Written a year ago during Hurricane Sandy...
We sit in cozy apartments. We have our flashlights prepared. The water gallons grabbed from the store shelves. We watch the news. We listen to the howling wind. We’re on the seventh floor, our building is safe, but poor those in Long Island, their houses will be flooded. We pray to God Almighty the storm won’t touch us, the winds won’t blow us away like leaves in a deserted autumn park. We are tremulous, humble victims of nature’s blind workings. We feel pity for ourselves. We make international phone calls. Our mothers are worried.
And yet, we did this to ourselves. We grab what isn’t ours to grab. We attire ourselves in lies. We prey and devour, veiled in nice lies. We’re hungry for food, for sex, for money, for power, and we’ll say whatever it takes to grab and gobble and fuel our wicked vital urge, we must look at each other as food we must get, as much as we can get, we must stay alive and multiply, so anything goes.
I am not nature so in my wrath I could topple houses, raise walls of ocean waves, crash old tree branches on the wicked Jeeps and Hummers that took over the city’s streets, guzzling the planet. I am not nature to shake the earth, crack it open and swallow us all, accursed vermin. I am but the prisoner of memory tossed and washed away in its furious waves. When the wind shrieks, I dare not go into my empty apartment, sit next to my phone that doesn’t ring. I sit on a park bench, choked by the ghost of past earthquakes. I hear again the roosters croaking, the dogs barking, the donkeys braying the end of the world, I see chandeliers swinging, the townspeople running in their pajamas and nightgowns running to hide away from the earth shaking its back, the buildings falling, high rises across boulevards, dead people in the rubble, searching for them for weeks, the grave robbers who stole the gold jewelry from the dead on trial and shot by the death squad. I see again poor people jumping from the windows of the Twin Towers, poor people, tiny bugs flying down to their undeserved death, and I tremble it’s gonna be all over again now. Now. Now. Now.
I am but the witless woman who begged God for someone to love, and God bitterly joked sending you, a hungry deceiver, taught by your nation crumbling under corruption, taught by your male friends, taught by your father and brother that no harm is done, and if any, oh, well, she deserved it. Nothing to fear. There will be no consequences. Grab, gobble, run. And again, talk smoothly until the bird lands in your hand, grab its neck, wring it, devour it, run.
For one day I’d like to blow God off His Mighty Throne and strip Him of His Celestial Robes and clad in them with His Crown on my head and His Scepter in my hand I’d thunder my wrath with a lightning on the world’s wickedness and on your young wickedness and wrench it out of you all. When you were in my arms, my warmth, my lips, my tongue made you kind and you feared its sweet weakness.
Your deceit feared its sweetness. Were I to be God I’d do just that, suck out the evilness venom out of you.
But this can’t be done, no, it can’t be done. For all I know God has left us. The Devil tosses and tumbles us about. The Devil has crept into my heart as you cracked it open with your sweet lies.
You sit in my kitchen eating my food I offered out of kindness. You ask me, ‘Why are you so nice to me? I haven’t been nice to you.’ But instead of hearing the guilt in your voice and ask you for the truth you hide, I tell you, ‘Other people were kind to me when I came here destitute, when I sought refuge. You are deserving of me giving back.’
But you’re not.
I give you a clean white shirt and soft brown socks, so you can work and fulfill your dreams, because you tell me lies I don’t know yet are lies.
I give you myself, because you tell me lies I don’t know yet are lies, because you didn’t tell yet the one that like a magnet will pull them together, like the last piece in a puzzle laid on a kitchen table, in a compact surface of an undeniable undeniable undeniable betrayal.
If I’d let myself be wicked I’d make the food you stole from me preying on my kindness, to eat your insides, like strong acid to dissolve your stomach and intestines, and blood veins and muscles and brain and eyes and hair and fingers, till just a fizzling foam is left of you. If I’d let myself be wicked I’d make the shirt I gave you in love turn into flames of fire, burn your skin and flesh and bones to ashes. If I’d let myself be wicked I’d make the soft kisses and tender caresses I gave you in love linger hidden in you and when you’re sweet asleep come out roaring, deafening you, and strangle you, choke you.
If I’d let myself be wicked I’d curse you: may you never know true love, for mine was the beginning of that, may you meet but treachery, and if one fine day your heart will sing like mine did for you, the same venom you gave me should flood it. If I’d let myself be wicked I’d make sure when your dreams almost come true, to crumble them to dust in one sweep, your sports car crashing in a river, and drown, fish eat your flesh. If I’d let myself be wicked I’d curse you: may you never have children, or may they be crippled from birth, may your life be brief and end in torturous disease.
But I am not wicked, am I? I am not contaminated by you. I am not infected by you.
I’m drained, frail with sadness and devastation, upon devastation, you’re but the last one in a line of predators, each with his own disguise. You reopened my wounds aided by the roar of the hurricane.
When the dust shall settle I shall find a way and teach you this lesson for life:
Never, never, never lie again. Never, never, never steal from giving people. Never, never, never think there’re no consequences and there’ll be no blistery pay back, bonehead.
So I swear.
October 29, 2013
We sit in cozy apartments. We have our flashlights prepared. The water gallons grabbed from the store shelves. We watch the news. We listen to the howling wind. We’re on the seventh floor, our building is safe, but poor those in Long Island, their houses will be flooded. We pray to God Almighty the storm won’t touch us, the winds won’t blow us away like leaves in a deserted autumn park. We are tremulous, humble victims of nature’s blind workings. We feel pity for ourselves. We make international phone calls. Our mothers are worried.
And yet, we did this to ourselves. We grab what isn’t ours to grab. We attire ourselves in lies. We prey and devour, veiled in nice lies. We’re hungry for food, for sex, for money, for power, and we’ll say whatever it takes to grab and gobble and fuel our wicked vital urge, we must look at each other as food we must get, as much as we can get, we must stay alive and multiply, so anything goes.
I am not nature so in my wrath I could topple houses, raise walls of ocean waves, crash old tree branches on the wicked Jeeps and Hummers that took over the city’s streets, guzzling the planet. I am not nature to shake the earth, crack it open and swallow us all, accursed vermin. I am but the prisoner of memory tossed and washed away in its furious waves. When the wind shrieks, I dare not go into my empty apartment, sit next to my phone that doesn’t ring. I sit on a park bench, choked by the ghost of past earthquakes. I hear again the roosters croaking, the dogs barking, the donkeys braying the end of the world, I see chandeliers swinging, the townspeople running in their pajamas and nightgowns running to hide away from the earth shaking its back, the buildings falling, high rises across boulevards, dead people in the rubble, searching for them for weeks, the grave robbers who stole the gold jewelry from the dead on trial and shot by the death squad. I see again poor people jumping from the windows of the Twin Towers, poor people, tiny bugs flying down to their undeserved death, and I tremble it’s gonna be all over again now. Now. Now. Now.
I am but the witless woman who begged God for someone to love, and God bitterly joked sending you, a hungry deceiver, taught by your nation crumbling under corruption, taught by your male friends, taught by your father and brother that no harm is done, and if any, oh, well, she deserved it. Nothing to fear. There will be no consequences. Grab, gobble, run. And again, talk smoothly until the bird lands in your hand, grab its neck, wring it, devour it, run.
For one day I’d like to blow God off His Mighty Throne and strip Him of His Celestial Robes and clad in them with His Crown on my head and His Scepter in my hand I’d thunder my wrath with a lightning on the world’s wickedness and on your young wickedness and wrench it out of you all. When you were in my arms, my warmth, my lips, my tongue made you kind and you feared its sweet weakness.
Your deceit feared its sweetness. Were I to be God I’d do just that, suck out the evilness venom out of you.
But this can’t be done, no, it can’t be done. For all I know God has left us. The Devil tosses and tumbles us about. The Devil has crept into my heart as you cracked it open with your sweet lies.
You sit in my kitchen eating my food I offered out of kindness. You ask me, ‘Why are you so nice to me? I haven’t been nice to you.’ But instead of hearing the guilt in your voice and ask you for the truth you hide, I tell you, ‘Other people were kind to me when I came here destitute, when I sought refuge. You are deserving of me giving back.’
But you’re not.
I give you a clean white shirt and soft brown socks, so you can work and fulfill your dreams, because you tell me lies I don’t know yet are lies.
I give you myself, because you tell me lies I don’t know yet are lies, because you didn’t tell yet the one that like a magnet will pull them together, like the last piece in a puzzle laid on a kitchen table, in a compact surface of an undeniable undeniable undeniable betrayal.
If I’d let myself be wicked I’d make the food you stole from me preying on my kindness, to eat your insides, like strong acid to dissolve your stomach and intestines, and blood veins and muscles and brain and eyes and hair and fingers, till just a fizzling foam is left of you. If I’d let myself be wicked I’d make the shirt I gave you in love turn into flames of fire, burn your skin and flesh and bones to ashes. If I’d let myself be wicked I’d make the soft kisses and tender caresses I gave you in love linger hidden in you and when you’re sweet asleep come out roaring, deafening you, and strangle you, choke you.
If I’d let myself be wicked I’d curse you: may you never know true love, for mine was the beginning of that, may you meet but treachery, and if one fine day your heart will sing like mine did for you, the same venom you gave me should flood it. If I’d let myself be wicked I’d make sure when your dreams almost come true, to crumble them to dust in one sweep, your sports car crashing in a river, and drown, fish eat your flesh. If I’d let myself be wicked I’d curse you: may you never have children, or may they be crippled from birth, may your life be brief and end in torturous disease.
But I am not wicked, am I? I am not contaminated by you. I am not infected by you.
I’m drained, frail with sadness and devastation, upon devastation, you’re but the last one in a line of predators, each with his own disguise. You reopened my wounds aided by the roar of the hurricane.
When the dust shall settle I shall find a way and teach you this lesson for life:
Never, never, never lie again. Never, never, never steal from giving people. Never, never, never think there’re no consequences and there’ll be no blistery pay back, bonehead.
So I swear.
October 29, 2013
Well, here you have it: If you’d like to throw a bit of money my way to keep my endeavors going, and also enable me to spread the money to my various causes, witnessing democracy, freedom of speech and faith, and engineering social change thru art being some of them, I’d be grateful.
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