Binny Bots Beenzy Beenzy Binny Bots Binz

Binny Bots Beenzy Beenzy Binny Bots Binz

 

On the toilet

I write poetry

Poetry that stuffs its bra

And peddles a bicycle to meet the boys on the pier

I plant my toes in the dirt

And watch plants grow

Butterflies stumble drunk

Off the nectar

On the edge of my bed

I daydream

Either about the girls I wish I had

Or the ones I wish I hadn’t let go

For these days I find myself alone

Laying naked on the bed

Imagining the sheets holding me knees

Were yours

Upstairs, my neighbor is beating his floor with a broom

Yelling, “keep it down, your heart beats too loud, I can’t sleep!”

Yet I hear nothing

For I am wandering through the clouds bare foot

Looking for somewhere to lie down where you might find me

I taste the residue of love on my finger tips

I clip my nails

I toss them from the sky

The scars on my face carve into my skull like memories

The moon peaks a blushing face into my window

My belly hangs low

Inside, there lives a clumsy squid that spills my gut

Down the block I glimpse my childhood

I shout

Pick a color!

Pick a number!

I bite into a fortune cookie

And swallow my future

Down a grassy hill

My stomach flips cartwheels for a girl

With small tits

It wears no pants to stain green

On a branch

There are two robins gossiping

They murmur “that boy is crazy”

I blow them kisses

I was crazy

I am crazy

There are a bajillion things that I want to do before I die

One of them is to live forever

Another is to believe in love

Then fall in love

I’d like to do that a couple times

I’m old enough to count to 100

Yet not old enough to know who I wanna be when I’m grown up

There is a fork in the road

I want to go straight

I want to turn around

I want someone to tell me which way to go, cause I don’t know

And under my pillow I used to put my teeth

And wait for the tooth fairy

It’s been a while since she’s seen me

I write her a note

It reads

 

Come back, I miss you, I’m sorry

 

In a parked car I sit

Feet stretching for the peddles

Steering through the street

Going a hundred

Thousand

Trillion

Beep! Beep!

I’m a cute kid missing a tooth!

I want to make mistakes and be forgiven

I want them to tell me I’m only human, s**t happens

Hold me in your arms as I grow too large for them

Don’t let me go just yet

Hold me

If for only a little bit longer

Hold me

Hold me

 

 

 

Reviews

[W.k.kortas]

I generally don't like to pick particular lines out of a piece--everything in context, and the whole breaking the butterfly on the wheel thing--but the first four lines of the poem are just flat-out standing-ovation issue writing.

For those stuck in the horrific no-man's land of the time between, say, fifteen and twenty-two, there are no straight and easy pathways (cf. "I want to go straight/ I want to turn around"), and the path into full-fledged, card-carrying adulthood is a sputtering, hesitating, two-steps-forward, three-steps-back kind of process, and moving from the carefree, often fantasy-based life of childhood (cf. "I am wandering through the clouds in my pajamas"--not to mention the title, which almost sounds like a jump-rope piece of doggerel) to an adult lifestyle which often holds much less promise than we would have liked (cf. "I am poor/ I was poor"). The short lines, the jumping from idea to idea reflects the whole uncertainty and tentative nature of this particular time in a man's life. This is powerful, intelligent work that smacks of genius.

[Travis Lawrence]

Awesome Jamaal, just keep writing man.

"I want someone to tell me which way to go cause I don't know"

Look within yourself for direction, that's the only place you can find it!

[Akash]

If that's the work you're talking about then surely its what i like.
Absolutely great...
Raw - Smoky - Tempting
Its pure magic...I simply rave the flow...nothing is planned...nothing is here
Its what you feel...what you want to write...what you HAVE to write

speechless
-akash-

[Emily B]

yes, yes, yes, f**k yes

this is awesome, heady stuff