AHIMSA TIMOTEO BODHRÁN

POST

for JR, & for Cherríe Moraga

This is sobering. The years I woke up in different cities, no memory of means of transport, others carrying me into bed. The time I drank three liters of wine in one night, and was fine, stumbling on beaches outside Venice at 17, waking up buzzed, still having eyebrows, drinking more at lunch, later, in what is to become post-Czechoslovakia. Oktoberfest in Mai, post-Mauer. It’s amazing what a scholarship can do. The time I kicked a Black girl in the stomach when they tried to take me home, out of the frat house, the fights I got into, bruises I left, punches I threw (away). The boy I stalked and would not leave alone. Also 17. How she never answered my letters. How the school I was visiting put me on wait list, later accepted me (but not financially). How crazy and near the edge I was that year. Señor senior of la escuela. I’m amazed I’ve graduated from anyplace. Jamesway Higher School of Learning. The closet will do that to you. Class closet. Race closet. The white couple I told I needed to be in abusive relationships with because I felt worthless after being raped. Of course, I never used those words: rape. abuse. worth. Amazing how any language fits inside our mouths. How they all said he was such a nice guy. Look at the flowers he b(r)ought you. “I need pain so that I’ll recognize pleasure.” My father worked hard. I never saw him. What we use for education; entry level 101/701 course. Remedial, -mediation. c(c). Do not collect 200 (milliliters). What we send on to others. Go back to go. Lose all property, hotels, friends. Open this gift. It is mine(d). The brown boy on crystal I wasted a year and a half with. The way I tried to walk out of third story windows. How I do not remember a good portion of my youth. Brownouts. Fellowship. Shrapneled skin. Falling off a bike. Other means of income. The hatred I have for alcoholics, anyone with slurred speech, missed step, teeth on concrete, stumbling. The way I refuse people the dollar. Why we all need dentists. Their empty cup. The way I flushed my mother’s cigarettes down the garbage, threw them in the toilet. Bailey’s und Rotwein and Eierlikör were my favorites. How superior I felt each time I saw someone else vomit or have hangover, fall flat-face into the ground. Fuckin drunks. I made it without programs, the. The way each of my brothers has become my father, and some man (n)one of us have met. Needing burial, dirt. I wonder how many different drug combinations between us. My education: “Here is someone who drank and drived/drove.” Scalp in a windshield. Body flung far. Polaroid Kodak moment. An aunt in jail. Just say no. “Use your seatbelt. Wear it.” Making fun of neighbors who go to AA and Alateen meetings. Us shooting the dog. My mother offering the father a beer, despite the wife’s protests. He was a good man. How good was he? Brother MP-ed into detox. Buckling up.

We never fucked. But I still hear your voice in my ear as if you were pulling out of me and reminding me to breathe, our back-chest, swamp. I know at this meeting, someone is supposed to make the coffee, but I never learned how. Drainage. Filtration.

The way I drank it as a child—Strawberry Quik.

Which substance, instant instance?

What it means to do without you.

This tree steals water from the other ones. It doesn’t belong here. It is very thirsty. But koalas like it. See how they teleport on TV?

Why we took a photo before it. Some way of remembering. Mangrove. A/TSI solidarity.

Is there some other way to do service? Stay sober?

We think we’ll make it around the lake in time.

My letters keep on getting returned. You never sent me your new address.

The sun is setting. Someone is waiting.

Drink.

"POST" originally appeared in Blue Mesa Review.

Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhrán was born in 1974 on El Día de la Madre in the South Bronx. A community organizer for over a decade, his award-winning work has appeared in over sixty publications including XY Files: Poems on the Male Experience, Revolutionary Voices: A Multicultural Queer Youth Anthology, Off the Cuffs: Poetry by and about the Police, and A Different Path: An Anthology of the Radius of Arab American Writers. Bodhrán received his B.A. in Women Studies from San Francisco State University, his M.F.A. in Poetry from Brooklyn College, and is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Rhetoric and Writing at Michigan State University.