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BLU: … i seen pictures, gemini, of oceans that are actually blue. waters so clear you can stand waist deep, look down and see your feet. not like any ocean i’ve ever been to. light reflects off the top of the water and you can see the sand on the ocean floor.

Masters, never trust me. Listen: each day

is a Negro boy, chained, slogging out of the waves,

panting, gripping the sum of his captain, the head,

ripped off, the blood purpling down, the red

hair flossed between the knuckles, swinging it

before him like judgment, saying to the mist,

then not, then quietly only to himself, This is what

I’ll do to you, what you dream I do, sir, if you like it.

There is a strange world

in the changing of a light bulb,

the waxing of a bookshelf

I think I could grow by,

as into a dusty dream

in which each day layers

against one just past

and molds the one to come,

content as cabbage

drudging towards harvest.

You are told when to sleep and when to wake up. If you spend too much time in your bedroom, it indicates that you’re being antisocial; if you do sit in the common areas, but don’t interact with the other patients, you’re probably depressed or overly inward or perhaps even catatonic. Humans might all be ciphers to one another, but people with mental illness are particularly opaque because of our broken brains; we cannot be trusted about anything, including our own experiences.

I’m good enough to get the once-over in the bar at The Restaurant, I see them thinking my

smallness is appealing, my ass and face are cute enough, I see them thinking that short haircut

might be sexy. I’m always in a backless cocktail dress and heels, I’m flat chested and a tad

muscular so they ask me if I’m a dancer and say Call me sometime, let’s have a drink. It took

me a while to understand you’re supposed to work that for your money but you can let the

willingness fall right off your face when you turn around. It took me a while to understand that of

course men fling their entreaties out in swarms, like schools of sperm, hoping one will stick.

MR. GREEN: Two verbs! Granted, they are irregular. But that’s no excuse, for these forms —

Do. Not. Change.

They are immutable!

More reliable than the people in your lives. More stable than governments. More dependable than churches or philosophies. These verbs are your deliverance!

Commit these patterns to memory. Determine the person, the number, the tense. Then remember the form. That’s all there is. To conjugation.

Conjugation. Such a beautiful word. Such a beautiful act.