Crazy
Am I not sane enough for you?
Insane you must be in saying
I’m crazy, believe me
I know one when I see one.
I’m crazy for wasting my time
justifying my universe
just defining my free verse.
It bursts your understanding of what can be
You’re wary or contrary to my own belief
I see your mind controlling, merely strolling
through the park on autumn days
Go by when I feel like I’m perfectly fine
except the concept of my perfection
is redirected because of the absence
of your toleration.

You crazy fool.

Crazy

Blindness
The evening bleeding full of partiers
stumbling up and down the corridors
Their senses on fences bordering on the reality
of who they are and who they want to be.
Invites don’t stand in the way of the night
beautiful women stand in the doorways 
and the men, naturally lend out their hands
to keep the women standing,
but understanding that they can’t even begin to stay vertical
sends the sexes out of control
in total the smoke gets in their eyes
no surprise then, are the blind men.

The intense intents of these young fools
fade in and out, no doubt that their bodies will soon fail
the conditions that their lifestyles entail.
First their ankles will give in, caving like the avalanches they watch with glee
mere entertainment until it,
transforms to sheer containment
of the destruction of the smoke.

They smoke until they choke, blatant disregard of the natural force
continued perilous acquisition, no inquisition of a way to heal,
their portfolios exposed to polio, in short
they mistreat themselves until they beat themselves
in later years when they retreat to the lonely
four-by-four chambers, brightly lit
their eyes adjust to the change,
their blind minds learn to accept it.

Blindness

Break
You need a break before you break into a million little pieces
of wrecked recollection, before you need someone else to recollect
the shattered fragments of your subconscious.
You must consciously remove yourself once in a while
from the world itself and venture out in the wild,
at least foreign to you so you can breathe in new air.
Do not dare bring along work to do or share, 
your break must break you off from the universe of 
black hearses that carry more than just bodies
but lost souls as well 
that have faded into the silence
gone without voices because of choices they made when they could.

Listen to me when I say, relax.
The facts are as we stand here chatting
combating with the demands of you and me
and him and she who sighs as she assigns the signs of premature aging
if you don’t change then
your must manage your habits.
The little time we have, it’s crucial
to accrue should we lose sight of the light at the end of the tunnel,
you see,
don’t worry about that distant light,
what you must do is break the rechargeable batteries from
their console to console yourself with a lantern
so you may shine the way on your own terms
in times that seem out of your control.
The time is now to renew you whole.

Break

My Voice
My voice is the only thing I have.
Sure, speaking up in itself is a risk I want to miss,
but that I take everyday.
These risks are dangerous and scary,
but if it weren’t me, no one else could substitute my voice
shoot, the noise that I create,
the discussion bounces off people
like light off mirrors,
illuminating the wrongs of our terrors
and the rights of what we share, and
without my voice, the voices of the others would not vibrate
sigh break -
Can you see that I’m going out on a limb here
my voice shaking with fear
as I attempt to articulate the workings of my ears
in hearing what you have to say but never backing down
on the changes I want to make.

The risks I take when I let my voice wander free
are amplified when I let my words fly
straight onto paper,
the click click click, enter
on the keyboard of my fabrication.
What I want is animation from those around me
Not a silent movie.
The films he films inspire me to 
retire for a moment and then kill the silence 
fill the silence with my own art,
take it apart for what you may.
One thing I’ve always wanted to say
is that insecurity used to bind me tight,
shut me up and shut me in
no will to fight or stretch words thin.
But now I see that all I have is my voice and 
people can close their eyes and refuse to read or see what I have to write,
but right now when I make my voice heard on paper and in the air, 
glistening,
all of them have no choice but to hear,
and maybe even listen.

Voice

Not Good Enough
Don't ever let anybody tell you
"you're not good enough,"
because, you are plenty full of stuff
that people misread.
You bleed from all corners of your body,
Your shoulders not shoddy,
hell, they hold up haughtiness of the mess of your constituents,
the people who don't understand.
Me, I see just the beauty you see
when you look in the mirror.
Your eyes surprise the child within and you begin to stifle the cries of the haters.
Don't wait or complicate that feeling of warm vexation.
Don't let fear or the possibility of a crack let you live your life
afraid of the whack consequences of proving them wrong.
Step back, moving yourself away from the broken rungs
of the ladder you can't seem to climb.
No lines will force you to give up any of your colors,
you'll color outside the boundaries if you so please,
and nobody can say you're wrong.
That's the beauty of art if you can make the shift
from succumbing to the rifts he or she or they can give,
and instead show them that,
even when it's rough,
you are better than good enough.



Not good enough

Beauty

Your arms are beautiful,

the way they fall in the summer heat,

equally spaced, smoldering so neat.

A drop of sweat traversing down your neck,

caught on your collarbone,

then sucked into the white cotton,

tight from the wrought iron muscles beneath.

If only you could hold me, feel the pounding of my breast.

We could rest and let each other free.


Beauty

Famous

I wanna be famous like the books on your shelves,

the books on the roofs of your mouths,

over dinner.

I wanna be your Marilyn Monroe,

your scarlet letter in flames nobody can tame.

I wanna be the girl you dream about when you’re not even asleep,

eyes drifting to fantasy,

save me from catastrophe when your heart reaches out,

your arms make the sound of love at midnight

around me so tight,

but only in the lightest faction of your mind.

I wanna be the lines you color outside of,

when you let your hard creativity free.

I wanna be the one you think of when you look at her.

I wanna be famous, and

I wanna be yours.


Famous

Ear to ear
I’m looking at them, smiling, grinning.
Eyes caught in competition, wanna be winning,
It’s not just a game, it’s the title that’s vital,
the crown of all others’ envy.
Unhand me, brutal monster who makes me yell,
who makes me warm with fiery intent,
hell bent on defeat,
the feet of my fury rip dirt off the ground,
specks flying, denying the next person the round.
The brothers Grimm so grim cuz they fear my wrath,
when I wrap up the game,
one, two, three and that’s that.
My grip on the win slips, metaphorically,
you could ask me how rhetorically,
but I guess it’s quite literal, nothing bitter,
all bets off cuz my control of the controller,
or my run-on sentence of a winning streak
weakens me into defeat.
My hands clammier than those in the sea
I see the finish line in sight,
the might I might win if I can reach the height of the hill,
but the final stretch a failure
a wretched nail or twisted screw
because I drop the controller and lose.



Ear to Ear

when the sun is shining

when the sun is shining,

all i can think of is you,

because you are warm sunshine,

a delightful summer breeze.

your light shines 

and you buckle my knees,

boy please, you please me 

so easily, your breath next to mine.

all i need is your heat,

as we trade air back and forth

between our thirsty mouths.

i find thirst is just a state of mind

we create first to distract

ourselves from our rapid heartbeats,

sweat and soft sheets.

because when the sun shines,

the sunshine is nothing compared to you,

and i'm lucky the forecast says

you're mine.


When the sun is shining

I wake up some days not loving who I am
And on these days that come just a little too often, I look at my hands.
I remember days when I thought they were perfect.
These delicate angels that defy fragility; they belonged somewhere.
I remember thinking I would be a hand model.
At the fragile age of 10, I knew what I was put on this earth for.
It was meant to be.
My perfect hands could do anything.
McDonald’s would want them in their Big Mac commercials.
Revlon would want my healthy cuticles to model nail polish
I could learn sign language and open up worlds of possibilities.

I remember the day I shared my dream with my mother,
“Mom, I’m going to be a hand model,” I said with appropriate gravity.
“But, honey,” she replied, “your middle finger is crooked.”

I wake up some days not loving who I am
And on these days that come just a little too often, I look at my hands.
These shattered dreams they hold with every imperfection—
The broken what ifs and crooked middle fingers
More crooked with every nervous crack of a knuckle
And syncopated snap, snap
with every fuck you and broken promise
I forget what it’s like to trust 

I wake up some days wanting to go back to sleep
Back to my dream with my perfect hands
Cupped and sealed like a glass to sip honey from
But honey, your middle finger is crooked
And I wake again in a warm sweat.

My perfect hands are lonely
And impatient
They want to be warm again
Like they used to be when they were perfect
Whole, like when they held another.

I wake up some days and I forget about my crooked middle finger.


iris-liu

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