daytrippin w/ larissa

Overcast day, we were sober that day
Drove in my ride to leave our place + get away
Little Brother crooning 'home',windows getting foggy
turn the up the AC and volume, heat up our bodies
rain trickles softly, taps the windows rhythmlessly
if there's anything more soothing it had to come from this beat
i'm nodding with it, you nod in syncopation
turn signal shines rhythmically to my nerdy elation
on this highway of inspiration we exit university ave
make a right on shattuck so we on the right path
I hit a bump, you act rash, sig on me, i laugh it off
i need some yummy in my tummy like a burger next to hasslehoff
hit up blondie's pizza, dash thru rain to amoeba
pick up some new music, hit up shirt orgy enseguida
browse the tees + reminisce 'bout this one and thatta one
our meter's almost done so we retire, had our fun
bump a mixtape with our favorite slow jams
the night is comin quick on our trip back to the flatlands
we feelin thirsty so stop by ranch99
a milk tea snow bubble would suffice, tastes mighty fine
back on i-80, only stop to pay the toll
on our way 'home', play that LB again, need that groovin soul
it wasn't my goal but i stole a long glance
your clothes and hair wet and sexy, feel slight baltice in my pants
but i won't advance, i just quietly admire
how someone fly like you could share my same musical fire
head to the lab, bump our new treasure
lost in music, lost in time, i could stay lost this way forever.

a strong word.

i'm not too accustomed to referring to hate
in its entirety
in its honesty
in its bitterness

...but damn.
i hate him.

i, leaning on my own knees
and learning to cry on my own shoulders
can honestly say
my hate for him runs deep

i was told that hate can only exist for something you care deeply for
and yes,
i care deeply for the hatred i bear for you
i care for the person you hurt deeply
i care for the little girl cowering in her bed
sleeping in the fetal position
rubbing her own hands to feel warmth again
and i care
that you didn't care
to take care of her

you see,
i am sick of remembering you
so if i have to waste anymore time remembering you
i want the memories to be accurate
pictures emblazoned with lies
and promises distinctly broken

and yes,
i understand that we all make mistakes
we can't live our lives in regret
and that's why i'm making sure i won't forget
i don't want to regret not letting you know
that i am sick of you
i am tired of your face
because within each of your smiles
i see the devil pinching your cheeks through your dimples

and yes,
i have been told that hate is a strong word
i just hope it's strong enough to accurately express
what i feel for you.

home-ill (1st draft)

i write this
because it's been awhile since i wrote a poem
and it's funny,
at how throwing me across the country
is showing me how much i miss poetry
-----------------------------------
stripped down to its purest form
(empty of political or pusssy agenda)
poetry purposefully locks you
into a love affair with language.
these words in everyday conversation
steady rock like rocksteady
produce something far beyond
nouns, verbs, and
hella hella adjectives

and it's tragic
how most of this daily poetry
goes unnoticed by it's producers
cause we all spit sick shit
"poets" just have the sense to write it down

Self-Discovery

(it's been a while since i've posted. for the past month or so, i've been feeling down in the dumps as a music producer/writer...so i'm taking this time to let out how i feel)

"I am a poet, a musician, and a lyricist," how often do you hear of this?
I gaze within and call myself a hypocrite.
If I tell others to write and I don't, if I don't abide by the quote, what makes me so significant or different?

I ask myself, where lies the impor-tance? Am I a poet or a lyricist just 'cause I know what a meta-phor is?
Or maybe a simile? A musician because I sim-p-ly understand the system of grand staff's and rhythms without difficulty?

There's more than just knowledge of the motions and actions.
I am who I am because in my heart for the art I hold a passion...
For in my hands, I can turn turn a pen into a javelin, wearing a sword and shield, I am transformed into a champion.
But even champions drop the ball and tend to fall, and if you wonder at all, you ask yourself "how could this have happened?"

Inspiration I lacked and motivation barely supported my back, though I tried and tried with my efforts and ac-tions, I felt so weak. For through music I was mute and could not speak. For days, for weeks, for over a month and that was the peak.

However, I made the discovery, that growth came with every recovery, so one failure should never ever be governing the rest of life. So as long as I can pick up a mic, or pen to write, then I will spill my insight...

I will fall, but I will rise, and that's my plan.
Write? Make music? That I can't do.
But with inspiration and motivation...
"I can..."

garden

a familiarity of treble and bass drift amidst the warm summer air. the comfort of the atmosphere and the slight buzz from my watered down mocha. a fine mist drops like a light snow into the palm fronds and terra cotta mountains. a man walking on the aluminum roof disrupts the soft murmur of our voices speaking of serious matters. a lifted feeling like a burden of bricks off of my chest. finely ground rocks cushion the floor beneath my feet and my back stiffens from stress. i shudder as the mist caresses my skin. startled. sunlight sifted through the silky web draws my attention away from eavesdropping. time slips slowly away into the void of nothingness as human nature brings the sorrow and the doubt that the weather can often inspire. i'm just the opposite of most, the sunny, bright blue sky makes my soul cry whereas the cloudy, dark, damp days of winter make me smile. a smile i could use by now, but it's almost fall. the leaves will be red and yellow and the sky will weep while my teeth show once again.

live.

a color experiement

ways

reminiscent membranes ricochet off the walls of my profane, insane, one-lane highways. untamed roadways winding longways alongside riverways and waterways cross-hatched by reverted-collapsing bridges. dehydration and thick anticipation mixed in the condensation of salty waterlets beneath my scarf. wooden crosses and statuettes of our-lady-of-guadalupe mark the sorrow and hope of the dearly deceased. these reminders of death don't slow our pace, we have a schedule to defeat and a demand to meet.

vent rat

the jump start of a half heart pump from a full night's slumber
fills needles in my muscles of numbing tranquilizer
my tiny rat stomach starts in a sink
making pollack with a vanilla nuclear malt mix
but it's really just vomiting wisps of butterfly souls
i feel the shape form this invisible hole
there's no wind, there's hardly a vent
and i'm vomit-prone, and paranoid and lost in a knotted labyrinth
pinching the stomach valve righty tight, holding on
pressure cooking, building mystery in pipe bomb
shh.. keeping it swallowed down is my obedience
plus i cant pronounce these hieroglyphs for ingredients
i woke to alarms injecting my inner ear piercing loud
disrupting my perfect painting of cute cursive clouds
wake to find im confined in silver fogs of druggie chemical
stretching into a gray to black with hairline light slivers
theres few ducts to sniff in my sights, i need leads
i've barely placed my veins on the line for these three
if there's no cannon big enough to puncture the deadbolts
i'll detonate when our eyes meet peeking through the vent hole

comfort eats..

[a vent - after watching SiCKO for the 2nd time]

last night i comfort ate.

and not for a boy but for a country.

a country plagued by poison sent over media waves and material things we never wanted until we turned on a tv. a country driven by greed and individualism. a country that seems to squash dreams of a integrated society built on community and solidarity and other buzz words i only seem to hear in spoken word pieces. buzz words that i cant seem to put into practice even though i can talk a whole lot about revolution and the death of it.

free universal health care for everyone. for everyone. young, old, poor, rich, white, black, brown, queer, down. there is so much to do but i dont know how to do it. Lord you've given me passion and a burden..a heart for change but i dont know what to do with it. i dont know where to go and i dont know if educating the masses is enough. if making sure children are learning the right things is enough.

i call for mental genocide.

i call for a mass death of all things unclean. of all things unseen because of our friend hegemony. they even got filipin@s turning on everyone who isn't filipin@. they. they. i haven't felt this anger in a long time and the fire is consuming as if my heart was made of wood. but its not..it is made of makibaka huwag matakot. it is made of drive and hope .. the only hope thats left at the end of the day working for corporate america who pays its teachers $14 an hour even though we're teaching 12th graders how to read .. even though we're teaching A.D.D. students not on medication how to sit still ..even though we're dealing with psycho parents who push their kids to do better...their privileged white kids whose parents dont have to work 2 - 3 jobs but take them to golf instead.

maybe deep down inside im a commi. maybe deep down inside i want to revolutionize amerikkka by putting out music and tv and movies that encourage community.. magazine adds that accept people for the way they are .. reality tv shows about anorexia and the stupidity of body image .. maybe deep down inside the Christian in me is mad at Christianity for reinforcing these stereotypes ..for being a religion instead of a relationship.. for being for the rich instead of struggling to be like the poor .. for putting out positive images that only rich people can afford. maybe we need to band together and be angry and fight and protest and be French? MAYBE ..its a lost cause

and maybe .. i want to write but can't because i have to go to work to pay off my loans that wouldn't even exist if i lived in another country.

tormented by truth i see... my insides ache for the hurt.

garbage.

my eyes drifted opposite of right
and my thoughts turned to dwell on a sight
so fitting of its direction...

he carefully, with himself as his own necessary witness,
of a life fulfilled and so complete
worked away
actions speaking illuminated moons to me
- i swear he made it make sense -
galaxies paled
as my chest beat tears each heartbeat
that couldn't reach my eyes to fall through

he did not sadden me
but the world that looked down upon him was what did
to cast a king upon the streets
carefully gripping his plastic bag
filled of treasures the rest of the world
considered disgusting garbage

his eyes determined and never strayed
like mine did
and to look up on him
i was wondering
why my knees weren't more used to kneeling...
my knees too tender
untouched by humility

and i...
watching him sift through the garbage
looking for things we forgot could use again
he had instead made me recycle my thoughts
touching all that the rest of the world would cringe
and pinch their nostrils to

i...was ashamed at my ignorance
ashamed at my own frustrations

though i am aware we all face our own demons
recognizing the lives of others
twisted my lips into a frown

i could only wonder how many times
the rag that was carefully draped at his waist
would wipe away the sweat of a day harder than any of my lifetimes
of the weariness of a lifetime doing what the rest of the world
refused to do...

but his eyes silently smiled to me
he knew...
this is where god willed him to be
he found no shame in his place
of the hierarchy of this washed out society
he stepped past their levels
and then finally...
i got it.

through his humility and understanding of the world
i understood that it really didn't matter
what they say
what we do
as long as we bring each day to a close
feeling accomplished
feeling faithful

and realizing that
our happiness is not found in what we hold in our hands
but in the strength of our grip
in the lifetimes we wrap in our fingers
the hands they hold
the hair they stroke

he reminded me of the beauty
we sometimes throw away...

baby mush

a firm grip

like offering a finger to a baby
they wrap their tiny curved fingers around yours
and struggle to let go.

and i guess it only makes sense
when you offer pieces of yrself
that i envelope them and struggle to let go

because you bring me back
to innocence and childlike wonder
two babies vulnerable, just struggling to figure out
how to survive in this world

and i have this feeling like yr struggling to let go
of the pieces of me that i wanted you to see
but you took in that grip cause what you wanted was
me

because i bring you back
to innocence and childlike wonder
two babies vulnerable. cursed with a case of
bad timing

co-signing that this feels right but not right now
but one of these days, this world will become ours

because we bring each other back
to innocence and childlike wonder
two babies invincible if their
tiny curved fingers never figure out how to let go.

incense

nag champa invades my nostrils as the smoke stings my eyes. the knots and kinks in my neck and back constrict my nerves and cause major discomfort. the feelings of love and softness experienced earlier drift in my mind like the whispy, ghostly vapors in the air. fog and steam crowd out the stars and moon tonight. her fingertips and crazy antics cut through the clouds and bring a smile to my face. intimate smiles with the mutual capriciousness brings life to a standstill wherein no darkness could ever damper the spirits. i know i can't rest my happiness in her hands alone, i could smile on my own. it's just so much easier whilst sitting on a driveway with weirdy faces and odd sounds. the nag champa burns low and almost dies out. the end of the night and beginning of a dream. soft blackout into fanciful non-reality. drifting sweet. gently. happy.