There you are

in your work uniform

on the sales floor

or in the classroom

A reflection on social media, batey, community, and consciousness.

What is my center right now? What is the narrative, the “world” that I ground my consciousness in? It’s social media. On my social media, I have all the people I connect with within different spaces: old poet friends, family, bomberxs, musicians, other folks who have come into my life, etc. I stitch these into one network and present a Chris that sits comfortably within all of that.

But, that’s not full connection.

Age 3,

Ture playing cuatro,

Nito playing guitar,

Miguel swinging Cijin,

Fortune-telling has been made out as a scam,

a cheap understanding of cues and body clues –

mention the right name, and the clients' eyes will flutter;

hint at a distant hurt, and they'll nod in recognition.

When the 6:00 sun tugs at your eyelids

Telling you it is time to start the day,

Only one coffee will do.

Not Folgers, not Maxwell,

After work,

once I’ve told all of my high school juniors to get their act together or get out of my class.

I stagger my way back into my unmade bed and sleep,

or rather, doze. D-O-Z-E.

The first thing you notice when you walk into

Greek Taverna is how clean the restrooms are.

Bite-sized, ivory tiles stretch across

the walls and the floors,

When I arrived, my mother shut my eyes,

And, in the middle of this east coast hunting ground,

Lay me in a bed,

Before I knew to yearn for rest,