back to toki pona home
oh, toki pona!
toki pona o!
maybe this is resistance.
i don't believe many would agree with me that this mode of expression, this way we move our lips and search for ideas past the event horizons cast by the shadows of esperanto, the way that a postcard flies to me from montreal addressed to a name of mine that certainly may exist, the tiny sighs of relief when we realize that We Are Here And Communicating To Each Other In This Moment!, the gibberish that my google nest mini cannot decipher or monetize; this is our resistance.
the way that we recoil into ourselves and write poetry that nobody, nobody else, not even our lovers, can understand or decipher or make use of. MAYBE these things that we whisper here, the muttering that we make when we stub our toes and cum on our hands in the dark MAYBE these are indications,
proliferations!
significations!
Saphir-Whorf chuckles as he stares down at me as I lay flowers at his tombstone.
I slap his face and spit in it, woof at a sapphic, horf a saphire down, gulp, and SCREAM at this doubled anti-plural:
"YOU STUPID RICH WHITE MONOLINGUALS WILL NEVER CATCH ME NOW!"
there are small things in toki pona that reach out and brush you ever so often sentient sketchings from plato's cave playful pixies that decidingly do not reside in one's bone marrow, but in some ephereal plane that you can see into with a range of ten feet if you so happen to have the right tools equipped, you can see them dance a few paces to the right and then to the left before they flutter out of view and you're left gasping with the realization that money is just coloured time you hold close to your breast as white glittery unicorn spit surges up from your chest and onto the pavement with each strike the critics of Marx and Engels land square into your stomach. you throw your head back in a fit of laughter and scream out in delight as loud crickets pool at the corners of your mouth that things were always meant to be like this, except maybe we should be supporting teen moms with more daycare programming than we currently are.
for a second, you picture a lizard and know that it's not a fish.
Dear Toki Pona,
WHY CANT YOU BE MORE THAN A QUIRKY PERSONALITY TRAIT
WHY WONT YOU CAUSE ELECTRICAL SOCKETS TO EXPLODE WHEN WE CHANNEL POETRY THROUGH YOU
WHY WONT YOU BE SOMETHING DESTRUCTIVE AND SUBVERSIVE AND REVOLUTIONARY
WHY WONT YOU SPIT OUT THE WHITE SUPREMACISTS THAT SHIT ALL OVER YOUR REPUTATION
WHY WILL YOU NEVER SIGNAL BACK WHEN I SEND FLARES IN YOUR DIRECTION
WHY ARE YOU ALL CRACKLE! AND POP! WITH NO SNAP!
WHY DO YOU ONLY DARE TO POSSESS A SMALL HANDFUL OF US
WHY DOES NEARLY EVERYONE SEEM TO WALK AWAY FROM YOU AFTER ONE-NIGHT STANDS
WHY HAVE YOU CHOSEN MY SHIP TO SERENADE WHY DO YOU WANT ME TO CRASH INTO THESE ROCKS WHY DO YOU WANT TO BRAID THE SEA-SOAKED HAIR OFF MY DEAD BODY
INTO WIGS FOR YOUR FELLOW SISTERS
WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS?!
Best,
jan Lakuse
When Sujale Tokipona Smith, the first true native toki pona speaker, came into the world, their mama jokingly declared them to be 'assigned tonsi at birth.'
It was just the two of them, mama and their partner, standing a good 30 ft out from shore in the freezing waters of the [REDACTED] free birthing it, and then, quite suddenly, 'they' transformed from two to three.
When jan Sujale was an infant, mama and their partner took it in turns to imbue the child with various languages. It was a rigorously scheduled time-table. From 0:00 to 06:00, mama spoke English and their partner spoke Mandarin. From 06:01 to 11:59, they both spoke toki pona. From 12:00 to 18:00, mama spoke Esperanto and their partner spoke Klingon. From 18:01 to 23:59, they both spoke toki pona. The system had been devised in order to position Sujale as appealing to other constructed language self-elected linguistic diasporas. While they both always denied it, mama and their partner had ambitious plans. Sponsored by a billionaire and so not needing to worry about plebian responsibilities such as working to support themselves, the two spent every waking moment contributing to Sujale's development, cultivating them, molding them. At 13 months old, Sujale muttered their first word at exactly 00:00. "Mama," they babbled. Taken off guard, mama went to their office and returned with a clipboard. After a second of hesitation, they notated the first entry into graphic organizer they had printed nearly a month before.
Word: 'mama' Date: 2022-09-01 Time: 23:59 Language: tok
a word is a clap is a chuckle is a colour of red that rises to your cheeks. our bodies our words. are bodies are words? we like to think one-hundred and twenty or maybe one times one hundred plus twenty and twenty and twenty and twenty and one and we still think about that ZhongGuo woman that intrudes our more serene moments. with a finger i point to the sky. that's a word, that's squiggly allah, that's Him air dancing in the breaths, in the 'between,' in the space between 'e ni:' and 'la' i feel your heartbeat. it [points upwards]s to meet mine. we aren't alone in this world of ours, are we? i wonder what words of ours of are(s) that i should use to describe the softness of your lips... maybe i don't need to. are words our bodies? can this poem selo your s[ij]elo?
Toki Pona me cannot alter the organization of all nations.