Without Draft

That was October---
Even in the beginning the body has begun to fail, the lungs then the womb, as always.
The body was telling its ears that its clock for six months was telling it to stop. The ears have always been stubborn.

Or as Mr. Punjabi---
Now a vampire--- had said, "Take care of your body. Stop smoking. You've always been stubborn." Mr. Punjabi (a stranger, really) then had a case of the Evil Oink.

The brain smiles, wondering if Mr. Punjabi still maintains his motivation in this cosmic joke, "My goal in life is to be better than you." The mouth had laughed then--- Silly, Silly boy. Always, that goal is absurd.

What magic---
They thank and give their regards.

This business---
Of pouring life's essence into lives, knowingly, yet one calls it a wound of the soul for it can kill. It is marvelous and draining.

"It is an advocacy---"
My soul sister said: That you want to teach outside, and perhaps when you've had enough, you will return to the hallowed grounds. The body answered with a nod then a shrug, said, "Not for a while. I went to one of my former students spinning debut. She introduced some of her friends. I listened to them: They were whining. And all I could think of was: Shit, if these were my students, I'd probably be kicking their asses."

It is the immediacy---
If the body fails, then numbers will be without rice.
This is the immediacy of teaching hunger.

Or as one once-brother to the people's army had said---
Just last weekend, 17 hours of drinking, the damned had reconvened, "Let's generate profit. Jobs. Or we all keep on living hungry." The body agrees, "The solution lies in going inside." Then chided its brother, "You sound like you're 74 when you're only, what, 34? You've forgotten how to hope, Brother."

The Financier---
Is what this body is called by some memories. Or as the Smashing Yabadoowap Marxist had discovered, "And here I thought I was the only beneficiary! Yabadoowap Sister!" The most basic of needs--- food and paper, here and there. Or as Ito The Vanished had said, "It's your cheating in gambling. I just went along when you would mumble to me not to call." The body shook its head, "The goal was to take their money, not yours, and give them all to you."

By lunch---
Then, some body had cigarettes, Coke, Yakisoba and extra for the fare the next day.
Just last weekend, "You are still strong in drinking." The liver had sniggered,"This is all about endurance, not speed."
To endure poison births resilience.

And what has been forgotten---
In school, the right fist was walking hand-in-hand with another of its brothers, bought the two of them lunch, on the way back to the abode, the right fist had said, "I just need to take care of some business." Then pummeled some forgotten face for some forgotten offense, to calmly eat lunch after.
Or then, no longer in school, one of right fist's few flowers had cried for its thorn had broken her heart.
The Bumbay Flower had said, "And there you were with a gun,off to kill him."
The Right Fist had laughed, "I do not remember that."
The Bumbay Flower laughed, "You didn't kill him, by the way. And so, yes, the world is safer because you've gotten older, softer."
To which the Right Fist's Brother--- Brutus--- had laughed, "Or so the world fucking thinks. Or you like to think."
Or then, now, to be wished dead---a successful suicide--- is a laugh.

The old man reminds---
"My life has become a memory." And reminded of the Spanish reminder that to live without a friend is a death without a witness. 34 Who Feels 74 Brother had asked, "Is this still about immortality?" The answer was a laugh, "No, Brother. It's for life and for who and what matters."
And friend Leprechaun, do you like the name you have searched for and read? In life's crises--- you abandon friends--- unthinking in your convoluted philosophy.

What is a friend---
It is acceptance.
Yet when self-interests conflict with friendships, hands, hearts---these body parts--- are cut off.
That is abandon.

The body feels old---
How else would it think if the bodies it had taught are graduates for a time now. One is a teacher, said, "Teaching literature is hard." And always, this body of solutions, listens and then speaks solutions. Listen...The heart...

What is the problem---
The solutions. Sometimes the body thinks that it is the Motherland's affliction: dwelling so much on the problem, pointing out what is the problem, dissecting and blaming, not generating enough solutions.

You are going inside, Older Brother---
With your "I am not anymore", inside the Motherland, these storms, these floods, what has always been the struggle of words--- the spaces, Older Brother--- time.

To do what one can---
In these storms, these floods, this body was supposed to drive home to the South, to breathe, to let its dried heart heal. But last night, dawn, morning, the wind had howled and the roads to home are blocked by uprooted trees. The towns in between this city and home might be flooded by the sea that had overflowed in exasperation.

Home---
Where a cherished sister, children, and first sons are waiting in the storm.
In the howling, the floor is the bed, and sleep that is seeking cover from what might break windows---
The windows that the right fist sought to break, the windows separating this body from the outside.
To fly--- so as to stop the falling.

It is still October---
The sky is still and scattered gray, without a draft, returning to this.
Tomorrow, the dead souls are remembered:
The first day of this body's last day in the calendar.