dreams and penguins (p)

~
you know, my mother told me when 
I was in primary school 
that one of my teachers told her 
they thought I'd be the next 
Martin Luther King, Jr. 

I'm 43-years-old, now, 
and I've neither the hubris 
nor selflessness 
to agree. 
my race is just another box/
boxes on a form or application 
and most people seem to listen to me 
like a TED Talk or an overloaded calculator 
all symbols and abstracted letters. 

I'm a Buddhist, morally, 
might as well be speaking 
Hindu to a penguin, 
just happy to have skin 
covering bones, a heart, and a brain. 

if you want to have a conversation like that 
just have some dreams of your own 
before you ask about mine. 




**** 

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