Performing They Call Me at The Berkeley Poetry Slam

My first time performing at a poetry slam. I made it through to the next round but I had to leave early. I’ll bring it way harder at the next slam, trust.

The Snooze Button

waiting
and fucking tired of it
fingers fidgeting
when can I tell you to fuck off?
I don’t know you
even when I bare my body like
maybe I do
intruder in my arms
I wait for a moment
to deny this lust
so I can quit pretending
that there is an us
waiting
nervous twitching
eyeing my teacher
got my test back
I don’t like the letter
slept on piles of abstract algebra theory
knowing I could’ve tested better
sitting here
waiting for hard work to befriend me
sitting here
watching patience slowly end me
waiting
cold sweating
four in the after fucking noon
I awake to another day of unemployment
hire me
fire me
give me experience
acquire me
retire me
I am delirious
waiting for the classifieds section to read me
waiting
frantic, fretting
phone screen glaring
flip open my cell for the 50th time
anticipating your text
scroll through a dozen heys and hellos
hoping yours is next
a smiley face decorates my reply
and I sigh
as if I didn’t spend that eternity
suspended in helpless wonder
waiting
blank page staring
dad says he’ll be dead before my homework does itself
so I still have hope
though writing at zero words a minute
for hours
is a long descent
down a short rope
my paper sits there
waiting
fingers fidgeting
nervous twitching
cold sweating
frantic, fretting
phone screen glaring
blank page staring
waiting
and fucking tired of it

Julian Daniels
Image by BurlapZack

They Call Me

they call me
Boy
i play with toys
flush barbies
and make noise
cuts and bruises
are kissed by mom
crying lasts til she makes me calm
clothes were made
for dirt and grime
stories were written
to be told at bedtime
tantrums thrown
when my wishes are
denied
tears rained heavily
when my pet tadpole
died
they call me
Man
I swallow tears
choke back emotion
and follow peers
base worth and value
on cars and clothes
told me to get a girl
and a couple side ho’s
my face stays blank
like computer paper
father says
expression
is a feminine flavor
but love is okay
to a certain degree
I learned how to feel
without
sensitivity
and my manhood?
always protected
so that girl wasn’t shit if I’m rejected
cuz I know she was taught
to love these guns
and fall for greenbacks and mutual funds
i know
i know
society wouldn’t fucking lie
and tell me that to be a man
i couldn’t ever cry

Julian Daniels
Image by Bakenius

Speaking of Mutes

Muted movements
Silenced stories
Too much European white noise
Drowning out our presence
Within the blinding static
I see
Black children flunking out
Failing classes
Don’t our children know?
Of academia in Ancient Africa
Once at a volume so high
The Greeks couldn’t sleep at night
Burning the midnight oil trying to figure out our Arithmetic
Lebombo and Ishango bones
Mathematical mysteries
Knowledge they would soon steal and keep
Burning us with their white fire
Centuries of white fires
Hate
Centuries of bootleg knowledge
Yet
We still say Alexander is
Great?
It wouldn’t be so if I had written the story
Our story
About how scholarly scripture was ripped out of our sun-kissed hands
About how early our children were kicked out of our sun-kissed lands
Doomed for generations
In suffocating tombs of colonization
Country-sized coffins
With this cacophonous literature
Read by white candlelight
Relentless in its pursuit to maim my brothers’ past
Maybe my pledge of allegiance wasn’t meant to last
Placing my hand over a colonized heart
Singing songs of bombs and forgetting tribal chants
Giving proof through the night
That I still see
Black children flunking out
Failing classes
Being taught to walk backwards through time
With 50 stars in their eyes
I’d say
Class is failing them

Julian Daniels
Image by SavannahGrey

Lacking.

there is something wrong
when you can’t trust
that bloody mystic vein
lying cautiously behind your chest
Lying
Cautiously
with its beat that drives the breath
to draw life in
to push life out
how are you
Apathetic?
or or is it only when I
speak
with my twisted tongue of red thorns and roses?
and when we
speak
with our oral curtsies and flirty proses
do you not feel
warmth
from the old fire?
there is something wrong
when you can’t trust
that contorted vineyard of thoughts
and dreams
scheming selfishly inside your skull
Scheming
Selfishly
with its pulses
memories
and how it lets them fade
into unconscious crevices
how are you
Apathetic?
or is it only when
remembering my name
and all of its
caustic implications?
or when you
say my name
does it end in a bitter cold
and icy irritation?
there is something wrong
when
we can
live
breathe
think
love
without
trusting
ourselves.

Julian Daniels
Image by artiswolf

Cracked at the Edges

I gaze into the unwelcoming eyes of passersby
Through pupils glazed with lies from a past denied
Thoroughly
Petrified
Entering a world of blank faces and weary spirits
Alone
In my head
Prone to repeating these droning tones
In my head
Must prove myself to a paper degree
That I am removed enough from the traitor in me
A character that I despise
A lazy creep that sleeps and lies
Must scrape together disjointed fragments of late nights
Textbooks and Marlboro lights
60 Watts of bulb light glaring
Until I fade into
Mornings I can’t remember
With glazed eyes
Eyes without the right to
Cry
But with privilege
Privilege to stare down
Unwelcoming eyes of passersby
This school can smell my indecision
Isolation
With its many forked tongues
It sheds its skin
Leaving the dead behind
The unprepared
Failed and lost
I want to lose
Myself
My eyes bleed recursive algorithms
Fibonacci numbers
Binary relations
But I haven’t cried
Yet
Slithering around somewhere in this town
Is a snake
With my focus in its throat
I sit
Mind wandering through feigned social networks
As a reptile chews through the last remnants of hope
I sit
Thoroughly petrified
Alone
Medusa
I am stone

Julian Daniels

Ahn Nyeong Ha Se Yo

I write
for the silenced black child in me
that grew up with Asian hand-me-downs
and a broken culture with no name
because father’s voice thickened ghetto fog
I cannot see the world he left behind
as Home
where grandma sits
contemplating on
characters from a book with smudgy ink
I cannot read the world he left behind

born under black sheep
the child roamed
through plains of immigrant Korean voices
shoes off at the door
ramen with the family
siblings with slanted eyes
안녕하세요
엄마, 아빠

the child liked it there
before being banished from Home by
intruding peers
suddenly, black
검정
the dark hue of smudgy ink he could not read
the dark hue of ghetto fog
through which he could not proceed
father’s embrace
his only education of a brown place
not enough preparation for
school’s brown space
mutual rejection
he just wants to go Home
안녕하세요
엄마, 아빠

they try to say
Home is where the black is
well he was beaten
beaten black
검정
beaten into
code-switching
identity confusion, frustration, delusion
the child, lost
nervous steps in new homes
feels like intrusion

black can’t be this hard

so he reads that smudgy ink novella
he fingers through tales of statistics and sorrow
where an unlikely hero survives – father
against villains of the same blood
but
the child cannot see the world left behind
as Home
where grandma sits
contemplating on
rolling stone, no-child-support-paying motherfucker
– grandfather
silenced savior, shotgun suicide
truck driver
– stepgrandfather
characters this child could not share love with
the child wanders.
잃어버린

now
Now I reject every place society tries to contain me in
I will not be shown where Home is
아니요
Home is in the arms of
a black sheep,
hard-headed urban street warrior
– father
Home is somewhere in the hills of Walnut, CA
somewhere I can sleep until 5PM
Home is where I can take road trips
with a goofy, fair-skinned baby brother
Home is my 엄마 and my 아빠
Home is wherever the fuck I am as long as my cell phone can reach
my 엄마 and my 아빠
Home is somewhere you cannot be
Home is someplace you cannot understand

I write
for the silenced black child in me
who grew tired of knocking on so many doors
with no answer
to let him know
he can come Home now
흑인 소년. 집으로 돌아와.

Julian Daniels

Arizona is Cold

The faith was gone
Chapters of sacred verses
Rotted
Engraved stones of useless rules
Useless tools to get
Salvation
Crumbled
The faith was now
Empty red wine bottles
Moldy, sourdough bread
Blood-stained glass
A cacophonous choir

You left me
Sitting on the playground
Alone and cold
I could not be consoled
Your selfless embrace replaced by flashbacks and grey ashes in the cracks of a bitter wall
Too small a container to hold your life
Your unconditional love shoved into a mass of dust we trusted to retain your spirit
My mind
Too violent a world to forgive your death

I lost a fortress
Granny
The peace of your home was
The peace of my mind
A piece I have tried to find
Again
Among the scattered shrapnel and singed steel
Amidst an Unholy War
Of my creation
Flaws and cracks in my world
I still bleed through the cuts of your departure

I realized
Those phone calls were never enough
The pictures and “thank you”s
And kisses and “I love you”s
And old rocking chairs
And custom, cotton build-a-bears
And corduroy jean repairs
Were never enough

I realized
That the more I understood
I love you’s
The more I hated Him
For not giving me a chance
To love you back
Like I wanted to
Like I needed to
To show you
I know
You loved me

So now I close the Testaments
New and Old
Refuse to break the damn bread
Like He broke my spirit
Because if he existed
He would have cared that you sat and watched me sleep away that night
In that rocking chair
Begging to stay with me
In that room
Forever
He would have seen
A love
That I could not have seen yet
That could have brightened the gloom of my waking scenes
And not just surface
Hauntingly
In bitter dreams

If I could speak to that grey dust you left me
Granny
I would whisper
I love you
To watch it carry on the wings of my words
I only have one prayer left
And it’s not to God
It’s to you
I only want a heaven
For one more hug

I love you
Rest In Peace Granny

Julian Daniels
Image: Me and my Grandma, Jeri Cagnolatti

Me-Phobia

I did not know what loving myself meant
But I could never speak enough words, sentences, short essays, speeches about
Our love
I could never stop talking, chatting, blabbing, blahdiblahblah-ing about
Your big beautiful eyes
Creamy, white thighs
There were no pauses in explanations about
The grace that was
That embrace
That kiss we wanted to last until the sun burned out from exhaustion
So the moon could step over his tired ass and sneak a couple peaks at
Our love
That weird shit you did with your hand
Yeah, cover your mouth when you laugh
Like I don’t want to see that majestic smile
Yeah, stupid stares and silly glares and inside jokes of infinite limits and laughter
Hand over your face when you laugh
Like I don’t want to be looking at
That weird shit
That
Weird
Ass
Shit
What the fuck is cute about foot-phobias and a strange, baseless dislike of dolphins?
Glass rocketship dreams and lactose intolerance?
Stories that ended
Awkwardly?
Nothing
Unless you’re you.
Weirdo
Damn I loved to laugh at you
About you
About us
And I knew
That some of this weird shit was mine too
Things I didn’t really like
About me
Like
My awkward attempts at making eye contact
For 5 seconds then…look away for 3 seconds?
What?
Ugh.
Social phobias
I had to learn
To look at you
And I still don’t really know how to
Keep a conversation going
Without pretending to text
My mom
And somewhere along your devious plot to laugh and love insecurities
You managed to secure me
I was falling in love
With you
With me
Claiming those flaws like gold flakes in a newfound land
Building a newfound man on a foundation of funny
Acceptance
But somehow
I lost my footing
Again
I guess
I guess I
Saw too much difference
Too much
Weird shit
Weird
Ass
Shit
For me
The suspenseful end of our favorite show
I closed the velvet curtains and sang the Awkward outro
Unwillingly
And since then
For you
Without you
I fight
So damn hard
To Love
To love Me
Again

Julian Daniels
Image: “Nervous” by rinchan089 [http://rinchan089.deviantart.com/]

I Will Kill

*Dedicated to the child soldiers fighting in Myanmar

Wake up to wield guns dispersing wicked wild fires of wrath and inherited warfare
Through sixteen years, since a short sentence in the womb
The abandoned tomb in which my troubled spirit rots
With a woman’s warmth sacrificed for rebel sin
Flaming fields of hidden tigers
Yellow eyes
Growling, decrepit creatures at the backs of carbine clips
Watching
Us, hungry little boys
Little boys with pasts blasted with bomb barrages
Burmese hearts pumping blood thick of smoke, shrapnel, and steel
Clammy hands clutching the metal grips
Broken baby eyes peer through scopes
Our mothers hollowed out by the men they send
Our fathers hollowed out by the lead we deliver
Fractured fractions of rebel factions
They feed us
Lies
Bullets
Food
Water
Smoke
Opium
They feed us
To hollow out our drums
So it sounds better when they beat us

-Julian Daniels

The Dimmest Light

Slumber’s silent embrace
Moving closer to a lasting place
Darkness, Void
Resting still, with rosy cheeks
Yet to drip black liquid leaks
Silence, Void
Wrapped in warmth, summer care
Stripped so slowly of poison air
Eternity, Void
Dancing pulses on loving green veins
Dying footprints on our crumbling remains
Nothing, Void

-Julian Daniels
Image: “60562_wallpaper” by Kubicki [http://kubicki.deviantart.com/]

Focus

I scream at him
Fists slamming walls, crumbling plaster
Ready to rip his very soul out for my cause
I scream as if battered lungs and broken knuckle bones will make him move
Grab his shirt and pull him too close
‘Til sweat and spit collide
Wake the fuck up boy
Leave him with ugly scars and bleeding sores
To remind him, every damn day
As he burns out the moon to toil over impending deadlines
He doesn’t hear my screams, my voice, my volume
He doesn’t feel my fists, my knuckles, my cuts
I don’t hear his screams, his voice, his volume
I don’t feel his fists, his knuckles, his cuts
As I burn out the sun and magnify my stress
Reminded every damn day
By deepening scars and festering sores
Sleeping a torturous slumber
‘Til dreams and reality collide
Grabbed by my shirt and shoved in the dirt
He screams as if swollen lungs and shattered knuckle bones matter to me
Ready to tear my very soul out for his cause
Fists fracturing walls, cracking plaster
He screams at me
Get your shit done

-Julian Daniels
Image: The Focus of Reality by Genesis Orbit [http://genesis-orbit.deviantart.com/]

Venom Hue

Black lust, performing its dance of midnight lore
Black hearts, upon the festered shore
Black teardrops, bleeding to the brim of every pore
Black rain, painting the city floor
Dark grey, where my darkness is assured
Dark grey, where angel love is tinted and blurred
Dark grey, a silence too intense to be heard
My grey, where color is just a fucking word

-Julian Daniels

Ethanol

Fooled again, by your liquid love
Or seduction
By your burning sensations of belonging
Glass curves, erotic poisons
We never just choose one, now do we?
No
Too many paths
And scenic routes
Choices
That heavenly release of barbed rivers
Serrated streams
Rushing out, onto me
Into me
Ambrosial fusion of dying Nature and Her Death
Love me some Celebratory Death
Love me some Absent Inhibitions
Yet, once I consume…
Oh, when I consume…
I meet your jagged edges
Introduced to the blades of your whispers
Leaving crimson stains on a hopeful tongue
Lacerated dreams of confidence
Dreams left as mere ribbons on my unsteady heart
Pass straight through me, burning
Fighting through the night
Through the festivities
Sinful as you seem
Sin is me

-Julian Daniels

Nikon

If I could take a picture of my life
With a Nikon D-series
Would it find a home?
After a lively gust collects my brown ash
Would it find a home?

-Julian Daniels
Image: “Nikon” by x-therumor [http://x-therumor.deviantart.com/]

Today Is Funny

Funny how some words only poke you, while some strike you or maul you or bludgeon you
And the absence of some words can deal the same damage
Funny how beauty is everywhere except where you live
And vacations always need to be in another country
Funny how we print paper money and have a terrible economy
This is monopoly with cheaters
Funny how the scholars may laugh at these truths
But only the simpleton will act on their lies
Funny how we have to buy cool from the mall or online
And we can’t just own it, because cool is evanescent
Funny how young people can never listen to old people
Unless it’s for a grade
Funny how AIDS mostly affects africans and gay men
The World’s favorite outcasts
Funny how black people have disappeared from the hiphop dance scene
And Filipinos wearing limited edition nikes have replaced them
Funny how people love to learn offensive words in different languages
But can’t even speak their own properly
Funny how they think you need to rhyme to be a poet
So if you prefer free-form or haiku, the first line better have a rhyme below it
Funny how I speak of being lonely and depressed
But, I ignore calls and texts all day
Funny how we never try too hard to understand ourselves
And we think we know some people better then they know themselves
Funny how it’s not interesting if it’s not surprising
And none of these are surprising
That’s what’s funny

-Julian Daniels
Image: “Enjoy Your Fall” by iTaylie [http://itaylie.deviantart.com/]

I Fucking Hate Writing

Carefully picking and choosing every word
Maybe this syntax could save your life
What a craft you have there, son
See, the lines get shorter
Creative, huh?
Beautiful.
Now, reverse
Make them longer
Change their perspective
Make them see you differently
Maybe you can make money off of this
Because all you want is money
Because money is everything
Because money is anything
If you really want it
You can grab it with a green, paper hand
Aha
And there they all thought you were deep and sophisticated
Oh and how they bought your cynical undertones
Imagine, kid
Kid
Boy
Customer
Consumer
Artist
Producer
Audience
Demographic
Why can’t I be Julian in a world full of beautiful names and colors?
My problems have names
Depression
Anxiety
Addiction
Each with its own convenient Merriam-Webster definition
Why can’t I?
Why do I only need one color?
Green
When I sleep, bathe and live in brown skin?
Oh yes, Mr. Daniels
The usual?
Written Resistance and Underground, Social Discourse
However, today’s special is Spoken Word
It’s the loudest meal we serve
A piping hot Oration served with Ethnic Roots and Subculture Unification
Leave me be
I come for the usual
My tastes are specific
Where was I?
Yes
Back to my business
Back to my grind
Back to my work
Yes, can’t even speak the urbanspeak without terms of monetary accumulation
Terms of green-making
This dusty language
And it’s many shortcuts and scenic routes
Some wondrous and satisfying
Some revealing and mortifying
And your point, Mr. Daniels
Yes, you would like a point
Wouldn’t you?
That’d probably make things easier.
Simpler
Cheaper
Then, find your point
That’d probably make things easier.

-Julian Daniels

Queer Temporality

There is an ignorance in your voice
The kind of which has wilt the blooming lilies
The kind of which has pierced the hearts of dreams
It’s a peaceful attack
On all that is good
And on one that is evil
To find adequate space to breathe in the way creatures do
I carved a habitat into my skin
Yet, even there I’m not alone
I can’t discern the echoes from the replies

-Julian Daniels
Image: “Yellow” by prbimages [http://1x.com/member/5886/prbimages/]

Summer Songbird

With your wide eyes and open wings
As the season approaches me with flowers
Your melodic presence is a gift itself
Wrapped in rare colors
Tagged by habitats resting solemnly in your sleepy past
Surely you can stay to chat
Perched on my windowsill
Surely its a sign
Revealing notes of bittersweet times
Surely there’s a higher plan
Perched on my windowsill
As I finish breakfast
The evening beckons you with a tiring sun
Yet, your song still bounces around the halls
Thank you for being different, Summer Songbird
With your wide eyes and open wings

-Julian Daniels
Image: My own photoshopped version of “The Bird” by kluzehellion [http://kluzehellion.deviantart.com/]

Dating The Sun

Hello New World
With your fish and your sea
Many greetings and dinners
Kissing hands, sipping tea
Upon the shore
I sat back and received
As the sun looked behind me
And the moon believed
Wished upon a star or two
Felt a love and saw the land
I salute to sunsets of fire
A beauty I don’t quite understand
The lovely skirts that have passed my door
Passions that enter and retreat
I’m less exposed than I’ve ever been
So we can be discrete
Then it’s back to the boat
To accept the ocean’s embrace
Good friends and brewed spirits
They’ll all learn to replace
Distant hearts of vacations past
Could’ve been, but wasn’t
I can only write their stories
And rhyme with what she doesn’t
Pencil and paper at the ready
Strawberry Daquiri by my side
A gentle soul lying near
Where many could’ve lied
Sketching my new world
With words from beyond your reach
Smiling at my new sunset
A canvas splashed with a solar peach
Hello New World
With your fish and your sea
Many greetings and dinners to come
Kissing hands, sipping tea

-Julian Daniels
Image: “West Coast Sunset” by Daniel Hasselberg [http://1x.com/member/2509/daniel-hasselberg/]