21st Century Problems: I Can’t Coca Cola Freestyle with A.D.D. (#20) (Louis Toliver Jr-Swart, LA)

Yeah, I know what you're thinking…I’m supposed to be about to do a dance routine at Richard E Nixon Junior High School. However, this is in my mind and my mind can play, pause, rewind, or fast forward whenever I want it too. The first thought that popped into my head was how bad my A.D.D. was getting. I was at my favorite wing place the other day, Wing Your Mama, and I ran into something that affirmed we are living in the future: the Coca Freestyle 100 flavors plus machine! Coca Cola Lime, Coca Cola Cherry, Coca Orange, Fanta Grape, Fanta Strawberry, Diet Coke Vanilla, Sprite, Sprite Zero, Sprite Zero Orange, Mr. Pibb Orange, Vault Orange, Dasani Orange, Dasana w/ Lemon-Orange, Minute Maid Orange, Hi-Orange, Powerade Orange, Orange, Orange, Orange, Orange….you know what I think I want something orange. My problem is now at this futuristic drink machine I know have 100 ways to mess up my day. What if orange doesn’t go with what I choose. Mr. Pibb Orange, really? That’s too sweet. That’s a lot of syrup. I don’t like when my insides take a bath in syrup. I don’t like how sticky it is on my skin. Dasani, flavored water? Why does water need to be flavored? That’s not natural. This is too much. I don’t think I can go eat at a place if a freestyle machine is there. I can freestyle rap. Did you know that? Check this out:

My name is Trey,

my ex girlfriend is really a man,

so now I am technically gay,

I think should be a Justin Bieber fan

What do you think? Yep, I need adderall.

Comments

Come Hither (Annette Redmond Walters - Lafayette, LA)

I meant it not this way but the tears just flow and my makeup smearing all the more, leaving behind that familiar filthy residue. I may have begun to drive myself away, dragging you down as well. But it's done, I've flipped the switch and now it's dark once more. How painful is the music to my ears, I can't stand to be alone in it, yet here I am again. I pray you fly back and safely and warmly to me, though I fear I've dug the grave too deeply. As the dirt shifts within my soul, I choke on those loving words I'd meant for you. All the fragments of light I see becoming smaller and I wish to be near you in your embrace that might make me feel the warmth I'm missing. And in reality, I doubt I'd breathe another breath without you. So come hither and quickly soothe my dying heart, you are the only cure I know. I cry and cry again, come hither to heal and love me. Come hither and help me dry my tears.

Let That Fucker Burn (John Chenvert - Napoleonville, LA)

Let that fucker burn. Let the fire crackle like the whips once did— like bone meeting leather, like screams swallowed by the trees. Let the white columns crumble to ash. Not as tragedy— but as truth, unearthing itself from beneath generations of silence. Nottoway is not a mansion. It’s a mausoleum. A lie carved in stone to honor the hands that held the whip, not the backs that bore it. They called it the “White Castle.” A place of beauty. A place for weddings, for photo ops, for pretending that horror can be made elegant if the curtains match the guilt. But no paint can cover what happened there. Blood doesn’t wash out with white linens. And pain doesn’t forget just because you renamed it history. I’m not Black. And I won’t pretend to carry that weight. But I also won’t ignore it. My people—the Guanches—were taken too. Our language silenced. Our land stolen. Our names nearly erased. So yes, I know colonization. Yes, I know what it means to be disappeared. But I also know this— my skin ...

Lunatic (Lily Lechler - New Orleans, LA)

“Lunacy” comes from the moon, Who cycles through brilliance and darkness Bipolarity’s patterns are not so easily assumed Opposites not so well harnessed Who cycles through brilliance and darkness? The girl who sits in bed, wrestling with Opposites. Not so well harnessed As she thought, her brain gives reason the slip The girl who sits in bed, wrestling with Her body, depressed, her thoughts manic. As she thought, her brain gave reason the slip And gives the gift of life in a dreamlike panic. Her body depressed her thoughts. Manic Lunacy comes from the moon And gives the gift of life in a dreamlike panic Bipolarity’s patterns are not so easily assumed

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