Stuck on a Boat

I hate crowds and walking behind slow people.

My stomach turns at the sight of human blood or sweat,

and I gag at

the way they breathe too heavy

or snore while they sleep,

the sucking of air to remove food between teeth

or licking their fingers after they eat.

It’s muy caliente

and I’m glistening,

propped up on this wicker couch again

just writing,

trying to ignore all the noise around me

but I’m stuck on a boat

with four thousand other human beings.

I try to find a quiet corner,

but every crevice of this massive craft is covered,

and invaded,

with screaming toddlers in strollers

and families speaking foreign languages

trying hard to out Jones the other;

kids that constantly run by without parents

while doors are blown shut from the wind;

pompous guys who smoke cigars as they brag about

how much they’ve spent

while judging every body that walks past them;

and the little old ladies bitch about losing money in the casino,

but will be back donating to the Carnival

in less than an hour

as I am left scowling under my breath

wanting to hear silence.

The boat blows heavily in the breeze

as they both fight their way across the sea,

after the sun sets so graciously over the navy blue waters

that turn black at night,

after dinnertime,

and I wonder what time everyone leaves

or at least goes to sleep.

The elevators move slower than bills trying to pass through congress,

if they move at all,

and they’re always going down when you are trying to go up

never getting anywhere unless you take the stairs

no matter what time of day,

but my legs are exhausted from all the walking,

my feet blistered from the many stones of Montego Bay,

and my skin is sun poisoned like a plague

itching and scratching every square inch

of her French Kiss

she left

upon my blistered flesh

in the Caribbean.

I seem to stand out even when I’m trying to hide,

my head always buried in a book.

People walk by to ask what I am writing,

and they sigh at the fact when I say it’s a diary,

private.

So I read them some old shit

from my first paperback edition,

knowing I’m in the middle of new scripts

but still trying to teach past lessons,

and I try to vacation but the people,

they don’t go away,

always in my way,

homesick for Georgia and the life I have created.

Only a few more days forced to stay on this annoying vessel

that overcharges for everything.

Can’t wait to get to mainland

and remember what it’s like to be free.

Checkmate

I play with these temporary pieces

while I wait patiently to unleash my queen,

and I will sacrifice them all

to protect myself

and my king.

 

But he just stands there

only able to move back and forth

when he is backed into a corner,

the moment he sees his defeat.

 

So I keep a board full of pawns,

an old knight,

and a couple of rooks to the side,

so my royal highness cannot be beat.

 

 

 

 

The A

Outsiders ask if it is dark inside

this little box I live in,

if my whiteness blinds the locals eyes

or if I blend in,

if the stories told in far off lands

depict the accurate,

but truth be told

black tones and rainbows

own this generic Manhattan

and paint this town

that corners me inside these walls

I keep hitting.

 

It’s like walking into a rap video every day.

Bodies scattered randomly

amongst the red lights and orgies.

Homeless sidewalks

constantly spit demos in your face,

while sporadic saxophones play
for dollars and some change.

 

Fake hair,

fake nails,

fake women of both sexes living flashy,

a little extra,

no shame,

or gain up the ladder,

where traffic rushes

to circle the perimeter of a box

that goes nowhere.

 

Cars yell at every switched lane,

every stop sign,

and Hollywood possesses every corner,

every detour,

around every street that you need to take

to get to the root of all evil.

 

It’s where heat kills the center of concrete,

bridges set ablaze,

back-pockets stayed filled with snow

to keep you thirsty and awake,

where interstates stop dead

every other day,

and graffiti-hungry-exit ramps

beg

to see a human through the hate.

 

It’s where faces overpopulate

to make a name and gain some fame

as they stay trapped inside this cardboard box

with no desire to escape,

where they hoard false conceptions

of roads that will never be paved,

where construction goes unfinished

and something always blocks your way.

 

It’s where everyone gets lost

amongst the bright lights of a place.

You could never know the dirty south

until you live inside the A.

 

 

This Writing Life of Mine

I hadn’t smoked in over a month,

maybe two,

but I just got high.

I’ve been fucked over by a couple of guys since then

but they’re not on my mind.

I still have this obsession,

this writing life of mine.

 

Eighty pages of unseen poetry

and one freshly published book that just went on sale,

but I couldn’t tell you where it is going.

 

At the moment I’m waiting on the delivery

so I can figure out what to do with it.

 

I made it this far,

but it seems as though I haven’t moved an inch,

stuck at a stand-still,

trying hard to make something happen

but I’m not sure of exactly what that is

just yet.

 

I want people to know my name,

Jai K,

not my face,

and they’ll think they already know me

because I let them be a fly on the wall inside my mind

once upon a time,

but the grains of sand are still burying me alive

only preserving the pieces that saved me

from myself

hourglasses ago.

 

I want to make myself,

design myself,

and brand myself entirely in control,

unlike everyone else who’s locked down inside

someone else’s dreams,

conformity at its finest,

the rings and routines

of statuses amongst such a fucked up society.

 

Everyone’s offended,

and everyone disagrees,

on so much shit that doesn’t matter

or directly affect me.

 

I want to live off-scene,

away from the loud anxiety

on a plot of land with a river or a stream

where I can sit quietly

and be at peace with the ever-changing leaves.

 

I don’t want to sell books.

I just want to write poetry.

 

I sit in silence and enjoy it,

and do better when I’m stressed,

a million things left on my to-do list

always crawling through my head.

 

There’s no time for love.

I’m obsessed with my own success

and happiness,

convinced that one day I’m going to make it

but to where

I’m not sure just yet,

and I’m completely ok with that.

Heartbroken Anxiety

It’s funny

how the heart always outsmarts the mind

while the liver suffers through it all

like a child in the middle a divorce.

 

I remember how I could feel

my stomach swallowing itself

only to randomly regurgitate itself

first thing every morning

when I realized I was still alive,

but at least the skin was shedding.

 

I became so cold,

so cold and calloused,

chain smoking one right after the other,

only pausing long enough to get higher

and yet I still couldn’t feel the calm.

 

I was antsy,

shaky,

trembling that I may not be the one,

and it forced me to become whole,

alone.

 

I always knew my gypsy heart

would only be content for so long

before it ran again,

but yet I still fell back into old dreams,

the madness,

old ways of thinking,

and those lost times where I thought I had something to believe in,

other than myself.

 

Three years late from an impregnated lie,

I corked the truth in bottles

and stopped popping the lies

of anti-depressants in order to feel again.

 

Now I get high on the days when it rains,

when the sun cries in front of the whole world because it misses the moon,

and I remember a time when I felt that way about you.

 

My how far I have come

by letting the pain engulf me,

how strong I have grown

by obsessively twisting the knife

over and over again

just to feel something,

until I finally pulled it out,

and now that I have crawled back

from the dead

all I want is to become alive again,

even if it kills me.

Watch “Validity” on YouTube

Bacon

Awakened

by the brown-sugared

oven’s exhale

and cast-iron that caramelizes

the cured belly

of a swine carcass.

Sides of chicken abortion

scramble

the crunchy fat,

the salty snap

of grease.

Maple wafts

in peppered  air

by the sweet

and succulent trough

where pig farts

latch onto the wind, and finally

Breakfast is served.

A Poet’s Charm

I will not pose raunchy, or obscene

just to get you to follow me

because I never cared to be part of this society

that lives and breathes for parties

and popularity.

 

It’s fucking boring to me,

empty,

you see.

 

I’m losing followers more so by the minute

from these Instagram critics.

My charm of a being a poet

is that I don’t give a shit

about these new age trends

or counterfeit images,

these minds who idolize

bodies posed naked,

degenerates who do not know who they are

or what to believe in.

 

They only follow the movements

of those generic dresses

because every single image is an advertisement.

I’m not threatened

just looking for a deeper way to get inside their heads

to form a real connection.

 

I get the likes and follows

with hashtags such as selfie, narcissist,

haters is another.

But I never wanted to be famous.

I want to be a writer.

 

Yet that involves branding myself to become fucking popular

and marketing myself as a product

because people only buy faces these days

and not fucking authors.

 

But I refuse to reduce myself to something so shallow

and become something more

than what this world already has to offer.