The literary magazine of Hagerstown Community College
Oh die I do declare, your deceit shan’t go unnoticed
Roll one for me again, and send me straight into psychosis!
What must I do this time, to remove your blighted curse?
In rubbing, blowing, blessing, this affliction refuses reverse
This time I promise the vice, and to seek a set anew
As I cast my final roll, out of spite you give me a two…
Mid-terms, you make me want to throw myself out a window
Onto a pile of glass that will hurt less than my back
After sitting and staring and hunching over my computer all night.
I feel like an old man, groaning and wheezing and cursing at the sun
For being too bright, because it is
Way
Too
Bright.
I’ve spent all night watching words run and collide
Until there’s nothing left but a jumble of letters and numbers and
More coffee, I need more coffee.
And I don’t know why I put so much pressure on myself when
I know that you’ll pass by and nothing will have changed.
I still care even when I don’t want to because you’re only Mid-terms
And you mean I have another half a semester to go.
And people will tell me that this is the best time of my life
But clearly they are not old like me, hunched and tired,
Grumpy and swallowing down another coffee and another coffee
And maybe just one more coffee will make it make sense.
They don’t have my shaking hands or aching back or tired eyes
Because they don’t have my job or my classes
Or my life.
Sometimes I wish I didn’t have my life too.
But I have to pass
So even if it doesn’t matter
I have to take this test anyway.
Mid-terms,
I hate you but you’re there to show that I’m making progress,
That all hope is not lost
That I still have time.
I don’t want any more time, I want to quit.
I want to stop and fly away like people can in books
Because flying might mean falling,
but it’s better to fall because at least there’s an end to it.
Mid-terms, you make me want to scream until I have no voice left
And then I’d throw something because it’s still not enough.
I want to throw myself out a window.
It would be preferable to one more night and one more cup and
The steady tick tick tick of the clock that I don’t even have
Winding down until I’m out of time
And I haven’t even taken my exam.
in these our last daze
our lost days
I’m at the end
now
chrome skulls bleeding quicksilver skies
above
as omega point approaches with a fuzzy smile
the people on TV snort space and candy
off plastic cd cases
(apocalypse wow)
Ah American life:
a rest home for the wayward and roughly traded children
busted up dusted up children
digging in neon wastelands
high atop parking garage rooftops
holding hands in glass elevators
passing basketballs
beyond the beyond
quick don’t look everything is connected
singing songs for the schizophrenic rabbit
far below another
barbed wire bramble tree bent
still fuzzy smileys rub against my face
near suicide note grimoires of quantum physics and games of Arabian chess in the candy store
grinning while I’m losing
because losing is good luck mostly
giving up cigarette hugs bleak poet on the bathroom floor
licking atomic cellophane on a broken mirror
warm breeze through the window
bright cartoon of reality
playing on
outside
beside myself here in hell’s lounge
after a free if brief trip to heaven
as Pisces
fades
into Aquarius
my heart now lends itself to unwrapping
a satyr against this plastic world
pull me up like a weed
I’m unveiled
Your presence is an
Elevator shaft
I can’t stop falling
Through–
I thought I was
With thoughts of you
Creeping misery
Won’t let me sleep
If I could grow wings
I wouldn’t be me
Losing my peace,
Loving my grief
Living a nightmare
Less than a dream
Never enough
Said with a shrug
Dare to wake up
Breathing this drug
I can’t climb away
My mind turns to mud
Forever I’ll stay
By draining my blood
White egg, brown egg, speckled egg, blue egg
Which egg is better on the inside?
Does one egg make you taller?
Or fatter? Smarter? Duller?
Could it be that two of them are tied?
Speckled egg, blue egg, true egg, new egg
Which egg is jealous of the other?
Do speckled eggs hate blue
For their evenness of hue?
Or do they view each other as a brother?
White egg, brown egg, town egg, clown egg
Why has one of these eggs been oppressed?
One egg boasts the test of time
One egg’s made it through a climb
So which of these considers themselves best?
Prize egg, wise egg, size egg, buys egg
If you crack them open what’s inside?
Identical design
In your egg and in mine
Remove the shell and all is simplified.
Bridges are meant to be crossed
Like t’s,
Not dotted like i’s,
Nor like lines on a map;
The borderlines that separate
You and I.
Bridges are built, burned,
Famed, scorned,
Named, claimed, renamed,
And more.
Like great concrete walls.
Except walls disconnect, separate.
Their only reconnection through a gate.
But gates are unfriendly,
With “work will make you free” in iron
Cast above their spindling frames.
Graffiti on the nearby walls surrounding,
With my family on the east side,
Yours on the west,
With no one the worst
Or best.
But bridges are friendly,
Like open arms, open hands,
Making family from different lands,
From different people of all makes,
All models,
Like cars,
Built for the same purpose:
For function and for luxury.
My culture is a function,
And so is yours.
My culture shows you how I am
Who I am
And why I am that way,
And so does yours.
My freedom is a luxury.
I was born here with my rights intact,
And you came here to get yours back.
Inalienable rights, undeniable rights,
Born with and carried by us from
The moment of conception,
Of birth,
Of great conscious Life.
My culture is my bridge to yours.
With no graffiti walls, no great iron gates,
No words of hate,
Just love, acceptance,
And open arms welcoming
You.
