Someone like me told me,
"You have to get involved."

Someone like me told me,
"You have to use your voice."

Someone like me told me,
"You're a disgrace
      to your people."

I said back,
"I can't argue that."

I think, what's
the point of getting mad?
I've been called worse
than a delusional man

in women's clothes.

I think, what's
the point of the pitchfork?
I think, what's
the point of fighting language?

Someone like me told me,
"You're part of the problem."

Someone like me told me,
"You've been brainwashed."

I said back,
"Possibly."

I think, what's
the word I'd use
to describe you?

"Nonplussed."

And that's okay--
Funny even,
when you're angry.

You're funny
when you're angry.

Ha      Ha      Ha      !

Am I healthy?
Am I healthy.
Am I healthy? What
Kind of question
Is that?

Am I healthy?
Am I healthy.
Am I healthy? Enough
To know whose eyes
See mine                  as prey.

I won't ask for much else
In the way of health.

Am I healthy?
Am I healthy.
Am I healthy?

Enough to avoid death in the short term.
*****, you have a problem with that?
It's ten feet, maybe less, to the door --
Remember when I sent that request ?
*****, you weren't invited inside.
I decide the clientele. You're denied.

I decide the clientele, for my health.

Once,
a while ago,
we were
eagerly in love,
so, eagerly
we were in chains.

Once, we were members of a party.
Parts of a whole. A hopeless oath
of devotion to another, to durdle,
intimately, through the grandest lie.

Once, we were eagerly in chains.
(Now, contemptuous in disdain)
Once, we were excited to be.
(Now, that's just not what we're about)

Once, we were bonded in a gamble.

Now, we're barely willing bystanders,
no more an adventure, than it is
   a situation.

Oh, no. It's happened again.
My precious words have been turned
back on me in a manner of which
I disapprove.

It hurts -- and words
only win their worth
when they're soft,
when they're

pretty.

Zombie on the boulevard,
and then, a Big Gulp at my back.
Wetness, confusion, anger.
Laughter at my expense.

Tense enough to jump
off the overpass,
stuck to land,
glad to live.

What can you do?

The odds are just as good that
the driver and the passengers would,
years later, die painfully from cancer,
or make the permanent ulnar marks
that I chose not.

Honeyed words are sweet, yes, you're right.
I demand truth of myself, and there are times,
when my self is not nice. Does that then make
my words unworthy compared to yours?

In the end, I see,
the answer doesn't matter.
I should ask, instead:
does it make you mad that
there are so many things out of your control?

I've accepted this.
I guess that's why

I find it funny.

Where's this abject
anger come from?

Is it innate or
is it
an acquired trait?

Who owns these lips
grinning at gains?

Out comes the wolf?
Out comes the hominid.

Who owns these tongues
dripping silver?

Produce and consume.
That's how it is.

What an art it is
to dispel doom.

Tried selling concepts?
That's where it is.

Chants in droning, layered voices
spin around me as the portal whips and swirls.

Vision leaves for blindness, then
returns again in purple tunnels, bending, twisting.

My mind appeals to enlightened reason
as a pain begins to escalate.

Somehow, I know the feeling coming,
and this one, I do not want to come.

My feathers and my skin, then reject
my body in its whole. I feel it peel away.

I don't want no more
cherry
              light.
I don't want no more
green
            in - ferno.
Once upon a time I
held dreams as close
as I went on
to hold smoke
in my lungs --

   I don't want no more.

Yes: maybe Davey is right.
Which edge is the knife's edge and
which edge is. . .

Which edge is which?

Yes: maybe my Davey is right.
Complacency kills
the best of all intention.

My sleep's been in detention.
Maybe taking the easy downer. . .
Maybe taking
the easy upper. . .

I'll      take      back

      my dreams.

There's nothing but death ahead.
A right angle to admire in flight.

Falling, free, yet truly contained for the first time.
What's left? An ending far past my feeling's edge.
Beyond all comprehension --

Why would I strive for gains in paper and credit,
when breaking the boundaries means I may well
never know human contact, again?

From the womb, I've squeezed from a trigger pull.
I'm a representation of cyclical self destruction,
until I lose my velocity to life.

Where's my beholden, blue light ignited soul?
A siren throat is bone dry, floating on the ocean,
hopelessly croaking the notes.

Would any human ever ignore their good senses
just to commit to an abomination, who is sin
simply in their existence?

There's nothing but death on the horizon.
A right angle to admire in descent.

How clean is clean
when the cleaning began
from the floor of a sunken ship?
Barnacles grace the walls in the place
of family, or a familiar face.

When filth is a given, and given
in projection to the overtly empathetic
as a matter of course, why implore?

Because you don't implore,
you explore as an entity
reaching for a meaning.

The question becomes,
do you fight, or do you invite
the coming cessation?

Even with a gun, and a view to ****,
the power the bullet affords
would surely fail to thrill you.
The best charlatans paint your hands red,
as you're sleeping in bed, preemptively.

Let the liars lie, let the builders connive.
Uninterrupted access to their own confines.
To Narcissus, the cool nod is colder than the knife.

Let the liars lie, let the builders connive.
When the company you keep requires the sacrifice
of your authenticity and your reality, just leave.

It'll never get good. It'll never get great.
It'll never be worth the investment.

On split finger webbing,
blistered metatarsal pads,
catlike: left left, right right.
You're just over there?
You call this chasm just?
On split, sore patella,
charred hands,
the head hanged loosely,
as dead: left left, right right.
My head down, eyes up, right?
Compensation has been tendered
for the services rendered, right?

                          Right?

What a vicious punk --
I'm pretty sure he lies about his age.
What's with the bow and ponytail?
Desert skin curtained by auburn,
socketed with emerald eyes.
Who does he think he's fooling?

What a deplorable. . .
I'm pretty sure his skill with a sword
is comparable to beginners.
Pillow lips protect a silver tongue.
While we work, he's in the taverns,
playing at conversation.

What a queer young man --
Even back on Jalima he ruffled
feathers on the goodly wings.
I wouldn't trust a man who would
speak, over choosing violence.
Who does he think he's fooling?

Arrested.
A Windsor knot
binds my
fickle neck
to my dour
shoulders.
Plastic ties
elegant wrists
in pair.

One question:
Head up or down?

I lied.

Another question.
Atop a question.

Am I

headed up or down?
Give me redemption
or else,
how can I ignore it?

One bedroom.
An eager clock,
minutes
from my set,
or expected
The End,
happily
leaves me to my
routine.

One question:
Head up or down?

I lied.

Another question.
Atop a question.

Am I

headed up or down?
Give me freedom
or else,
how can I ignore it?

Can I really be who I want?
Can I really be what I mean?

Will I ever solidify?
Will I ever come to?

And who will come?

(. . .)

Papa sat
on his porch
smoking cigarettes.
Papa sat
on his porch
drinking black coffee.
Papa sat
on his porch
watching history
repeat itself.

Would he have lied
about this life?
What did he do?
Do I care?
He's dead. He's done.
He's my black bread.

Would he have lied
about this life?
What did he do?
Do I care? Do I care?

Papa said,
Don't lie.
Don't ever cut your ties
on accident, with some
accidental psychosis.
Kid, know your mind.
Kid, live your life.

Papa said,
Don't break.
Don't snap yourself in half
folding for other eyes,
Please,
Keep living, Kid.
Learn to bend.

Fantasizing everyone
Sexualizing everyone
And why?

I am alone

Fantasizing everyone
Sexualizing everyone
Again.

I'm alone
And I

Devote myself to life as if to keep
The stars promised of our destiny
Safe and strong and confronting
Their mirrors with the proper self applause

Alone.

I contain a fire, the raging heat
The signal pyre, Autumn and the Spring
For heat, I chill with my demeanor
For cold, I prefer to warm your
Goosebumps with my open mouth
If permitted take the walkabout
To linger with my fingers down your leg
If permitted, take the hidden way
To kiss your heart and light your path
With the source of all your worry
Nurtured between my lips

Fantasizing everyone
Sexualizing everyone
And why?

What connectivity is left to crave?

The men who back their friends
Into corners after arranging
Clandestine ******* after
Clearing out the place to have their way

The men who stand with ****
In hand, pathetic and commanding
Limp of love, and targeting
The the light they view as weak

I was made just for that
Assembled in a factory
As an indentured guide
To lead to the promised land

They drew up my design
Schematic with *******
And motherly empathy
Perfect for abuse
And a ***** perfect
For dysphoria
For when I learn to love myself
It reminds me I'm
Armed with alarm
And filled with the fluid
The learned are simply right to hate

Alone.

for all my preparation
this project begins to slip away
what if my great fantasy
hinges on a banal happiness?
the ink of ballpoint pen
takes me as far as sorrow's edges
i confess best to myself
wetness skin to skin, with sweat's sweet and
sour accompaniment is as close to happiness
as i can steer this sinking ship
as of late there's nothing left
of the sweat to cleanse my dead palate

Why, is the superfluous one.
What, is unnecessary, too.
How & When & Where, then,
are inescapable.
     If you act on instinct,
how far will you go to self preserve?
When will you break?
Where will you turn?

Is it your self you'd extinguish,
or is it the other flames?
There can be only one,
but the prize is: death comes
down the path of least resistance
to take a multitude of shapes.

     As for my body,
nothing much to lose,
nothing left to save.

As for my body,
nothing much to lose,
nothing left to save.

I want to live, but
I want to crawl inside my past.
Personal history
will set me free at last,
regardless of what burns my tongue
as if it's on the cusp of being said.
If I find my womb again, well,
good enough for me, I guess,
that I will have won.

I want to live!
I want to crawl inside my mind.
I haven't found dogs that write scripture
for all that I've searched.
While I realize it could be,
I ask myself, "How long will you toil
in the name of agency
all to find
someone to take your shame
and make it palatable?"

Trend is set from continued action
My inaction left me numb and blind
The trend is set that my earthly distributors
May take of me as they find me if I'm turned off
The trend is still the same as the dreams
My grandparents had for a better world
Trend toward full automation

Fine for '56
What am I doing now?
How do I live without
knowledge?

My distributors and keepers
kept me wet
in their fluids
using my blood
before but

They will not win this war.
I commit myself to sit and reconnect.
If a hand offers me happiness,
I'll ask, first, Which conglomerate?
If my choices seem chiseled
In the mint of coins
And the choices fit perfectly opposed
I'll remember my nose and sniff
Out the metals that fund this war.
I'll ask then, Whose coin is this?

And it's not ungrateful
When those with all the excess
Try and rule the world
Because of how bored with
What Is they've become
And exactly absolute

Well, what if
I decide there's no war?
Well, what if
I bow my head and take a knee?

People of my same society will laugh at me,
And chastise my every thought before
They say, for sure, "It's just how it works."
Then either crush me from high
Or forget me and play State of Decay
Until they forget how much they're worth.

I hold.
There is no war.
This is not a game.
This is our Existence.
Fragile at best.
This is beyond
Humility.
This is actual
Neglect.

I have no perspective, I
bring nothing new.
I absorb everything, I
am pressed to consume.

I consume. They press me,
to consume me, to imbibe,
to savor the flavor of
the fruits to their labor.

I'm impressed you haven't
yet guessed my game correctly.
(. . .rebranding. . .)
I'm impressed you haven't
yet guessed my game.

If I'm alive, then we're ******.
If I die, then you're ******.

What do I have to do
to get through to you:
I do what I must to survive.
Send thanks to any god
you dream and believe:
Shame is sitting still, smoking ****.

Do I
just get by?
According
to the
world
at large, oh
yes, oh yes.

Do I
just get by?
According
to me,
the
world's gonna
end, oh yes.

If you want to waste your mind on me,
that's fine --
I'll be using mine for feeling,
and I'll be full to satisfied.

What do I have to do
to get through to you:
I do what I must to survive.
Send thanks to any god
you dream and believe:
Shame is sitting still, smoking ****.

Scanning
racks and shelves
for any
piece of
me
in what you
have here made.

Scanning
racks and shelves
for any
precious
piece
of yours
to ruin   with my appreciation.

If you want to waste your mind on me,
that's fine --
I'll be using mine for feeling,
and I'll be full to satisfied.

Start the day
the only way
that works for me.
Lighter, light ****.
Massage ball, get my shoulder free.
Lungs, please, do continue.
Carry me through dance.
Tighten the strings
of the universe
through me,
from my feet to my hands.

They,
they call me greedy,
exclusive,
taciturn. . .

That I've learned
from my disease
--chronic listening--
which voices
I'd rather not hear.

Most of these sing song smiley faces
beat you to the punch as if they're racing
past you after a ******* badge.

You want a badge?
Well good for you.
Go online and buy one.
They said "spill your guts"
And So you spill out *******.
Thinking that you're making friends,
while I'm hard pressed to believe you
would be believed by anyone worth friending.
You want a badge? Good for you!
I'll make you a deal if you decide to buy one.
I'll pay the cost for the custom laser engraving:
"Sheriff Big ****" in the land
of      "No      One      Gives      A      ****"

the readout simply showed,

    i am the brand name.

it was the ubiquitous, and as

     was i.

production and consumption

     are protected.


i am the being from which the experience is squeezed.

     i am the experience repackaged and sold.

altered by demand, altered again by experience.

     then squeezed, then sold, then squeezed, then sold.


hyperreality affords the assurance of eternal life.

     i am information, in its creation, in

its propagation. the plot has been tossed

     in favor of the house of character,

atlantic, and pacific.

Pleasantries
to monkeys
checking
files in the
imagination
database.
What you want to hear
appears
before your eyes as wish
fulfill--
meant for a target,
the same
as its creator.
In words:
What we've come to call
"a heart missing a piece."
In words:
Easy marketing.
Pleasantries
to monkeys
surfing
cyber waves
for validation
constantly.
What would you like to hear?
What world would you create?
Tickets are 10 for $10, today.

I'm right
on top of
things can't
you see it?

Oh! It's Friday
the 13th?
Thanks Cné.

I'm right
on top of
it, just -- just
trust me!

(An ounce of ****
per week and sleep,
dreamless sleep.)

I'm up
to date on
razor
pop culture.

Oh! It's August
isn't it? Sep - tem
- ber. That's

what I meant.

(An ounce of ****
per week and sleep,
dreamless sleep.)

   Why can't I live like
Oliver Tree?

(An ounce of ****
per week and sleep,
dreamless sleep.)

   Why can't I live like
Die Antwoord?

(An ounce of ****
per week and sleep,
dreamless sleep.)

   Why can't I live like
Mr. Rogen?

LOL

Fine,
if a bitter wind blows

Fine,
if a liar arrives

on my patio
hard heart
worn
right
with the
knuckle
skin

Fine,
pressed on the razor's edge
(grinning ear to ear as if I wanted it)

Fine,
when what was once the worst
(grinning ear to ear as if I wanted it)

returns to a placid place
below,
so

a new threat may
emerge

Guile, come and get it.

Bison beef means
Bison bucks for everyone.

Bison's just:
Satan as he fell from Heaven

like

      light
  
              niiiiiiing!!!

Grind you up into portions.
Serve you up to the horde.
What was
temporarily
yours,
will feed
the meat
of
the future seed.
Sure enough
the scene
before the
excited mind,
the silent mouth,
shall
seemingly go
completely
unnoticed
til the matter mounts.

At times in existence
What you feel cannot be described
The words are there ready to erupt
The circuitry laid inside
Is beyond description
You're allowed your own wants
You'll never know if they're wrong
You paint it, you say it, angry at night
You sing it til it curdles into bloodied screams
The reality is your beauty
Is so kind that it gets the knife
The tip drips with black instead of white
The pen is, it turns out, poisoned
With toxicity to life
You live hope. You live faith.
You are strength.
Yet your desire is forever ensnared
Caught in a cry

someone else?
someone same?
a person, still?
a person, sane?

dry me out
critique is that
which denies
tangential arcs

do you
see me
trying?

if a meat
will be a meat
i will be
wet as i can

I come from a box
I hope that you don't judge
I've had men change their minds
I've had men so surely sweet who
Saw right past my sum of parts
Deeply and complete

That is until

Til I was taught what I'd not learned of hearts
The beating brutality bound to bind living hope
A lonely man saw me as love til he saw him in me
And he reflected back from my empty eyes as a joke

What did I know?
What did I know?

Shower, you
touch me, still,
hotter than
clumsy fingers.
Clumsy advances.
In the water,
I see shapes
rising in steam
built by the
confidence
I can manage,
alone with you,
when I sing.

. . .

Lights out, cast a dark net.
Got the      yellow lights outside,
though,
catching my plans
on the
unbalanced heel,
but the      assisted glow
just makes my. . .
my aura cut out
a visible,
protective shape.

More than this,
in the music,
wearing my skin,
proud, yet naked,
I
      bravely emanate.

Oh ((oh)) Oh ((oh)) Oh ((oh))
I won't live forever.
Oh ((oh)) Oh ((oh)) Oh ((oh))
I just want some      infiltration.
I just ((just just)) I just ((just)) ((just))

I just --
wait. It's no meager thing.
I'm no meager thing.

I clean toilets
with no gloves on
my two tone hands.

I wondered why
I was born.
She told me this:

"So I wouldn't be alone."

I clean floors and
change a commode.
**** fills my nose.

I offer time
in an exchange
for my wage.

"I'm a ***** and
      I was born for this
         companionship."

I wondered why
I was born.
She told me this:

"I really wanted a kid."

Free agent, here.
I'm a bang for your buck.
Want a bargain?
Then you're in luck.

I can change a bed.
(Please take me in.)
I can tend a heart.
(It's what I was taught.)

I swallow.
(Oh, oh.)
I swallow.
(Oh, oh.)

Standing in the bathroom
Between the toilet and the sink
As such the mirror
Between the waste and stark display
Afraid of my face

What's more my eyes sink
Sunken more than usual
Their grasp of differences
Between non-fiction and
The fictional decays

My arm is off and on again
Now product of the medicine
My father and his father and
His father's father made
In sparing no expense

What's more my eyes see
Dot matrix ghosted notes
On patterns previously
Invisible through my
Corrupted nodes restored

Reborn

One thing though that I
Should let the nurses know
I can now transpose
Simple items left to right
On focusing my mind

Earlier I made the toilet
Paper jump between the
Edges of the room
I then successfully
Subtracted and multiplied

that feel when you crawl out of your dumpster, and see your **** neighbor in a bikini at the community cesspool

Frigid wants the flame,
soak the night in heat,
rescue the cold, then,
from what cold would be.

Chill wants the scorch,
soak the dead in sun,
rescue the frozen
from what cold will bring.

Half to death myself,
quiet breath, no knell,
asking, Where's the hand?
Where's the lip?
asking, Where's a form
who wants me?

No such thing. No such thing as
romance.
No such thing
as loving connection.

Only satisfaction.

so are you satisfied?