Prouder of a dingy stall in the women’s bathroom on the 1st floor of SF State’s library than the Gucci combo of poetryfoundation.org, Planned Parenthood and Bundestag. I empty myself surrounded by “Free Palestine” graffiti instead of sucking up the distinguished prose of the Atlantic monthly because my English is too broken to get the complexities of apartheid, because I am dumb and can’t fathom rationing water based on ethnicity or religion is a standard practice for any nation that’s also the only democracy in the history of Big Bangs and beyond.
Incidentally, does PEN America think all brown people of a certain girth learned history from this streaming service or that visionary billionaire’s media holdings? Is it remotely possible for PEN America to only focus on selling t-shirts, onesies, and tote bags instead of sucking meaning out of words? Haven’t they heard of Lana Bastašić?
“I do not know what literature means to you outside of networking and grants.”
My shit comes out absentmindedly because my brain lacks the wrinkles necessary to extract water out of stolen thin air to grow red roses to mail to Frankfurt Book Fair’s governing board for canceling Adania Shibli for being the wrong type of human at the wrong time.
Haven’t the Germans heard of Lana Bastašić either?
“Germany is not literature.”
I grin widely in the dingy toilet of SF State because my spine ain’t ivy, my teeth is fucked up and I catch feelings too soon. My shit’s smelly not because I am not vegan but because I don’t think a poet deserves to be saved only and only because he’s been published by the New Yorker. My shit smells because I think anyone taking care of stray cats, repairing faded bicycles for little neighborhood kids, or cheering Ronaldo everytime he wins a game must live, in other words: first, I am apologizing for politicizing stray cats, bicycles and Barcelona; second, if not stray cats, bicycles or Barcelona then maybe children with congenital heart disease could be saved from my tax dollars supporting the judeo-christian-trail-of-tears pillars and principles of this country that I am now a citizen, a supporter and responsible for the eradication of Palestinians as a class.
