Mango Mush

Some days I wake up feeling like the rain has entered me intravenously. The mango strands turn to teeth in my mouth and water just pours out. I can’t tell if it’s tears or rainwater. I can’t tell if it’ll help a crop of mango trees grow or drown them in salinity. In my mouth, the words turn to mango soup. Butternut Squash Stew. In my life, the words have kept me sane. Kept me going. From going. And still going. In my words, the life of my rhymes falls right out the cracks.

I see sunlight leaking from my pores when the world threatens to enclose on me. Between the world and me there is only darkness. On my darkest days, I find light. I go back to my prayer. I go back to my words. I let the mush-mouthed mangos form strands, tendrils, that keep me together. I wrap myself in a shroud of mango puree, in guava juice. In Kern’s.

In the back of Volkswagon Vanagon, tan, stick shift. Me and my family all on the floor of it. Eating from the same Styrofoam containers that I now call home. That I now eat the same red spaghetti from. That I drank the same red juice to. That Vimto. That keep me on my toes.

Sometimes the words feel like mango strands in my veins. I see mango juice leaking when needles prick me. My blood is orange, not to be confused with the red meat that I chew mindlessly. My words got me here. My words keep me going. To where? There is no there. There is no I here. I hate that I need to start or stop writing. I wish that i was an endless string of words, like mango stands, like mango strands. I’m that mango man.

-My Depression

And sometimes the words feel like mango mush in my mouth.

As if I’m trying to fill a void in my writing by writing about nothing. If you asked me what my biggest struggle right now is, I’d say: emotional numbing. Trying not to feel the world because I feel too much of the world creeping into me. Tryna keep it out.

But the world doesn’t require my complicity; the world will take advantage of me all the same.

In my mouth, the words stick together like mango strands. Like mush.

I learned how to write in Seattle. In Seattle, we run in the rain. In Seattle, suicide is glamorized. I sit in Minnesota now, on facebook, seeing racist articles coming out of Seattle.

The words don’t do it justice. In my mouth, the words stick together like mango strands. Like mush.

Everything in my favorite coffee shop is overpriced, but I pay for the ambiance. In Seattle, the city drowns in coffee shops. The coffee beans taste to me like discarded mango pits. My tears string together like fungus from old mango strands. Dried mango hands hold my world together.

In my mouth, the words stick together like mango strands. My mango mush.