minuet of thought

Not pictured: the foggy downhill horror movie walk to get down into Lyme Regis where this photo was taken in May 2016. I don't remember who took this photo but I'm sure someone will remind me.

Note from Author: I wrote these when I was pretty depressed right after college. I didn't want to edit the work as it felt like a time capsule of a time period where I struggled. I was fresh out of college and broke without a job figuring out what comes next. A lot has changed since then but the cycles of success and outright struggle still ebb and flow.

dear reader,

the following are fragments of thoughts from my sophomore year of college to now (April 2017). most of the writings are straightforward, as straightforward as interpretation.

make whatever sense of the madness that you can. good luck.

sincerely,

vaughn

foreword:

i take a look at the maelstrom of the world's injustice and then look at the tornado of my own problems. they're not so different. variances amongst similar storms i wish i could say life is indiscriminate in its decisions and it doesn't matter who gets swept up, but that's a lie. some people are born with advantages only pushing them forward. they'll never know what is to suffocate by their existence. that's not to say this suffocation makes you stronger, but you're gasping for air; existence is resistance. you want to breathe? then fight. pick your battles when you can. small victories are victories all the same building momentum. if justice is the moral arc of the universe, then guide it. i imagine the arc as justice the harbinger, staying the hand of mercy who has has shown her cards too long. we could sit around the eye listening to people burn as the selfish douse them in an ignition of greed. the flames scorching the rest of the world, asphyxiating earth's "secondary inhabitants" known as the countless other living or non-living things. perhaps, we'll be fortunate enough to taste our lives wasting away in the ash for our crops or die breathing in the charred remains of humanity. or we could do something about it. for some, this is their current reality, metaphorically or not. what am I going to do about it? well, to take this world by a storm. maybe it will be big enough to erase some of those flames. maybe it won’t.

i time

sometimes when i think about the speed of life

its as if i feel time compressing my chest

the memories cycle through

at the speed of light

a fireworks display of remembrance

ii winter nights

i like to exhale in a winter nights cold

the breath a drifting cloud

the emotion in the moment

sometimes i wish it would fade

like the way the breath dissipates

but the emotion stays

embittering like the frigid air

iii beauty in life

beauty in life can be traced to our experiences

the evocation of emotion

their explosion and their weavings leave us in awe

iv love…?

love is silent

the shadow of actions after the fact

it can go unnoticed

like the crumbs from packed lunches

it can be hidden

like the weight of sacrifice

steeped in your vanity

wrong looks, wrong reasons

ubiquitous

stop

and you might breathe it in

viii don’t hurt me

i got nothing to say about love

but science and people tell me it’s a drug

the most potent stuff on earth

if you could bottle it up

then you’d be eternally rich—

capitalism

what a bitch

or better yet a bastard

whereas some humans would claim it

i’ll be there to dismantle overthrow and lame it

provide it a piece of my unfiltered mind

for all the lives lost to its unchecked power

in countless hours perpetuating savagery

delineating inequality as status quo reality

allow me to go off with no remorse

no readdress off course

sounding off unchecked

give me a mic and i’ll –

but i digressed

my thoughts an unorganized mess

like the nation and its “politics”

expecting patient patients in the masses

fuck that

i’ll stick to solidarity

steezing with the homies

of different skins tongues threads weaves

equal in practice and creed

rapping in the streets

identities on the mend and bend

to defend the only thing holy

one another –

i found something to say about love

ix vulnerability

stick a sword through my ribs

and kick me to the ground

id bleed like anyone else

cast weights around my ankles

and thrust me blindly into the ocean

id sink drowning like you expect

drop me from high in the sky

the world a whirling blur

id splatter red human stain

ask me about my feelings

my feelings

you get cool collected thought

emotions gagged, sagged, lagged

behind maximum security

labyrinth walls rise instantaneous

cold detached savage

my descriptors

the last one humorously put

or not so humorously experienced

all tied to an innate insane objectivity

passion lesioned by logic

maintaining an odd combo

a mix of whimsicality and spontaneity

defined by the methodical

i thought i was in tune

i thought i was streaming my emotions effectively

but i was wrong

effusing emotions in controlled channels

some semblance of my mentality

offering preconceived summarized thought

not sharing my process

not voicing the beauty of what it is to feel

because

i don’t like to let people in

open that door there’s no going back

no longer am i a sphinx shifting mosaic blur

i might form genuine emotionally invested relationships

and all mighty deity above i doubt forbid that

or better put

perhaps it scares me

stripping the control i find i need

but when we bear our souls to others

without scrutiny or worry

only then will the relationship blossom to any full potential

or so i hear

still waiting to get there

meanwhile

ill stick to the proclivity of introspection

wandering my mind

stumbling into feelings too long clouded

by the fallacy of objectivity uncertainty lack of reciprocation

waiting to be unearthed

waiting to be shared

with those whom i love

x expression

amongst an ocean of thoughts

i seek solitude

like kal el i have my fortress

but its walls aren’t defined

they’re nonexistent

desiring nothing but a palace of rumination

the only ruination is me

i push people away like horizons

leaving myself stranded

gravity by apathy

a false science

i feel oceans ripple blue

i scorch forests ember red

i spin yellow in a field of daffodils

i explode orange like the sun

i avoid green with envy but

chill like purple rain

i see it all

but will i tell you

who knows

xi the storm

if i made the rain

it wouldn’t evaporate like campaigns of promises to bring equity to thirsting peoples who live each day in the shadows of turned representatives backs

or dissipate like chief consideration for natures acres where prime concern is the rape of mother earth

it’d pour heavy like the hot tears of all the black mothers who lost their children to police brutality based in institutional racism

itd rise like the masses who flood the streets against the accord of representatives who abuse power misappropriating time like the histories of peoples of color

it’d flood with the dreams of immigrants who envision nothing more than the provisions to provide for their families like citizens

it’d run thick like the lacerations of generations where massa lives in the derisions of inconsiderate political decisions

it’d fall eternal like the number of brown and black bodies out of society into systemic racially charged inequality

so let’s build a storm

where the rain disparages a constitution long providing solutions for a privileged plutocratic few

where a flash is a lightning brigade of peoples amassed in their streets to the stomp of marching feet

and a rumble is the future of generations rising representative of all peoples across the nation

xii super powered

i dreamed i had powers once

nearly invincible like luke cage

layers of barriers wrapped around my heart

transformed to armor for others against microagressive stunts

but a lack of education still swept across the nation

inebriated by vicious media sensation

so i couldnt stop all the coffins

and watched as others dark skinned

were buried without end

like all great heroes i hid behind the mask

but felt too compelled to end the spell

a stupid gallant notion of a task

naked i was like any other

cops mistook me for another brother

and boom bang pow out came hot lead

like chains that slumped slaves backs

i fell heavy forward miniature iron soldier escaping through my head

xiii the game

chasing chedda green

spending like a fiend

everything you ever wanted

all at once in one space

waking up a furious pace

no more day by day

out there getting paid

fucking, sucking, getting laid

basking in the splendor of it all

how could anyone have the gall-- to compare your ass to saul

but god damn you sold your soul

you’re falling in line with blinded legions

another cog of capitalistic hogs

while masses gather loyally

soldiers to the cause hassled, bustled, murdered by misguided pigs

tools of the system killing us all

together we stand divided we fall

rise up

or sit your ass down and complain like the rest of them

xiv home

i saw a man on the sidewalk covered in a blanket

stretched to maximum comfort, fighting off sickness

i recognized his position as one i had taken myself waiting to recover and return to some semblance of monotony

but the roots of our sickness were unrelated and incomparable

mine was privileged, creaturely comforts of the home surrounding me in protection that is stability

his sickness embedded in the state without a care for a sense of his being

discarded by society and deemed a burden, he sits alone

and i ask myself, can we give this man a home?

they gentrify city streets

a new project of erasure laid in heaps only one empty doorstep away

they provide tax ease for corporations milking the people

eighteen dollars an hour too high given power’s structure and restraints

take half, two thirds even and be grateful we paid at all while it lasts

they even remodel libraries, new looks for crooks

shifting neighborhood demographics tied to economics tucking long term patrons into secluded nooks

but can we provide this man a home?

they’ll tell you we offered him shelter, a recognizable temporal space where they laud our accomplishment for savings grace

one night at a time, homage without worry

and sometimes that’s enough

but not sustainable

go grieve get a job improve overcome strife

i gave you thirty sixty days ways to improve your life

they say

while we know we prolonged suffering

unending hunger soul sapping stress

but don’t fret they say

we’re “cleaning” up streets to relieve this mess

as we bustle by in droves to college dives, drive byes casting pity

sometimes we stop

bothering to drop a dollar

but i didn’t have a dollar that night, all i had was change

but was that enough

his sign read “two dollars for a song”

an artist myself, i couldn’t even offer due respect

so i kept on walking, ashamed

not even a block away

im warm in my apartment

heater humming, heart thumping, and thoughts drumming away

i sat there tired from a night’s outing

drained from doing nothing

while a man sits cold ignored on bustling streets

alone

i alone could never fundamentally hope to offer him the change he needed

because we could not even offer him a home

xv exit interview

this is an exit interview and it’s all that i’m giving you

a representation of the discourse of my soul

black, unapologetic, unstoppable, un-hearsed, apolitical goal

my expressions, clear intentions displayed in action

their tangents digressive full considerate thought

a demonstration of the mind and the wanderings wrought

pressure free from society, a dream pursuant past reality

my fortress of solitude imagination’s impregnable impressions

ruminative thought, mind managed by meditative sessions

castled blessings brought unreligious by all the people i all see as equals

the homies, the family, yall are loved

death the final mystery whether below or above

all of the glittering generalities we see in reality

distractions managed by factions gauging reactions

stopping you from seeing all that is present

pause, take it all in

the only investment that ever mattered

you

never can take your shots if you’re not banking all in

purpose be damned it’s a discovery like the path

life the only sojourn

distracted didactic i am

discussing you when its about me

well not(w) that we’ve met

discuss, criticize, or ignore me

describe, demonize, or deny me

see me for me or the me you want to see

perception, deception’s ultimate mechanism of camouflage

but who’s hiding?

i gave you my dissertation

take it for what you will

my final fantasy

vaughn hunt signing off