My Future’s So Bright I Keep Sneezing

Writing down my problems to mull over,
oh, wait, that’s poetry.
My problems were just autocorrected
to pro elms. I wonder
what it means to be “pro elms” and who these people are.
Chinese periods interfere with my writing
just as much as the female variety.
My elbows hurt when I write
like this,
which is especially weird
considering my fingers can spew electronic ink
onto this piece of plastic.
What’s it mean
to not know the meaning of your memories?
I want to go away, or at least
a way. That way may be back, or it may
already be long gone. I don’t know
what I’m doing and why,
I just know that I’m losing
confidence, direction in life, patience
with not being able to think
of the words I want to say.
Fuck it, I can edit later.
As for life?
Bless me.

I had forgotten Shaun existed and myself as well

Looking through old poems
is like dusting off memories
and then sneezing.
You find friends and follies, the things you wished for
and wished you wouldn’t have, the things you ran to and from, as well as
archaeological finds like
the principal’s office at Central and
going to used CD stores in Minneapolis
on that one avenue you can’t quite remember the name of.
My life has been cut in two, like a cake.
One half is currently being enjoyed, the other
has gone missing.
That doesn’t mean it was enjoyed
but it doesn’t mean it wasn’t, either.
I’m going to go looking for that cake, allergic as I am,
and I’m going to enjoy the heck out of it.

The First Thing I've Written in Years

I suck in Diet Coke like oxygen.
like artificially flavored oxygen
with caramel coloring and
life giving carbonation.
Bubbles.

Bubbles like dragons on
the Nintendo Entertainment System
that have forsaken fire
for the joy of bubbles.
Dragons always blamed
for kidnapping princesses
and devouring brave knights-
while the forgotten peasants
lie smoldering in a field.
Ashes.

Ashes to be spread on my forehead
by the good priest while Jesus
treks in the desert forsaking the
life giving ecstasy of bubbles
bursting from the tab of this can
in my hand.

变态

变态，屌丝，
一种宅女，
恶搞之家和手机编程，
不太正常的照片，
一会儿用中文，一会儿用English，
一会儿用你的眼睛来交际。
我还记得那第一天
在动物园儿的门口见到你，比我想象还好，
任何尴尬的感觉立刻消失了。
我努力讲汉语，你努力听懂。
我也还记得后来，胡同和面条，
你的公寓，你的室友，
好为人师的我谈论博客，美式橄榄球和六四。
然后呢，我还记得然后呢
因为你还记得看这个博客，
我还记得呢，
因为这些回忆还没结束。

Seeing adults deal with tragedy

Seeing adults deal with tragedy
is more depressing than the tragedies
themselves.
It puts my small problems in perspective
as I go looking for positive quotes
on the internet
and for reasons to believe that you’re not
lying to me.
They had all gotten over their small problems,
made it to the final stretch only to be
pushed down by some imaginary force
called life.
Life, why does it push us,
push us forward, push us down,
push and pull, push and pull, leaving us spinning
in a revolving door.

Rainbeams

How do people just
die? Is it like a computer, accidentally
hitting the shutdown button
instead of sleep?
Do computers have dreams
when they sleep? Does the internet
give them nightmares, like it does viruses?
Are we all just
addicted to addictions
and obsessed with obsessions, attached to an attachment
in the email you just sent me?
All this talk about loving myself first, working on
myself first, well, I’ve loved myself first,
I’ve worked on myself first but
what comes next?
Life and love experiences bounce within and between beings,
ricocheting without rhythm,
connecting and missing connecting flights
I’m planning to take, or which will take me,
far, far away, my troubles
getting caught in the clouds.