I’m afraid

I’m afraid of oncoming trains and that feeling
right before a train approaches and the wind is all around you,
when you have no choice but to submit to the surge.

I’m afraid of death, but not like normal death.
I died in a dream and floated above myself
as an amorphous gas. It was strange and terrifying.

I’m afraid of heights, when you are forced
to see just how big everything is around you
and how little it all has to do with you.

I’m afraid that I can only give love to people
I know will hurt me. If the right kind of love
came into my life, I wonder if I’d be able to accept it.

I’m afraid that if I told someone that I love them,
they would think it was stupid — like the Valentines’ card
that just gets thrown away. I don’t want to be thrown away.

I’m afraid I wasn’t good enough for him, and that’s why
he didn’t love me anymore. Years of him telling me
that wasn’t the case haven’t put to rest this nagging idea.

I’m afraid of owning things, other than clothes.
The things you let into your life break or break you.
I’m still learning how to live with the things that are broken.

I’m afraid I attach too much self-worth to what other people
think of me. I hate that I always expect him not to call
and am surprised when he does.

I’m afraid I only see the worst in people
or that I expect too much out of them.
This is a metaphor for expecting too much of myself.

I’m afraid that my father and I will never get to a point
where being around him doesn’t make me want to cry
both for no reason and for every reason.

I’m afraid I can’t stop secretly wanting his approval,
no matter how much he hurts me.
I’m afraid this is a cliché.

I’m afraid that everything inside of me is unoriginal,
not worthy of saying out loud. Sometimes I don’t open my mouth
because I’m worried about what will come out if I do.

I’m afraid that I spend so much time trying to do
something that I’ll feel proud of when I’m older
that I forget to be happy right now, in the moment.

I’m afraid that my worry’s not worthy of sharing,
so when people ask me how I am, I say “fine”.
I wouldn’t be able to tell them what’s wrong.

I’m afraid that when people read this they’ll think
I’m another whiny, spoiled, self-conscious twenty-something
that just needs to lighten up and relax.

I worry that I haven’t even earned the right to be anxious,
because what do I even know about suffering?
This makes me want to cry, but I don’t remember how.

I’m afraid you didn’t read this or finish it,
or that it got lost in the shuffle of the billions of things
and that I gave away a part of myself for nothing.

I’m also afraid that you’ll know exactly how I feel, too,
because you feel these same things every day.
I’m afraid that I’m not alone.

(From 25 things I’m afraid of. Submitted by Angi Holden)

Revolutions #12 & 35

Every revolution
is a throw
of the dice.

Only violence
helps where
violence rules.

Who are
we anyway?

Eyes that
do not want
to close
at all times

when the green
of the earth
glistens anew.

(Translations of Jean-Marie Straub and Daniele Huillet film titles, in MoMA member calendar. Submitted by Howie Good)

Man Adrift

He felt at times as if he were still in the Navy,
adrift on the sea, peering down through the vents

the way he used to squint through binoculars
on deck duty, keeping a lookout for objects

of interest. Life in the attic was humdrum.
His motel was a drydocked boat whose guests

endlessly watched television, exchanged
banalites, had sex mainly under the covers

if they had sex at all–and gave him so little
to write about that sometimes he wrote nothing at all.

(From The Voyeur’s Motel. Submitted by DawnCorrigan)

Letters to God

A great deal of my mail
comes from fans – fans of all ages.
The scholarly, the curious,
the disbelievers write and ask

how? why? when? what for?
did you fly? melt? scream? cackle?
appear? disappear? produce?
sky-write? deal with monkeys?

etc., etc., etc.

(Actress Margaret Hamilton quoted on Hyperallergic. Submitted by Howie Good)

Step two

although the thought that we wasted
money, misplaced our trust and threw away
our time sickens us to no end, we must

accept these logic-defying feats of idiocy
as learning experiences; otherwise, we will walk
no further on the NAA no-path. We must

say it again and again,
we’ve been toe fooled, we’ve been toe fooled, we’ve been
toe fooled.

are we home yet, Shanti? This must become our
anti-mantra, a non-affirmation
affirmation capable of penetrating our ether-filled minds,

helping us to admit that Jesus.com has nothing to
do with Nostradamus. Now is the time when we must
learn to question every Tom, Dick and Guru who shops

in a health food store, see that the only implants in
need of removal were inserted by the most dangerous E.T.
of all: Earth’s very own Extortion Terrestrials.

this is a difficult task indeed, for only those who’ve put their
inner children to bed know the difference between retail
spirituality and spiritual retaliation.

(From 12 Steps For The Recovering New Ager. Submitted by Ana Prundaru)>

4 AM in the Morning

I saw my dad was on my mom
and my mom said
Go to the office.

My dad was hitting her
and when my dad left
he took my phone.

His friend
was blocking the stairs.
His friend’s name is James

and my dad kicked my mom
and he told me
to go in my room.

But I went to go get
my mom’s friend
who lives in our back house.

My dad knocked on my door
to the patio and I opened it
and he came in

and told me
to close the door
to the family room.

Then I heard yelling
and I came out
and my dad was hitting my mom.

It happened
at 4 am
in the morning.

(Floyd Mayweather’s young son, Karoun, in a police report September 2010. Submitted by Richard King Perkins II)

Filey

Almost mid-way betwixt
Scarborough and Bridlington,
Filey Brigg,
being a nose of cliff thrust out into the sea
to form a horn of Filey Bay.

Here, there, are sands
i n o n e v a s t g l o r i o u s e x p a n s e,
from the Brigg to the Bempton Cliffs –
six miles of them all round the bay,
so spacious that there could never be
any overcrowding.
The beach
shelves
gently.

(From Every Woman’s Enquire Within: A Complete Library and Household Knowledge for all Home-Loving Women, 1939. Submitted by H L Foster)

To do list, October 21, 1950

Be kind,
resourceful,
beautiful,
friendly,
have initiative,
have a sense of humour,
tell right from wrong,
make mistakes,
fall in love,
enjoy strawberries and cream,
make some one fall in love with you,
learn from experience,
use words properly,
be the subject of your own thought,
have as much diversity of behaviour as a man,
do something really new.

(Activities that critics claim a machine could never by fundamental nature perform, from Alan Turing’s Computing Machinery and Intelligence, 1950. Submitted by Daniel Galef)