Excerpts from Mayers’ Performance Piece, My Culture Has Become An Industry.

*Please note, these poems have been formatted using hanging indents to fit mobile screens

A Eulogy for Anxiety.

by Lester Mayers

If Paris is still burning, then Brooklyn gots to be ____freezing, and anywhere in between must be
freezer-burned or so overcooked it's unsafe to
____consume. Either way, we are; we are all at
____risk of
contamination. We must find a new examination
____to measure life because the money we've
____been
loading on spoons of exhaustion, shoving down
____our thoughts, is making us so sick we've
____started
regurgitating, confusing medicinal with
____conventional.

And for what, to struggle to make a living and feed ____death so easily?

There is no traditional form of healing to solidify
____the ____
validity of our culture without the discouragement
____of unnecessary competition. Something has
____got to change before changes
gather us to a place where more children visit ____graveyards to see their friends than they do
____at the
park. Or to a place where legacies are buried,
____death is a song on repeat, and sex is a federal
warrant to arrest those who make a choice when ____pregnant—a place where love is a funny mood
in lieu of emotions.

Or is it too late? Are we already there? Is tomorrow ____equipped enough to balance France's heat
and New York's bitter coldness?
-
Will tomorrow ever come?
-
Dear Martin,
Ugh...

When I finally master my peace, who will be the ____enslaved?

It's time to wake up; your sleep can't be that good.
The dream must be disturbed.