writing exercise 1: just another jewish cat's middleclass drudgery

the house is humming
hymning my songs so long as i feed it
when i run out of food
it will be the songs of the winds and street i listen to
the
ringing of bellbuckets and bodega doors
the
throbs
of thumbs
and
traffic
as
i watch
the colors
of the wheatpaste
meet
the season
under
live bands and lost dogs

i don't want to be what age has made me
time
casting
shadows

mine stretches all the way across chicago
both ways
as if took up by two suns
or zapruder footage

my parents are the size of ants
and their feeble wallets
cannot pay my
mortgage
this roof is my own

i am a teacher
because i can
i am a teacher because i
can't

i am

because global warming pro tects
insulates
there are fewer hearts giving out this winter
less shirts are
making their way to the
Village Discount Outlet

soon
the westside will be
gutted for hipsters
the suburbs, black people
the oldest generations
of my family
will make
their final American trek
to the panhandle

did you know that water costs money? that every step i take is worth something, so long as i acknowledge they're limited? if i want to. i can pay for thing I don't need and risk not having money?

all of a sudden
shoes
are
important
moreso than my face,
haircut, or resume
i bought my first jar of wax the other day
my father's is empty and
across town

time casts a shadow
across my face and motives
and
on the inside
where it is wet and far too dark for shadows
there is

resilience

rubber coiling
dragons
that fuck

in the pit of my stomach
in grocery stores and meat markets
both kinds
the ones with acid house and the ones with
cutletas and
either way
networking

they do not have corners to crouch in
they serve a purpose
not for
poetry, or dreadful things
they do not stand still
enough
for dreaming
in fact
overburdoned with sprinklers to wake you up

i don't even have a smoke detector
my roof is my own
perhaps, i get to make the rules