CHANGE.

Change is so constant I could say

change a dozen times and the word

change would mean something different every time I said it.

Change

changes hands from those too stuck up bitch rich to

change to those too itchin' for something to scratch away the pain to

change what got them there in the first place when

change is first born right here in your head space.

Change is closer than the spark before the flame.

Change is the escape plan not yet thought of.

Change is the x and y chromosome woman or man.

Change was the world before we drew a map.

Change is the action of love when it is not hindered.

Change changes everything. ALL WAYS for the better.

Brothers and sisters

my name is CHANGE.

Not because I refuse to stay the same

but because I am that I am that I am no other way

and that, will never

change.

Changing my clothes

changing the roads

changing is flow.

Changing is strangers into lovers.

But when strangers become fighters

I would argue that this is not change.

I tell you this is fear, in the heart of one or the other.

Raising arms against our sisters and brothers when

they raise their voices and come out from behind cover.

Quick! Put down that cracka or put down that nigga

cuz if we don't things might not stay the same.

Cuz if we do things'll stay the same...whew.

Please understand that when I say the word

'nigga' it does not come with connotations of hate.

But when I say the word 'same'

please believe that I hope that it do.

Same connotates the stopping of seasons,

same connotates the same shit

for the same reasons.

Same connotates eventual blind faith

in all of the things that we believe in.

Same connotates the past tense of 'forget'

and it seems that 'same' has forgot,

the death, funeral and wake of yours truly.

My name is change.

A name given to me out of beauty for all that

change gives.

Change is

new life to be lived.

Change is the

new day casting it's

new sun and her

new rays don't ask permission

they just reach out to you and kiss.

Change is me saying everything and regretting nothing

because even if half of everything that comes out of my mouth is a lie,

well the lies will be overturned

and it is the TRUTH that wIll Set me FREE,

and because of this, I will have learnt.

and I will walk away

changed.

I've said the word

change

29 times

and that's 29 more times than I

need to say it for everything to have already

changed.

Brothers and sisters,

My name is change.

whale bones

Wrenches clatter downwards through the cloud of pots and cast iron pans

inside the joints of all tools the only constant consists of concepts

even consciousness eventually collapses enveloping continuity

eventually cooking becomes baking becomes burnt

a twist of a purse / the bent knee of a skirt

and still amongst the flash fire the gas and the char,

still, something, must be presented.

Calamity they once called me

'they' are on this day nobody

so at the moment I go by nothing.

you've your legs crossed

and the table cloth helps not with hiding

you've the heel bust off your right shoe

I can tell by the way you bite your lip

when I set this plate in front of you

and also by the way you're slouching.

They used to call you Vicky.

Only so that when they did you'd know

how little they cared about

what name you had actually been given.

I figure I touched a nerve

as you look away

pouring towards the ceiling

like it was the top of your foot

the back of your knee

your hip

your palm,

your face.

you take a bite

the steam wafts through you porously

and

I've been on the subject of you

for so long

by fork down both shoes removed

I'm rubbing the spaces between your toes

and you

grin, and already know too much.

I shut my mouth

the table vanish

the chairs standoffish

the consonance of our touch

our bodies maintain internal rhythm

rhyme between us belonging to

the assonance of our past...

alliteration, is not a topic

of which we spoke,

unless in hushed onomatopoeia

we cut from each other's shade

we gut from each other's tone

everything we've ever been

reinvented by one another

with instinct so honest

your shame and secret become me

my vulnerability leaves you writhing

and in the hot box of the kitchen floor

we playfully pressed blades

against each other's throats.

simply waiting for our lips to part.

as one of us tries to breathe.

The Snake and the Mouse

Tonight I killed a mouse

a call cut close.

Sticky floors and dripping walls

clinging to the fur.

Balance omni-unhinged

a splash of blood

a sudden slit of the shouts.

As melancholy pours

over my swagger

and rosetta stone glasses.

Sublimation engaged

a flexing of this tinge

before the masses.

Grey scale forms of flood

the skies wounds

back spun from open

into closing right up.

Four, score, born again

struck muck surrounds

nothing outside but

some inside markings

singe seething blind

I remain to the boards.

Kaa's bones and guts

ingested in the stall

a gust of wind

man, fuck it I'm sore.

This time

the rodent I am

a convict shimmy to the beat

of my own grift grieving hand

tell me

what's gripping man?

a band saw blade

made small enough

to cut off the paws

of 25 billion of 'em.

Microscopic witnessing

now I see

I always thought that beach

was made of sand,

and now that I know

that it can bleed

give me a shovel

and let me dig where I stand.

This is the story of the snake and the mouse

and how I got scales and whiskers

and a scaled down house.

I slither my way in

and I scurry when I'm out.

Don't know who I am

but I'ma figure it out

cuz I know it's up to me

and not you or my couch.

oh holy shit!

A snake in the grass,

awe it's just a mirror

I hear they're made outta sand.

And there ain't no moon out tonight

and therefore there's no light

therefore I can't quite

seem to really tell the difference.

So I end up spending the night

being chased by a mirror.

A feared of my own self?

Nah ya don't say?

The hair stand on end

towards heaven's sake.

With all blood cell praying

every paint pen spraying

I pull the rats and snakes

outta the dark and the dank

just to look 'em in the face

and say "yea I know that's me."

I set 'em loose again

looking forward

to the light of a new day

with new creatures to see

some I befriend

and some are meant to be slain...

Oct 4th '10

i dropped some crumbs of banana bread on the floor and was genuinely shocked to notice how much they resembled some spotty stains on the carpet not far away.

sometimes do you ever feel so completely insane that you must be the only person of reason on the face of the planet?

sometimes do you ever feel so infant and so elderly at the same time you forget how old you are? what day it is? what year it is?

so weak and so strong and many many polar opposites all at once you lose track of where you begin and where literally everything else ends?

suddenly realizing you've been staring at carpet stains and bread crumbs without blinking for prolly the better part of a full minute.

everything is temporary

a moment is as slight as it is infinite

so id say all that i want is to be happy

but really

sometimes i genuinely enjoy being sad

id say all that i want to be, is to be

but nothing lasts forever, and everyone dies

i blink

and look away from the now twice dirtied floor

i laugh because banana bread crumbs just made me figure that i was never born

the sound of my laughter will never fade

does that mean that every sound ever is just compiling on top of one another

if so why does it not get harder to hear eachother

or does that just mean that nothing exists as easily as it does...

i laugh again as i realize that my clock reads 5pm

i could swear ive been awake since noon

but still im lying naked under my covers and have hardly moved

sometimes its really hard to even get out of bed

sometimes its really hard to get myself to go to sleep ... ... ...