bullets
Tear dropped and heart stopped

Let there be light
Let there be light
Let there be light

The promise is so ethereal but bright.

Paris is Burning I--Overture

Dressed to the nine for the ball on 145^th Street

Runway down without turning back

Gold trophies glistened at the end of tunnel

Comments and catcalls fiercely mixed and maxed

Honey, time to strike a pose 

When you bent over, hard to tell if you were a pimp or whore

mother or son/executive or secretary/president or soldier

REALNESS—Blending in with your straight counterparts, you erased all the flaws, mistakes, giveaways to make your illusion perfect. 

In those overextending and overbearing hours of vogue

You created a Legendary, a status in the ball, a household name for yourself

Ruffled feathers and flowing chiffons could only reveal—

The queen of the night had her grace on the house

O-P-U-L-E-N-C-E

You own everything

Everything is yours.

Paris is Burning II--Main Act

What did we see in the ball?

Chin up, lips pout, you proudly announced your name:

House of Xtravaganza, Overness, Pendavis, Saint Laurent, Dupree, Adonis, LaMay

Mother of the House made her name by opening wide her white mink coat to shelter clueless, listless, homeless waifs

let them find some warmth under her coat’s silver lining

Liz Taylor was famous, so was Mother Pepper LaBeija

What did we tell in the ball?  Butch queen in drag first time at the ball?

Reading came first: flirt with passive aggressiveness, simmer a pot of anger

Shade later arrived to knock frienemies out, get’em anyway, hit’em below the belt—

“I don’t have to tell you’re ugly, but I don’t have to tell you because you know you’re ugly. [1] 

But never punch a girl on her nose

Nor drag a bitch’s hair to mop the floor

Houses were street gangs

Competitions morphed into war

We popped, spinned, dipped, and vogued.

High. Physical High. Seductive High. Addictive High

Good Vibe

Dance moves crafted honorable and stylish battles

Two hands squaring cheekbones marked an eternal close-up—we were always ready

 

Who did we want to be in the ball?

Judges might pull their 10s to work ego boost for us

Outside the auditorium, we knew we could never vogue like Naomi or Paulina

Fabulous extravaganza and movable feast ninja

were mirages everyone stared at, attracted to, hardly lived on

 

REALNESS—Life on the piers in West Chelsea was to live and learn

Clients satisfied with our petit bones, licked our silky skin

Wined and dinned for us acting demure

But be careful—

Never let those dirty fingernails move down and dig; they always freaked out afterwards; beat us up

And we had to jump off to fire escapes. Forgot the 40 bucks left behind.

 

Nobody was really protected

Mother could only put on her mascara and hoped for the best

 

Only in the ball could we laugh our vaginas off

With push-up bras, bruise proof purple eye shadows, and right-sided buttons---

We were at wonderland, nurtured and worshipped like nobody’s business

The ballroom told us we were somebody

Until nasty bastards strangled us to death and hid our body under the mattress in some dingy hotel at West Chelsea—

for FOUR days

---

[1] From the movie

Paris is Burning III--Epilogue: A Manifesto

This is White America

And living is burning

Queen of the Night eventually pales

A title like this can’t really do shit except continues to ferment our defunct yet endless self-indulgence.

The ballroom told us we were somebody

And burning is dreaming:

 “I want to be fragilely beautiful like those Vogue models arching their twig backs and waited to be plucked by some trust fund suave boys”.

“I want to be wholeheartedly excited at my future like every 20-year-old white client I serve, to expect an upward ladder venture in any career, with only frat recklessness to worry about”.

“I want Louis Vuitton quality environment with no one cursing me freak or monster, forcing me to suck their dicks without pay, nor beating me with their bats, knives, and guns in the name of god’s will”.

“I want perfect cut diamond solid relationship with a man who loves me no matter what stage my operation is : he can put his fingers between my legs , feels that little remnant, and still wants to come at me”.

“I want a world of luxury where countless designer clothes, handbags, cosmetics, jewelries, travel trips…… cascade and flood to purge my memory …… everything, to my complete oblivion “.

“I want to have it ALL for myself; feel natural and naturally happy”.

And dreaming was promising—

I want to be

I want to have

I want so much more

This is what I want 

“When it comes to minority, We as people, for the past 400 years, is the greatest example of behavior modification in the history of civilization, We have had everything taken away from us, and yet we have all learned how to survive. That’s why in the ballroom circuit, it is so obvious that if you have captured the great white way of living or looking or dressing or speaking, YOU IS A MARVAL”. [1]

This is White America.

 

 

 

 

---

[1] Direct quote from the movie

The Son

(For the Night of November 4, 2008)

The late economist's son made it.

A historic return in the worst marketplace

Under millions of stars and flashlights,

the sweat on his face sparked

as if the light of knowledge

finally came out from a crystal ball

He asked himself, "Did my father cry?"

It was not long ago when his skin color,

or his father's, or his people's

would define what they could be

From early on he sensed the chosen,

seized the opportunities

and worked hard for it

His old school charm smile and

immaculate teeth defied prejudice

Fended off ghetto karma

When he posed at the podium

He didn't lose his mind

Nor rally frenzied supporters

The speech was calm and somber

The gratitude was mellifluous

Like spring rain soaked in to nourish

this dry and decaying land

Trust would be repaired, he was convinced

Like flowers would blossom, as if

With all the success, he still secretly hoped

his father would shed tears of joy

for him.

 

Ho

Some people call her Ms. Ho. Some just skip the first part.

Her last name, in Chinese, shares the same pronunciation as river. But in writing, it’s composed of two words: Man and Can. She knows. Man can have her. Man can treasure her. Man can judge her. Man can ditch her.

Man can, and she doesn’t really care.

She likes to see herself as a river. Flowing water naturally generates unpredictability and organically creates freedom.

Growing up in a first generation Chinese immigrant family, she learns a great deal about boundary, diligence, discipline, principle. Her simple and hardworking parents make sure she realizes a woman can only have something faster and more efficiently if she marries well. Her most important tactics in life, in their view, are to earn a good reputation for a man who can give her everything.

That’s not the plan she has for herself.

She has gone down on men many times. She can. She knows.

And she also needs to leave her family and Portland behind, move on and not look back—like Williamette River, joining Columbia, running all the way to the Pacific Ocean. 

Her Asian look, petite figure, and olive smooth skin earn her frats one after another.  Boys like to put their arms around her as if she were the baby white mouse strangled and ready to be eaten by voracious pythons.  They also like to ride her from behind. Her tight gate requires their fully erect ground meat penises to squeeze a bit, but the friction and pressure feel just right. The excitement always arrives as if they try on some brand new sneakers for a virgin run.  And she moans like a seventh grade who finds her unnamed orgasm, ecstatically, smoothly, confidentially. 

She’d call out “push harder!” And those equestrians with high adrenaline and insurmountable testosterone will then lift her pelvis and arch their backs to increase speed, and add strength to the palpitation. The drumming between her butt muscle and their lap thighs also reflect in the equal vibrancy of her bobbing and bumping tits. They love to finger her teeny brown nipples to harden them into raisins, and incur specks of goosebumps like pebbles scattering around the soft swamps of areolas.

They come, mostly inside of her, collapse, shrivel and pant: “You are the sweetest piece of ass I’ve ever had”,

She comes, only when she is thinking “I am in New York right now”.

Everyone gives her some money, nominally for lunch, gas, grocery, drinks, lingerie, contraceptives. She saves most of it in a special account opened without telling her parents.  She knows when the number hits 5 digits it’ll be the time she just walks out of everything and everyone.

For now, at the side corner from the club Styx she just needs to kneel down and lick hard that turtle head popping up from this boy’s underpants for her future travel expenses. 

London/New Year/2007

Suddenly

the center of an eye radiated burning flame

Pungent smoke blurred motion of the fire-wheel

Glamorous mess accentuated depth of the dark

Meaning regressed, left

only with billows of enthusiasm and flooded adrenaline

Right now who could mourn

for the plummeting value of human connections, or of—

Love?

 

A vagabond swayed and wandered, humming a hymn of Apocalypse

But Piccadilly Circus was not set up for gunfights or landmines

Instead drunk bums were herded and jammed into paddy wagons

Predators grunted triumphantly/ preys growled and wrangled futilely /fugitives (like myself) sighed, sneered,

sought shelter in overpowering shadow of anonymous bumping and grinding

The countdown arrived when chaos blossomed

Right now who would be ecstatic

for the coming of a new beginning, or of—

mass destruction?

 

Seeing each other in the eyes, we knew

Parted minds tasted sorrowful penitence

Disconnected souls licked bittersweet regret 

But this was not the right time

We needed to feel happy and grateful; toast to health, togetherness, and valour

Right now who should make judgment of

anyone’s simple, direct, yet shallow reaction?

 

Lines climbed up my face, lurked under the cheekbones

in the brightness of fireworks

Suddenly

it dawned on me—

When my heart burned with the city,

You knew how our affairs would end

 

 

Moment of Now (Self Help IV)

Drinking too much lately

In my drunkard’s maze, the world seems colorful, and

I can feel excitement bubbling up from inside, so organic

 

Get high with music beat, at times I forget

how cacophonous life can be

If lucky, I can dance with it

 

Why do broken hearts bring out clarity and masterpiece?

When flooded in happiness, poetry doesn’t rhyme

Is being self-destructive equal to creative?

 

Answer me, Baldwin, Hemingway, Plath, Simone and Winehouse

 Will soulfulness be distilled from soulless misery?

The sonnet of the past don’t always contribute to wisdom of the future

 

If I have a smoke, that just makes me dizzy and sleepy

But it rescues me from insomnia

I am here in my mold. I can’t change, eh no  

Let me close my eyes

Just for now

 

 

Stop Whining! (Self Help III)

1.

War is ongoing

People are dying

I am SO unhappy

 

2.

Politicians are still compromising in chambers

Celebrities are still wasting at nightclubs

I am still exhausting from work

 

3.

I am tired of seeing public figures’ wives stand by their men who are Client 1 through 10

I am sick of being insulted by moral figures’ condemning homosexuals while they are harassing altar boys

I am disgusted with authority figures’ ordering massacre disguised in the name of freedom

 

Even if living everyday is a bittersweet symphony

                        Having off-key PMS will not be the solution

 

 

Emotional Diet (Self Help II)

I am overweight with sentimentality

Anxiety, depression, frustration, melancholia stuff me fully. And loneliness—

that’s some extra packed in

In faded lights, a go-go boy sweats and earns

nobody recognizes anybody, all faces are vaguely figured

I am a regular, experienced and all too familiar

with rules of the game.

Jesus and Confucius offer different options, but I know I am different--

I want an alternative.

                   Outside of the box solution. 

                                                       To burn the fat of morbidity and

                                                       gain strength of merry-go-lucky.

The go-go boy asks me to draw something on his body

I outline a star on his right nipple, the crooked little shape around that dim pink Vesuvius

It’s my love for you, Stranger

Even though you know I’ve cheated myself, you know I would

I can sweat and earn—to love and be loved

 

No.1 Single (Self-Help I )

I I make efforts not to allow

drama disturb or damage my singlehood

Yes. No one. 

Villa 32, Home(town)coming

A seventeen hour trip to hometown was a metamorphosis

I wriggled out to flutter my years of colorful yet deceitful internationality

 

No need for verification. Folks were proud of me coz vanity mattered

We all knew we wanted fantasies, fairy tales, to salivate over and dream upon.

Pampered with indulgent demands

Spoiled with unconditional support

I gradually regressed to a toddler with biological Sugar Mommy and Daddy

They dressed me with that ruffled black gown and ornate choker

 

Stayed at the eleventh floor residence overlooking the extending and entangled urban wilderness

I first sighed and self pitied, feeling like Rapunzel

But I had no voice to attract the Prince nor golden stairs to escape

Where could I go in this city?

 

Even thousand miles away from home New York, confusion and depression still followed and haunted; the past and present intertwined physically but disconnected spiritually

I never realized how unhappy I had always been

 

Wandered around in a different concrete jungle I was possessed with disjointedness

 

A visit to the resort, Villa 32, surprisingly and finally exorcised that loosely figured demon

Soaking in their highly acid spring, named Jade, exfoliated my skin, 

purged my mind

Started to live and breathe the past and present; those things stopped to collide

Under the willow tree by the spring pond a rosy vision emerged from the underneath accompanied by my callus covered toes--

I smiled. 原來我並非不快樂

 

The indiscernible means red transformed into the pasture for peace and creativity

I felt like writing again

 

Hometown could be a getaway, a made shelter

During the metamorphosis return flight, it dawned on me--

我終於可以暢遊異國，放心吃喝

Villa 32 is my Tiffany 

Pink Notebook

In the frames we spoke Mandarin

But someone ourside made English comments

on our every move, things we saw, places we visited

the way we were

 

In a hot summer day we traveled to a tourist spot

You were cranky. I was worried

 

about your motif to dig out my secrets.

I kept all of them in my pink notebook.

 

I tightly held it to my chest while we wandered

to some observatory by cliff; the ocean was below, the mountain light rail nearby

 

Our conversation was mostly trivial, always—

we never really wanted to understand each other

 

No matter how loose our communications could be, you still pried

and at times tried to steal my notebook

 

I was frustrated and angry. I fought back your bullying

But I also wondered why my life still mattered to you

 

The train came and I rushed to it.

I clung at the last car with a leg out dangling

 

You started to chased after the train, cursed me to the hell, but I didn’t give a damn

I was elated

 

Suddenly the pink notebook slipped through my arms

It felt on the rail, rolled to the side, jumped from the cliff, dived in the ocean

 

I panicked. I felt being ripped open

My intestines gyrated in the air

 

I bobbed out of the train, climbed down the cliff, tried to rescue my pink notebook.

Bystanders and passengers were dumbstruck by my action; they gossiped, criticized, and preyed for my ruthless decision

 

I finally crawled to the rocks and I spotted my buoying notebook

It was serenely ensconced in the fluid rocking chair

 

I was happy knowing the book was within the reach

I jumped in and swam toward it

 

The water felt cold yet refreshing

The sun was bright. The air was crisp

 

Yet my pink notebook was gone

 

New Year Resolution

Under the quilt cover
I breathe and ponder--
Plan A/Plan B/Plan C/Plan D/Plan E/Plan F/Plan A/Plan C/Plan X/Plan A…………
Mind races/Panic attacks/Sleep fades

The past is an old dish
I chewed on it, sometimes, if necessary
I know I can spit it out if I want

The future speeds as a rush
I am addicted to such excitement, longing for uncertainty and planning
Whatever is about to happen always tastes better

I know, I am always
insatiable

Urbanite Demonstration

I am an individual.
All my life I am a city dweller and émigré. Cities create, nurture, transform me into who I am. I earn my fair share to speak out my opinions about urban and urbane lifestyles. They are biased, self-righteous, personal, honest and earnest.

My fellow urbanites, I suffer from the reality daily, but I have a dream for someday:

A. We are island souls. We live through everyday as zombies with I-pods and mummies with blackberries. We talk and text through our palm size gadgets. Easily we are connected to our respective universe. Surprisingly we are disconnected from each other.
Someday we will put down whatever we have in hands or at ears. We will smile at each other. We will connect directly through human interactions without any buffer electronics.

B. We make noise like porn stars. We feel entitled to our voice heard. We believe words are the most powerful and accessible weapon to declare who we are and our independence. We get into meaningless verbal fights with strangers. We snort at the idea of actions speak louder than words. We abuse words for the sake of communications.
Someday we will abandon our cynicism and sympathy votes confirming our own existence and independence. We will find peace and quietude.

C. We rush. To work, meetings, dates, coffee shops, restaurants, subway cars, public bathrooms, all kinds of social occasions and venues. We curse when we stumble. We misplace our frustration toward innocent others just because we can't get something or somewhere on time. We hate other people's rush but we rush whoever to demand them do whatever we want.
Someday we will find patience. And we will make efforts. We will realize it's not worthwhile attacking someone when landing on that damn C train.

D. We don't let go. We always remember those who once insult, cheat, and break our hearts. We use hatred and self-pity as Redbull. We mock our parents and siblings who still know nothing about us or even worse, misunderstand our choices for our lives. We feel ridiculous to defend ourselves against anyone with good intentions just because we want to get married with our same sex beloved and plan to adopt children or find surrogates. We are addicted to strangers' physical warmth with a vein hope that a beautiful relationship is developed. We are indeed lonely.
Someday we will realize forget is forgive. And forgive will make our life easier. We will acknowledge and understand our delightful lightness of being

E. We are racists. We are ageists. We are sexists. We are classists. We are superficialists. We have claustrophobia. We have homophobia. We have ghettophobia. We have gentriphobia. We have terrorphobia. We label. We enjoy labeling though it continues to deteriorate our own confusion and contradiction. We try to distinguish ourselves from others to help us find our identity, establish our support system, and feel belonged. But we are still lost, angry, anxious, frightened and we repeat doing the things from the points A to D.
Someday we will recognize human beings are just humans. We embrace each other for who we are. There will be no names and naming.

F. FUCK THOSE SHITS, WE ARE GAY!

Someday there will be no war; we all finally be gay.

Volver

Smoking a Camel Lights calms me

especially with two drags in a row

and take the Solgar Formula VM75 at the same time, for which--

turns my piss into meadow green

You are: about to wallow in the sybaritic splendor

Modern chemicals can be acerbic, for which--
I say goodbye but you say hello
Whoever leaves the party first should dance barefoot

You suck a juicy honeydew hollering sweet

I think it's time to take B-12, Folic Acid 800, and B-1

Your viscera contains syrupy fluid

I am: so ready to fall in the punch drunk love

Leading an ascetic life is half-baked

You say goodbye and I say hello

At Our Feet

I.
In the old days, she would drop something as a hint. Now
She merely glances.
An eye, and it quickly shifts to elsewhere.
(She always observes. With no assumption.)

Someday, somebody will pick up where she drops, and fall down to her feet.
Until then, nobody is paying attention.

They see her. (Of course they do)
She is unique yet common in everyone's eyes.
Eyes, and they quickly shift to other places.

Sometimes she senses their unspoken and indiscernible gazes. They turn into silent attacks. They are everywhere to corner her.
She runs/She dodges/She finds no shelter/She covers her head/She can't catch her breath---
And she blacks out.

In her dark universe, colors speak for themselves. They dazzle her.
Accents fascinate her. Styles puzzle her. Smells nauseate her.

She wonders, is variety really the spice for life?

II.
I am eager, proactive.
I go out to build relationships.
I try to be colorblind and minimum judgmental.
I want to believe sincerity IS the foundation for grandeur establishment.

Difficult. Two eyes rarely see the same thing.

People project me in their own ways. They see me and soon conclude who I am and what I should be.
I just let their imaginations develop, fantasies fly.
I am that light reflected, deflected with a rainbow of colors through their prism lens—
Made in U.S.A, or China, or India, or Turkey, or elsewhere.
The lens are roughly carved,
and I simply black out.

III.
From those stares an intangible tickle ripples her still water.
She feels that sudden wetness.
She is surprised, frightened, and at times disgusted.
She keeps to herself. She secretly analyzes every wisp of sense thread, imposes a scientific research, forces a lab purge.
(Her longing proves her confusion and lost identity)

In her white universe, rules are written as demonstration.
But nobody is paying attention. The connection is vanishing.
She-is-exhausted.
(Lonely? a little bit)

She asks herself: Why do these matter so much?
The Masses Think, Behave, Conform, Succumb to Uniform Value.
She does NOT.

IV.
Some day, somebody will pick up where I drop, and fall down to my feet.
Until then, I have no clue. All I know is--

The eyes will see.
The colors will mix.
We will be happy.

I can hold our hands/I can listen to our whispers/I can touch the softness of our flowers/I can feel our warmth under our sun/I can squint and smile
And I