Two by Oliver Hoffman

 

My Biggest Flaw Is That I Care Too Much 

 

PETA would take this case to court much later

On the table were the shoulders and paws

Dr. Taub had dislocated 

and asked the monkeys to find again.

 

If they weren’t crippled, how could we have known

that the etruscan nerve connects

to the galilean cortex

and thus could be stimulated through electro-convulsivity 

to give amputees

back their lost limbs?

 

Harry Harlow: If we hadn’t placed the monkeys

in the form fitting metal cages

how could we have known 

that infants want warmth and texture

from their mothers

rather than just to be left alone

and to be sustained? Tens of thousands of infants

in America would be in metal cages right now.

 

Coincidentally, tens of thousands of American infants

were in metal cages. But they had also begun to pull

on the chokers and hoop earrings that were becoming

more mainstream among young mothers.

 

Those with perfect earlobes began investing in perfect

replicas of their children called reborn dolls.

It was telling that their skin was made of plastic,

and not the terry cloth that only could have comforted 

the bereaved.

 

Regardless, a reborn doll is rescued 

from a parked car by EMTs in 2008. The mother is 40 feet away 

in a job interview on the other side of the strip. A couple from California 

evades charges after cocaine is found in their baby’s system.

We made a mistake, 

they say in a statement. But how could we have known 

what happens to a baby on cocaine?

 

 

Deaf Advocates

 

In the thumbnail, Mr. Beast has his arm on the shoulder of a 10-year-old boy

cupping a hearing aid with his right hand. The hearing aid is a lime green

Powerbeats Pro by Beats by Dre.

 

For a few of the thousand, he brings out $10,000 briefcases or a jet ski after

the procedure. These segments have titles like “Surprise” or “Gift” or “Hearing”

In the last video, a woman falls over and starts crying.

 

In the last video: 1,000 blind people see for the first time. Both are criticized for

creating a lottery that prevents the public demand for better American healthcare, 

and the numerous clones they’ve created.

 

A clone tells a waitress “pick a number between 1 and 10,000.” Her eyes light up,

She says, “10,000.” Then the clone and cameraman laugh, and they get up and

leave.

 

The star of Bumfights, Rufus Hannah, was lifted out of poverty and alcoholism

after jump starting his career by running headfirst into an intermodal container,

a move which allowed him to die at 63 as a homeless rights advocate, with

a wife and 4 kids.

 

A landmark in exploitative journalism. A thread from DataLounge.com claims

Judge Judy hates poor people. Jerry Springer is asked if his liberal views have

changed since he was the mayor of Cincinnati due to the Jerry Springer show.

 

He says, The Jerry Springer you see on TV is invented, he’s my persona. You 

wouldn’t blame an actor for playing Hitler, would you? He says,

 

The deaf havens begin as islands of self sufficient, predominantly deaf communities

in which deafness is built into the art, the architecture, and the civil defense sirens.

 

To cure a child’s deafness, argue the deaf advocates, is to forcefully remove them

from a culture they have a right to, regardless of the wishes of their parents.

Jerry Springer continues,

 

A deaf baby is born in a hospital near here and they have the Cochlear implants on standby. 

In the deaf heaven, the lights flash to announce the doorbell, the arrival of a good friend 

in the doorway, and the silent auditorium is awash with hands shaking, 

 

the tapering flesh tongues of vowels and syllables, palms like the pink flesh 

of a Conch shell, the huge sound of the ocean, the Deaf paradise, that which 

can be inserted or taken out of the ear… 

 

If we aren’t curing hearing, or sight, 

then why cure deafness? Why cure a homosexual or a leper… 

Take care of yourself and each other, I’m Jerry Springer.

 

 Oliver Hoffman (he/him) is a tenth-grader at the Kinder High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Houston, TX.