From the STCU Stage at KSPS.

Its Inland Sessions.

The greatest actors play their parts no matter how demeaning they are.

Introducing the poetic brilliance of Twahan Simultaneous.

Prepare for a captivating journey through the heart and soul of our modern times.

But maybe truth.

Neon Beams exposed demons like...

Enjoy Twahan's reflective poetry, where emotion finds its voice.

When we kids were ambitious, we feel we could become anything in this world.

To the children who may be watching this, you know, even if you're an adult, keep moving.

Keep being a sponge that wants to learn.

Have trust in your process.

Know that even if you're not where you want to be, this isn't where you have to be.

Enjoy this program.

And I hope that you got something from this that helps you on your journey called life.

Thank you for lending your years tonight.

I am Twahan Simultaneous and this is a degenerate work flow.

A rooster crows welcome in morning spotlight, society walks to a stage peeling the curtains of night a narrator stalks, filling destinies while shifting daylight welcoming a workflow of roles, each employee plays their part right.

Open spots are practiced by eager souls with a dream in sight lines and expressions, practice tight, perfect candidates gain starlight.

From infancy, our cries under the first lights were plugged for a superiors delight.

To adulthood, where even the galaxy's brightest stars move to a greater forces might.

And today here I stood, clamoring to an audition, awaiting the HRs insight.

Perched in stilted chairs, they cement the hierarchy, awaiting the witness a hint of obscene so they can swoop into their line sheets eagerly, ball points of talons ripping to the 10 pound vigorously gashing at my act steadily.

Yet these scales have learned to blend altering any Hawk-eye lens effortlessly.

I steer dialog lines and knowledge in verbal traffic signs guiding the conversation cautiously.

In my head, I already know how this story goes.

Many spend years on a set bending the story arcs, changing company roles.

They introduce, establish, theyre written off after holiday specials and nothing stops the show.

Even an employee's death is forgotten by the next episode a life worth value by net worth.

So the networks neutralize payrolls.

Mission statements dwindle between seasons as customers witness plot holes.

Supporting cast moves up to management, steadily climbing a casting totem pole.

And some climb company Ladders by any means even queens bend knees to the Harvey Weinsteins.

I said even queens bend knees to the Harvey Weinsteins.

Proof is covered in Cosby pudding, as managers flee like white Bronco from a scene.

Hush, money buys time sealing the lips of those suffering smothering screams the aspire take face shots to be scene, No pain means no gain, and success means everything.

The greatest actors play their parts no matter how demeaning they are.

Swooned hearts, you're an employee of the month and keys to a company car.

So with a broken pride they'll go far.

Leaving legacies that will eventually be walked over like Hollywood stars.

So here I am sitting in the same chair where individuality withers, greased hair, make up flares and perfumes fight stale coffee in the air.

Our individuality is consumed to interview rooms.

Alive, yet dead inside we are swooned by necromancers tune.

Our sons will turn to moons, well bleed unachieved memories.

As time heals wounds.

We are actors tears line bright eyes as smiling lips quiver.

Clocking in our scenes begin once the directors yell action.

Often we go through life trying to figure out what we want to be and where we need to be.

At some point, we learn how to act.

We as a society are actors.

All of us are part of a workflow.

Doesn't matter what you do in your life, you are contributing to someone else's life for better or worse, just like any workflow and in someone's eyes, each and every last one of us has been deemed a degenerate.

Someone who isnt worthy, someone who is outcast and deemed lower than someone who feels they are superior.

We as a whole nation, a whole world, are a degenerate workflow.

And it's not until we leave those workplaces and we find those areas where we find comfort that we take off our mask.

When we no longer try to pose, we could just be ourselves and let our skeletons out of the bag and let them roam with many others.

Often that's a bar or a club, and when you're at a club, not everyone is smiling.

Contrary to the idea of happy hour to where everything should be great, everyone should be joyful.

No, there are people mourning.

There are people going through sorrow and pain intertwined with whatever feelings that you have yourself.

This next piece pertains to the idea of happy hour.

This is happy hour.

Its happy hour.

Let me buy you a drink.

My wingman is an unpronounced bar tender mixing lust and persuasion in shakers.

A lawyer behind the bar paid for loyalty to law breakers.

Words soaked in bourbon, served by instigator, true sugar coated and mixed with a chaser topped off with a wooing garnished from this romancer Sex rests on my tongue as I speak to your body language.

Eyes never lie and compassion lives in these corneas handshakes of right arms to compliments traveling through forearms leaving trails of goose bumps.

Sit at my table full of pulled out seats, view the open bottles of former festivities.

Drink steadily as the bones of my emotions gather cordially enjoy your first drink politely as both lips brush the rim of a rock glass and teeth apologize for touching.

Have a second.

After you and my confidence hobble back from a dance floor.

Raise a third one down.

Against my ego as it drowns out a one way conversation of wariness.

By your fourth heckle and laugh at guilt passive aggressively telling my past empty the fifth, staring at loneliness through an empty glass.

Bring your eyes up from that bottle and see that I'm also in hands with loathing.

As the night dies down, another bottle is cracked open by assurance.

Confidence slouches over the table while pouring, while doubt is laughing at my decline.

In a night span, you mingle with my skeletons as they occupy these vacant seats.

Accepted their felicitations as you grin nervously, watching them slip to the seals of my quivering lips sloppily, riding words, and handing key points, the valets at the end of sentences carelessly, Walking in with the winds of my breath, joining this party uninvitingly.

It is said that you can't find love in a club, but maybe truth.

Neon beams expose demons like facts and highlighters.

Liquor is the serum revealing honesty in good lies and porcelain is a god once pissed on, with souls kneeling to a higher power.

So here we are inebriated sitting alongside my decrepit honesty.

But can you lie amongst these bones in the morning?

Or is this why they call it happy hour?

As the night concludes, we wake up and we continue to pursue through life attending to all the obligations that we have.

We may wake up with hangovers, may wake up with someone beside us, and often if we do, we hope that that person can support and embrace our skeletons just as much.

We may try to do so ourselves.

But again, we put on our face, we put on our suits, and we go about life attending to the things we need to.

And often when we're out and about, if you live in a neighborhood that may be going through tribulations and going through vices, when you dress a certain way that makes you want to elevate, you may be deemed a sellout.

The crab in a bucket mentality affects all of us, and we do this just so that we can be accepted in a workplace that may not even deem us as equals.

And then we do that so that we could come home to a place where we no longer have to wear our face and we could just be ourselves at the end of it all.

We are just trying to do what suits us and hopes that someone that we love is doing what suits them and we can accept that.

This is suits.

I'm doing what suits me.

This morning I've wrestled with a suit and tie, transforming my self into a convincing lie.

Vernacular men slaughter flies when I step outside my ego death, justified by the unjustified turn my sick soul inside out.

So the world can watch me die.

Gil-Scott Heron cried from a speaker passing by that summarize my dying pride.

Suits are child abandonment from 9 to 5 Lawyers, child services and FBI.

Reverends, churches, bean pies.

Pencils down, hands up, and all rise.

Pimps, Johns, any men at night offering free rides.

But there is truth nestled in this disguise.

I'm choking Revolution cries with a tightened suit tie, cutting my pass patterns will hit me.

Family ties and cramming memories in the pocket sides.

Cufflinks and handcuffs both institutionalized.

So when we shake hands, our worlds collide.

I'm doing what suits me.

And this suit is a barcode where I'm set to believe this dry clean UPC will set me free on a conveyor belt of an employee's feeding a machine, scanning social security, that authenticate who we be yet no security with social issues segregate you and me.

I'm feeling marginalized into this work disguise, working amongst those hiding who they are inside.

Dying egos, incognito, stroking ego, supporting moguls who kill their people while wearing tuxedos.

Bank account zero social life zero grinding the till zero working for those who are admired for all of their zeros as quotas decide who amongst us are equals.

Suits are attempts to compromise, a sellout action is being justified.

A bridge between segregation and corporations, buckle myself down so the soul can meet its limitations.

The body is a temple wearing gentrification glamorize, I compromise, yearning accommodation.

I'm doing what suits me well put together as I return to a broken home, emotion shift like time zones, the sun drops its curtains as my afternoon delight groans.

Welcome home.

In a forceful tone, sharks flood my peace where answering the phone baited by these loans that lead me bare bones, I undress my ability to function reluctantly answering questions with each undone button until I bear raw emotion, finding comfort in her security when the press too working mess with anguish that is respectfully expressed, hearts punch each other as we rest awakening to another new.

Wiping fresh morning dew eyes expand like summer days do.

We gather ourselves to pursue another day tailoring the afternoon, stitching together avenues, counting survival in revenue, and even measuring the love between us too.

So we depart each day without ever having to ask How can I suit you?

And this piece here is called Executioner.

Heads will roll, shouts the many lovers that I've scorned.

My neck has rested on several stumps.

The heart is love and time again I have broken it.

Deception crammed within my charm.

Ego immense is a Trojan horse.

Guards are let down as my ego persuades the course sways from the neck of this stallion.

Confident is statue and well built.

Your gates spread wide as my Trojan thrust inside the climax is a surprise as my army runs wide your castle is prize.

Rated and deprived, you'll be imprisoned to a new life.

You're forced to decide on who lives and who dies.

Heads will roll.

I roped you in from the sea drying tears and left you soaked in waves of emotions.

Palms walk the wooden deck in my chest, prying a crevice the empathy open finding shelter and excluded warmth I've run a tight ship.

If you drowning in the unknown spend enough time in one spot and anxiety rose complacent As you make my ankle low I've rode many waves.

Your fear go with this flow, my insecurities will have you walking plank slow.

Heads will roll.

I rode into the valley of your mind spontaneously burying a gimmick.

The feelings yearn.

Blurting falsehood claiming the cure your pain.

I'll roll through gyri hills and soak-eyed-lanes leave you collateral The sore brains lay in my next destination in advance before moving on like train's packing up a wagon, a quick thrills, false kids and petty game leaving town with everything but your name.

Wanted by an image, you'll live to see me hang heads will roll.

Joseph Guillotine revolutionized the world in 1792, bringing humanitarianism in a device that painlessly executes this civility in the mind that a guillotine constitutes.

But at what context should we suffer?

Relationships die well before hell, in the last breath, screw negros as we say, its romance to his death.

Guilt flows when there are no feels left.

Limbs of those wanted were once tied to four axes a ripped from their sides.

I feel you're pulling away those wealthy but painless deaths and firing squads closing their eyes.

I feel you taking shots in my ways.

The guillotine prevented suffering severing ties with for one could cry.

I feel you cutting our days.

I fear not my relationships death and becoming ghost destined alone.

But when I love you changes tones, missed calls and hung up phones days of open discussions to just leave me alone Words that cut deep as we patch up in the ER of comfort zones.

Cut me off, but you better sever the bone.

I seen enough mobile relationships to realize there's worse than death limitless love when neither victim had any moves left.

Complacent in this function as last moments of weight lines the exit beath so I retrace my steps before the botched executions claim me next leaving a trail of squandered potential bellowing for my neck cut me off and rest my severed head next to the other lovers on pikes Cut me off as a warning to the rest that your castle ship or valley has fight.

Cut me off.

Rest assured, everything will be all right.

Cut me off and make my head roll.

Convenience stores, theyre great.

No matter where you're going.

Always there at your convenience bodega, convenience store, gas station, whatever it may be.

And don't matter if youre in joy or youre in pain similar to those bars.

But of course, you know, you have a little bit of everything at these stores.

And I feel like the bodega is the true church At church, I feel often there's an expectation there's a standard of what you have to be, how you have to look and how you have to carry yourself.

At the bodega, you have all walks of life intertwined, the richest of the rich, the poorest of the poor, all in line together to acquire something that's going to make their day better.

So this piece is dedicated to that Neon Cathedral and all the people going in and out of there just trying to make their way through life.

This is Clerk.

A convenience store bell rings.

Love me.

I'm nervous at 16 too young to gamble.

But can you ring up this lottery game?

I failed many tests with sources to blame, but if I pass this one, I'll be placed in an honor roll of shame.

Forced to make a decision, literally feeling the growing pains.

Not until now have my mistakes been given names.

The bell rings.

Help me.

I'm not homeless.

My home resides in one of your cans.

The value of my soul jangles and parts of it slips through these hands on corners I stand letting the world determine how worthy I am.

My woes loiter on public benches until I'm told the disband.

I'm broken and dirty.

You see the world in a clear lens.

Birds don't own the sky, fish can't claim the sea, yet man asserts land only here am I welcome and asked to come again.

The bell rings, Reach me.

Let me get a pack of blunt raps I share spliffs with my demons as we nightcap like these cigars.

I was once a child that got unwrapped, gutted of a purpose.

So now I'm filling my pockets with green until I'm rapt, smoked, made to ash, never to come back.

I burnt a few cats like Reggie way back, now fearing and they know where I lay at.

I was going to empty the register as you turn your back.

But I'll leave in peace.

Sparing the life of a diplomat.

The bell rings.

Remember me?

Can I get a carton so I could blow a life I have left 53 years of making smoke rings pleading for a marriage to death.

Memories choke me up more than the patches on my neck.

Life is hell and it molders while exiting each breath.

Misery loves company and I'm the only bitch it's kept.

The reaper took my husband years ago, promising I'm next.

It could be the second hand smoke but every one I love has left.

I'm saving up for an exit by giving you my paycheck.

The bell rings, Catch me.

The joy of my childhood is in your candy aisle I see love, compassion and imagination stacked in colorful piles And I can't afford your colorful wrap smiles so I'm stealing feelings like dads who left for the store and never returned.

Come catch this fallen child to help me learn.

Today it's here.

Tomorrow I'm society's concern.

A bell rings, ushering in a congregation of the woeful a convenience, storing troubles of the living, bars on windows, are gatekeepers to a degenerate heaven.

The troubled seek compassion, tithing a register to be forgiven.

Buying concessions, the checkout is a confession.

Receipts are a biblical message as a clerk gives blessings until the neon church closes due to gentrification.

Our neighborhoods will change, extended indexes, A new judgment will come and us the riff raft will be forsaken.

As kids, we have the most wildest dreams.

We think we could become anything we want.

We dont let anybody get in the way of it either.

And I feel like ice cream is a big part of all of our childhood.

It's the most delightful thing.

It doesn't matter how bad your day was as a kid.

When you hear that bell coming around your block, you perk up that dopamine just rushes through you and you just want to go and chase after that truck.

And I feel like that truck is a lot like dreams.

When we're kids, when ambitious, we feel we can become anything in this world.

And as we get older, we become more complacent.

We no longer want to chase that truck because we'll be laughed at.

We rather hop in our car because we have more options.

But never does it ever taste as good as when you were a kid.

So this piece is dedicated to my favorite treat.

This is ice cream.

If childhoods had a theme song.

It would be the jubilant tune of ice cream trucks, music to ears.

We drop reality and depart, racing through adolescence.

Surpassing the restriction offenses, leaving authority unlatched and the world wide open cloths on our backs in the wind wave goodbye to dependance, carelessly aware that one day adulthood would rise after dark, old money was tossed from purses and wallets aging gracefully adding value as wealth trickled down handing some youth financial stability.

New money was tossed a life of lemons told to use creativity, making lemonade stand stirring tragedies.

The sour taste of Darwinism coated in the sugar of gospels fast food and TV fantasies set in a glass jug empathy labeled pageantry.

We pour cups of despair, saving for our dreams, chasing ice cream trucks everlastingly.

The older the we became the faster that truck drove running before we were blown like a snot kids nose wiped from the earth and disposed grass and neighborhood yards over grown, bodies are the only thing mowed chasing dreams running from lawn care clipping at young souls.

Each day we became more complacent, realizing there was no outrunning reality, Lego stacked us in the cellblocks, dreamed castles and sandboxes withered through labored hands, damaged minds could create striking images with snap and go wasted like broken crayons.

We reside in spaces the size of doll houses where rent and offspring all make pretend.

Strangers turn into friends and we learn to keep distance.

One night, street lights came on, casting a spotlight on our adolescence.

No one called us home and we were left in adulthood, running from our days bound to encounter darkness, mouths full of past regrets like childhood cavities chasing sweet dreams, going to make it painful to smile, wipe yourself off like great knees when chasing dreams That ice cream that fell from your heads into reality.

Rise with dirt on your shoulders and carry the earth.

The sun rises as we move to the sound of our own tune.

Now behind our drive, a new generation of youth pursue.

Let them pick our open minds laid out like ice cream menus Advise them they keep chasing dreams long after adolescence meets its last moon.

Because if childhood had a theme song and it came from my speaker, it would be a heart pulsing through neighborhoods, reminding society that you are still alive.

Young souls running together evokes unity, their souls pounding on concrete, throbs My heart's beat and I will stop my drive in order to become a provider of dreams, even if it's only ice cream.

Us as a workflow as a whole society of degenerates.

We all start with so much innocence.

We are children.

We are babies full of emotion, we are malleable.

And then things happen as we shape our individualities, for better or worse.

This piece here I want to dedicate not only to my mother, but every mother there is, Mother Earth, your mothers, all of our mothers, because this is what creates our society.

This is what carries us for nine months and brings us into this world and helps us on our journey, for better or worse.

I'm a conclude this set with this piece here.

This is waters.

Mama made a mistake falling for every man's croon.

She couldnt pick Daddy out of platoons covering her water balloon, hoping it wouldnt pop.

Plan changed directions like monsoons.

Puddles reflected off of the moon and I stepped out of the womb and unwanted family member arrived home too soon.

Mama made a mistake.

She didn't live by rules engulfed by scarlets and fools that filled the ills of public pools.

Sink or swim I had to choose.

Thrown into her troubles to, Marco Polo became gangs between mother and I. I close my eyes, she swim and hide 17 years pass before they open wide.

Sightless, yet I wasn't alone.

Teardrops and sons without fathers misled and abused daughters linked sorrows in these waters, that left a reminding taste that Mama made a mistake.

I stepped out of a cesspool seeking and plunging into a limitless sea engulfed by opportunity.

A school fish is what I chose to be.

Residing in coral reefs of universities.

Engulfed by a plastic life littering captivity, six pack ring traps, misconceived unity, plastic bag suck opportunity, pass mistreatment floats on killing ingenuity.

I came to these waters already soaked in history, and a colorful campus couldnt cover the reality that Mama made a mistake.

I now stand on land a contentment tears trembling from my joys, abnormally eager to embrace a sea of sorrow, wanting to hug the corpses of drowning dreamers.

Nature will always remind me wind whispers in my ear Tips upon these point to the sea tides frame my reflection As water roars upon embracing boulders Mama made a mistake.

I approached the soaked shore, hands reaching for the past in shallow waters, wanting to remember that I was once soaked in tears, viewing the dreaded sea.

I consume my suffering, Accepting the waters reminding tastes that Mama made a mistake.

I am Twahan Simultaneous.

Thank you KSPS and PBS for having me.

This was a degenerate workflow.

Hear more from the artists on this program on the Inland Sessions podcast available now at KSPS.org/podcast