TOTAL BABY: A SEQUEL

Yes, I love writing %SHHHHH's % cutes! ::& a wet_lovely s'tare ~@#outverbs me { PLEASE will h*

X\ \ sEcretly__ k:ss:s me the-nt4akes || c*re || &of || 3verything?

PLEASE will he secretly kisses me then takes care of everything?

PLEAse will he divinely secretkiss me then takes care of everything?

wrap up ((Ambivalence)) into bow of floral outcome/

devise some formulas for PERM_ANENT C_AKE

or JUST FINGERLING__ on bathroom breaks?

yes he will

but HISTORY_?

A PLACE FOR CHILDISH COMPLAINT: its so small the things we're supposed to be over but are not over for the colon) My teacher, Anne Boyer, wanted me to write as a Judge. She gave me writing prompts where I felt called upon to be an Architect & in books one is supposed to be an Author. What is confusing is that I am capable of all of these things. But I keep hitting my head against my Total Babyness. And though I don't trust hardly anybody who wants to rock me like a baby, I do just want to be rocked like a baby. So I thought maybe I could be a baby in this book that you are maybe cradling in your hands. When I write on the Internet I will be a judge but here maybe I can be a baby. This poem is a home for my mind. - Alice notley Don't be afraid of your own mind, there's an ocean there you know how to swim in. - Alice Notley TOTAL BABY possible things to write about: waiting for people to come home and make me food (those Bernadette quotes from STUDYING HUNGER), 5th grade Mr. Sandburg, perverse babyish pleasures of being betrayed, wanting to totally break down and cry and be taken care of by professors, Clarice Lispector who can only write imagining that she has a hand to hold onto TOTAL BABY by Debbie Hu So why do you have to go away this weekend? With fully knowledge of how storms brew. I take this fearful beginning of dispersal, you call it a fragment, you private person. I take it & hopes be with you. Why can't I eat when Im alone, what permission do I need, what is this work Im doing, can't do, where is everybody, simple things I need your presence. -Bernadette Mayer no one can exile you from a category that it's shameful to occupy what do adults do? 5th grade math class, every day calling out all the answers, so hyperfast, faster than anybody, faster than Mitch, the secondbestatmath, and all because I LOVE MR. SANDBURG he's so funny and so nice. drunk immersive ecstasy of feeling

worthy of praise, always calling out answers the fastest, like a manarchist, WHAT A RUDE THING they called a parent teacher conference my mom met Mr. Sandburg maybe Mr. Sandburg would have a crush on my mom she's so pretty WHAT A RUDE THING my mom came home I was so excited what did Mr. Sandburg say about me? Mr. Sandburg says you're so smart and a pleasure, but you're kind of rude because you never raise your hand. how ashamed even now I'm so ashamed & ashamed to be ashamed they want you to be politely exceptional all the rules I thought I could break but nope I'm a baby ashamed that I was so loud shame like crying into mommy's lap shame like imagining how secretly everyone must hate me stuck up know it all bitch but Mr. Sandburg hates her anyway look at that stupid Chinese girl her hair feels like straw her writing's so clich she talks so loudly shhhhh shame that my mom & Mr. Sandburg couldn't love each other now shame for all my turtlenecks better safe than sorry but still, I'm moved to be irrepressible in my writing - Chris Kraus

you can't write like a baby like about all your baby experiences!! but Mr. Sandburg never got to see me cry rhythmatic crying crying crying crying crying baby baby baby baby around that time or maybe earlier, my mother gives me a Danielle Steele novel (oh please let me be something other than moderately hateful) she tells me we have to read it together but I finish it all by myself I read the sex scene over and over it's so sexy they're in a car, she's a virgin he unbuttons she tries to button back up but her fingers were too clumsy and slow, everntually her breasts spill out she's so ashamed he rapes her she's so ashamed she's pregnant she's so ashamed oh, and Jane says that since culture objectifies women, women develop an autoerotic/ auto-objectifying relationship to themselves, which MAYBE explains why the victim narrative is a powerful one, it is so powerful, it is so easy to identify as a victim. There's no good way to say this but I think this made me think that you lose your virginity by rape and since I was still a virgin at 20 that I wasn't pretty enough to be raped. (is this poetry?) BUT I REALIZE THAT I BASICALLY DON'T KNOW HOW TO BE A TOTAL BABY SO I GO ON WALK & EAT SOME ICE CREAM p. 158 Though my rule for this poem is honesty, my other rule is Fuck You kind of useless to write stuff when stupid Yous are going to read it next to stupid Everything Else Baby's sitting in the other room Between sad Jane's room and boring crowd room

Baby finds everything boring Baby feels like everything Baby identifies with baby tyrants (Is baby a baby tyrant?) Baby is a moody baby Baby is a gendered baby Is baby just Kathy Acker or Ariana Reines?? Baby slips into group conversation because baby wants to be or be around a witty aggressive man But Baby can't Because well Baby can't Baby can only be a happy baby around Hate Nipples Where are the nipples of love? Baby likes to feel humiliated baby baby baby Baby likes using baby words to talk about complicated emotional states, so earnestly & then have a witty aggressive man come at it and make it funny and do her bad Baby will come back again and again to be come at Baby wants Baby is happy only Baby mostly in sections Baby Baby Baby is trying Baby is trying to stay away from Hate Nipples But nothing else fits the suckling shape she knows Baby Baby is scared of being a gross suckling shape Baby wants the wrong adult to stop talking Should baby start crying nonsensically? Baby likes being picked up and down Baby falls asleep in a car seat. Baby was put on a plane to China CRYING Baby was put on a plane! Put me on another plane!! Put me now on another plane! I want to be on a plane within 24 hours!! Baby Baby Baby Baby Baby Baby Baby Baby Baby Baby Baby Baby

Baby Baby Baby Baby Baby Baby Baby Baby Baby Baby is not as funny as Nipple but I can write baby poetry I CAN WRITE BABY POETRY because people love babies even when they are not witty (Baby makes a note while retyping this poem: I'm obsessed with the gap between stopping and starting. What starts you out of a depression? How do you define that space? And in defining it make it for other people maybe. The whole time I've had to write this with one eye closed not being able to bear how underdressed these words are like pre-teens. That's embarrassing that you're wearing that Weathervane miniskirt at 12. ) (Just day-dreamed this book being praised as a brilliant experimental novel. Like watching a baby-step... ON THE MOON FOR THE FIRST TIME! - blurbs) All baby really ever thinks about is relationships and revolution Both these topics dovetail around oppression Once baby stood in line for 5 hours because she wanted to be in a reality TV show Oh goggle goggle la la la burble burble burbly Can you spend money now to enjoy yrself? What are you tryna do? I'm trying no I'm not trying anything just Total Baby sleepy baby sleepy little trying thing writing in the dark already born, trying at 3:15 a.m. in the dark Baby wants to be Jackie Wang who got the Gap's account number for FedEx and shipped a bunch of stuff to her house. WRITING WRITING WRITING WRITING WRITING WRITING WRITING WRITING WRITING WRITING WRITING WRITING the way you have of listening gently and totally mothering but also totally insecure I guess your insecurity comes from what others think or

maybe also it's so embedded in gestures that are also more vague.... feminisms and change feminisms feminisms feminisms feminisms feminisms turning things that it's safe to talk to Jane about: insecurity, boy problems, anxiety, silly goofy things, ideas sometimes things that it's not safe to talk about: the troubles and fears in my relationship with Jane Baby hears an alarm and knows Baby knows that's not her problem What's her problem? She is not selfish with her sleep. She is not? Where is Benny? Always she wants the popular smell She can't help it she likes popular and pronounceable syllables So many men and woman the boys and girls, they want boys Baby was a boy Baby loved boys and girls & could not wait to be one whatta baby atta baby Baby still in wee hours wanted to suck on a Hate Nipple OK Stop going on Twitter. OK write the preliminary things you need to write in order to think and focus. You read your prose journal entry and you want to rewrite your journal entry and put it in a book of poetry but you feel like in order to do that you have to make it different maybe by summarizing it and making it snappier. When I try to prod against the idea of conversation I feel like it's a big lump. Not all conversations, just group conversations. I'm so bad at them. At best a couple people smile at me. Sometimes the group laughs at my jokes, I guess, but I still just feel like I'm so, so bad. Sometimes people tell me they don't know what I'm talking about when I express group conversation anxiety. Like I seem fine. But sometimes I feel really not okay. Eli called me out on it-- he said that I was quiet in groups. I think I felt flattered at the time that he noticed me, but without realizing it maybe I internalized his implied judgment that this was something weird or wrong with me. So I started trying to be louder in groups. Was the cause and effect really that direct? Or sometimes, yes, it was true, I had already wanted to be louder in groups. I think. Was this an incipient feminist realization that I needed to take up more space? Or was this an anger at a queer identity trying to express itself, someone whose preference is just to be in a group of two? But yeah, I think it does interfere with being a writer sometimes because sometimes I feel like what being a writer is is to excel at Group Conversation. Frank O'Hara excelled at Group Conversation, see? But also I think what is minorly painful about it is that I think I must have been disciplined into being very quiet and polite during conversations. Because I don't think I started out that way. Who,

which garrulous girl naturally becomes quiet and polite around other people? No, it must be that other people imposed the weight of their expectation onto her. And then she remembers what they called her. And it had to do with her being Chinese, too. (Side Note: I hate the term Asian-American. Everything triggers me into disassociating. But AsianAmerican, whatever its origins, seems to be a term used by non-profits to make it seem like you can know something about me based on the fact that I'm Asian, which is a fucking spurious category anyway.) Back to Baby: baby walks into cactuses. It splits jealous. BE A BETTER BABY BETTER BABY! baby can't. baby jumps. but then baby wouldn't be able to see new zealand. a rock throws baby to feel space eventually. Baby Baby Baby Baby Baby Baby Baby goes a-searching for a new nipple. It finds one but it is all so temporary. Baby finds self one day surrounded by other babies. Yuck, boring needy babies! Baby scoffs. Baby goes off to play by self. Other babies want a baby to eat and play together so the babies eat and play together but baby, oh baby, baby is still hungry for a nipple and especially the Hate Nipple. Suddenly baby looks around. baby sees the other babies. THE OTHER BABIES ARE BABIES TOO! They too have mouths in suckling shapes. WAS THE HATE NIPPLE A BABY TOO? IS BABY A BABY TOO? Well if everybody is everybody then maybe baby can be a nipple too? What does it feel like to be a nipple too? Baby looks. Inside is stuff. Baby decides. The inside stuff can be milk too. Baby tries to be a nipple of milk too. Well the babies love it! DICK DICK DICK DICK DICK baby makes baby allegories, such a baby like a wallowing, Total Baby, is it fun to be a baby in control? A baby baby babe. For [Marina Tsvetaeva] the condition of creation was analogous to dreaming, when 'suddenly obeying an unknown necessity, you set fire to a house or push your friend down the mountain top.' Baby has no laundry machine, only a writing conceit. The baby thoughts of the baby writing machine, uploading a picture of herself on the internet, looking suburban. Baby tries hacking her relationships with words like love letters like the write combination will crack the chains & change a mind & minor upheaval. But the effects are weird on the heart. So baby goes back to writing words for baby eyes only. The news slept into my head: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-pediatric-surgeon-dies-saving-twochildren-from-drowning-in-lake-michigan-20120805,0,7520105.story I nannied for his three children in 2011 but three children in Afghanistan are dying every day I'm so hungry to be in common with C.A. Conrad

the news slept into my head you're lonely again on a pile of blankets topiary tapping at feminist tarot & internet shakes me around & around the long word of temptation so temptation to lie in blankets staring forever OH GOD I OH GOD I am not ready for rare unfleshed form of poetry so I flip on my back fera rotten massage gotta GET IT! That orgasm particle I think revenge thots 'bout upstairs boys like whataboutta squirty 'gina squirt all over yr devices how about you Lucky Pierre me & over think with spectral penis porn thoughts gonna PLEASURE short skirt over there there was an unthought time of meaning ecstasy like Idea Porn in my head all day all those heady philosophers dry-heavy & I didn't understand poetry?? but it felt like it owned a secret 45 inches of je veux te voir so I kept licking it though I was bored of the taste of punchlines around a cornerstone I tried to attach my kite and it was movable it was nice to be attached to a movable cornerstone opposite humans & those channels of interactions are a WEIRDON I mean weird on my heart in the puffy pink in the auroral while y'all tinker all day on your poems I just PLAY

I'd rather feel my feelings than edit my poetry sooner or nower oh rather rub one out without your erudite boner it rained real rain on our movie set a chime chimes & we talked about that one thing again they're having an important conversation upstairs but NOW is my POEM TIME!! NOPE E4M Nobody Opens my Pussy Ever Except For Me Don't look at me Look at me Don't look at me Look at this fucking ant Squat down and live with me we don't even need much water so long as we grow 7 feet apart, juniper can take off like a skyline TOTAL BABY: A SEQUEL babies can stare off into space for long periods of time & no one gets offended or thinks they're weird, they can be social or antisocial according to their whims But how I wish I could point to literature that better describes my experience: postcolonial stuff? diaspora stuff? BABY, A sleepy baby, abutts all adults with similar names rather memorize popstar lyrics than write poems, rather charm a charming person with pseudogifted conversational tactics with other babies swimming in a baby, thinking of all the water contemplating emily dickinside

what do you do? she won't stop crying so what should we do? baby baby baby baby baby baby why are you staring off into space for so long? because baby, and why did you say that weird thing? because baby, and why did you stop writing? because baby and are you still listening? because baby and look at that! because baby and BIRTHRIGHTEOUSNESS baby belongs here or nowhere? or a government will pay to create memories for baby's BIRTHRIGHTEOUSNESS step one step two step three seeks a space of pure BIRTHRIGHTEOUSNESS seeks a space of pure BIRTHRIGHTEOUSNESS tell me I do enough work to understand you and food is not separate from regurgitation (regurgitate a Baby) & I'm still staring at the pie all jiggles and splits all enemies cooked in there are extra cauliflower, yes please don't even remember swallowing waits for corn melting salt butters time all up in me, all up in me words are another food

is not separate from regurgitation motherwort! A charmed condensation! What I have on my lips? No inspiration from liquid sensation arrives at a shovel of quality OK pulling back from there like a wave from the sandy beach of my tongue MUSIC teacher a dance & teacher dance everywhere like overplayed, into harangue teacher baby (cell phone notification) leech a dance a teacher baby dance a dance teacher baby dances up the driveway path & in the hallways, dancing like overplayed (sick of that overplayed baby) into sweet harangue I do my driving dance, wiggle my no stop sign grin, & laugh easy as gossip. Snags a brownie, asks Alexa, DO YOU LOVE IT? Make baby at home in another topic, or arrive at I'll make my baby at home in another topic, or I'll arrive at that sweet discursive event which never did let me feel wholly apart or wholly a part (mosquito in my ear) oh I love Succulent Pie but I am being coy I might as well say it but the name feels like an overplayed baby So I won't say it. There's a baby. They're uncomfortable, the ground is hard, we're all trying hard to babble one at a time in an impressive way because we're all adult babies. How are we supposed to fall in love when nothing's happening? It goes forward/ It never does, I mean political change. I'm cooking for baby so Self can write. It's taking forever to load like The Men. Sometimes baby feels that it has a lot in common with the men. It too, has problematic politics adorable. One time Baby went to be Anne Boyer's Baby. But Baby felt too old. The thing that goes in my nose? I try to stuff my tears in my nose but they come out when I sing. Oh baby baby, how was I supposed to know? BABY FOOD HIGH CHAIR CAR SEATS link me to other babies: so easy I'm losing the baby connection

TOTAL BABY: A SEQUEL

Baby tires to walk. Baby is too tired to try to walk like an older person who has done it all.

Joanna Newsom plays and Baby's overplayed voice sounds just like hers. Can she just birthwriting? Surely drone. Not raised write? Walk next to a tree and erase what the stars want to say. I thought I had to listen to everything they want to say but it turns out I should erase them rather. Sitting around waiting for a suitor/sitting around waiting for a form. I think there is room for me to be a baby too (berthwriting). My limp feelers might not make it across thisvastrug. Work a little, pause a little, try not to set my eyebrows on fire. Verb verb verb verb. Into an unfavorable group activity I succumb again partly because I am not distinct like a Baby. Eats Sugar Ray. Why isn't anyone making me laugh? WHY AREN'T WE HAVING MORE FUN? Baby having now eaten an amazing food of numbers feels that David Foster Wallace caresses her baby blod into a lovely learned witty casual tone. A thick thickening of expectation around baby thoughts of David Foster Wallace. The learned event. Another learned event. What do I want out of writing a beautiful book. FRANK YAWNS YOU'D NEVER KNOW I LIVED FOR YEARS IN THE UPPER LEFT HAND BUREAU DRAWER WITH A BROKEN SPRING AND CORRODED BATTERIES IN MY NECK IF I HADN'T JUST SAID SO - C.A. Conrad GIRL COMMITS SUICIDE AFTER PARENTS REFUSE TO GIVE HER MONEY Debbie Hu, 25, jumped off a cliff after her parents told her they would no longer financially support her. She said she wouldn't work because it was against her politics. On REDDIT they called her entitled. Baby reminds herself that this is normal, that when people have Herpes scares they go take Herpes tests Baby didn't like the way the Herpes scare happened Because Baby's got ISSUES

from being thrown into the geography blender there's a piece of baby in Guangzhou and it's smiling there's a piece of Baby in Shanghai and it's smiling there's a piece of Baby in Bedminster, NJ and it's smiling there's a piece of Baby at Planned Parenthood in Kansas City and it's smiling there's NUTRITION FACTS NEVER DREAMED THAT THEY'D HAVE TO APPLY TO SEASONED SEAWEED. NUTRITION FACTS NEVER DREAMED THAT THEY'D HAVE TO APPLY TO SEASONED SEAWEED. ------------------- email proof of payment to studentpayment@business.westernunion.com of transaction #36075524

UGH! Baby screams. I'M SO BAD AT BEING MY MOM! But Austin is here soon. But I don't miss him! I don't BABY'S CODE OF ETHICS I don't like anyone. I don't miss anyone. I'm not afraid of death. BABY'S CODE OF ETHICS I'll like you forever. I'll miss you forever. Autoeroticism is not bad. Baby giggles, I'm so creepy. So baby makes other people do things for her. Just punish her! Baby walks out of her room, I dreamt about the revolution! WOO-HOO Baby! What did you dream? I'm too tired to tell you right now. No, what did you dream? You'll forget if you go back to sleep!

I won't forget! Never forget the revolution! What silent but effective forms of non-alignment, non-compliance, uncooperativeness, reluctance, reticence, weariness, or unwillingness do we find in everyday life? - Exhaustion and Exuberance by Jan Verwoert always giving too much of what is not presently requested She touches me and sees things. Then it is narration or storytelling and I am okay, until it's time to go and I'm left alone with the terrible, associative, almost monstrous images, of a birthing woman in distress. Abortion by mouth. Ultimate fate of viable ectopic children. - bhanu kapil Baby is listening to girlies talking about wanting to be mommies. So I let another day indigent be done without doing the slightest hard thing I just read the different takes on everything until my problem became remediated past listened to Taylor Swift over and over, went to the grocery store-- still on the long boring highway of this poem, waiting for the next exciting destination, trying to inject more speed here, like a person, NO! THIS WRITING MAKES ME SO UNHAPPY! I AM SO UNHAPPY! AND HUNGRY. Can a Baby produce a great work of art? Fuck great works of art! When did they ever help a Baby? Can a Baby coerce love from an audience without worrying too much about making it feel good: is now a good moment for writing: should Baby keep putting off the next thing in order to keep writing? What is the next thing? There is a plan but BABY'S CODE OF ETHICS no plans but escape plans BABY'S CODE OF ETHICS make the other Mommies do it BABY'S CODE OF ETHICS Avoid Everything (Baby is performing this for you live!) the real problem is that Baby is trying to get you to hate it but will hate you if you leave it out in the cold the real problem is food coma

the real problem is self-destruction the real problem is I can imagine the serious boys not having time for the Baby poetry I hate the men who have hated Babies and Babied me all my life I hate the men who have loved me for being a Baby I hate the Baby men who I have Babied I hate the Babeis And I am so hungry. I hate the Baby And I am so hungry When talking about Babies, I hate hunger. These are the problems of a sad rich girl who never got to live in the nostalgia mansion so feels homeless but really were she eat to be back together but really were she eat to be back together? The skin kept trying to form and she kept peeling it off. It was gross and it stayed stuck under her nails next to bloody scalp bits & vagina smells. During cunninglingus last night she felt like an exploiter. Also, does the sanguine man really have the key to anything? Is Alice Notely achieving something about Babyhood when she hates everyone? Culture of One. Disobedience. But. I think I would be happier on drugs I think I would be happier if last night I hadn't slept with this boy who sucked really, he just sucked. Depressed as hell waking up all alone in a gray room there are no friends or nighttimes here, it is simply a set-up & no one is around to fondle her ear or cook oatmeal. So she pads and she pads, resolves to sleep until 11:00, but hunger keeps her starting, insults someone on the internet, and gets support from the crowd. Do I write a friend in to give her back a friend. Do I write a night time in to hate seems like an operative word

give her back a night time. They were so weird about money which made me even more depressed. But San Francisco at night from Bernall Heights! !!! what is it to slowly walk up a hill and see the distance far away a fold in space glorious Glorious San Francisco like rolling dough coursing onward with spectacular architecture patterning. I don't know. We spent $102 on dinner. Ate albacore and lamb. There were capers on the heirloom tomatoes. Are capers just sadness made into confetti? Later on our cuddling was ineffective inso far as it didn't dissolve our debt to the world and made him unable to sleep and also made him want sex, which I have rules about. I never thought I would have sex rules. He woke me up and ate me out. It was pretty good I think I came and went back to sleep. At around 11:30 ate an apple, weird soft greasy skin and mealy inside, thought about Anneher friend who heard that rich people always kept a bowl of fruit on the table &so kept a bowl of limes. This is writing but what about eating? I open my mouth and it comes, basically, mostly like I just extend myself the teensiest bit and wait for it to rain down on me. My genius so apparent is just a flap in the neurotic insular.