White people are funny. Like yoga mats, like co-ops.
You a barista but somehow got the money to spend a few months in Europe. Traveling. Living in a commune/it was a life changing experience/I want to recreate that here in America/a country I now realize I hate/or am starting to hate/
This is a classic coffeeshop feel. White liberal city, eavesdrop on their mundane convos. Nod blackly. Smile grimly. Go find a quiet corner to write in.
My shirt is all baby blue, my hat too.
Reminds me of home, a house back home, painted brightest of blue.
I take a selfie.
The wall behind me is bright banana yellow. The contrast is sharp.
The blues, the yellows, the neon’s.
The hot Somali sun baking houses until that paint chips off. Stucco,
Mediterranean, Africa.
Young nigga, get high, go fish. Well I guess a blowjob’s better than no job.
That late summer / early fall / labor day weekend / college football is back / the weather is still good / mid morning sunlight shafting through coffee shop windows as you order a cortado? That’s life at its best.
In a coffee shop on Central Ave, this is how it all started for me. This is where I wrote my first (only) book. Not here, cuz it burned down, but I’m still here. I say first book like I have a million in me. Or that I want / need to write more. I don’t need to do a goddamn thing but pay my taxes and die, fucknigga. Maybe stop writing long enough to dance in my seat.
What they call that? Autistic Joy. You wouldn’t know about it.
Sorry I missed your stupid little conference. Bet you niggas won’t say the quiet part loud.
Growing up, my parents would always be talking about offices and conferences. As if that was integral to being Somali. I don’t know what the fuck it means to be human on most days, let alone to be Somali.
I’m a young nigga, or at least I identify as one, and my body is breaking down. The baldness on my crown says I’m an old head. I bought a new laptop yesterday. I feel like living today. Are they related?
Supposed to go to a black poetry conference in a few weeks. I don’t know what it means to be black or a poet on most days. And you already know how I feel about conferences.
My adhd meds don’t work anymore. I don’t know what to do about this. I need some adhd meds that work so that I can do the work of finding new adhd meds that work. Ironic isn’t it?
I’m trapped because life is a trap and death isn’t an escape. I am without words these days. I don’t even get high off picture taking anymore. They call that Autistic Burnout.
You wouldn’t know about that, either, fucknigga.