Hell Year 2: Tokyo Drift (2025)

These are all the writings I have produced this year. They reflect a period of terrible pain and intense growth over the past 11 months. I related exactly what happened in another piece called "Hell Year."

Nuanced and aesthetic they are not, but these pieces hold more value to me than anything I've written before this year.

Reading through these poems, you can see when things hit the fan. The first two poems are the weakest, but they still convey some important messages and provide context.

Under Silence

February 2025

When they take our jobs,

we keep working under silence.

When they police our expression,

we make known the truth under silence.

When they teach our children lies,

we relate history under silence.

When they take our people,

we spirit them back under silence.

When they destroy our structures,

we rebuild stronger under silence.

When they categorize and separate us,

we remain united under silence.

When they permanently silence us,

may our actions scream to shake the stars.

Dialectical Poem

March 2025

“...each new day a gash is added to her wounds.” — Macbeth

Last year, I learned about dialectics in therapy.

I then got in an argument with my therapist,

claiming there is no difference between a dialect

and a paradox.

The handling of the and

is different, she said.

These students from the West and South Sides

know nothing about the Holocaust

and

these students, just released from prison,

are back backdoored into a holocaust of backdoors

red lines and bodies messed up by guns

of getting jumped walking home

with a new backpack on

of sleeping on the sidewalk and fistfighting

Venezuelan refugees for food at food banks

of history and present

These refugee students

weren't taught their rights

and

they lost the rights to learn about

and 

if they are not classified as refugees

what are they at all

I learned about dialectics in therapy.

I then got in an argument with my therapist,

asserting there is no difference between a dialect

and 

a paradox.

The handling of the and

is different, she said.

I wrote this poem the evening after the assault happened. It happened at around 9am on the way to work. The poem did not take long to write. I think I had been keeping all these words locked and loaded for a long time.

My intent shouldn't ever matter, but when writing, the word scrambling for me represented what it is to deal with trauma response and its lasting effect on human functioning.

BETRAYALCATHARSIS

March 2025

Eleven Years Ago

eleven years ago Chicago bedroom

quaint my first apartment

I rent outside Madison

Brooks St sunk back porch

walking-naked roommates

around guest I was fed up moved

to Europe then in with Europe boyfriend

grad school I couldn't

go where I wanted

wanted bf there but he

was caught kicked out

whited out &

rewrote transcripts

we move to Chicago

three years later

ex[iled] 1997 air mattress

Chicago living room

I wanted marry age 23

he said

right

stare dark ceiling crack

think together memories

radiate love wave

new man comedy writer from

Creative Writing MFA classes

thinking, drifting

hardwood footfall

rustling polyester duvet

bed sinking radiating warmth

covers pull

toward chest slither

into shorts

asleep be to not pretend asleep

i because was sexy

2004 also me touched she 1998-

in i often place a to devised i went

fog purple pink sun waves ocean

pink pink a chairs on two beach

drinks a two table on purple

Corona like a crossover

Bismol commerical Pepto with

mentioned i never it

Europe to back left he

Eight Years Ago

name cannot i his remember

bring cannot is the this time i

remember myself to

pain bruise blood and purple

Coke diameter on can around ring silicone

in kick no so say kick doggy hard backwards

pick AWAY and purse RUN up

home drive and run

cry and legs my between pain with

Last Year

walked Fullerton summer

headed home therapy

family communication

issue

thinking

chain spin catch

thin tires

behind

"sorry WALKing on sideRIDE"

this always happens tightest sidewalk.

hugged right-hand side pavement

overtook side of

me felt graze

bottom hand with firm one squeeze

t-shirt orange with and teenager twists

cycling right hand down with

GET BACK HERE, you FUCK

YOU DISGUSTING

SHIT, you GRABBED

MY

ASS

away cycled

unbothered

after until ran him i

not could more any-

tears

TODAY

Tuesday morning

Red Line

disembark run down stairs

5min late work teaching

concourse--lobby--doors

stocky middle-aged man

wild

shoulder-length hair waxed

cotton jacket

and a cigarette

ANC filter OTE headphones

me approached he hands up

duck side-step

get in my way

EXCUSE ME assert

my gripped hard he breasts

hands his i threw off

brute him major ground threw

force

her child lifting off mother a minivan

DON'T YOU TOUCH ME,

BITCH-BABY BOY.

YOU LITTLE FUCKING FREAK--

ducked he down ground

advance i

I WILL FIGHT YOUR ASS.

i'msorryi'msorry

I WILL FIGHT

YOUR

DUMB

ASS!

stepped hard at i him

more time one

back scuttled he

I walked out the lobby

onto Wilson Ave

and Broadway

and wiped cigarette

ash off my left breast.

Leading up to my marriage in May of 2024, I knew deep inside I was in love with someone else. It gave me ennui over the course of the marriage. I told my husband I still loved this person. I’m not sure why.

Whiplash, Night Rumination

March 2025

1:30am 3.18.25

with an

empty

heart

that weighs

so much it

grinds

my torso

deep down into

my hips, bone

itching bone;

two empty

hands that

scratch at

nothing

but a couple

of $5 words;

a sweeping

torrent of

unrequited

and forbidden

emotion: a

mishandled

semi-

confrontation

in the green room

before a

half-Jewish

rite of passage

played to sate

a room half-

populated

with hungry

Catholics,

the evasively

describable

but sensical

reasoning why I

did not go ahead and

greet a beloved guest,

and otherwise, all of

which have kept me

awake since

before the

third

grade;

and a private-

public

barrage of

honesty

I couldn’t

show before,

showing up

now, at

the most

dangerous

of times,

a full

roster.

I’ve needed that always

but I need it most

at this time

1:30am 3.18.25

It is

inextricable

from the

fact that

much more

often now

than before

I’m curious

the nuances

of what my

dad’s mother

felt in the

months before

they spirited

into a

wooden cattle

car with no

windows

I do

not feel

necessary

whiplash

between

that

time

and

1:30am 3.18.25

bignerint March 2025

my words break me. my heart breaks me.

my mom came over, unexpectedly, for the first time in months. it might as well have been years. we purposely hadn't spoken, either. by purposely, i honestly mean on my own volition. i hadn't any other means of control. she was spiraling everywhere. not taking care of her health. ascribing to conspiracy theories again, or at least at increased momentum.

there’s kinetic energy everywhere at this moment.

she let me know the president played chess. that was why he wanted some minerals, not all. tit for tat—she liked having an asshole in our government. he had sway, and no other type of person would take that job.

bodacious asshole sway.

my mom came over today to tell me that she loved me and to feed me a lingual slab of corned beef. she knew what i had gone through in the past week. she dogged me for details, and i told her all of them, down to the amount of windsweep affecting the hair of the guy i threw on the ground after he grabbed my chest at wilson stop on tuesday. it's like she needs all the info to believe it actually happened. she's a retired criminal prosecutor: she needs evidence.

it was piecey and shiny, like he had just gone on a convertible ride. stringy, flexible hay. you could almost smell the tangy outside on that windswept hair.

we held hands on the couch while i doubled over crying. she kept asking me what about, and i kept telling her over and over that i couldn't tell her. some of the things i'm crying about i can't even tell my husband, i told her. my ex-husband stared at me with two large eyes like suns, and i knew that he knew exactly what i couldn't tell him, because i had told fairly.

we want the same thing

we want the same thing, i told her. can we agree on that? we want everybody to be good and not to hurt or kill each other.

can we agree on that?

can we agree on that?

can we agree on that?

can we agree on that?

can we agree on that?

can we agree on that?

Just a straight-up diary entry, at this point

I wonder what everyone is thinking during this time.

I want to reassure those around me who are afraid, but they are too silent to self-identify. I am also angry at these people for not speaking up, but the opposition is not a monolith. Things are not fair for anyone, and there is too much out of my control.

Rhetoric is starting to get violent at both extremes.

I keep thinking about that poem from right after the Holocaust, "First They Came." I taught that to high schoolers every year to prepare the kids to recognize the warning signs. I wonder what they are thinking now, and I want to reassure them that it can be okay for everybody. Even if I could, it would come off like a lie.

I love people even when I hate them. Maybe I do, but I would do the polite thing and drag them over my shoulder through a battlefield. I'm not strong in real life. I don't know the logistics. You can inflect my meaning.

I think about this a lot. I think a lot of people do.

People hurt. It was on purpose, and it was personal. I’m a pretty awful bastard sometimes, and I think often about the ways people have hated me in order to make sense of how my actions can be perceived and hurt others. Maybe this applies to most people.

In the first month of class, I used to tell my high school students I cared about them. I really did, in the way that I would have jumped in front of a bullet for them on day one. That’s why I went to work: that was the hardest part of my job. I still care about those students, just much more than in that first week, and I think about them all daily. Even the “bad” ones. I hope they know I do.

I really wish that love were protection. It isn't.