Affective Meltdown (11.9.2016—11.16.2016)

New beginnings
Wake up as the sun’s going down
Time to start your day bro

The eve of the election I sit down with kids in leather jackets
Yea looks tough but my god we’re so scared
I tell them did u know
The author of ‘I want a dyke for president’ is a Hillary stan
I mean I voted for her too but
what does ‘want’ mean when there’s no alternative

In the booth I felt the state move through me
like, I do this out of shame, for liberal twitter
like, choke me daddy, I want whatever you want, sure
like, I just want to get out of here alive

And what about ‘alive’ what does that mean
harm reduction lesser evilism as survival praxis
I’ve never stretched my arms never lived honestly
Please know this when you talk to me

 [interlude]

Day 1 the bus was silent. I drank a frappucino then woke up shaking in the dark The bar is dead and everyone is on the verge of tears
At least our Weimar period was lit
Still sticky from it I still smell it on my clothes
We jump the bar to hug through cold hysterics
Trade secrets for stockpiling estro
working through your worst nights
if I get my money right‑
I mean, we’ve been here building alternatives all along, you know?
I mean, it’s bad
I mean, it’s been bad, I mean, you know we get through shit

Every day shit
Every night shit
Every day shit

A man tells me, this is why Amerika is great
Guns to protect our land when the government comes for it
Except for standing rock or korryn gaines or,, fuck
This is so boring

Like it’s boring that the jocks feel justified now
It’s boring that the best that they can do is blame the immigrants
Boring like self-harm again like getting sad when you don’t call
Boring like, boys will be boys, like, they just do it for the lulz
Like thinking if we were thinner you would take us seriously
Like looking a riot cop in the face and seeing nothing
Boring like riot cops
Like how amerikan military force is the ultimate final boss
that no one has ever beaten
Boring because we thought that progress would be linear
But seasons are a way to time travel
And we’ve been sent back dozens, hundreds of winters
And ‘peace’ is cold and heavy like the snow
know them boys wanna see me broke down and shit
bummed out and shit
stressed out and shit
every day shit
shut the fuck up I don’t want your conversation       

Day 3
We trace dream paths like, gonna spend all my liquor money on lentils and herbs now
On sage and pennyroyal now
Like, grandmother come back to me, how’d you pull the babies out
How did you put all that hurting out
You yelled I FUCKING LOVE THE GOVERNMENT into the ceiling at dinner parties
just in case
Came home one day to find your neighbors disappeared. Who?
“You never had a neighbor.”
Taught us to hoard to do without to not have expectations
But we got comfortable

We have to get serious now, jo says,
Work out get huge get strong to de-arrest folks
Learn to run good
Punch the wall while whispering ‘ungovernable’
Make your body a weapon instead of a target
Reconsider the black magic ban
IN A DREAM YOU SAW A WAY TO SURVIVE
AND YOU WERE FULL OF JOY*
WANNA SEE NIRVANA
(don’t wanna die)

Apocalypses happen every day now
A year of screaming in the streets
mourning our dead
A year of checking in
A lifetime of state death, of deportations
Of grinning shadow-life and infowar
They try to tire us out but I am tired of everything but screaming

Day 6
Wake up as the sun’s going down
Anoint yourself with tiger balm and jasmine
Each muscle screaming tense like bracing for a punch
Read by candlelight the body is a coming of age story
All our tattoos are reminders to live

• Italics and clips from Frank Ocean’s “Nights”

** from Jenny Holzer’s Truisms

NM Esc traces origins to Coney Island, post-Soviet diaspora, and the 90’s Internet. They have written four chapzines as Reno Dakota as part of a project that explores dissociation, dislocation, travel, legibility, and Americana road kitsch, the latest of which, Between Ghosts, co-written with SJ Lee, is out on Mess Editions. They have recently completed a writing residency at Villa Magdalena K where they rode bikes to the harbor and worked on chapzines about queer vulnerabilities and wolf semiotics under xenophobic neofascism. They live in Brooklyn where they co-curate the TFW reading series and organize gigs at the Silent Barn.