Day 5, Poet 5: Kenyatta JP Garcia

 
At / Here
​
New Year’s resolution –
                                    stop talking to yourself.

                                                                                                       *

I have no promises to keep.
 

So it seems, good sense only goes so far as genius allows.  As one grows increasingly informed, the desire becomes to lose commonality and the sensibility which accompanies it. What good is a sense if it is only used for good?  Give me a sense which brings a sensation – hand on stove, fall from heights. Excitement in known harm but unknown consequences doled out by nature.

                                                                                                         *

What I wanted was not really to be alone but to be head over heels over someone. Someplace for emotions to go. I’m ambitious that way.

                                                                                           *
Who will concur while I wait?  Without a fever for the infirmary. Without need for quarantine, who else will be here to hear?

                                                                                           *
I don’t like ‘cool.’ I don’t like ‘beautiful.’ I don’t like. I just don’t like. Let me love something indefinable for once. Let me hate. Leave me the freedom to go beyond dislike to the extremist position against certain notions. Let me have floors and ceilings in this room. Leave my food by the door. I’ll swallow it when it cools off a bit.

                                                                                           *

In solitude, I take even the public rather personally. Get offended or let joy arise from those passing by.

                                                                                           *

Consequences are irrelevant to cruelty.

                                                                                           *

Am I guilty of or for irony? What liberty, what power in producing, being, becoming another ending – only somewhat unexpected. Because, who doesn’t account for the curse of the paradox?

                                                                                           *
I am barbaric. Or I was. Or I want to be. Anyway, Barbary is close to me.

                                                                                           *

What forms of expression are at my disposal?

 
Have I seemed happy for at least some of the time?

 
Maybe in the end it will appear (to be) more apparent.

                                                                                            *

Somebody is talking about a fear of airplanes and I’m here thinking about a fear of talking to anyone or in particular – a someone across the room from here.

 
Neither these nor those books are shields. And besides, a proper glance caught in spectacular timing cuts right through.

 
Oh, but a look caught in flight can see a lot of turbulence.

                                                                                              *

Patience will always prove random is regular. Chaos dictates how the lines will shorten. No turns are being taken, orderly, while waiting.

                                                                                              *

Does one exist who is deserving as much of admiration as affection?

 
I feel I’ve been born into a banned life. I think I understand now that there is no room in languages frequented or neglected for duality. For similarity to feel the same.
 

This soul came passed down from those passed on with certain policies intact. Boycott the insincere. Embargo bad faith. Find distant compassion for those who are fake only because otherwise there would be no need to ever use words. There’d be no comprehension of a range of emotions.

 
Nonetheless, I’ve given up on smiling.


Previously published in eccolinguistics.
​

Bio: Kenyatta JP Garcia is the author of Slow Living (West Vine Press), This Sentimental Education and Enter the After-Garde. Originally from Brooklyn, NY, Garcia now resides in Albany, NY where they received a degree in linguistics and spent a dozen years doing all the drudgery cooking requires. Now, loosened from the grease and sweat of the kitchen life, they edit Rigorous by day and spend their nights getting paid to put boxes one shelves. In the in between, they write short humor, poetry, diaries and work at being the best dreampunk one can dream up.