Main Theme: Losing Identity
Secondary Themes: loss of innocence, man vs world, death

Loss of Innocence

“Pretender” by AJR [Song]

I’m a good pretender
Won’t you come see my show?
Won’t you come see my show?
I’ve got lots of problems
Well, good thing nobody knows
Good thing nobody knows

Oh, I’m insecure, I’m insecure
I think I like what I’m supposed to
Like what I’m supposed to
I don’t even mess with drugs
I do that ’cause you say it’s dope to
You say it is dope to

I’m a good pretender
I’m not really cool
I’m a good pretender
‘Cause I’m just like you
I do not belong here
You all clearly do
But I’m a good pretender

So I’m just like you
I’m a good pretender
I’m a good pretender
Steve Aoki
Lil’ Boat
I look happy in every picture
Just so you’d think I am
I never say no to pictures
‘Cause that’s just the person I am
In high school, I was tryna figure myself out
I was tryna be just like him (okay)
Tryna do things I don’t usually do (why?)
I’m pretending to be too cool
I wish my mother had more sons
I wish my friends were my brothers
I wish my ex-girlfriend didn’t cheat, she pretended to be my lover
In front of the camera screen
I make it look just like a movie scene
Diamonds on my hand, call me Lord of the Rings
Still insecure behind the scenes, though
Oh, I’m insecure, I’m insecure
I think I like what I’m supposed to
Like what I’m supposed to
I don’t even mess with drugs
I do that ’cause you say it’s dope to
You say it is dope to
I’m a good pretender
I’m not really cool (okay)
I’m a good pretender (yah)
‘Cause I’m just like you (you)
I do not belong here (no)
You all clearly do
But I’m a good pretender
‘Cause I’m just like you
I’m a good pretender
I’m a good pretender
I’m just like you, do you like me too?
Now I’m just like you
I’m a good pretender

“Numb” by Linkin Park [Song]

I’m tired of being what you want me to be
Feeling so faithless, lost under the surface
I don’t know what you’re expecting of me
Put under the pressure of walking in your shoes
Caught in the undertow, just caught in the undertow
Every step that I take is another mistake to you
Caught in the undertow, just caught in the undertow

I’ve become so numb, I can’t feel you there
Become so tired, so much more aware
By becoming this all I want to do
Is be more like me and be less like you

Can’t you see that you’re smothering me?
Holding too tightly, afraid to lose control
‘Cause everything that you thought I would be
Has fallen apart right in front of you
Caught in the undertow, just caught in the undertow
Every step that I take is another mistake to you
Caught in the undertow, just caught in the undertow
And every second I waste is more than I can take!

I’ve become so numb, I can’t feel you there
Become so tired, so much more aware
By becoming this all I want to do
Is be more like me and be less like you

And I know I may end up failing too
But I know you were just like me with someone disappointed in you

I’ve become so numb, I can’t feel you there
Become so tired, so much more aware
By becoming this all I want to do
Is be more like me and be less like you

I’ve become so numb, I can’t feel you there
I’m tired of being what you want me to be
I’ve become so numb, I can’t feel you there
I’m tired of being what you want me to be

“Dinosaurs in the Hood” by Danez Smith [poem]
(can be found in The BreakBeat Poets on page 256)

Let’s make a movie called Dinosaurs in the Hood.
Jurassic Park meets Friday meets The Pursuit of Happyness.
There should be a scene where a little black boy is playing
with a toy dinosaur on the bus, then looks out the window
& sees the T. Rex, because there has to be a T. Rex.

Don’t let Tarantino direct this. In his version, the boy plays
with a gun, the metaphor: black boys toy with their own lives,
the foreshadow to his end, the spitting image of his father.
Fuck that, the kid has a plastic Brontosaurus or Triceratops
& this is his proof of magic or God or Santa. I want a scene

where a cop car gets pooped on by a pterodactyl, a scene
where the corner store turns into a battle ground. Don’t let
the Wayans brothers in this movie. I don’t want any racist shit
about Asian people or overused Latino stereotypes.
This movie is about a neighborhood of royal folks —

children of slaves & immigrants & addicts & exiles — saving their town
from real-ass dinosaurs. I don’t want some cheesy yet progressive
Hmong sexy hot dude hero with a funny yet strong commanding
black girl buddy-cop film. This is not a vehicle for Will Smith
& Sofia Vergara. I want grandmas on the front porch taking out raptors

with guns they hid in walls & under mattresses. I want those little spitty,
screamy dinosaurs. I want Cicely Tyson to make a speech, maybe two.
I want Viola Davis to save the city in the last scene with a black fist afro pick
through the last dinosaur’s long, cold-blood neck. But this can’t be
a black movie. This can’t be a black movie. This movie can’t be dismissed

because of its cast or its audience. This movie can’t be a metaphor
for black people & extinction. This movie can’t be about race.
This movie can’t be about black pain or cause black people pain.
This movie can’t be about a long history of having a long history with hurt.
This movie can’t be about race. Nobody can say nigga in this movie

who can’t say it to my face in public. No chicken jokes in this movie.
No bullets in the heroes. & no one kills the black boy. & no one kills
the black boy. & no one kills the black boy. Besides, the only reason
I want to make this is for that first scene anyway: the little black boy
on the bus with a toy dinosaur, his eyes wide & endless

his dreams possible, pulsing, & right there.

“Impulse Buy” by Franny Choi [Poem]
(can be found in The BreakBeat Poets on page 246)

bugzapper dress
laughing teeth beacon whats
yr name again dress
filled w/my hips (not fables of yr
lips & pulling me close &
saying the word beautiful) so
hot shit dress. oh I cum
from the future dress
electric zinging super christ & fuck
that! dress. what’s that?
phone #? passwd.s? well that’s for me
to keep and you to
drool for. in which case:
mr. pavlov bell/ringer dress
take a number & get in line dress
neon polish, programmed to scoff.
bathroom fuck dress. highball hookup
greygoose in splintered shotgunz pow/pow/
we die soon dress. hair dye blue dress.
sloppy wink dress. chlorine in the sink dress.
me without you dress.

“Switch” by Tara Betts [Poem]
(can be found in The BreakBeat Poets on page 109)

Crushed zirconium gloss & glory
glides across her lips. She looks
in the mirror, puckers, pops her gum,
knows what would
happen if mama saw her
switch
girl
bounce-bounce song scripts
pinned into rivets of denim
pressed into thighs rockin
two-pocket shorts cause she can
switch
girl
purveyors of pulp nonfiction
sit on regals wit chrome rims
mockin constellations
and damn her pelvic metronome
switch
girl
a poet sketches what he imagines
as her fantasies
behind his microphone
he pastes her into fables of blow jobs for hand bags
haphazardly stitches her walk into crack alleys
half-tapes her barely breathing body with bruises
switch
girl
women sit facing the microphone
their pupils spin full circles
the girl is each of them
when she had the periodic table of elements
next to cut-outs from right on!
she wanted to be a nurse
or just get an a in chemistry quietly
while looking like
doing something she ain’t
Girl,
switch.

“the World tells how the world ends” by Marty McConnell [Poem]
(can be found in The BreakBeat Poets on page 95)

Without prodding. In an astonished mob. Hand over
the weather. Hand over the knob, the lever, the gods
of gender and weather and catcalls. The gods of raw
astonishment and flat-front khakis. The end? Say weather
is a matter of anatomy. Keep caterwauling. Keep the body
you bought, a bargain, keep coming. Keep coming. Call
your gods weather. Call them new and booming and zippered
throat to crotch like a catsuit. Keep prodding. What’s a mob
but a body brought to astonishment. You’re a new tooth
pushing through. You too. Wear sex like the weather.
Each genital is a new tooth. You bought your body
on special, it’s astonishing. It’s the truth. The prodding
is unbearable, it’s neverending, it’s the god of forbearance
and broken sunglasses and he hates you. He’s tired
of waiting. He’s prodding and piercing and thrusting
and plucking and dying and dropping it like it’s hot.
Where did you buy this body? By whom? The end
is in sight, they say, the end is in sight. Hold
your sutures closer. The weather
is everywhere. You never want it to stop.

“Better Days” by Cam Meekins [Song]

I just want you to know that I’m stuck in your soul
Funny how last week I thought it couldn’t be so
What I see in your eyes words can’t come close
No matter what your father says I just want you to know
That you’re a beautiful person, and I want you to grow
The way he talks to you’s just so inappro
I hope that you’re strong, when he’s doing you wrong
And I hope you find comfort in the words of these songs
Now sing along and while I tell you this story just listen closely
I know you like my music but look, you don’t really know me
See I live outside the city where there’s nothing going on
I just look around for meaning while I’m sitting on my lawn
One day I met this girl and she was beautiful too
I look closely at her eyes, a nice light shade of blue
She was still in high school, I was one year removed
We’re both a little older from the things we’ve been through
Pretty soon I started seeing all the things he would do
She wasn’t black and blue but emotionally bruised
It made me so mad I didn’t know what to do
Told her no matter what, I’mma be there for you
But as things became more hectic in my life I started fadin’ out
Began to lie to her, I wasn’t fair to her, I hate it now
I hope that you can understand my honesty
I really fuckin’ wanna knock that dude out honestly
You don’t have to believe it but I think about you every day
I sing about you every way cause you’re the perfect melody
I know the world ain’t perfect but to me you were my everything
My little light of sunshine I’m holdin’ on for better days

I pray for better days
I know what has to happen I’m away
I know in my life I’ve made mistakes
But I’m holdin’ on for better days

I pray for better days
I know what has to happen I’m away
I know in my life I’ve made mistakes
But I’m holdin’ on for better days

I wanna go back where we were sittin’ at that ice cream shop
I’m lookin’ at you in your eyes I’m feelin’ like my heart has stopped
You laugh at me for gettin’ soy peanut butter
Back then I thought (shit, nah)
I don’t need no other person in my life and nothing else don’t even matter to me
Maybe I’m so numb that nothin’ bad can ever happen to me
Maybe I’m so evil I attract all of these tragedies
Maybe we’re so graceful we create all of these masterpieces
So facetious we would laugh about it
Nobody can reach us for a half an hour sleepin’ in my half-apartment we don’t have to watch the news
I never felt more comfortable my face so close to you
And I’mma break it down for you
I think about you every day I sing about you every way cause you’re the perfect melody
I know the world ain’t perfect but to me you were my everything
My little light of sunshine I’m holdin’ on for better days

I pray for better days
I know what has to happen I’m away
I know in my life I’ve made mistakes
But I’m holdin’ on for better days

I pray for better days
I know what has to happen I’m away
I know in my life I’ve made mistakes
But I’m holdin’ on for better days

What does it mean if I don’t know what love feels like
My parents got divorced when I was young so I just feel like
Examples that I have to look upon are probably not great
Knowing you’re in a similar position doesn’t make it O.K.
I’m feeling like my goal is to make these blue skies turn grey
But in the blink of an eye it could go away
So even if it’s just for ten minutes I wanna drive around with you
And think about our life in the present these are our better days

I pray for better days
I know what has to happen I’m away
I know in my life I’ve made mistakes
But I’m holdin’ on for better days

I pray for better days
I know what has to happen I’m away
I know in my life I’ve made mistakes
But I’m holdin’ on for better days days days

I pray for better days
I know what has to happen I’m away
I know in my life I’ve made mistakes
But I’m holdin’ on for better days

The other day I was thinkin’ like
How come you never make a happy song you know what I’m saying?

Man vs World

“To the Notebook Kid” by Eve Ewing [Poem]
(can be found in The BreakBeat Poets on page 215)

yo chocolate milk for breakfast kid.
one leg of your sweatpants rolled up
scrounging at the bottom of your mama’s purse
for bus fare and gum
pen broke and you got ink on your thumb kid

what’s good, hot on the cement kid
White Castle kid
tongue stained purple
cussin on the court
till your little brother shows up
with half a candy bar kid

got that good B in science kid
you earned it kid
etch your name in a tree
hug your granny on her birthday
think of Alaska when they shootin
curled-up dreams of salmon
safety
tundra
the farthest away place you ever saw in a book
polar bears your new chess partners
pickax in the ice
Northern Lights kid

keep your notebook where your cousins won’t find it.
leave it on my desk if you want
shuffle under carbon paper
and a stamp that screams LATE
yellow and red to draw the eye from the ocean
you keep hidden in a jacked-up five star.
your mama thought there was a secret in there
thought they would laugh
but that ain’t it.

it’s that flows and flows and flows
and lines like those rip-roaring
bits you got
bars till the end of time
you could rap like
helium bout to spring
all of it
down to you
none left in the sun — fuelless
while the last light pushes from your belly

climbing your ribs

and you laugh into the microphone
and who is ready for that?

“American Dream Kingdom” by Derrick Harriell [Poem]

my mother suffers
from fibromyalgia and can only
listen to Gladys Knight
during the day / each night
she’s a prisoner
to the revolver my father
placed to her head
a million bruises ago / each night
she counts threats
like sheep / she hasn’t dreamed
since I moved
and when I invite her here
to dream she doesn’t sleep /
says trauma is a son-of-a-bitch
tricky little fucker who shadows
like the man / Jeff / who came after
my father split / I still
think of killing Jeff / I’m unsure
that not doing so makes me
a conservationist / I believe
he should be honored /
I’ve only thought of killing once /
of all the shitty people I’ve met
it’s like winning the fucking lottery /

I’m going somewhere with this /

four months ago my father left
the jailhouse / he’s always leaving
somewhere / I’m told he spent
a month in solitary confinement
for fighting with himself / he swears
it was some boogeyman
with tattoos and red hair
a mile long rap sheet /
three months ago
I wired my father get-by-money
from a Walmart in Mississippi /
two months ago
no one could find my father /
two days ago my father called
and no one could find me / yesterday
my sister said she gave him get-by-money /

I haven’t seen my uncles
since being racist became cool again / I wonder which taverns
they’re haunting / I wonder
the phantasma haunting them /
one of my uncles donates plasma
for twenty dollars a pop /
hasn’t worked a job
since his old lady stabbed him
in the forearm / this was before
my grandmother died
and everything around us
started getting old /
even newborn babies
started getting old /

each week my father wants to know
if we’re pregnant / if we’ve made
our son a sibling
to help bury us / each week
I hate my father
for his vasectomy / sometimes
I call my sister and hang up
before she answers
to say I called / sometimes
I call my mother and hang up
before she begins mentioning death /
my birthplace is a small-god graveyard /
sometimes I wonder if
my children are buried there

“Objects” by Marty McConnell [Poem]
(can be found in The BreakBeat Poets on page 96)

The girl in the tie is a boy in the bar light
and everyone in a skirt’s got eyes

for her buttons, snug in their sockets,
not one of them threatening

to burst. The light in the bar is the boy
in the girl sickened by lipstick. Every tie

is a slipknot, an unraveling skirt waist.
Her buttons say nothing

about regret or blurred mornings
or what’s under the lycra compressing

her chest. The bar in the boy is a pageant
of light, an astonishment of offers, skirts

pressed against the night, each other,
the boy, the boy in the girl in the tie

in the bar, the bar, her buttons, her hands
like her father’s, in charge, something

about power, something about
hold me down, something

about our fathers, some light
off her shoulders, some weight

the tie tells our skirts she can shoulder
better than our fathers, better her

than the bar, the night, our astonishment
of want. The boy in the light

is a pageant of buttons she knows
how to fasten in the dark. Escape

is key for the boy girl going home
with a skirt, going into the night

with the bar in her, with her lycra
and watch fob and the tie loose

as a slipknot, after all we’re all trying to kill
or marry our fathers and who better

than her, marooned at the bar with all
of his charm and none of his weaponry. What

better home for our want than the night,
her chest, our hands flattened against

the bar, each other, the lights overhead coming on
just as the music’s starting to get good.

“Crackhouse” by Quraysh Ali Lansana [Poem]
(can be found in The BreakBeat Poets on page 15)

greeter
she hustles us in
eyes tired

shadows stutter
behind nervous trees

outer room
screen door grime
a porous portal

paneling drips
frantic carpet

living room
up early ricki lake
an endless loop

tv’s wide blue mouth
the only thing moving

pantry
she fast food she
buy one get one free

kitchen
parched bones
silently akimbo

peel of burn
gray of skin

he sizzles
cooks

Death

“Murder Is My Name” by Angel Pantoja [Poem]
(can be found in The BreakBeat Poets on page 292)

Propelling towards death.
I am bronze as a shield,
freshly shined & cleaned for war.
Only, I don’t protect life.
My copper form reflecting the sun’s rays
as I push against the air.
Who
am
I?
To determine who should feel this
excruciating pain I bear.
My galvanized lungs
bursting with blood & air.
In a mixture as black as the skin I target.
But am I really this demented?
To fiend for the sweet,
comforting touch of burning flesh
to soothe my shrapnel corpse.
Now deformed as the bag of son I leave,
For a young mourning mother to receive.
Her once-vibrant oxblood torso,
now slumped over like a somber weeping willow.
Frail branches hankering for the son they recall.
Only to receive a young Pedro or Denzel reborn.
Haggard from gangrene halites
melting his cold, gangster exterior.
Who
am
I?
To have no life myself.
Yet idolized & feared by man.
Allowed to reshape men into fallow grisly forms.
Young faces varicose from my very touch.
Sorry neutron,
Sorry DW, Sorry young Latin King.
Sorry for snatching away the breath from within
your lungs.
It’s just,
sometimes I don’t understand
who I am.
At least I know one thing.
I am a gyrating scream of Chicago’s reality,
Propelling towards death.

“Written After a Massacre in the Year 2018” by Daniel Borzutzky [Poem]

You are mended in the locker rooms of the stadiums they dump you in when your body refuses to die

You are mended in Chicago on a beach that refuses to die

You are mended in Cuba on a beach that refuses to die

You are mended in California on a beach that refuses to die

You are mended in Guatemala on a beach that refuses to die

You are mended in Chile on a beach that refuses to die

The corpses of the Americas die their solar-powered deaths every night you refuse to die

You are frozen in the blocks of ice or melted in the sand-holes on the border

The morphine drips through your body eases the pain in your liver

The life-giving nutrients are jammed into your nostrils

A bureaucrat writes a dream song about the gentleness of the drugs they make you take so the blood will flow sweetly through your body

The privatized vitamins are jammed into your mouth and your lips are numb from the needles that grow in the garden

This is the state where the dead are restored to their death

This is the shithole song of the anesthetic

This is the shithole song of the corpse that refuses its own body

A bureaucrat walks by holding a cage for a baby

Which department or agency does the cage belong to

What cage manufacturer has signed the most lucrative contract with the municipality

It is unclear if the baby becomes a corpse before or after it is put in the cage

In the scope of the universe before or after does not matter

Once it might have mattered but in the blankest of times the laws of the desert and the laws of the ice block are the same

The laws of the bomb and the laws of the armistice are the same

You walk through the pitch black darkness of the surgery room and search for the end of your body

You carry a bag of stones around your neck and the stones are the state that raised you

You carry a corpse around your neck and the corpse is the state that raised you

“Always & Forever” by Ocean Vuong [Poem]
(can be found in The BreakBeat Poets on page 235)

Open this / when you need me / most,
he said, as he slid / the shoe box,
wrapped in duct tape, / beneath

my bed. / His thumb, still damp from
the shudder / between mother’s thighs, /
kept circling the mole / above / my brow.

The devil’s eye / blazed between his teeth
Or was he lighting / a joint? It doesn’t
matter. /Tonight I wake & mistake

the bathwater wrung / from mother’s hair
for his voice. / I open the shoe box dusted /
with seven winters / & here, sunken

in folds of yellowed / newspaper, /
lies the Colt .45 — / silent & heavy
as an amputated hand. / I hold the gun

& wonder / if an entry wound / in the night
would make a hole / bright
as morning. / That if I looked

through / it, I would see the end / of this
sentence. / Or maybe/ just a man
kneeling at the altar / of the boy’s bed,

his grey overalls reeking / of gasoline
& cigarettes. / Maybe the day will close / without
its period / as he wraps his arms

around the boy’s milk blue
shoulders. / The boy pretending
to be asleep / as his father’s clutch

tightens. The way the barrel / aimed
at the sky / must tighten
around a bullet / to make it sing

“Traumatized” by Meek Mill [Song]

It really hurt me when they killed Shotty
I was locked down in my cell and I had to read about it
And when they killed Diddy, left him out in Philly
We was young and gettin’ money, man we used to run the city
We was rockin’ all them shows, fuckin’ all them hoes
And when they killed Darryl, Renee had to see him froze on the ground
Downtown, I can hear the sounds now

When she walked up to that casket seen her son and fell down
I drop tears for my niggas that ain’t here
And still think about you even though that it been years
Cause half the niggas that I grew up with is all dead
All this pain and all this stressin’ I should have a bald head
Cause when my Aunt Rhonda died she looked Tock in his eyes
Saw death comin’, when she seen it she just cried
Prolly part of the reason we drink and we get high
When I find the nigga that killed my daddy know Ima ride

Hope you hear me, Ima kill you nigga
To let you know that I don’t feel you nigga
Yeah, you ripped my family apart and made my momma cry
So when I see you nigga it’s gon’ be a homicide
Cuz I was only a toddler, you left me traumatized
You made me man of the house and it was grindin’ time
So Ima let this flame hit you just to let this pain hit you
And for all them cloudy days Ima let this rain hit you nigga

I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know
You ripped my family apart and made my momma cry
So when I see you nigga it’s gon’ be a homicide
I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know
So Ima let this flame hit you just to let this pain hit you
And for all them cloudy days Ima let this rain hit you nigga

And I ain’t ready
Niggas wanna murder me I’m ridin’ around heavy
I think they wanna wet me like New Orleans and the levees
But I got this mac elevy, these niggas ‘ll never get me
Lord knows, I got a lotta homies in the dirt
Niggas sprayin’ metal tryna take you off the earth
Really over nothin’, tell me what it’s worth
Tryna take you out the game just to put you on a shirt

I rose from the jungle like Derrick
Death to anybody that oppose my spirit
My future lookin’ brighter than this rose I’m starin’ at
We be runnin’ trains on the hoes y’all cherish
Rest in peace to my niggas, I swear I miss them to death
My hammer sing murda music, I’ll let you listen to death
I’ll have you walk with the reaper when hollows rip through your chest
Cause if you throw ’em I throw back like Mitchell and Ness
I’m gone

I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know
You ripped my family apart and made my momma cry
So when I see you nigga it’s gon’ be a homicide
I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know
So Ima let this flame hit you just to let this pain hit you
And for all them cloudy days Ima let this rain hit you nigga

Man my life so real
Last night I went to sleep and woke up with the chills
Started with a dollar now I got a couple mil
And I make a hundred thousand every time a nigga spill
Man I almost got murked in front of the same church
My dad got carried in, family got married in
That was in my older days, this is now, that was then
Had the block jumpin’ for them dollars, Shawn Marion
Young nigga gon’ get my own that’s why I’m arrogant
Homie need the bail, for them bonds we’ll bury ’em
Lock ’em like a terrier
Breakin’ all barriers

Just to beat the trial we go miles like Darius
Cause cops tryna catch me, niggas tryna clap me
Haters runnin’ at me, know they wanna get at me
And people got the nerve to ask why I don’t look happy
I did it for my niggas, and I did this shit for Kathy

I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know
You ripped my family apart and made my momma cry
So when I see you nigga it’s gon’ be a homicide
I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know
So Ima let this flame hit you just to let this pain hit you
And for all them cloudy days Ima let this rain hit you nigga.