For The Nightmares I Had As A Kid

For The Nightmares I Had As A Kid Ahmir Allen

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For The Nightmares I Had As A Kid

I

Table of Contents

Flashback Candy Antiquation of Thundersaurus Lucky Number Seven Tag Doesn’t Sound Like A Real Word I’m A Wreck When Children Can’t Communicate II Existential Crisis #37 Gradual Predation Dreaming About A Joke To Questlove 2016 Workout Exhaustion Feelin’ Great

Flashback I Tomorrow morning my grandmother will wake me like she always does, she’ll send me outside while loving me from home.

II

These kids walk in snow slowly, tracing footsteps, not caring if they slip, just trying to make sure that they keep on their toes.

III

This small two-lane street that crawls up from an underpass might be my fear, mortality, housing monsters who wait and lunge when they see me.

IV

These kids do not speak.

They can’t shake the silent way that morning crept up, snuck the sun with it, exhaled the stars so smoothly.

V

They still see the moon,

pale, diseased, waiting for rebirth on the other half of the world, unknown, unmoving and silent.

Candy 35 cents a bag for gummy bears, red enough to dye your mouth,

red enough to bleed into your gullet, soft and squishy, artificial, always better red.

25 cents for a sucker, for swift scratches against your tongue, soft purple food coloring that drips

in your gums. 25 cents for the wrapper you throw down and for the cracked teeth that you’ll whine about all day.

Your sugar tooth will not last.

If it doesn’t fade away, it will almost certainly break.

Antiquation of Thundersaurus 1.

You treasured me when we were both two feet tall.

My right arm was the shield of defeat, sympathy, bulky blue security, the fist of generosity because I doled it out so amiably and without hesitation.

You kept me hidden in the corner, stable against the dresser, moved me only when you felt like it, my left arm was your destroyer, a drill to sew calamity, jewel-incrusted spear, and my prized possession.

2.

The giant maw sticking out from my heart, fangs and pointed tongue and fear- induction, so cool that I can’t imagine why you let me sit in that room for years, let me know how far in the back of your mind I was.

There was a time when I could throw down against your meanest enemies, the villains, the other toys, let you know you were okay and safe and free to imagine anything you’d like.

Now I’m stuck somewhere unknown, my image in the back of your mind, sometimes reminding you that you were a child not that long ago. I collect dust.

I don’t think you’ll be back any time soon.

Lucky Number Seven One day soon I will open my eyes and become seven years old, nothing will be significant in even the slightest way, no grandeur, no big clock ticking down inside my heart, no backbone to fight for, nothing to fight with, just an open sky shaping cloud after cloud inside my vision, and tomorrow is my rebirth, revitalization,

recognition will settle on my doorstep and I’ll walk right by, who needs work anyway?

Who can try to walk away from paradise?

In the morning I’ll slip through

cracks in the chain-link fence on my way to school and meet up with all of the other children who I never try to talk to, hear footsteps in the snow cracking ice, spilling empty gestures from my palms like saluting in a mirror with my feet on tip-toes, like punching 1-2-1-2 rhythm into my pillow

out of frustration when I throw a tantrum, listing things I hate over and over and over and over and over as a relaxation exercise, stuffing my face into small spaces to breath more clearly,

tuning out time so I can try to get used to the future and what I’ll be like as a seven year old

and what could go wrong and what I’ll be in ten years.

A Five-Person Game of Tag Five of them gather just after lunchtime, they keep their eyes moving, then break of once “it” has been decided.

One counts to thirty in fifteen seconds.

Two wastes time looking for somewhere to hide, shuffles back and forth between bridges and slides and never decides. One is already done.

Three runs away, past the jungle gym, past the soft playground floor, to the trees, to shelter. Three breathes heavily but feels hidden into safety.

Four hides at the top of a slide waiting to see the best route of escape, the realist with the time-tested backup plan.

Four just wonders how fast One can run.

Five’s biggest mistake was climbing way too high, trying to make up for distance by getting out of reach, but fails in the end when One climbs up to meet him.

One and Five get back in time to discover that Four is safe. Two was captured first.

They see Three running, leaping, trying not to slip in soft dirt or trip over a bench in the way.

One dashes out to intercept. Three gives up.

Two counts to thirty in fifteen seconds.

I’m A Wreck Slumped up against a car door staring at the stitches that crawl up and down my eight year old arms.

Slumped for few hours in a hospital bed on anesthetics, my eyes cracked open just enough to watch afternoon cartoons on channel nine.

Slumped before that in an ambulance with a neck brace and some kind EMTs, sirens blaring as I black out.

Before that, slumped on the pavement where I can see hazy cars stopped and smell smoke, oil, paint chips.

Before that, slumped in a car staring out the window, cradling a backpack, twirling string between my fingertips, daydreaming.

And before all of that, slumped over my bed as I reach for an alarm that tells me how late I am, trying to snap myself awake.

When Children Can’t Communicate When there was something I wanted my voice cracked through the air, it sent vibrations out into space.

Eventually that became an exercise, evolved into scribbling out what bothered me, repeating, repeating and repeating until the words broke and my hands were sore, and when that couldn’t help anymore I punched at walls and pillows when the walls hurt too much and shook in contempt, too stubborn to try and reason. Instead of talking things out I tried to stay silent and I never stopped trying and most days I got nauseas or tired or felt like broken words.

Most nights I sank into the sheets, melted or burned or knocked myself unconscious and I was reborn in the morning, half-dull but half ready to start all over, and nobody ever knew.

Existential Crisis #37 I’m trying to make my fingers more calloused.

To make the shallow veins in my hands show themselves. To keep my face in the shape of a half angry, half tired snarl for as long as I can, eyes shining and teeth gnawing, hoping somebody might think I’m thirty and believe that I can take care of myself like an adult, work when I need to, steal when I need to, keep my rigid posture because I always feel worthy.

Somebody might say it to my face. If everybody knew me maybe they’d say I’m boring, and yet exhausting at the same time, like long division or riding in noisy, gasoline-scented traffic.

Maybe my name would be Ted, as in Tedious, as in the nobody asked for me because nobody had the time, but I brought myself anyway.

Then here I am. Trying to grow so much that eventually nobody notices, or everybody realizes that there was nothing to take note of in the first place, grow so much that nobody can argue my presence.

Exist so much that when I break out of existing nothing will be the same, but that should be fine.

The world was already bored of the way things were going.

Gradual Predation I.

The key phrase for freshman year was “breakdown.”

When school cleared out by the end of the day and I stood alone in abnormally hushed air, feeling the lights pull my eyelids shut, quietly walking out and pretending

that I was actually just a ghost all along.

A specter haunting empty classrooms.

The repetition felt like falling, struggling against gravity

that didn’t notice me, trying to stay focused, stay sharp and quick even though all I had ever felt was dull and slow as fog lowering over the city and the woods,

like the way today ends up as yesterday in a few hours, like the way tiredness seeps into and out of the blood steadily as oxygen.

As if ghosts can become tired.

Now the key phrase might be “steady ascent,” the way I scrape time out of nothing

and devour it until my teeth crunch and my gums are no longer salivating

but rather aching painfully. Trying to churn out a full soliloquy like it isn’t staged, like I can read minds, like I can carve up and ingest the world, as if I can move on because I was just a ghost to begin with.

The key phrase is “gradual predation” so I can make it seem like I planned on being here.

Dreaming About a Joke In the meantime I’ll wait until I can totally wake up, let traffic barrel into my dream along with that buzzing alarm and the scold coffee leaves on my tongue.

Wherever I go will be asleep with me, getting ominously happier and happier until the joy tastes bland, the paint on the buildings fades, someone sings far away, the noise is barely audible.

And if I do eventually wake up I’ll feel guilty for letting that whole world implode, for letting myself give up on sleep.

So the choice is this.

Either I wronged myself, lost a day for a dream or I began the day wrong, and should never have woken up in the first place.

Keep convincing myself to let time fall or hold on to what I have left.

To Questlove Before there was me, there was Ahmir.

Before you there were probably scores more, and names like ours, and your talent, and the idea of talent, and you, floating in the ether, at the heart, deep down with the roots, long ago.

Now though, we’re all very permeable and just as unlikely.

I’m not the prince of anything.

You command music more eloquently than I believe I can live up to.

I command very little, occasionally I can make my fingers come to life, but not for very long and to much less effect.

Maybe we’ll meet up sometime, have a get-together between princes, talk about our kingdoms, the fast music that vibrates in the air, the soft words that linger on the mind.

In the meantime, best wishes.

- Ahmir

2016 It’s probably a good thing that I’m still seventeen.

In one year, when I’m voting, I’ll be considering why I am there.

What possessed me to get out of bed, stand in this line, pretend like this isn’t a joke?

Like I’ll want to emigrate less tomorrow?

Like it isn’t just another day?

What lie am I believing right now?

In one year My legs might shake the way they do, not in anticipation, just bored.

Kind of wishing I was anywhere else, my mind racing, astral projection in top form, just floating.

It’s probably a good thing that I’m still seventeen.

Workout On summer days when your father arrives unexpected, asking if you’re ready to go running for an hour, the sun shines extra strong onto the track.

When he yells to keep moving, to run faster, to breath, not to slow down once you see the finish line, try to remain patient, to ignore how much it takes to breathe, the way you stumble, trying not to fall when you finally get a rest.

His words are much less a punitive chant, the days where you felt comfortable while alone, moving between some books and a videogame as bits of daylight broke through curtains.

much more a call backwards to ten years ago, shouting what he should’ve done, who he should’ve been. until your inner voice is nothing but “what if this” and “why not that.”

and the silence soon faded as footsteps grew closer and you two argued over the sunshine, “It’s too nice outside…,” and so on, until someone gave up.

Now, once you’ve been dropped back home, watch how fast

you tune everything out, how little you feel like knowing, how much you can learn.

Exhaustion Because I’m trying to be honest with myself. I wish I could keep my mouth shut.

That feeling, this cruel heat, and your words that sink into my gut like stone.

If you’d just walk out, hate me from a distance, maybe they wouldn’t haunt every little twitch in me, every next breath and every movement like dying via toxin.

I used to act like a saint but that didn’t work so now I just exist.

Keep moving even though the air feels thin.

Keep the warm blood flowing. Keep sane.

Feelin’ Great Feelin’ better than the day, at least.

Feelin’ better and better now that I’m somewhere warm where the air doesn’t scratch my throat.

Feelin’ exhausted, feelin’ this worthless day can’t end fast enough, and tomorrow might not be any better, and it wouldn’t matter if I just closed my eyes and walked away.

I always end my day wishing I could redo it.

My hollow words don’t process until late in the evening and I realize what they really were. Me telling everyone my wishes, but never letting them know how unlikely they are.

Feelin’ lost today, like something I can’t understand. Maybe I’m not meant to and everything will be fine, soon I’ll have to grow up, and I’ll still be lost but perhaps less sluggish, less flat-footed, wiser and less regretful.

Poetic Influences Terrance Hayes Ha Jin

Cornelius Eady Natalie Diaz Jamaal May