My ancestors (i hesitate to even call them such)
came to this land centuries ago
they came with nothing
hoping to start a new life
but this is not about my proud heritage
not about immigrants following the
American Dream (Nightmare would be more accurate)

No
my ancestors
my White Anglo Saxon Protestant ancestors
descended upon this pristine landmass
like so many parasitic WASPs
injecting their prey (the people, the land) with venom
laying their eggs that would **** the hosts upon hatching

No
my ancestors
who helped perpetrate an ethnic cleansing
the likes of which 20th century fascists could only dream of
did so under the title of Manifest Destiny
divine right
their religion masking opportunistic genocide

No
my ancestors
laid the foundation
for the greatest country in the world
where ALL (White, English, Heteronormative, Cisnormative, Land-owning, Slave-Owning, Women Hating , Native-American-Murdering, Capitalistic, Perverted) MEN are created equal

No
my ancestors
partook in genocide
condoned slavery
oppressed women (and every other divergent identity)
destroyed the environment
and did so with such arrogance
such unheard of righteousness

No
my ancestors
were the lifeblood of America
the lifeblood of oppression
and that blood runs through my veins
the screams of American-Indian Warriors
of African Slaves
of Women labeled Witches and Gays and People of Color and anyone who opposed the hideous behemoth, anyone who dared to be different

their screams echo in my head
and i am ashamed

the arrogance

oh humankind
terror
fear
suffering
exponential death
we have brought
into this plane

a world
that may be no larger
than my eyes attest

oh humankind
our purposeful waste
dispensable products
people
populations

oh humankind
our sophistry of individuality
greed
power
war
genocide
in the fallacious name of
permanence

oh humankind
we cling to our objects
our love and hate
our righteous insecurities
we claim these as authentic

but we are little more than ghosts
inflicting a blink
a glimmer
of intolerably painful light

while we
these pathetic apparitions
stubborn and feeble
dissipate
into colorless purity

i haven't dreamt in a while
and i never dreamed that would happen

i fear falling asleep
because i hate waking up or
at least i hate the outside
that my open eyes reveal

i'm losing my imagination
because all i think of is better
and better is pretty mundane
the more you think about it

i was running down the street today
then saw a bus pull up at the perfect time
i got on the bus disappointed
logic subverts the unique

i stopped at a door today
for 5 or so minutes
thinking about coffee
then strange footsteps unfroze me

i woke up early today
but the more time i have
the more i get done
the more never enough it is

a slave to wordiness, verbosity
self referential
(poems where sparsity lays the heart raw
something to thump against
our mouths and hands
little parts of ourselves
sadness is the only understanding).
cut, copy, paste
everything is lost, rediscovered
conduits are the building blocks
within the building blocks
contradictions of rationality.
everything is connected
drifting.
not machines
not of this world.

palates and platelets
pallets and plates

mind and matter
brain and body

float me down the river
with the sun far from falling

---

desert fog
shiphorns blow in the distance

melting tundra
poke holes in the old maps

winds that blow between your toes
and stir undying shivers into quiet pines

the despair born out of these translucent weeks
books and song and knowledge
have no power in this illuminated haze
running my hands along walls
polished and leading nowhere

confined to this immaculate cell
like those nordic prisons
that you don't even want to leave
the comfort of captivity
ringing in my ear like an audible parasite

the city is no better
ghostly faces just like mine
but what hides in their eyes
is a tyranny that they will never know
the hateful foundation of success

but in the real world i stick out
my naïve face and pampered body
deserved condescension
i cannot know these people
because of what my people have done

drifting through the vacuum
too far from the power of attraction
cosmic bodies cling to each other
and i thrash and struggle
while the omniscient nothing engulfs me

off with the heads
of the heads of the states
out of the houses
and into the streets
no borders
no nations
no more exploitation
no starvation wages
or indoctrination
abolish all prisons
put kops out of jobs
an end to these prisms
and liberal facades
tired of lies from people in power
drag the bourgeois out their ivory towers
tear down the walls
dismantle the systems
answer the calls
don't act like you missed them
the time is now
the place is here
no hesitation
no more of this fear
the time to fight is now

eyes out the window
a hulking metal archangel
thunders across the
mocking blue sky
just a glimmer of white
the purity of image
distance
silence
betrays the emptiness
the malaise of its contents
as it is consumed by
the passive clutches
of stratocumulus vapor

glued to the floor
my back sticky with
contempt and
introspection i
sleep and stare and
fantasize of escape
an undoing of the
essential that has
plagued this plane

Pecola's dreams are
mine but it is not my
eyes that are stubborn
it is my brain my
mind my
infinity
that cannot
that refuses to evaporate

we got a few days left dont we?
will be better will be better will be better will be better
we wasted days looking forward, didnt we?
trapped cant stay awake trapped wake up wake up WAKE UP
we afraid of it ending, aint we?
what they gonna say? what am i gonna say?
afraid of beginning that ending
ugly out-of-shape stupid lazy worthless NOTHING
dont want to start nothing temporary
run away run away run away RUN AWAY
and only one thing in this world that lasts, right?
dont think dont think dont think dont think dont think
the REAL end, nothing old, nothing new
**** **** **** **** **** **** **** STOP
but we aint gonna do that, are we?
release release release just need a RELEASE
nah, we in the **** now, we're invested
PLEASE
and that just makes it worse, dont it?
oh god what god oh god what god oh god what god
no matter how bad we want to, we cant
all my fault all my fault all my fault
we destined for great things, aint we?
oh no
we can be whatever we want to be
please no
so we just gonna ride this out
no
and see where it takes us

the  echoes rose up
from mouth to top
the ringing that reached
through a viscous darkness

the underwater dusk
wet and open
seeking to rest
or be banished

curious but
somehow busy
always fading
from light

i
am
going
to

it's hard
to know
who what
when where

why is never
close why is
the elusive it
that sweats through

i no longer write
for anyone but the
person that started writing
then slowly disappeared as

my fingers kept
tapping and i
lost sight of
the why that

i could
never have

i got creepings
crawlings
in first and
second vertebrae

You got slow
tears
anguish you chained
since forever

i got wails
panting
fissures break then
who, me?

You got people
everywhere
you say alone
i understand

i dug my
fingers
into my pockets
you worked

You want to
run
empty words with
great meaning

there is no
We
i know you
but can't

the We lies
between
we **** it
always fleeting

you stood and spoke
like the women before had
and i felt it coming

you approached the front
and rising up in me
the stammering, wilting pain

you laid it out for the room
not even half your horrors
and i just wanted to die for you

because i would
selfish as it would be
the clichéd fatal love

We talk of our failures
past present and future
We forget to acknowledge

what you say he always says
the longest way round
is the shortest way home

back to normal so quickly
in an instant melting
the alien coating
that flavored my ache
layered my peculiar humor

night with every one gone upstairs
sitting with toxic concoctions that
i only knew i needed
when my mind went
blank

the pizza box i stepped
on melted by snow fused
to the ground i stepped
on it twice and the moisture
soaked itself stuck on my bones

passive bellicose falling asleep screaming cleaning down the dark street nobody there shave my neck with a switch-blade and we sink together into a comfort that makes us sick sad and listless just this quiet nowhere

my nowhere in the sterile kitchen
scrubbed with a solution fading
with circular wipes but ring stains
persist condensation lifting me out
of my body to see where the real
indeterminacy lies

i had a dream
i was holding my brother in
my toothless arms
i could not see
his face
he was breathing
my hand on his back
those heaving breaths
of sleep
silence
solitude

but it was not my brother
not a dream
it was my friend i held
laying on my back as
night terrors
gripped her
clawed her
back into reality

and we could not go back
to sleep
and we did go back
on our promise
and it was beautiful and cumbersome
and my brain raced frantically
just as it always does

distant
she penetrates me through screens
and those nights and
i long
i yearn
i creak
to hold my brother
who never existed
in my arms once more

i am afraid of
heights and
the buzzing in my head
the unacknowledged cravings
the thirst that drenches the flame
the words that you might say
that begin a whole new spiral
into a different circle that before
was just that craving, teasing
its way around the back of my mind
the tip of my tongue
the length of my everything
the depth of my nothing
the cravings that circle
with razor sharp teeth
and i read about those
with voices and christian parents
and know that i will never be
that which fascinates
whatever it is that lies inside

violent body of mine
take me away
my shoulder
hurts

but
no match
for the haze
that muddles my mind

i
am ashamed
of my body
all of the hate

that i am missing
i make up
for that
absence

they
tell me
i am great
i am everywhere too

i can bleed my
heart out on
a library
computer

and
feel no
more exposed no
less strong i am

filled with that hate
where i can
lay everything
bare

if
i so
choose i am
not stifled by this

body which i cannot
love i am
stifled by
my

mind
the guilt
the shame of
eyes-half-shut looking

blinking through tears equal
parts wind and
limitless possibilities
i,

terrified
of what
will soon be
inevitable i just can't

i just can't admit
that i can
do anything
i

want
whenever i
want however i
want forever i want