Coming Down (continued)
IX.
The moon is hiding behind an armada
of nocturnal vapor and nothing more, a
porous fleet that only trickles water when
it could drown us all.
I understand.
A little boy fell off his scooter and skinned
his knee, crying out for sympathy. My brother
of the half Orient and I, we saw him and
walked to his aid, drunk:
"You okay, buddy?"
"You alright, man?"
And his pupils dilated in horror when he
smelled the gin on our breaths and saw the
milk in our eyes, but at least
he stopped
crying.
But I can't stop crying now--
manly brother has inherited a poisonous seed
from weeping father, and I
feel guilty. I, the older, wish that I could
bear it, but genetics is a fucking mind warp.
Chromosomes, fusion, mutation--
our skin, our consciousness is a mere facade!
I cry for the little boy.
I cry for manly brother.
I cry for genetics.
Almost a decade ago, airplanes bomb(arded)
industrious American skyscrapers. An
indirect beheading of white by brown. A
pure betrayal of physics and human decency
altogether, but someone must live
to tell about it, to warn YOU.
You, who are reading this in between
masturbation sessions.
You, fellow
human (nice to meet you).
I'm still coming down.
By law and by hormones, I am a man now,
but by life skills I am a boy, and I
lollygag and daydream even more than
a boy (the scooter boy). I dream
kaleidoscopic visions, multicolored,
the ingenuity of Union Pacific against
steel rails and the droning choo-choo (beckons
me to sleep) but I remain awake.
One Beat used spontaneous prose, another used
acid, and the others just used life. I want to shake all
of their hands, intellectually masturbate with them, and
buy them lunch at a quaint Thai restaurant.
I returned to the place with persimmon lights and the
death tree--the place my brother of the half Orient
and I traversed to. I was not drunk off beer this time, but
something else:
She was not you, girl on the concrete steps.
She is not you.
She
is
a flawless product of a Dravidian language, music, and
raw human emotion. Jet black hair and encourager of
conversation. Magnetic lips.
She makes me happy.
Revelation: we can never be solely happy.
I thought I was, but I also feel guilty, manly brother.
You got the poison, but I didn't.
Just don't let medicine--a gross adulteration of natural,
beautiful herbs--control you down to your
valiant motor skills.
Do you remember when we rolled each other
in trash cans down an aisle in a pharmacy?
Do you remember when I was stupid and
punched you in the stomach for no reason?
Do you remember when I gave my soul to you?
I do.
Tomorrow, you will embrace academia, saunter
through a library and smell the must of books
older than our ancestors (I envy you).
Tonight, though, we both
rest.
We rest less blissfully than we used to because
the moon and its armada are closing in,
fierce as ancient Spain, accurate as ancient
Portugal, malignant as ancient religion.
But, we rest, nonetheless.
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