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the lockers rife with clowns and the frittering of time as the ***** boys got ready to work their ***** minds down at the ***** factory and boast about ***** things too often degrading and unkind.

I tried to stay out of it
until one officious co-worker
had the gall to ask,
“what’s your preference in women?”

whereby, my response was,

“I see my women like flavors;
white women are too bland,
black women are too flavorful and
Indian women are a bit over-seasoned.
you need the right amount of spice.
Latina women got it but they cheat
so, I’d have to go with Asian women.
they’re perfection is unmatched.”

laughter emerged and rumbled
down the grey factory walls
where the metal tin roof had rattled,
the ***** air pervaded with rust and tears
and a mouthful of peanuts were spat onto a grimy floor

they laughed and kept on laughing
until their bellies burst

never have they heard such
a response like that before

and I just went back to work,
treading in the depths of my own conviction,
not really seeing why I wasn’t
being taken so
seriously.
Time carries your scent away,
in tiny rebellions,
in sheer mock.
Do you have someone you lost?
Fear ensconces me
In a shroud of apprehension.
But the motion is automatic
And, I don't feel good.

So, once more down the hatch.

Here's to poor choices.
Here's to euphoria.
Here's to metaphors without
Substance.

But I never liked the visuals,
Or unity,
Of a hallucinogen or pretty poesy poetry.

I'm made for speed,
Impulsive decisions.
Jagged, high tension
Visceral subjects.

Uncoordinatedly bleeding out my soul.
Through spaced out eyes
And overconfidence.

I am
Impossible symbology,
Ill defined,
Visceral and feral.

Strung out on life,
Picking at the neurosis,
Of once more into the breech.

And, what is life.
But chemistry?
I’m new to ‘self-directed study,’ it’s a construction I’ve never known. It’s kind of a faustian bargain that resembles another self-paced activity—treading water. The program’s like an immersive plunge in deep, choppy, informational seas.

On the other hand, instead of dark, crowded auditorium classes, we’ve been studying, on sunny mornings, out by the pool, where there’s a summer-camp-like vibe.

When I say 'we', I mean Chella and I, we’re a two-girl study group. I’ve only known her for 13 days but we have a lot in recent-common. She was in my Yale graduation class (last month) but our paths never really crossed at Yale.

She’s a tall, lithesome, black girl from Miami Florida. Not the sandy beach Miami, where palm trees sway, bikini clad models strut and flamingo-pink art-deco bars face the ocean. No, she’s from the Liberty City ghetto—and she has stories.

She say’s that getting her Yale acceptance was a sea change. People were incredulous, as if aliens had landed or everyone in her high school had won the lottery, There’s a sad but steely resignation in her voice when she says she’s never going back there, "Evah."

So, it’s 86°f here in Boston, MA, and we’re out studying by the pool. There isn’t a cloud or bird in the sky and the sun looks—well, honestly, we’re not looking at the sun—we’re college graduates—we’re in the shade. I was afraid the pool would be summer-time crowded but we’ve been the only one’s here all week. We plunge into the pool and then read.

As Blue Coupe by Twin Peaks finished playing on my Bose Soundbar, Chella professed, “I literally LOVE that song.”
“I’ve loved that song since 8th grade,” I agreed.
“I don’t think my musical taste will ever be better than it was in 8th grade.” Chella confided.
“8th grade’s when everyone’s up on trends,” I said, thinking back.

We read for a while. The only thing tainting our near resort-core experience, is the flood of material we must cover.

“I want to be jolly,”  I declared to the universe,“I’m holding that today.”
“You keep yourself so grounded,” Chella said, “like you refuse to delight in anything!”
“That’s not true!” I gasped.
“Yes, it is!,“ she updogged, if anything goes wrong, you’re just done.”
“NOoo!” I laughed. “Ok, two things, if two things go wrong,” she amended.
“That’s fair.” I admitted, “I’m a two chance girl.”  
“That’s fair,” she agreed, then she added, “I’m going to switch the vibe up.”
‘SIREN by Shygirl’ began banging as we went back to our reading.
‘Self directed study’ has it’s advantages.
.
.
Songs for this:
Count Contessa by Azealia Banks & Lone
Blue Coupe by Twin Peaks
SIREN by Shygirl
BLT Merriam Webster word of the day challenge 06/05/25:
Sea change =  a big and sudden change or transformation.
Do you still eat your toast like I do
Around the edges first, until there is only the soft bit in the middle
Do you scan the line for the club
Peer into shop windows, cafe windows, bedroom windows
When you’re falling asleep in the dark do you wonder if you’ll dream of me
Does Bukowski remind you of me
Does Rodriguez
Does your father
Do you still laugh like you did with me
Do you still eat eggs with mayonnaise
Wear stripes and bows and the red canvas trousers
Do you still eat your toast like I do
Around the edges first, until there is only the soft bit in the middle
Do you still eat your toast
The way you consumed me
when you trim your ***** and your mustache with the same pair of scissors
when you hand over your entire paycheck to the bartender of doom and glee
when you write a bounced check at the grocery store
when you sleep with a girl who isn’t clean
when you’re young, lost, broken and poor
when your childhood runs hard and your luck runs out
when your best friend is dead and your other friend is ******* your girl
when your dog sleeps in the afternoon and dreams of the neighborhood *****
when your nutrients gets replaced with Xanax bars over the one who just left
when your tired eyes meet the brick & mortar of strenuous labor
when the smile is so fake that it appears genuine
when you go all in on someone you weren’t 100% sure of
when you wait on bleeding knees for the unreliable god
when you bet on the boxer that crashed to the canvas
when the interest is high and the banks are closed and the creditors don’t care about grace periods
when you understand very little and you expel a whole lot
when the cord of anxiety strangles your very essence
when you turn out to be just as everyone expected

don’t worry

it’ll all turn around

and find you again

someway

somehow.
Incompossible

<>

  not mutually possible:
INCONSISTENT, INCOMPATIBLE

<>

inconsistent, yes,
incompatible, never

we have lived and loved
each other since
a singular moment
in grade school

profound!
(what a perfect compositional word!)
friendship, intuitively embraced,
circumstances dictated an
on/off interspersed
coexistence decades in length,
a hit or miss geographical
distancing,
thst technology overcame
with no evaporative loss
of 
sensational connectivity
across great times and
greater distances

we trialed and
errored our landlines,
for a time,
we lived together,
then nearby,
with other spouses, who knew
and tolerated, our exceptional
to the rules of coexistences,
we were closer than close,
the space between us was of wafer size, nearly invisible to the naked eyes of others, but unchanging
as much as it was unique and
uncharted
periods of absence of years measurable
and the first conversation
began exactly where the long ago prior had ceased

never fully accepted,
surely not ever
fully
tolerated + understood,
we stumbled upon a word,

incompossible

that captured the
drama, the hopefulness,
the hopelessness of
our separated conjoining
as a summary perfect
of us

a true tale,
a novel of pro-found
loss and gain
that cannot be be told
or totaled,
a sum of summary,
an unavowed marriage of
souls with no legality,

and yet

by its very in-completed nature,
it was perfected by it's very unending undefinable defiance
of definition:
we made the
incompossible,
possible,
the incompatible,
patible,
unfounded by circumstances,
unbounded in our intuition,
we yet live in a hopeful
state of unfulfilled totality of


almost fufillment
advis any typos pleade
Ok, there’s no jailbreak.
Make room for my innocent alter ego,
because there’s nothing to rebel against.

There are zero classes in my nascent,
year-long, Harvard master’s degree.
They call it ‘self directed study’
and like rockets have stages,
I’ll have ‘self paced modules.’

Am I suddenly at Oxford University?
They’re quite famous for that (no formal classes).
Or am I suddenly grown up and trusted?
I obviously don’t have it all figured out yet,
so I’ll just trust the process.

When I started that other school
(that shall not be named), my advisor
handed me a computer printout - a list
with something like 40 courses on it.
I thought, “Oh, my God,” but one by one,
year over year, I checked-off those courses
and voila! They handed me a diploma.
It was a process.

I understand, if you’re disappointed about the jailbreak, but there’ll
be coffee breaks, lunch breaks, study breaks, bathroom breaks
and more than a few self-directed dance breaks. So stick around.

“You know,” my therapist said, so very seriously, a few years ago,
“you keep laughing.”
.
.
I've Got the World on a String by Robin McKelle
****** Soul Picnic by Ledisi & Billy Childs
BLT Merriam Webster word of the day challenge 05/29/25:
Nascent: something that is just beginning.
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