“First on the List” from Be Story Free
A member of the Be Story Free Brigade reminisces on a time prior to their becoming free of narrative addiction.
I was first on the list once. It was a list
I made, n it didn’t last long, cuz I kept
Remaking the list, cuz ya gotta keep
Remaking the list in order for ppl
To care about the list, but wile it lasted,
Me being first on the list, it was awsum.
I was first for six versions of the list,
Then I started to drop. First I moved from
First to third, and I’m like, wo, but then
I shoot up back to first, but only briefly,
Cuz I fall to second, but a close second,
Like me n first, we’re really close, cuz my list
Is like that, ya know, it’s got that killer
Shit down, but then sumthin happens, n boom,
I’m fifth. Fifth. Fifth on the list, on the list
I made. Fine, I’m fifth. Like I’m getting used
To bein fifth, which is prolly the slack
That brot the snap, cuz now I’m sixth, now eighth,
Back up to third, down to tenth, back to eighth,
Then down to twelfth, that’s rite, twelfth, n I was
Twelfth for like forever, then eleventh,
N I’m like O yeah, he’s comin ba-ack,
Then ninth, then sixth, O he’s havin a run,
N then it was all over. I came out
With a new version of the list, n me?
I’m nineteenth. Like I’m barely on the list,
Cuz the list only goes to like twenty,
N get this, the next version of the list,
Wer am I? Nowhere. Not on it. Totally
Nickt from my own list. I mean, it was so
Awful. I put out this list, n I’m like
Wer am I? Y am I not on the list,
The list I made? That’s wen, like a street shrimp,
It hits me. N I’m like, yeah, that’s damn rite,
Yr not on the list, cuz like wut did u
Make last year? Wut did I make last year? Yo,
I made the list. Wut, u mean like the list
Yr not on? Yeah, I mean that list. Gee, guess
U’ll have to get on someone else’s list.
Get on someone else’s list? Like fat chance
I be get’n on someone else’s list;
Like nobody puts anybody else
Other than themselves on thr list anymore,
U noe that. I noe that. N so I’m like,
Well, I guess that’s wut it’s all about, ain’t it?
N ur like, yep, I guess that’s wut it’s all about.
“I’m a Rebel” from Dazl
Burners, the sister of the incredible girl child Dazl, talks about what differentiates her from her so-called perfect sibling.
I’m a rebel. I rebelize. N the root
Of my rebelishus rebelution
Is wdn’t u like to noe. I wil, howev,
Spot u one clue, cuz yr so clueless. Dazl.
Wuts it about Dazl? I tell you wut:
Me, whose rebelum vitae makes
Rebelishly clear how no one will ever
Outrebel my rebullient rebellicosity.
I don’t use toothpaste, n if my dad’s
Like, did u? I’m like, hu? I don’t do
Gratitude, warning signs, honesty,
Transitions, instructions, regulations,
Calm, trust, sympathy, seasoned counsel,
Weather appropriate clothing, learning,
Expectations, reality testing, cost
Benefit analysis, introspection, fresh
Food, accepted science, second thoughts,
Or sorry, but if sumthins makin it
Hard for me to breathe, I’m on it like
Who on u. Wen someone shouts “look out!”
I shut my eyes. You suggest it, I detest it, lolz.
U wana noe wut possesst me? U possesst me,
So I dispossesst u, cuz nuthin cd be
Further from the truth than my couth.
If I’m hungry, I deny it. If I’m tired,
I’m wired. Vendetta? Never been betta.
But bein a rebel don’t make me all no sho.
I like grafting grudges on sense data,
Dumping mor out the bak than u can hak,
Being careless with yr belongings
So I can shout “my home isn’t safe!”
Destroying a simpl errand with my
Griping n begging cuz it’s just so awkward.
N my sikest fave? Givin my rebel yell.
“I hate u yr so stupid I’m gona kil myself!”
My first rebelious act wuz wen my mom
Sed, “Who’s my baby?” n me? No habla yo face.
My second rebelius act wuz to not
Perform a rebelius act – dam, who’s thinkin?
Not me, cuz that’s another detox I free box.
My third rebelius act is to skip that n impose
On u my fourth rebelius act (she turns the camera off).
“What Must I Be?” from Griffin Hunter
Griffin Hunter, Undersecretary of Disarmament for the United Nations, is caught in a web of deceit woven by a covert consortium of international arms dealers. Having just returned home from a “chance” encounter with an old girlfriend (which was in fact orchestrated by said consortium to destroy his public credibility) he lies to his wife multiple times about where he’s been simply because he hasn’t yet figured out how he’s going to explain himself.
What must I be to be what I am not?
Untolds ago, my life became a lie,
A guilt I feebly quilt into reserve,
But now, guilt gives good chase, and I am caught
In more me than I know: last night, two lies,
This morning, twenty more. Tomorrow, what?
I will not know the story from the spoof.
After all my scraping thru the firma,
Blindly carving out the sight-splurging light,
Must I return as empty as I went
To the burrow of my birth? How live anew?
The past’s a driving virus that creates
Its own defense to mutate prior to
Identity, yet made to kill its host,
In its upper hand arrives its fail,
And so it dies, and takes its source along,
A happy couple, vigor-victimized.
I am so deeply basted in deceit
That every smirking probe emerges drencht
In truth-corrupted bunk. O sacrifice,
You’re nothing in yourself; they make you mean.
This Walker talk has clogged my cribration
For trust and chat. My loll of judgment’s basht
By fact I suspect of being fiction,
By fiction I must force into some fact,
And in this paragenesis, my mind
Fulgurates dioptricious crystals,
Enlight’ning to see, madd’ning to see thru,
All skewed and hued by dark stenecious growth,
Its cells fabricating and dividing
A heavy, fervent, raw duplicity,
That I am crafted of my self-distortion.
Round me, deceit convects, and thru me too,
Yet how can I be free of this affliction
When truth now seems an advertising trick
Burning the bridge that brought me to my sense?
Lies over lies over lies, O let me out!
Perhaps to leave a lie, one has to lie,
Much like a life-raft off a sinking ship
Is a lesser craft, but at least it floats,
And once on land, it’s fondly set aside,
Then on good ground you stand, which after all
Is but another respite from the sea.
To know you lie’s to know you know the true;
Yet what if you know two, and can’t decide
Which is the truer? Truer is the truth,
As less is but a lie. O fatal fact.
“Face” from The American Revolution
Peggy Arnold, wife of Benedict Arnold, prepares to meet her husband outside a British party where she is cavorting with her love, Major John Andre of the English Army.
Now must I face my husband, tho my mind’s
Upon my love. Thus in this about-face
Must I reface myself in a face off
With my own face, so off with my face
And on with me, who is but faced by face,
For face it, it’s all on the face of it
Yet anything with a face is nothing.
Face? There you are, I am. Now, master face,
We must work as one and not. You shall be
Other than I am, tho still my true face,
So pretty, so deadly, so dreamy carat.
On my sadness, a smile; of my anger,
Agreement; and paint my frigid blasé
With a lusty splend’rous sheen, for we must
Win him, face, and harmony wins the man,
So I need you to defray your deception
And make of me the facist I must be
To most candidly accoutre my façade.
Indeed, you are my weapon and my wound.
My weapon as I wield you, yet my wound
As I mend you, and who wants her weapon
Dull, her wound unkisst? You are a good face
For being so bad. But here comes boring.
I will face and deface him as myself.
“Goin Indie” from No More Pretending
Mobad, a successful Hollywood actor, runs into an old acting friend (who is not a successful actor in any sense of the term) and becomes convinced that he needs to leave show biz behind and return to his indie roots.
I’m talkin bout an indie reformation!
Gonna set my own standards, disregard
Dispense, gonna compose my audience,
Develop along my own lines, gonna
Misdirect the signs, disinvite the times,
Refine what I need, underfeed the god greed
So I can risk my assessments, squander
My investments, gonna stand for no frisk,
Won’t pander to nuthin, not even myself
On a compact disc all slanderin and cussin.
Gonna strut the gamut, prove the or-else
A bluffin but, gonna fight for the right
To be useless, define to dispossess,
Gonna say “But I digress” with the pride
Of the powerless, gonna crave my errors,
My snide ambassadors to metaphors
Unthought of, emulating prior to
Judgment, gonna flop, falter, feign my what-for
Beyond this grudgement of ingratiating,
Gonna hang with the wrong crowd that they might
Be neither, call me theater, but I love
To close, gonna sing my sinking song loud
Til I get away with the everyday.
Gonna descend to the occasion of
My rejection, cuz that’s the direction
Whence I transcend the trend and end this trance,
Gonna practice passive use, induce diffuse,
Make money jealous, defuse the famous,
As I run into problems like a hippo
Into potamus. Gonna show my know
To miscompute, miscompete, misconstrue,
Ain’t you? No one should work for someone else,
The planet’s way too precious for your wealth,
Yo, gettin paid be givin pollution,
I want the tribe, not the distribution.
Gonna pay my trib to the dis if the sys
Don’t salute, gonna refute my repute,
I’m done securin significant deals,
Gonna deal in significance that we
Might lose the need to be secure, embrace
The unsure – the medium is the mess,
So we fail in success – gonna recoup
What I divest, I don’t care what you think
Cuz I care what you think, ain’t gonna stress
No “How to be a snake and walk on two”
Booshit lessons, pressin on the buttons,
Hopin someone put my butt on sumthin
That I can get a cut on, I’nt no slut
What slugz execs for coupons. You a pawn?
Hear me yawn, as I get my naked on:
Fuck the industry; Mobad goin indie.