I once was a cowboy king
and the American desert was
my playground.
My kingdom was my mind
and then it was free
to wander in the grass.
I smoked false cigarettes
made of sugar and chased
invisible horses.
The waves washed over my feet
and they sank into
the wisdom of the sand.
I built for myself a meager
castle with a moat
so I could stand above it.
The fluorescent corridors were
my stomping-grounds
and the servants stared.
No door could hold me
for I bore the royal hall pass
on my belt loop,
right beside my Crayola revolver.
May 16, 2014
May 16, 2014 at 2:00 AM UTC
Now the earth knows your body better than I do. Now the dirt
cradles you like a new mother—two brown hands
smoothing out a blanket for your bones. I guess I met you
by accident, at Ghost Beach, where the low winds beat at
bare ankles, where the feral cats chew on easy meat, where the
cabin cruisers smack against the water like angry fists. I went there because
I noticed the bell had started ringing again. I can't abide noise, no sir, my body demands a special kind of quiet—a coffin buried so deep that god himself would forget to rapture the poor soul inside. That's what led me to the sand. I wanted a
thin coast dotted with coral, I wanted ancient shells pressed to my ears, I wanted
an orange sun and a dark body and more life. You were different. You
wanted an exit. You wanted the pearly tides to undress you, to strip your
skin clear off, to husk you back down to guts and bones. I never saw such
a sad moth as you, all curled up in the summer surf, pale as a winter foot,
praying little prayers for absolution. Tell me, O winged one, when you finally
dipped a toe into the big scary blue,
was it because yours was ringing too?
May 15, 2014
May 15, 2014 at 12:48 PM UTC
I think that God and I must've quarreled in a past life.
What else could explain this baby tongue he's put behind my gums?
It fails me at social functions, at dinner parties,
clicking like an arthritic joint as I struggle to get the right
words out.
And on dates?
Please.
Last night, my tongue sprouted legs and jumped out of my mouth.
I watched it splash into her tomato soup and burn itself alive.
I heard the snap of each muscle,
the festive pop of every vessel.
The blonde girl just sat there, disgusted.
May 15, 2014
May 15, 2014 at 11:26 AM UTC
two devils yearn for the boy beyond the door.
one waits in darkness, quivering like an
arctic mouth.
his swift feet are knotted in a ceremony of limbs,
his eyes sweep like sentries across pink ****** skin.
the other devil is a dream-dweller. often he deign
to appear as a cold teenage hand: precise and insistent,
smooth-fingered,
strong-palmed.
knuckles mucking in the mound.
"i can't escape because he follow me everywhere.
look, he arrive. just there. just there"
May 15, 2014
May 15, 2014 at 11:22 AM UTC