After Ankitha

Oh God
Crow, horseshit, narcissism reeking
Why am I attracted to you? 
I hate you so much for what you’re doing to me
I was jealous of the girl who played your girlfriend
You’re disgusting and vile and the only male I can even talk to
Why do I do this?
We bought Samosas and headed to class
We scramble and fall and try and remain
Like we always have
Laughing

Crocodile Tears for Musthapha

Do you want to get high?
He smiled like a toothpaste ad
She couldn’t decide
If she was good or if she was bad
They went outside
With the bartender on his break
Nothing to hide
It was a chance that she had to take

She was a girl
On her way in the big world
A month by the bay
To be free in her own way


Once you go brown
Can you ever go back?
She’s coming down
There's a bruise up on her neck
She saw him around
Might have been Houston or LA
And here’s what she found
That she was not ordinary

Narcolepsy

I knew she was the one
When I woke up inside her
Still hard and ready to finish
But narcolepsy means
Different things to different people

Of course her tight little body
Corvette curves
Mustang lines
Edges like broken shards of fiberglass Camaro
Helps
But narcolepsy means
Different things to different people

I've so internalized the workshop
That I talk to myself
Constantly
Always answering
Yes
But narcolepsy means
Different things to different people

A picture of many hands
Or of one hand
Trembling
A figment
Perhaps
Of auto focused
Imagination
But narcolepsy means
Different things to different people

Cutting yourself
In the middle of the night
Is not the best way to
Get back to
Sleep
But narcolepsy means
Different things to different people

Shall I tell you a story?

The most beautiful wedding ever seen in Valhalla was the marriage of Njord and Skade. Njord came from the race of Vanir; he was a great swimmer and sailor and like all the Vanir he could summon the rains so that the fields and forests became verdant and green as he made his way across the land. Skade came from the race of Jotuns; she was a great skier and skater and like all the Jotuns she could summon the snow so that people could travel at the speed of the wind. Their courtship was complicated but they loved each other deeply and when they finally married all of heaven and earth rejoiced with them.

But once the feasting and celebrations were over, and it was time for them to return to their home, they faced a dilemma. For Njord’s house, Noatun, was by the seashore; near the waters that loved him so and near the forests and fields that he so loved. And Skade’s house, Thrymheimr, was in the mountains; at the top of a glacier with a magical chairlift so that you could ski down wherever you wanted and always have a way to get back to the top.

Now they loved each other deeply, and wanted to be together always, so they compromised: nine days they would stay at Skade’s house in the mountains, and nine days they would stay at Njord’s house by the seashore. But despite his love for Skade, Njord was unhappy in the mountains, and on the tenth day, as they came down the mountain back to Noatun, he sang this lay:

Loath were the hills to me,
I was not long in them,
Nights only nine;
To me the wailing of
Wolves seemed ill,
After the song of swans.

And Skade loved Njord, and wanted him to be happy, so she stayed the nine days in Noatun. But Skade was unhappy away from her mountains and on the ninth morning she sang this lay:

Sleep could I never
On the sea-beds,
For the wailing of waterfowl;
He wakens me
Who comes from the deep –
The sea-mew every morn.

And so she returned to the mountains, and he remained by the sea, and their two children, Frey and Freya, split their time between the two houses, spending the summer with their father by the seashore bathing in the fjord and wandering the meadows and the winter with their mother in the mountains skiing the steep slopes with the speed of the wind.