Ok, Here Goes Nothing

Calvin Walds

I’m *obsessed* with debt

because I have it.

In Paris, in a large house, we decided:

anything that makes you happy is worth it. ✨✨

In the large house, I tolerated facefuls of smoke

and smiled at things that made me sad.

A director, working on a project about a genocide,

held my shoulders. He said of the crowd:

“They don’t fucking get it.”

They were a distanced referential.

Internecine not; the director knew I knew

genocide. (I felt really seen in that moment.)

Reader, your call: should I find myself?

You’re right! Let me pretend. I should have said
to be propertied is relatable; not that I’m relatable to property. Who, me?

My friend gave a wine speech in the large house.

I got to watch. He thanked the hosts for hours.

My friend went to art school.

I took Political Economy.

(Video Art had a prerequisite.)

We learned about regimes and systems of governance.

I liked to walk around without speaking in Paris.

I encouraged those around me to practice their English.

I’m pretty selfless.

The detective in the film says: “He’s one of those kids born after the war.”

We all are, boss. The war the war the war.

We’ve all been very busy.

I want to connect to my ancestors.

So I lay in the park for five hundred years.

The sun shone red! (But Reader,

I was exhausted.)

Calvin Walds is a writer, educator, and sound and imagemaker from Detroit. His poems and texts have been published in African American Review, Hyperallergic, DIAGRAM, and elsewhere. His video work has been shared in ctrl + v and TriQuarterly. He is the author of a chapbook, Flee.
Originally published:
November 23, 2022

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