For Those Who Can Ride in an Airplane

“I’m twenty-eight years old and trying to figure out most days what being a man means.
I don’t drink, fight or fuck but these days I find myself wanting to do all three.
I don’t really have a favorite color anymore, but I did when I was a kid.
And back then that color was blue, and back then I wanted to be an astronaut, an artist, an architect, a secret agent, a ranger for the World Wildlife Fund, and a hobo.
When I was six years old I used to always throw my clothes into my blue and yellow hot wheels car carrying suitcase and run away to beneath the dining room table.
I’ve made out with more girls than I wish I’d had and not nearly as many as I’d like to.
And I’ve been in love three times so I doubt I’m going to try that anymore.
And I spend most days making pictures or thinking about making pictures or masturbating or thinking about masturbating.
And I’m trying to find God everywhere and figure this thing he made called a man.
And the TV tells me its bare-knuckled bombing, so I guess if I had a tank or a missile my penis would be huge.
And thats what I want because thats what being a man means or at least thats what they keep telling me.
My pops, he takes care of us.
He puts the garbage out twice a week.
He drives forty-five minutes to water flowers.
I sit on the bus when a seven year-old boy sits down next to me and asks me my name.
“Anis.” That’s a nice name.
“Thank you, what’s yours?” Quentin.
Anis, do you want to read Robin Hood with me?
So tell me what my fists are writing, Mr. President.
My fingers, they open up like gates when I type and the wind is swinging in the wake, mother fucker.
I lift bridges with poems and forests grow in my mother’s eyes.
“I am looking for God, Quentin.”
“While this world says “fuck you” for trying.
For this world hates your eyes, Quentin.
For they are simple and pure.
And this world hates your fingers, Quentin, little like the stems of flowers.
For not being able to pick up the things you have left behind, because you are still learning to do so.
I don’t drink, fight, or fuck but these days it’s only two out of those three I don’t do, Quentin.
And I fall in love three times, so I don’t want to, want to, but I still do, Quentin.
And I want to find God in the morning, in the tired hands of dusk.
But, instead, I drive sixty through residential streets praying to hit a child so that they may stay forever night and forever red and forever full of light and crayons and simple outstretched limbs…
..Trying to pick up way too much way too fast, forgetting what it means to be a person.
In a world where egos are measured with tabloids, where automobiles are like morals, where beliefs are like naps, you leave them behind when somebody touches you.
And in a place where oil takes precedence over life, I find myself sitting on a bus, when a little boy floats down like fresh water, carrying a book I used to read and asks if I want to see what he sees if only for a little while.
Then asks if I want to give to him what I see if only for a little while, then says to me he’s going to show me the world.
And starts moving his fingers beneath the words, not always noticing what is written, sometimes skipping whole sentences, sometimes skipping whole lines…
…because his fingers are moving fast and I wanna tell him, “Slow down, Quentin.
You can see it all if your finger whispers on one word.
Slow down and hold what you see just a little bit longer.”
For in a world of fast faces, I’m looking for God everywhere, trying to figure out a little better this little thing he made called a man.”

For Those Who Were Never Taught How To Ride A Bike

I am nineteen years old

and most days I find myself trying

 to find what I want to be.

I made lists of majors that I would

hope my parents would agree.

Which looking back is bull,

when I was a kid I don’t remember

trying to find approval.

I told my teachers, Sunday preachers

and preschool crushes that I will

rule whatever the sky touches.

But the Lion King told taught me t

hat even the King couldn’t touch the Shadow Land.

What I didn’t realize then was that the darkness

would cast over my entire potential future dream plan.

I loved lemonade stands in the summer,

my mousey blonde hair dyed green by chlorine,

how all the neighborhood kids would come to our backyard

to jump on our trampoline but sometimes that's all

they wanted from me or so it would seem

because they would never let me sit near them

on the bus ride to school so I would sit with my best

friend Therese and we would cry sometimes

because those girls were so mean.

Kids can be so god damn mean.

This summer, where now I find myself instead

enjoying lifeguard stands

or more like who stood on them

with sun kissed tans, my hair died blond by bleach,

and sun bathing wishing I were at the wildwood board walk

bare feet, hung over on the beach because

I never ate enough and drank too much.

But I was inside a hot sweaty gym with bicycles lined up

with training wheels

and it feels awkward here

not like any other place I volunteered.

You see I’ve only worked with inner city kids

who taught me how to dance so I showed them

how to read or I would go to homeless shelters

to give food and feed empty mouths but they’d preach

and fill me up until I was full of their knowledgeable meal.

Here I was told that these teenaged boys and girls

had never ridden or rode. Never could try training wheels.

I met Brandon. Tall, lean, black boy from the suburbs

but be a real kid and ride a bike is something that he had never done.

He didn’t talk much, but he would not stop singing.

Bebe dadadoooooooweeeeeeeeee ride bobbop turrrrnnn.

Talking wasn’t his trade, like how my mind

couldn’t keep

attention to pre-calc

until my stomach rumbled and I realized

I don’t have lunch until t

wo more class periods and it would fade.

Brandon was not much different

from you and me.

But different these days,

no it’s always been this way,

different is bad.

Don’t be thinking I am the one that is

thinking the sad

 thoughts – its true.

Kids are told they aren’t tall enough,

smart enough, pretty enough,

cool enough, good enough.

Well, enough is enough

and that shit don’t make us tough.

It just adds to the baggage of stuff we lug

around on our heavy shoulders wondering

who will come along one day smooth our edges

while I thought I had it rough

and then all I was just a bit

annoying and fat,

imagine the stress one kid has to

compress in one day if god forbid he had autism.

I am nineteen years old trying to figure out what to be.

I look into Brandon’s eyes which I will only keep attention

for a short while but you see, I hope he doesn’t notice

the people who stare –its just not fair-

because his rare young  soul isn’t so different

from you and me.

Just waiting for the perfect

opportunity to be

set free.