"Keith and Julia," by Keith Haring
All The Gifted Youth Today
Dissociation is an experience of human existence that affects one’s sense of identity or perception of time, and can create a feeling of disconnection from one’s thoughts, feelings, and surroundings. How does a dissociated state impact our youth, our development, or (more integrally) our personalities?
I swallowed a pill, took a pen, & began to jabber-write
It has been four years now
since the last time I slept
with a woman,—she was older,
& even worse—
she was a whore—
who was just thirsting for the 600 Dirhams—
(60 bucks)—I had been saving for two months,
I remember her asking me:
“Were you a brilliant student
in high school?”
“I guess so, I tried my best
to get good grades.”
she chuckled, then croaked in
a cigarette-induced vocal chords’ dysfunction:
“Now, I can see clearly why
you give the first impression
of a madman.”
So, I asked her: “What does make you think
that I am insane, or was a brilliant student?”
So, again, in her bullfrog, rusty voice
she put cigarette’s smoke into words:
“Because you seem to be unemployed,
& broke, hey! Everyone knows this,
are you kidding me?
All the gifted youth of today
are getting shellshocked & most of them are
out of work.”
“Alright, alright, I’m not gifted!”
“Of course you were (Ha-Ha-Ha) but you aren’t, now!
though, right this minute, you appear more to be touched.”
I allowed her drunken speculations
to walk an undulated line of reason & thought,
maybe, she was right, maybe, she wasn’t.
“So, how much?” I asked her.
“500 Dirhams for the insertion of your flashdrive.”
“I only have 400 Dirhams on me.”
“Okay, okay, that’ll do, I heard
enough negotiations & complaints tonight, but you’ll
have to order few liver-sandwiches
on the way.”
“Okay, deal!”
Her smile went wider than a supermarket’s
automated door, even wider than the world!—
revealing her silver-coated incisor.
We arrived at her apartment,—
it was poorly furnished,
there was no mystery
looming in it:—it only served
as some unpopular dentist cabinet, or,—
some place where money has been
overly mentioned,—the least friendly!
she had a little dirty dog, he looked sick,
and much frightened & curious.
She locked him in another room,—then
got undressed, took off her height-mocking heels,
jumped on the bed, & asked:
“What are you waiting for?”
I took off my shirt, exhibiting
my Kit-Kat-bitten-wrong torso,
pulled down my pants, inserted my flashdrive:
I gave her no more than 8 meaningless strokes,
then, I pulled out. “I can’t do it, I drank too much tonight!
Anyway here’s your 400.”
“It’s fine,” she said, “I have a client like you
once in a while, but always remember to pull out
that fast, don’t bring on another madman!
HA-HA-HA-HA…Look, I’m serious now.
Look, take my number, next time I’ll be a magic-woman!”
I left her there, with the liver-sandwiches,
the frightened dog: he was hardly any dog, but indeed,
her short supply of care.
On my way home under the second-prize-medal’s light,
my fingers smelled of dead sardines and body-grease, tho’
I little thought back then that the smell would have turned into the aroma of flowers in climax by the end of four monastic years.
Bedsore rivers
I have the laugh
of a half decade
on my shoulder,—&
still it’s Others’ fancy
to wet it with their tears.
What egotists!
They saw the laugh &
falsely thought it was mine:
A laugh furthermore!
Far be from me!
I wish to be a prehistoric man:
to delight in the embryonic sight
of the offspring of nature’s labor,
& in stones filled in the inertia of
man’s titan ism,—like my old keepsake
of my wanton attacks ‘gainst myself:
No more a shiner!
A handful of sunflower seeds
fried in hot sands, & lights giving
off the glare of superstition, is all
that’s left for the poor.—
I wish to remain alone
alongside all the poverty:
I’m no more than a man
who came out wet of the parades
of their whole-grain breads.
They fabricated a disease for me,
thus,—a winsome cure,
& tethered me to the fears of
a new place, & a new happening.
M. Ait Ali was born in January 1992, in Agadir. A Moroccan writer and poet, who finds in words and poetry a total escape from the depressive realism one encounters in his everyday life. Poetry and writing for him are both a passion and a therapy capable of taming his demons. He survived in summer 2016 a failed suicide attempt “O.D.” following a tragic event. Since then, he vowed to refill his soul with his passion for words, and the meaning it accords him.
He earned in 2016 a bachelor’s degree in renewable energies and energy efficiency at The Higher School of Technology-Agadir, (EST.) along with a diploma in advanced French. His works have been published in Silly Linguistics, The Tipton Poetry Journal, Variant Literature Inc, Carcinogenic Poetry, VirgoGray Press, Rigorous Magazine, Nebula Adnauseum Magazine, Alien Buddha Press, Rogue Wolf Press, Spillwords, and A dove for peace Anthology.
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