Bugolgi Apparatus

  Returns   drills pump oil sucked out of the ground   refined in Alabama from the Persian Gulf   plastic to China sold to America   red shipping container and a see-through box   sold me at midnight in my lonely life   played it twice it don’t turn on my mind   customer care in Philippines girl from slums with a dream   one day run a department right out of poverty   help me with a label wants to make sure   I’m taken care of sincerely sure get on a bus that goes to the train   get off on the stop at Eighty-Sixth Street   take an elevator to a hidden mezzanine   wait in line behind instagram queens   return that plastic disc smile from the chick   twenty dollars an hour scanning the phone on my wrist   happy knowing it’s going to a drop-off point   buried again in the ground from whence it came   I feel a sense of return   mama natureza one day reclaiming the earth

don’t call me   a martyr   I work off   the clock    not that   holy   I fight myself   to a draw   and if I could just   forget   close my eyes   to the rest   I wouldn’t get   so upset   I might   even relax   tried   meditation   couldn’t get   there   too much   information   the evil   is real   stuck   in this situation   I made it   myself   when I smell   something burning   I just   have to check   you’re   a realist   you sleep   with anyone   Idealists   count mistakes   no one   else counts

  my anemoia   I forget everything I read  it filters back as feeling  maybe I’m doing  the right thing  I don’t get nostalgic  I’m not coming back  it was bad enough once,  just embarrassing   I just miss what  I never had  with a sweetness  a sunset  I miss what  I always felt  my life should be  like I wrote it myself there are your  pulsing questions  random stars  in the dark  I pretend to focus  sending telepathic  messages  decoded at once

I find you in others   your name scrawled in markers   just when I think I’ve discovered   something rare, you’re there   it goes beyond coincidence   it’s persistent I could easily   mistake something random   for planned, and you appear   I re-spread the covers   protecting myself from goblins   meanwhile windmills of my mind   are propelled by your air   it’d be cheaper to surrender   I could save on calendars   not needing to remember   important dates, disappeared  

  School of Life Detention Sometimes you   think you’re done   when you’re not   fault lines emerge from the plot   other times it’s over   before it’s begun   rhymes can’t fire   it’s no one else’s fault   silver lining’s   there in the sky dancing around its own outlines   from a distance   things make more sense   reversals and tragedies   embroidered in the silk   silver haired children   battle switching sides   moving bodies   like cattle in a drive   to feel that joy   one more time   in the school   of just being of alive  

don’t you think  you’re worth it  don’t you see  what a t-shirt costs  people will think  you’re stupid poor quality  if you try to be reasonable  just look out  upon the world  look into the mirror  and say,  “five hundred dollars”  and “seven hundred  with your choice of sides”  

give me a “maybe”   I don’t expect anything else   in these times of uncertainty   nothing’s a safe bet   until you know me   take it on faith   everything I appear to be   is an incomplete take   and a maybe   ain’t less that I’d expect   “strategize boldly; implement cautiously”   that’s how I live   eight billion others   sisters and brothers   all waiting to discover   their own story   I don’t need a thousand or an even dozen to keep all this love   moving around me sometimes I feel crazy   like there are no friends left and all is a struggle for money   all is theft   then I get to dreaming   planning and scheming   and reality is a maybe   I’ve just left