September 5, 2000 11:53am
"If you’re going to cheat on your boyfriend make sure you break up with him first, you ugly bitch!"
As I turned to see my friends walk back to class without a care — I came to realize, as I rubbed the streaks of mascara off my face, that my life would never be the same.
I remember lying under the covers when
our premature, first autumn began to fall; an October
night, pale as my lips were cold — abandoned by
blood's refusal to play warmth into November. This
hand evicted out from your glove; my father’s panic
found reprieve. Those childhood dreams of falling
down had come back; hitting the ground - safety
net occupied.
*
November 11, 2000 9:14pm
“I never meant to hurt you. Kissing him meant nothing. You’re the one I want.”
Your flesh at Seventeen— I wanted to relish every inch.
I remember rainy days where we’d seek refuge under your
umbrella, standing on the senior quad in all its emptiness, our
tongues submissive to lunch hour’s destiny. My skin pervasive
in resting eau de cologne, your neck stained in the hue of
habitual love letters — prime accessories in marking
clothed, sexual territory.
*
November 11, 2001 5:13pm
“This isn’t going anywhere. All we do is fight and plus, you’ve yet to let me fuck you.”
I remember your house. Careful in her home, I gained back
your mother’s trust after breaking your virginal heart. I remember
the night I slept over: running away with lies left on my home’s
answering machine, twirling spaghetti, sipping raspberry wine,
listening to wind chimes in blind rapture with the dry Santa Anas.
You undressed my inexperienced teenage frame.
Fearful as your finger let itself slide, I remembered the stained-glass butterfly missing its wing.
*
July 20, 2003 4:37pm
“I’ll call you back.”
“No you won’t.”
“I can’t take your shit anymore. I can’t talk right now with you harping at me. I’ll call you back.”
I was tested on young love. The welcome to cheat—wrapped in those
muscular arms, long through frayed edges of his cotton t-shirt— consented.
I can say I suffered along with you though you’d swiftly overturn my parole,
calling it a bluff, sentencing my capacity to assault fledgling emotions to further
rehabilitation.
*
October 11, 2011 6:37pm
I have always been worth waiting for.
I’ve been waiting 8 years, 3 months and 21 days as if old
photos and once pleasant Valentine grams are so inclined to ask.
Those childhood dreams of falling down have come back; hitting
forgiving ground – safety net easy, vacant only to be occupied by
last boyfriend’s love.
The phone number you never dialed is no longer in amenable service
to the moments we spent — they were nothing more than fairytales you
told to keep me captive.
Monday, October 24, 2011
Friday, September 16, 2011
Trading Secrets
My secrets hang splintered by wooden
clothespins on a line to dry—the cold shade
of nightfall coalesces with the degree of their sorrows.
My secrets scream for a change, each metaphor
exhausted—lying under its own linen waiting for
first light’s epiphany.
My secrets struggle to keep quiet—as the unchanged muse
fills pages in pensive cursive destroyed in a battle against
my hand’s weight—slash marks violate emotional
stains hours after manipulating their own silence.
Pull out these leather-bound sheets; no grief for this spineless
journal is in order.
My secrets wish they were worth keeping—arms down, this pen
resigns; unemployed by vices of real storytelling. Under rug swept,
a poet’s hands washed—the desire to repeat lathered with lye,
celibate in mingling with timid prose.
My secrets want to trade themselves in with yours—
walking out clothed in a free, written exposé, versed
in words past language, intimate in imagery’s arms
never felt before and lying as the dotted “I” in lines of
thought bent on one knee proclaiming this woman’s love
to her art—
Erase my manifesto and donate its nostalgia to the
shelters of prior, plaintive want.
An open Poet can only be read one way—
There’s no use crying over spilled secrets; tie the leather
strings tight, the skeleton within me is all that’s left.
clothespins on a line to dry—the cold shade
of nightfall coalesces with the degree of their sorrows.
My secrets scream for a change, each metaphor
exhausted—lying under its own linen waiting for
first light’s epiphany.
My secrets struggle to keep quiet—as the unchanged muse
fills pages in pensive cursive destroyed in a battle against
my hand’s weight—slash marks violate emotional
stains hours after manipulating their own silence.
Pull out these leather-bound sheets; no grief for this spineless
journal is in order.
My secrets wish they were worth keeping—arms down, this pen
resigns; unemployed by vices of real storytelling. Under rug swept,
a poet’s hands washed—the desire to repeat lathered with lye,
celibate in mingling with timid prose.
My secrets want to trade themselves in with yours—
walking out clothed in a free, written exposé, versed
in words past language, intimate in imagery’s arms
never felt before and lying as the dotted “I” in lines of
thought bent on one knee proclaiming this woman’s love
to her art—
Erase my manifesto and donate its nostalgia to the
shelters of prior, plaintive want.
An open Poet can only be read one way—
There’s no use crying over spilled secrets; tie the leather
strings tight, the skeleton within me is all that’s left.
Monday, September 12, 2011
James Blake - The Wilhelm Scream
When things get a little out of control, I look to the words and rhythm of songs that kept memories of my past afloat. With this, something fresh, all the confusion innundated in the muted tributary of my body releases itself a little more each time I listen.
For Anne
Most days I cannot remember the portion of happiness
exhaled by these lungs. The life in which you had nothing
against, where laying on its grass cut worse than razor
blades, suicide ’s restive aid.
You wrote in madness, a language as mercurial as that spoken by
an artist dictating pain to canvas, elucidating which red hue to fill
in hearts with, never questioning why a heart’s temper swings.
Infinite times, I have placed my contrived crux into a shoebox filled
with the same toxin that caused its abstraction; photographs shoot
stories as they are told, whose deaths will find comfortable deferment
time after time.
You possessed passing in the legacy you left bound. Two
days out for despair and three days out in a mental hospital is
all it took you. All prayers fall short in revitalizing Poet from
your remains, as I step over the edge into the same darkly afflicted
end point.
Suicides deceive the human form; birth betrays the trust of those who
commit the crime concluding the lives they have lived, survived
as long as possible. Still-born births are presented privilege, immunized
against the fight for normalcy in a world where depression is inherent and
gangrene develops in the mind, invulnerable to antiseptic cleansing.
Death’s a sad bone, yes, but living pauses in the pale undoing of any
sores: new, old, or resting somewhere in between. Voluntary erasure
offers balance to cold; the creation of words stamp out numb from
tender living, offering balance to the beautifully frightened ones—
dying to take the next steps towards the perfect suicide: independence
from the echoes of anxiety printed in the obituary of a Poet’s
leftover metaphors.
Inside Out
I am a line from loud to soft. –John Frusciante
Early mornings before I wake, my head spins
wondering who I’ve been feigning it for.
These effortless strides have turned
tedious and still—
I pace down a lineage of pain
where all hesitation of spreading remains refused.
I am a fool—honest in a daze, waiting
to meet my match.
I am loud; mindful burning down the highway of
fragmented memoirs. Loud like my father, sitting
static—prospect prone to accident.
I wonder who creates these nightmares I’ve been
starring in—a heightened sense of being, still
a poet with nothing tangible against the backdrop
of every image clear enough to show for it.
I am a fool—angry in a daze
annulled by personal neglect. As frightened as
they are brave, I tread behind peers.
Damaged glass beneath me laughs—I walk
slow with attachments; overanalyzed creativity
hidden in shards pricks my bare feet. I am
anemic, not only in blood but in words that lack
confidence.
I am soft; saltwater taffy pales in comparison. Soft like
my mother resting spellbound by her own myth; denial
kept secret by strength.
I am a miniature needlepoint suffocated,
stimulated, pulled and spooled by former
mourning. Let me be a softer line divorced from
brash living; a grand tapestry silenced, an exhalation
blue in waiting.
Early mornings before I wake, my head spins
wondering who I’ve been feigning it for.
These effortless strides have turned
tedious and still—
I pace down a lineage of pain
where all hesitation of spreading remains refused.
I am a fool—honest in a daze, waiting
to meet my match.
I am loud; mindful burning down the highway of
fragmented memoirs. Loud like my father, sitting
static—prospect prone to accident.
I wonder who creates these nightmares I’ve been
starring in—a heightened sense of being, still
a poet with nothing tangible against the backdrop
of every image clear enough to show for it.
I am a fool—angry in a daze
annulled by personal neglect. As frightened as
they are brave, I tread behind peers.
Damaged glass beneath me laughs—I walk
slow with attachments; overanalyzed creativity
hidden in shards pricks my bare feet. I am
anemic, not only in blood but in words that lack
confidence.
I am soft; saltwater taffy pales in comparison. Soft like
my mother resting spellbound by her own myth; denial
kept secret by strength.
I am a miniature needlepoint suffocated,
stimulated, pulled and spooled by former
mourning. Let me be a softer line divorced from
brash living; a grand tapestry silenced, an exhalation
blue in waiting.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
INADEQUACY
Mother’s stretched out on her divorce settlement win, the seashell fashioned couch
father had carried across the threshold of their new home, crying over Susan Lucci’s
forthcoming severance. Carpel tunnel has confined mother to living vicariously through televised dramatizations of reality, twice removed.
What if she was Erica Kane and I, her lesbian daughter?
Would she approve of secondhand inhalations through us?
She watches in awe as the cast-iron certainty in television’s
representation pales in comparison to her truth, her lies, her
qualms. Reality’s starring lady, distant by no state of removal as it
poisons television’s conjured ideals, agonized a C- section
dependent on the path I was to embark upon.
My delivery summoned her reliance
in tranquility not in humanity and its sequence of making
mistakes and confronting self-doubt.
She harps, “How about beauty school? It’s easier than mastering Poetry.”
She harps, “I am not saying you can’t. I am just saying it’s easier.”
I bawl, “Reason always has its reason. I know exactly what you are saying.”
Identifying yourself in the world separate from the womb comes with liabilities.
The best ones are those found in the process; her projected inadequacy confused for
your disbelief in self.
father had carried across the threshold of their new home, crying over Susan Lucci’s
forthcoming severance. Carpel tunnel has confined mother to living vicariously through televised dramatizations of reality, twice removed.
What if she was Erica Kane and I, her lesbian daughter?
Would she approve of secondhand inhalations through us?
She watches in awe as the cast-iron certainty in television’s
representation pales in comparison to her truth, her lies, her
qualms. Reality’s starring lady, distant by no state of removal as it
poisons television’s conjured ideals, agonized a C- section
dependent on the path I was to embark upon.
My delivery summoned her reliance
in tranquility not in humanity and its sequence of making
mistakes and confronting self-doubt.
She harps, “How about beauty school? It’s easier than mastering Poetry.”
She harps, “I am not saying you can’t. I am just saying it’s easier.”
I bawl, “Reason always has its reason. I know exactly what you are saying.”
Identifying yourself in the world separate from the womb comes with liabilities.
The best ones are those found in the process; her projected inadequacy confused for
your disbelief in self.
Inherited Stubbornness
THE MAN IMPORTED FROM ISRAEL:
One thing my daughter is going to have to learn—
Apologies must be lent on her tongue’s behalf. I
do not want to be loved nor slighted by her. I threatened
to kill her and have no misgivings nor regretful expressions
to grant.
THE CHILD CONCEIVED THROUGH HIS WAYWARD GLANCES AT ONE OF IRAN’S MYSTERIOUS BEAUTIES:
I am determined that you shall not entrance the potency of rhyme, the fragile birth of my skill. I am armed with lyrical fury and unwavering in decree of the right
granted to my twenty-seventh year as a woman let alone your daughter. Standing hovered over your open casket, I have unapologetically doused your feared flame through chronicles of what you ineffectively forgot with wrought iron hands aiding retaliation by means of a double homicide on one; unnecessary suffocation ending the solicitation of my days spent in search.
Images of you held up at face value have bailed out every illicit irritant held
captive by the calm of this woman.
I have killed you in my fears.
I have killed supplementary labor of you in my verses.
I have washed the residue of love
lacking from my skin.
My hands are reborn, short
in the genetic rule of your fists.
One thing my daughter is going to have to learn—
Apologies must be lent on her tongue’s behalf. I
do not want to be loved nor slighted by her. I threatened
to kill her and have no misgivings nor regretful expressions
to grant.
THE CHILD CONCEIVED THROUGH HIS WAYWARD GLANCES AT ONE OF IRAN’S MYSTERIOUS BEAUTIES:
I am determined that you shall not entrance the potency of rhyme, the fragile birth of my skill. I am armed with lyrical fury and unwavering in decree of the right
granted to my twenty-seventh year as a woman let alone your daughter. Standing hovered over your open casket, I have unapologetically doused your feared flame through chronicles of what you ineffectively forgot with wrought iron hands aiding retaliation by means of a double homicide on one; unnecessary suffocation ending the solicitation of my days spent in search.
Images of you held up at face value have bailed out every illicit irritant held
captive by the calm of this woman.
I have killed you in my fears.
I have killed supplementary labor of you in my verses.
I have washed the residue of love
lacking from my skin.
My hands are reborn, short
in the genetic rule of your fists.
Space
HERE:
sits a young woman trying to master an education in
Poetry through art created fighting masculine requirements
inattentive by the now disincentive; the subject deficient in dispersing
muse-worthy thoughts. Questioning why the minutes pass in juxtaposition
closer than the moments spent sitting in vain trying desperately
to find the word POET next to the impotent and perpetual
enjambment of figurative language that plays tug of war with
her mind against her mouth.
ELSEWHERE:
stagnant in his property, depreciated yet south of the boulevard,
he lays in habitual movement of corked energy sucked into
Spanish novellas to which not one word is understood, but makes
his cock’s counterpart happy; this bitch’s happiness is key, not mine.
His Israeli jet dares never to attack, viciously, Guatemala and her vagina.
His Israeli jet dared never to attack, viciously, this poet’s Iranian
mother, his cock’s first counterpart, neither.
HERE:
so, what gives?
sits a young woman trying to master an education in
Poetry through art created fighting masculine requirements
inattentive by the now disincentive; the subject deficient in dispersing
muse-worthy thoughts. Questioning why the minutes pass in juxtaposition
closer than the moments spent sitting in vain trying desperately
to find the word POET next to the impotent and perpetual
enjambment of figurative language that plays tug of war with
her mind against her mouth.
ELSEWHERE:
stagnant in his property, depreciated yet south of the boulevard,
he lays in habitual movement of corked energy sucked into
Spanish novellas to which not one word is understood, but makes
his cock’s counterpart happy; this bitch’s happiness is key, not mine.
His Israeli jet dares never to attack, viciously, Guatemala and her vagina.
His Israeli jet dared never to attack, viciously, this poet’s Iranian
mother, his cock’s first counterpart, neither.
HERE:
so, what gives?
Insensible Recessions
In discomfort, my pleasure is offered two minds, people make love in my childhood bedroom during these tough times. The master bedroom was sanitized of mother’s
custody and rented for currency; the mortgage is his daughter, she must be taken
care of properly.
The papier-mâché flowers have bred every secret belonging
to offcuts of yesterday’s diary, spanning branches tacked onto cheap
wallpaper since I was thirteen. Employed unknowingly to watch over
the labor of un-regal sex, their leaves wilt with my dead wishes every
time a cheerful execution of my earlier nature
visits in absence.
Eagerly, while mingling free in flowing secretions, these people unravel carnal favors. Cupping breasts, sucking cock; helping one another touch enigmatic heights. These glow in the dark stars have yet to retire; they were meant to clear a path for this child’s end-stopped reach finding sanction in the ripples of divorce
not to shed light on spousal infidelity defined in action.
To do so, one must humbly
see Coward.
custody and rented for currency; the mortgage is his daughter, she must be taken
care of properly.
The papier-mâché flowers have bred every secret belonging
to offcuts of yesterday’s diary, spanning branches tacked onto cheap
wallpaper since I was thirteen. Employed unknowingly to watch over
the labor of un-regal sex, their leaves wilt with my dead wishes every
time a cheerful execution of my earlier nature
visits in absence.
Eagerly, while mingling free in flowing secretions, these people unravel carnal favors. Cupping breasts, sucking cock; helping one another touch enigmatic heights. These glow in the dark stars have yet to retire; they were meant to clear a path for this child’s end-stopped reach finding sanction in the ripples of divorce
not to shed light on spousal infidelity defined in action.
To do so, one must humbly
see Coward.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
"Just Get Over It"
Headaches come and go. Heartbreak lasts until the next good thing comes along, an impending heartbreak you are once again blinded by. Divorced parents think they know; their capacity of fathoming your pain is less than the debt they've incurred mapped by the number of scars embedded in your childhood skin. People you know now and knew then come and go, still judging, and you wonder why it is that you are the only lost cause; living with the vibrancy of heaviness lurking beneath your former potency, strangely yet positively irrepressible beyond any measure. God, I know you only give me things I can handle but I pray that these abundant hand outs stop. There are people less fortunate in the world who can benefit more than I can.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Joanna Kramer: Cinema's Truest Divorcee
These tears will always remain an Oscar winner. I believe more so than I have experienced residing in another's whirlwind of marital loss, that this is what it feels like to be divorced. Acting, yes, but a realistically perpetuated ache nonetheless.
Home is Where The Heart is Kept
There are country roads now that are empty yet
open to havoc fluid in the spectacle of Iranian regime.
These roads clasp on to former day
lights, summer eras where eight children frolicked with minerals
in mind-blowing tides belonging to the Caspian Sea.
A simple mind entranced by future plans; a prince’s paramour with children
to match; this lover-less mother was dealt the shortest stick, her own sorrow’s
harvester. The Beautiful visited her in reveries. Its hooks sunk into
dreams; collapsing her foreign aptitude, as its surname
rested alphabetically after her given
birthplace. Tehran, America is
still Unattainable.
Hurried away from a captive revolutionary, circa 1975.
Augusta, Georgia. Green Card granted. Citizenship tested.
September hit, 2001. The sex disappeared, 2002.
The Pacific Ocean dwellers frightened Caspian’s child, “Go
back to your country!” 2003 – Current Events.
Tehran.
This documented former immigrant, with a right to construct
her cultural address on any soil, rests detoured with road
blocks tranquil in unattainability.
America, where is your heart kept?
open to havoc fluid in the spectacle of Iranian regime.
These roads clasp on to former day
lights, summer eras where eight children frolicked with minerals
in mind-blowing tides belonging to the Caspian Sea.
A simple mind entranced by future plans; a prince’s paramour with children
to match; this lover-less mother was dealt the shortest stick, her own sorrow’s
harvester. The Beautiful visited her in reveries. Its hooks sunk into
dreams; collapsing her foreign aptitude, as its surname
rested alphabetically after her given
birthplace. Tehran, America is
still Unattainable.
Hurried away from a captive revolutionary, circa 1975.
Augusta, Georgia. Green Card granted. Citizenship tested.
September hit, 2001. The sex disappeared, 2002.
The Pacific Ocean dwellers frightened Caspian’s child, “Go
back to your country!” 2003 – Current Events.
Tehran.
This documented former immigrant, with a right to construct
her cultural address on any soil, rests detoured with road
blocks tranquil in unattainability.
America, where is your heart kept?
Despair's Unwanted Exhaustion
What I hate is the feeling of happiness. Salt,
water vessels dried out, unresponsive to
incidental music; my brain’s twirling from major
to minor gave way to paramount rations for prior
miseries. I dislike the boyfriend who dictates the phrase
another never would, who keeps yearning at bay
associating the dead child in this adult body with
his worn peacoat and wool scarf.
What drives me to happiness is walking in on
him and the other man in my life speaking of
bad plumbing and neglected wall suspensions; finally,
his occupation sparks an interest and a future son-in-law
to gush over. He loves me in the short time they’ve been
acquainted.
It breaks my heart to go to bed every night in this space immune
from prior susceptibility
to silent yells,
childhood ire,
painful missing,
familiar regret and
prior susceptibility.
It breaks my heart to go to bed every night in this adult body,
having spread the ashes of that dead child beneath the
sheets of exclusive, new warmth.
water vessels dried out, unresponsive to
incidental music; my brain’s twirling from major
to minor gave way to paramount rations for prior
miseries. I dislike the boyfriend who dictates the phrase
another never would, who keeps yearning at bay
associating the dead child in this adult body with
his worn peacoat and wool scarf.
What drives me to happiness is walking in on
him and the other man in my life speaking of
bad plumbing and neglected wall suspensions; finally,
his occupation sparks an interest and a future son-in-law
to gush over. He loves me in the short time they’ve been
acquainted.
It breaks my heart to go to bed every night in this space immune
from prior susceptibility
to silent yells,
childhood ire,
painful missing,
familiar regret and
prior susceptibility.
It breaks my heart to go to bed every night in this adult body,
having spread the ashes of that dead child beneath the
sheets of exclusive, new warmth.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Thicker Blood Resides In Daughters
The only worry I ever had. Watching blood
thinner injected into your tummy; I cringed along with
your quivering lip and the rippling folds of your skin
on first contact. You are not the sole tenant facing
eviction with each implanted stent. I am at a crossway
of discomfort, facing doom due to your heart’s dis-ease.
Stretched out and labored into a white room, an IV
pauses for the kill. Angiograms leave purple welts on
your inner thigh…etherizing, narcolepsy arrests you
while kidney-shaped sick salvers wait to find you well.
Heart palpitations react to each medicinal dose fallen
habitually to desertion, grateful are those debtors awaiting
the collection of your unrestrained life’s ricochet, its
outstanding rent. This third strike, another bursting aortic
valve, had mercy on me. I had no fight left to battle but to
dress you, thin blood, in warm clothes and take you home,
never again turning our backs on this game of potential expiry.
thinner injected into your tummy; I cringed along with
your quivering lip and the rippling folds of your skin
on first contact. You are not the sole tenant facing
eviction with each implanted stent. I am at a crossway
of discomfort, facing doom due to your heart’s dis-ease.
Stretched out and labored into a white room, an IV
pauses for the kill. Angiograms leave purple welts on
your inner thigh…etherizing, narcolepsy arrests you
while kidney-shaped sick salvers wait to find you well.
Heart palpitations react to each medicinal dose fallen
habitually to desertion, grateful are those debtors awaiting
the collection of your unrestrained life’s ricochet, its
outstanding rent. This third strike, another bursting aortic
valve, had mercy on me. I had no fight left to battle but to
dress you, thin blood, in warm clothes and take you home,
never again turning our backs on this game of potential expiry.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Florence and the Machine - My Boy builds Coffins (BBC Introducing)
When transparency is streaked by depression's suitor marching in rainwater against my petition and caged madness unfolds exacerbating my sacred precinct's cornucopia
of semi-conciousness, heightened by a kaleidoscope of mental twinges, this is what happens.
The Dog Days Are Over
"Run fast for your father. Leave all your love and your longing behind. You can't carry it with you, if you want to survive."
I wanted something from him. Poetry worked to fill the nook inbetween vessels; ducts of bloodflow, traumatized nerves that would find me destitute of calm and untouched by thermal energy. He killed my yearning with easy words formed into kisses blown across the couch. Into the aged bullet-obstructed wounds, concealment breaks the element of deaf, auditory perception granted as these spiral shaped cavities hemorrhage hearing “I love you” ensconced years within his ego. There was nothing left to look for.
Then, why am I still sitting here in vain trying desperately to find the word Poet next to the impotent and perpetual course of figurative language playing tug of war with my mind and my mouth?
I wanted something from him. Poetry worked to fill the nook inbetween vessels; ducts of bloodflow, traumatized nerves that would find me destitute of calm and untouched by thermal energy. He killed my yearning with easy words formed into kisses blown across the couch. Into the aged bullet-obstructed wounds, concealment breaks the element of deaf, auditory perception granted as these spiral shaped cavities hemorrhage hearing “I love you” ensconced years within his ego. There was nothing left to look for.
Then, why am I still sitting here in vain trying desperately to find the word Poet next to the impotent and perpetual course of figurative language playing tug of war with my mind and my mouth?
Sunday, February 20, 2011
1992
An entire world exists; it seems, with the light
off as I speak, 18 years into the narcoleptic
future. Role model, the term equaling an understatement,
was turning into a young Jewish woman, her twelfth year
welcomed by radiation, the cold loss of underdeveloped
breasts. Her mother spoke to a higher power; calming
nightfall instilled warmth upon her worried frame, stars
highlighted the situation below while parental nature
echoed, as she laid wrapped up, fear-frayed, in an electric
blanket.
Her given name we shouted, effervescently, in a princess’
ballroom. An Ashkenazi vision dressed in a sparked maroon
hue, off the shoulder accessorized with scar tissue, subpoenaed
by evil doctors and bullshit cancerous malignancies. I wanted to
suffocate the tender mutilations playing that vicious game of kiss-
and-tell with her insecurities. I wanted to whisper in ears adorned by
24karats that she has escaped malpractice by doctors mirroring
Hitler. I was eight; unaware of the asset granted to the sea whose
cascades tried washing her offshore.
She stands at five feet, balancing 31 years, sheltering discolored
welts between cotton spaghetti straps while nursing an amazing marble-
blue eyed creature. Emulating her remains priceless, as
an entire world exists with the lights on as I speak, alert
through needed repose, 18 years into the present.
off as I speak, 18 years into the narcoleptic
future. Role model, the term equaling an understatement,
was turning into a young Jewish woman, her twelfth year
welcomed by radiation, the cold loss of underdeveloped
breasts. Her mother spoke to a higher power; calming
nightfall instilled warmth upon her worried frame, stars
highlighted the situation below while parental nature
echoed, as she laid wrapped up, fear-frayed, in an electric
blanket.
Her given name we shouted, effervescently, in a princess’
ballroom. An Ashkenazi vision dressed in a sparked maroon
hue, off the shoulder accessorized with scar tissue, subpoenaed
by evil doctors and bullshit cancerous malignancies. I wanted to
suffocate the tender mutilations playing that vicious game of kiss-
and-tell with her insecurities. I wanted to whisper in ears adorned by
24karats that she has escaped malpractice by doctors mirroring
Hitler. I was eight; unaware of the asset granted to the sea whose
cascades tried washing her offshore.
She stands at five feet, balancing 31 years, sheltering discolored
welts between cotton spaghetti straps while nursing an amazing marble-
blue eyed creature. Emulating her remains priceless, as
an entire world exists with the lights on as I speak, alert
through needed repose, 18 years into the present.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Brave New Voices 2010 - "Favorite Color"
Our cries are solitary, intertwined by the need of opposite, parental genders. These words inspire me to create something my father has never heard quivering from what's left of the raspy ache in my voice. I want it to reverberate like this poem, resonating clear across the Caspian Sea that my mother and her siblings must've swam in as children. Someday, my father will learn. Someday, he will know what it means to tell your child that her color illuminates your dreams, that she was not a mistake and that she holds a vital space between the left side of your chest and your rib's incarceration. Someday, my father will know. In life or death, Someday's wind must blow over, and yet I wonder what color it is and if it has ever been loved itself.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Puzzle Pieces
I wonder what in the world I am doing. These were not my dreams. I fell into this due to the overwhelming pressure and weight of divorce upon my feeble psyche. I am not cut out for this. My words will never form a tourniquet to help heal universal suffering. I want out. I want to breathe the way I was destined to, through whatever purpose has my name on it.
...
I wish her arms were potent enough to carry the relentless weight of despair nestled in my bruised conscience. Her eternal home so warm and welcoming, she has gone where nothing lasts but a mere second. I want to go home, back to where hopscotch and jumping rope were the trustworthy confidants I came to cherish and release childhood aches upon. If only she were here to tuck me in, the lone survivor of saturday night dreams under orphaned sheets, and leave cigarette scented kisses on my peach-fuzzed cheeks with freckles in alignment; the dots have yet to be conjured but connected in whispers of past sentiments.
...
You need a higher resolution to picture my story.
...
I have a box of broken conversation hearts; an ample metaphor for loss worn on my sleeve.
...
I wish her arms were potent enough to carry the relentless weight of despair nestled in my bruised conscience. Her eternal home so warm and welcoming, she has gone where nothing lasts but a mere second. I want to go home, back to where hopscotch and jumping rope were the trustworthy confidants I came to cherish and release childhood aches upon. If only she were here to tuck me in, the lone survivor of saturday night dreams under orphaned sheets, and leave cigarette scented kisses on my peach-fuzzed cheeks with freckles in alignment; the dots have yet to be conjured but connected in whispers of past sentiments.
...
You need a higher resolution to picture my story.
...
I have a box of broken conversation hearts; an ample metaphor for loss worn on my sleeve.
Lament
I lie in light trying to forget, I wake
in the dark trying urgently to arouse.
Wild adherence against a mental Polaroid
stirs the scent of fresh paint rolled unto
Roman pillars belonging to the house I
grew in, the words of love absently
overflowing from my patriarch’s lying
mouth, a skintight grasp hesitates in welcoming
Barbie’s slutty residence into kid-approved life
by his overbearing wife.
They are not here, my mother and the vagina-
addicted sperm bank; to pull the blinds introducing
the moon's morning self to my disheartened
perception every weekday's sunrise. Even
in dream, there are no situations
to be relived, no kindergarten cardboard
boxes of orange juice to drink again, and
no Chapter 11 documents to be filed; I never
stood remote on those marble tiles belonging to
my Israeli father, remote in emotions, and hugged
those Roman supports goodbye. The valiant cherry
brick fireplace warmed the house only once.
Two discourses hum in my Jewish ears; unorthodoxly
maimed by holes, one too many times. Their Israeli-
Iranian fusion of fucked guidance has left me whistling
unaided. Made by and addicted to unalleviated laments
daily, I am whole; a residue of once opulent,
spitting images.
in the dark trying urgently to arouse.
Wild adherence against a mental Polaroid
stirs the scent of fresh paint rolled unto
Roman pillars belonging to the house I
grew in, the words of love absently
overflowing from my patriarch’s lying
mouth, a skintight grasp hesitates in welcoming
Barbie’s slutty residence into kid-approved life
by his overbearing wife.
They are not here, my mother and the vagina-
addicted sperm bank; to pull the blinds introducing
the moon's morning self to my disheartened
perception every weekday's sunrise. Even
in dream, there are no situations
to be relived, no kindergarten cardboard
boxes of orange juice to drink again, and
no Chapter 11 documents to be filed; I never
stood remote on those marble tiles belonging to
my Israeli father, remote in emotions, and hugged
those Roman supports goodbye. The valiant cherry
brick fireplace warmed the house only once.
Two discourses hum in my Jewish ears; unorthodoxly
maimed by holes, one too many times. Their Israeli-
Iranian fusion of fucked guidance has left me whistling
unaided. Made by and addicted to unalleviated laments
daily, I am whole; a residue of once opulent,
spitting images.
Friday, February 11, 2011
Bequeath
This pale face in my hands, eyes angry by
tears. A tea bag should do the trick. A cul-de-sac
of mortal paradise closing in on the headstone
before me. Lungs blister through these Marlboros,
an infection bad for my health. Above this lawn,
unkempt and maltreated, routed by loss I plea
insanity. Maker of woman, entangle me in capillaries
filled with the secondary hue of her blood. Those
frail arms had full custody of the weight
that was me.
Here ashes fall with each tap, muddling
through the mechanism that coerces me to ruminate over
the russet complexion, tattooed eyebrows, and rouge-
creamed cheekbones as the apparition of a free
foreigner, greets me in wistfulness.
I exhale the tattered snapshot of her sending me
off to tap the sublime heights of indispensable
youth on a rubber seat, holding on for Crayola-obsessed
life, after each puff of the addiction she bequeathed
me in her unconscious will. The Surgeon General
allows second-hand smoke to prevail
just this once.
Thursday mornings claim frostbite on broken
granddaughters. I inhale her license of vocal
sound tapped out at the hub as the tobacco smolders on
one end filtering out my screams on the other. My pre-lunch
prescription for coping is done, unsound. Striding past
the fanning remnants of malignancy, I am forever spun
out on her lingering nicotine.
tears. A tea bag should do the trick. A cul-de-sac
of mortal paradise closing in on the headstone
before me. Lungs blister through these Marlboros,
an infection bad for my health. Above this lawn,
unkempt and maltreated, routed by loss I plea
insanity. Maker of woman, entangle me in capillaries
filled with the secondary hue of her blood. Those
frail arms had full custody of the weight
that was me.
Here ashes fall with each tap, muddling
through the mechanism that coerces me to ruminate over
the russet complexion, tattooed eyebrows, and rouge-
creamed cheekbones as the apparition of a free
foreigner, greets me in wistfulness.
I exhale the tattered snapshot of her sending me
off to tap the sublime heights of indispensable
youth on a rubber seat, holding on for Crayola-obsessed
life, after each puff of the addiction she bequeathed
me in her unconscious will. The Surgeon General
allows second-hand smoke to prevail
just this once.
Thursday mornings claim frostbite on broken
granddaughters. I inhale her license of vocal
sound tapped out at the hub as the tobacco smolders on
one end filtering out my screams on the other. My pre-lunch
prescription for coping is done, unsound. Striding past
the fanning remnants of malignancy, I am forever spun
out on her lingering nicotine.
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Summoning Remnants of a Dark Triangle
I try to summon the photograph sitting
upright on what was once your corkboard
dresser; my cherry wood inheritance with Dr.
Mogghadam's phone number on a post-
it inside the cracked drawer.
You escaped Ayatollah Khomeini’s rule for America
and its dream, never forgetting your roots; the table
occupied with Iranian delicacies as the scent of
Pomegranate stew carried through the room. Curlers
in your hair and my father’s kiss, imprinted on
your Toasted Almond rouged cheek. Appreciations
gleaming, you found vanity in your daughter’s Israeli
warrior. Fulsome, he has yet to visit your grave or make
cell phone love to my mother in words of condolence via
careless bloke to ex-wife. Modesty remains woven into
the fabric of mother’s vestment, as your swaying power
surges through veins facing extinction in a casket
away from home- locked and buried -preventing his
Israel from intimidating your Iran.
I summon the photograph, break the holding
cell, tear the male, uphold the female.
I take out your curlers, erase his kiss, and respire
a surplus of life into your amputated memorial:
A woman who loved notwithstanding the lack of
a son’s respect. You were more of a Man than my
father, a man for lack of a better term.
upright on what was once your corkboard
dresser; my cherry wood inheritance with Dr.
Mogghadam's phone number on a post-
it inside the cracked drawer.
You escaped Ayatollah Khomeini’s rule for America
and its dream, never forgetting your roots; the table
occupied with Iranian delicacies as the scent of
Pomegranate stew carried through the room. Curlers
in your hair and my father’s kiss, imprinted on
your Toasted Almond rouged cheek. Appreciations
gleaming, you found vanity in your daughter’s Israeli
warrior. Fulsome, he has yet to visit your grave or make
cell phone love to my mother in words of condolence via
careless bloke to ex-wife. Modesty remains woven into
the fabric of mother’s vestment, as your swaying power
surges through veins facing extinction in a casket
away from home- locked and buried -preventing his
Israel from intimidating your Iran.
I summon the photograph, break the holding
cell, tear the male, uphold the female.
I take out your curlers, erase his kiss, and respire
a surplus of life into your amputated memorial:
A woman who loved notwithstanding the lack of
a son’s respect. You were more of a Man than my
father, a man for lack of a better term.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
No Mourning Period?
Really? To whomever unkind, anti-musical genius-loving, fool who posted this online, it may concern: you are so NOT cool.
Friday, January 28, 2011
Autumn's Sound
It has grown commonplace.
It has grown hushed, muted sadness through
cassette tapes you refuse to toss.
It seems, you have run out of time, minutes move
quicker than quiet seconds arise and it makes less than
any sense. Refrains discharge emotions, clinging
to your troubled mourning like static on Egyptian
cotton. You force the sounds of nostalgia to
ring through ear drums exempt from infancy's misery;
Daddy does not love you, and Kenny G’s saxophone abates
in easing familial throbbing.
You recite the number mother wrote in your lunchbox
with a grape-scented marker: 818 882-2550, and
realize the line’s been disconnected since 1989.
Perhaps it is time to bury the truth, stopping the
harsh beats. You have ridden your tricycle down
Sunnybrae knoll, and your parents are farther
away than they appear.
Elementary discomfort will remain adhered, as nothing can
unwind twisted cassette threads to labor in ministering
selfless tears the same.
It has grown hushed, muted sadness through
cassette tapes you refuse to toss.
It seems, you have run out of time, minutes move
quicker than quiet seconds arise and it makes less than
any sense. Refrains discharge emotions, clinging
to your troubled mourning like static on Egyptian
cotton. You force the sounds of nostalgia to
ring through ear drums exempt from infancy's misery;
Daddy does not love you, and Kenny G’s saxophone abates
in easing familial throbbing.
You recite the number mother wrote in your lunchbox
with a grape-scented marker: 818 882-2550, and
realize the line’s been disconnected since 1989.
Perhaps it is time to bury the truth, stopping the
harsh beats. You have ridden your tricycle down
Sunnybrae knoll, and your parents are farther
away than they appear.
Elementary discomfort will remain adhered, as nothing can
unwind twisted cassette threads to labor in ministering
selfless tears the same.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Heavy
Through restricted airways, my battered rib
incarcerated and asked to remain silent,
finds shelter from a lessened heartbeat; my
maltreated bio-rhythm shying away.
Smelling of sun-melted rind, his blue-collar
blistered fingers strike tar-hued tangled
strands, once heavily lying upon my infantile
shoulders, in a piercing exposé of locked
retention; saying farewell requesting
forgiveness, despite any auspicious guarantee.
Hands I want to hold, boyish scars I hope to settle,
I have bled for years and Yesterday’s
child forfeits any such win. Chinese Jump
rope left me the undefeated champion with
love, 1989. I bleed as the flow of crimson swells
up dead on arrival, in inoculating my uncluttered
remembrance from paternal semblance.
It’s the heaviest winds that hit the fucking
hardest.
incarcerated and asked to remain silent,
finds shelter from a lessened heartbeat; my
maltreated bio-rhythm shying away.
Smelling of sun-melted rind, his blue-collar
blistered fingers strike tar-hued tangled
strands, once heavily lying upon my infantile
shoulders, in a piercing exposé of locked
retention; saying farewell requesting
forgiveness, despite any auspicious guarantee.
Hands I want to hold, boyish scars I hope to settle,
I have bled for years and Yesterday’s
child forfeits any such win. Chinese Jump
rope left me the undefeated champion with
love, 1989. I bleed as the flow of crimson swells
up dead on arrival, in inoculating my uncluttered
remembrance from paternal semblance.
It’s the heaviest winds that hit the fucking
hardest.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
My Mother's Sister
I’ve studied Sylvia and Anne, beyond
the grave. I’ve studied you in the flesh, in my
dreams, and in bottles of medication flushed
down grandma’s toilet. I saw you speak to god that
day from the sidelines in my Barbie nightgown and
miss-angled bangs, as the freckled paramedic, your Happy
Days crush Richie Cunningham, took you away.
Half past ten waiting within the walls of uncertain
death, I lay upright bound in Khaleh Farideh’s worried
emotion. As she stroked aside kinky black tendrils, a saintly
vision in white struck my sight. Your hospital gown smelling of
your peculiar psychosis, your I.V dripping morphine to bore
stiff the emotions of a widowed mind, twenty-one years and
counting. You gave me a bag of rainbow-sprinkled cookies, a pencil
topped with a heart eraser, and a hug. You leaned in whispering,
I‘ll never die. These voices won’t allow me to.
The strollers in shoes not your own, arbitrate knowing
nothing. You know the transparent truth, exactly as you
imagine it. An esteemed doctor falling casualty to
domestic abuse. Trading retention with you, if it insured the
dictator of your marital incarceration death, would require
no second opinion.
Sylvia and Anne would harmonize; thoughts pertaining to you
are bullet-proof, calling to comprehension your liberal
undertakings clearly vaccinated from any assassination of
the anti-mediocre contemplations that your man-trampled
illness inspired.
the grave. I’ve studied you in the flesh, in my
dreams, and in bottles of medication flushed
down grandma’s toilet. I saw you speak to god that
day from the sidelines in my Barbie nightgown and
miss-angled bangs, as the freckled paramedic, your Happy
Days crush Richie Cunningham, took you away.
Half past ten waiting within the walls of uncertain
death, I lay upright bound in Khaleh Farideh’s worried
emotion. As she stroked aside kinky black tendrils, a saintly
vision in white struck my sight. Your hospital gown smelling of
your peculiar psychosis, your I.V dripping morphine to bore
stiff the emotions of a widowed mind, twenty-one years and
counting. You gave me a bag of rainbow-sprinkled cookies, a pencil
topped with a heart eraser, and a hug. You leaned in whispering,
I‘ll never die. These voices won’t allow me to.
The strollers in shoes not your own, arbitrate knowing
nothing. You know the transparent truth, exactly as you
imagine it. An esteemed doctor falling casualty to
domestic abuse. Trading retention with you, if it insured the
dictator of your marital incarceration death, would require
no second opinion.
Sylvia and Anne would harmonize; thoughts pertaining to you
are bullet-proof, calling to comprehension your liberal
undertakings clearly vaccinated from any assassination of
the anti-mediocre contemplations that your man-trampled
illness inspired.
A Cheap WIsh
Recreating pubescent approaches to each cautious,
inexperienced footstep I once took miscarries in
replication:
I will never embark on another Egg
Drop soup, father-daughter date night while
mother is away.
There’s no need to hide razors in
the daylight of sixth grade anymore, all to
carelessly knick my knees shaving in the dark
stillness of early mornings.
Greeting Mr. Shannon with a Merry Christmas
from across the hopscotch encrusted pavement
died along with him.
Running to mother after school let out on
May 18, 1999 to tear into the childproof-
like plastic casing before savoring the newest
tracks from the boys of Backstreet, can’t make
for quite the love-struck ride home.
My mother’s mother can’t be conned for cash and a
ride to the mall while my soon-to-be dissociated paternities
run away to Cancun to rekindle what was never there.
Cinnamon smelling sparkling lip-gloss and a pair of Air
Jordans later; I will still be unpopular.
The portraits of memories past, the ones that Picasso
paints each time my lashes meet one another, belonging
to the unripe youth I once was, can never be duplicated, though the
weeping ensnared by the windowpane closing off my mortal
atmosphere is often imitated.
My father takes no one other than his wife
on dates while my shins still tussle with bleeding.
My mother is away for good, while Mr. Shannon and
her mother are off waltzing in heaven. The music lacks
the aura it once imparted, as my lip-gloss has dried out and
the Goodwill representative found my Jordans a home
where finding popularity is less important than keeping
your feet warm.
Transcripts are made, actions turn into past decisions, and weeks
turn into years. I survived the decade tormented by teenage
anguish only to drive blindfolded into the period of adulthood
aches.
One moment is all I ask of a wish that cannot be bought. The
cheapest wish of them all.
inexperienced footstep I once took miscarries in
replication:
I will never embark on another Egg
Drop soup, father-daughter date night while
mother is away.
There’s no need to hide razors in
the daylight of sixth grade anymore, all to
carelessly knick my knees shaving in the dark
stillness of early mornings.
Greeting Mr. Shannon with a Merry Christmas
from across the hopscotch encrusted pavement
died along with him.
Running to mother after school let out on
May 18, 1999 to tear into the childproof-
like plastic casing before savoring the newest
tracks from the boys of Backstreet, can’t make
for quite the love-struck ride home.
My mother’s mother can’t be conned for cash and a
ride to the mall while my soon-to-be dissociated paternities
run away to Cancun to rekindle what was never there.
Cinnamon smelling sparkling lip-gloss and a pair of Air
Jordans later; I will still be unpopular.
The portraits of memories past, the ones that Picasso
paints each time my lashes meet one another, belonging
to the unripe youth I once was, can never be duplicated, though the
weeping ensnared by the windowpane closing off my mortal
atmosphere is often imitated.
My father takes no one other than his wife
on dates while my shins still tussle with bleeding.
My mother is away for good, while Mr. Shannon and
her mother are off waltzing in heaven. The music lacks
the aura it once imparted, as my lip-gloss has dried out and
the Goodwill representative found my Jordans a home
where finding popularity is less important than keeping
your feet warm.
Transcripts are made, actions turn into past decisions, and weeks
turn into years. I survived the decade tormented by teenage
anguish only to drive blindfolded into the period of adulthood
aches.
One moment is all I ask of a wish that cannot be bought. The
cheapest wish of them all.
Fame: Your Five Minutes Are Up
Like Wall Street tickertape across social
network lines, Lady Gaga has been pronounced
dead. Kim Kardashian has succumbed to twittering
no more, and Justin Timberlake halts in bringing sexy
back by means of high speed.
Buying their blogging-savvy, celebrity exploits back by
humbly donating to end AIDS and World Hunger is the civic
duty of Gaga’s petite freaks, Kim’s Botox-anticipating juvenile
dreamers, and Justin’s affection-stoned, training bra
donning devotees. Superstars of the new millennium pose
exquisitely potent for off beam reasons.
Will there ever be another Lucille Ball to advocate against
the mischievous sprite of the crippler, infantile paralysis, in shades
of salt and pepper emanating through a box paired with frozen
dinners of 1954? Another Farrokh Bulsara, 8-track’s epic flamboyance,
clad in a Zoroastrian silvery bodysuit whose vocal marvel, pit-bull-like
tenacity against AIDS was fatally claimed, as front-page news found itself
flung on many lawns by teenage paperboys across continents in
1991? Or another Cynthia Nixon, a woman frolicking the
city with sexual advances through reels directed in Abu Dhabi, battling
tears being wept over the sapping curse on a woman’s secure
sensuality on the real?
To the community of opulent waste:
your empty wallets via bouncing checkbooks deserve restless
dark, even if for a second. Monetarily aiding in killing off rates of
Famine and AIDS, ascends in adequate importance than reviving
access to tweets about the Chanel satchel, a Kardashian snagged
during her Rodeo Drive shopping spree,
And the advocating voice writing this rational requiem
for fame’s number being up concurs, wishing these deaths were
more than just figurative.
network lines, Lady Gaga has been pronounced
dead. Kim Kardashian has succumbed to twittering
no more, and Justin Timberlake halts in bringing sexy
back by means of high speed.
Buying their blogging-savvy, celebrity exploits back by
humbly donating to end AIDS and World Hunger is the civic
duty of Gaga’s petite freaks, Kim’s Botox-anticipating juvenile
dreamers, and Justin’s affection-stoned, training bra
donning devotees. Superstars of the new millennium pose
exquisitely potent for off beam reasons.
Will there ever be another Lucille Ball to advocate against
the mischievous sprite of the crippler, infantile paralysis, in shades
of salt and pepper emanating through a box paired with frozen
dinners of 1954? Another Farrokh Bulsara, 8-track’s epic flamboyance,
clad in a Zoroastrian silvery bodysuit whose vocal marvel, pit-bull-like
tenacity against AIDS was fatally claimed, as front-page news found itself
flung on many lawns by teenage paperboys across continents in
1991? Or another Cynthia Nixon, a woman frolicking the
city with sexual advances through reels directed in Abu Dhabi, battling
tears being wept over the sapping curse on a woman’s secure
sensuality on the real?
To the community of opulent waste:
your empty wallets via bouncing checkbooks deserve restless
dark, even if for a second. Monetarily aiding in killing off rates of
Famine and AIDS, ascends in adequate importance than reviving
access to tweets about the Chanel satchel, a Kardashian snagged
during her Rodeo Drive shopping spree,
And the advocating voice writing this rational requiem
for fame’s number being up concurs, wishing these deaths were
more than just figurative.
Rite of Passage: I Am Not Welcomed
I ran home that day, raped myself of all
cutting-edge fashion, and sat immobile in
that hallway; it knew every slit of brine fallen
from my ostracized eyes, and was habituated to
scenes of my conscience in shame. The chemistry of my
contemplation, latent. The contour of my alliance
with poetry was disclosed through the windowpane; as I
shut human ambiance off, the production of salt stung from
lurid to lax.
Braless and alone; the moldy recess with the built-in rickety
heater kept my fur cavities lying down, while the mixture
of Jolene’s peroxide burnt the stigma of dark away. Figuratively,
there lounged not a terrorist bone in my Iranian form, I vocalized
White bitches must die, as my American citizenship became
ethnically perturbed.
Stirring my electrolysis-sparked skin an era later, while the
silence of sunset never thinks twice, is an impression of
partiality further abysmal than my fledgling madness; consumerism
targets the cultured. Beauty is Pain, a colonizer’s creed pursuing
me, an American inhabited by none other than her own.
cutting-edge fashion, and sat immobile in
that hallway; it knew every slit of brine fallen
from my ostracized eyes, and was habituated to
scenes of my conscience in shame. The chemistry of my
contemplation, latent. The contour of my alliance
with poetry was disclosed through the windowpane; as I
shut human ambiance off, the production of salt stung from
lurid to lax.
Braless and alone; the moldy recess with the built-in rickety
heater kept my fur cavities lying down, while the mixture
of Jolene’s peroxide burnt the stigma of dark away. Figuratively,
there lounged not a terrorist bone in my Iranian form, I vocalized
White bitches must die, as my American citizenship became
ethnically perturbed.
Stirring my electrolysis-sparked skin an era later, while the
silence of sunset never thinks twice, is an impression of
partiality further abysmal than my fledgling madness; consumerism
targets the cultured. Beauty is Pain, a colonizer’s creed pursuing
me, an American inhabited by none other than her own.
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