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Category: A philosophical phrase

Clues:

1. Lock:                Damn it … not everyone believes what you believe!
   Morpheus:       My beliefs do not require them to.
                                                                           —The Matrix Reloaded

2. It is achieved in solitude but never by separation.

3. No trinity—the ocean moves as one body, never confused with a 
     collection of raindrops.

4. Morning dew has a way more iconic metamorphosis than the butterfly, 
    sadly said no one.

5. It is Spring under a Bodhi Tree awakening to the Earth holding you—in
    wooden arms against grass-hilled breasts—the Earth is always holding you. 

6. The moment a raindrop touches the ocean, it becomes the whole ocean.

7. “Even if you are not ready for the day, it cannot always be night”—G. Brooks 
    “... the devil my opp, can’t pay me to stop…”—K. West
                                                                       (—YouTube fan mashup)

8. Fail and hang, death can’t save you—rebirth starts this game over.

9. Raindrops in the ocean suffer imposter syndrome;

10. there are no raindrops in the ocean—it is honing this sole wisdom.

11. This is the single most important answer of your life to get right.

Keep to yourself—moms’ solemn advice but,
            as soon as I got there, they had it in for me,
long shadows, of boys I knew, in white
            isolation, jumped, cut. There was feces on the wall,
everywhere mice, spoiled milk.
            Festering, we ran inside our minds,

berserk with capture—so much chaos,
            right and wrong is weird in there.
Once we smell weakness, we on you,
            was how The Tailor put it and meant it,
daring a brawl for table rights, the poisoned food.
            Each unheard voice surrounds me,
raging, and gives no quarter.

The eager clattering singing wastes my listening 

and I am over 



ready to run breathing the ways the 

sticks invite my wanting 



I want to think in feeling ways the talking thinks 

in moving ways the sticks invite 



thinking answering their questions 

the eager clattering singing does 



always interrupt the sailing play 

the play is the questions the sailing 



is the tears I know the tears 

will overfill ready to become 



a thinking and feeling I am 

ready to become a loving man

After I fumble another conversation about love, I think, 
Bird wouldn’t have hesitated for a moment, played 
coy as if everyone didn’t already know what #33 would do, 
daggers for eyes, soft hands ready to guide that orange ball 
exactly where he said he would. I’ve taken shots before, 
fear be damned, and missed more than I made, 
gone up and down the court enough to know 
halftime won’t fix everything. 
I’m bruised, my knee barks, my shot is shit, and I 
just need the bank to be open for once, for the glass to 
kiss the ball back, softly. I’m always writing to you 
like a last-ditch prayer, a heave from halfcourt 
moving like a meteor, like I could turn this white page of 
nothing into a night sky, these words constellations, 
old messages that would say in a hundred different 
shapes that I love you. All I ever wanted was Bird’s game, 
quietly telling opponents the spot on the floor where he would 
rise, after a screen and two dribbles, in the corner like a yellow 
sun and let the ball fly. I’m always writing to you 
to remind myself that all love poems are about the future. 
Under the bright lights of this metaphor, I’m digging deep, not 
vanishing when it matters most, to find the heart to take a shot 
when the clock winds down to nothing. The X-Man, 
Xavier McDaniel, laughs when he tells of how Bird took his heart once. 
You already know you have mine when the clock says 
zero my no-look mouth, my honey crossover, my silky net.

  —after Remedios Varo’s Mujer saliendo del psicoanalista

another face has sprouted in my chest
beastly, that’s me, a super freak
cavorting with your skull in my grasp
displaced personalities cannot be cloaked
ever, they will grow like a haunted
fever of wispy hair
gathered in a basket, along with time, a
half-filled vial of poison &
illusions of tick-tock-clocking syringe
just let me explain:
killing myself is not an option
let me try to live with my
multiple personas and their infinite masks, why
not weave them into a poncho
of chartreuse green, grow them,
pouch them, wear them like horns
question my memories, befriend
radical thoughts and nightmares
solemn my specters behind
tenuous doors with intimidating bells
understand the unexplainable, develop
venom as Tilda Swinton couture 
when dreams become a snail shell planted
X, marks the spot of this treasure I shall reveal,
yell on a mountain, YES, this is mine, I will
zap my fears—I can face all the faces, darling, of course I can