Whale, Well

By Akiko Jindo

A list of problems that increase in scale as we progress throughout the week. In a sense, they all reflect the world growing heavier to bear, an incessant drowning of some sort.

Monday:
Whispered I’m Okays
Minute-long yawns
Under-eye luggage
From trips to unwanted flashback resorts with flat pillows
Tuesday:
Withheld secrets
Avoidance of eye contact, 
Her contacts twinkle in permanent violets of Leave Me Alones
Wednesday:
Picking at pickled delicacies
Mom’s cooking tasting so foreign
The loud little people chasing each other around
Like press offices and Time Square streets
An incessant and unbearable chaos 
Thursday:
Deeper dents in the lockers across mine
Screams resonate and stolen lunch money lies scattered on the floor
We’ll deal with it 
Fretting parents with cut-off wallets and their toes not reaching the ground on the M4 bus like their dusty five-year-old selves
Utter helplessness for themselves and others
Friday:
Piled Coke cans and clutters of old Christmas gifts
The cars zooming carefree while they leave their deadly residue 
Browned waters to match the soil, an unwanted sort of harmony
The ozone layer falls to bits like the plaster on that ceiling
Saturday:
Pencil stops in place as the bottom of an undying Kindle has been found
24/7 has been maxed out, and yet there’s no brown bag of lunch 
Her arms’ existence means society will crush her down
While the only one percent she’ll ever attain is the one on her chemistry test
Sunday:
Third class, third world
A problem stemmed in greediness and the loss of the sixth sense: morality
The embers in the orphaned child’s emerald eyes no longer glistening,
Even the tears have dried, leaving a single salt grain
The world has grown too heavy like earth whales 

a.j.

Performance

Process

In a weekly session with my mentor and another pair, we read a poem called “American Income” from the New York Times. It defied many traditional styles and rules of poetry, but was nevertheless impactful, discussing racism over the years in America, especially in communicating the weight that Black people have shouldered throughout ages. I came across a line that said, “Fish on the ends of lines that become whales,” which was incredibly powerful. I was inspired by this line and wrote a poem referring to problems that continue to grow as “whales.” I love categorization in poetry and compiled it as a week in a life with each day representing something, from an individual level on Monday to a much more universal level by the end of the week.