Leaf spines do their damnedest
to hold onto broken branches.

"These people -- if you could
                      call them that,"
the old man's shoulders pinch
his bubbling neck, "*******,
******* -- these opinionated
women; my god, I have never
seen the like, no sir."

Mother, why have you left me.
I can smell you on the freshly
                           salted roads.
It is so cold here. The snow
may never stop. The wind
has been picking up. I'm
afraid it may ******* away,
somewhere your direction.

"You see, the thing is, this
country -- no, this world --
has changed so **** much.
It's struck me, fearsome, of
what may stay; what may come,"
he runs his thick fingers through
a rather handsome silver patch,
"I wonder if what I mean to say
is that people scare me?
I don't know what that says
about me or about people."

Father, you sit and you drink,
dying in your work boots;
dying in the arms of my dream;
becoming a man slowly razed.
Your eyes are pale hazel
and they grow apart, as your
tongue pushes out, gone for
a few hours; soon missing.

"Mmm. No sir, I suppose this
world ain't for me. Virginia is
hardly the place I once knew...
You know, my wife, she found
the good in everything -- swear.
Found the good in me.
I envied her, in that one way;
she'd see the good in the *******,
*******, and these women who
just, well, don't know their place.
She'd know. But she ain't here.
Hell, I'm hardly here, tell'ya."

And all my anger I harbor for you,
my mother, I give to the women
I sleep with; the women that
break my heart; the women who
love me forever.

And all my anger I harbor for you,
my father, I try to forget, for you
are my idea of God's love, and
I desperately scratch at your surface,
excusing your roughness injuring my
fingers; forgiving you for covering me
in your blood and everything else you.

CHANNEL 3 AT 7:


We are at the scene, now;
an awesome showing of
                    brute force.
What some are calling the
greatest moment in U.S.
                          history
and, some, "An example
of jingoistic propaganda
masquerading as self-
-liberation."

Whatever it is, Tom,
one thing is certain:
we will be here,
covering every second
of this gigantic American
                          moment.

"And we thank you for your fine
reporting, Lisa. Boy, I tell you,
the President is making a huge
mistake with this act."

You have got that right, Tom.
We, as Americans, cannot
allow this to happen. We have
to ask these people if they want
this to happen -- and, then, we
need to enforce, what we consider
progressive and better for their
well-being, to them. These people
are like lost puppies, Tom.
It is our responsibility to make sure
that they do not respect their religion,
their culture, or prehistoric way of life
they have become accustomed to.
If we ignore the issue, of their
third-world existence and third-world
values, then we will have lost as
human beings; and the United States
cannot lose whenever it comes to this.

"Lisa, bathe me in your words,
because nothing has ever felt so
clean and right. You're absolutely,
100% correct: we need to guide
these poor, helpless people and
show them what is right, when
it comes to culture, identity,
among other things."

Agreed, Tom. And thank you.
To make things simple for
the viewer at home, you wouldn't
buy a puppy and expect it to
**** anywhere it wanted?
You have to show it where to ****.
Heck, you have to show it what to
eat, so the **** can be a good ****.
To sum things up, these people have
been pooping incorrectly, for a long time,
and it is our responsibility to show them
the **** inside of us, and how we aren't
going to mix with them, but, instead,
show them how they can get a nice,
firm ******* that we all but
take for granted.

"Couldn't agree more, Lisa.
It is our duty, as Americans,
to help these people who have
been de-humanized, and show
them how to handle this and
the world, especially during
a time like this for them.
And let us not forget,
this is their moment."



MAD MIKE IN THE MORNING:

Hello folks, and welcome
to the Heat Zone; a place
where snowflakes melt
and where liberals sweat.
I, of course, am your man,
Mad Mike O'Leary and
boy, do we have some
serious stuff to talk about.

Our fabulous leader,
whom we shall respect,
has made our nation great,
as 195 countries --
excluding our's, of course --
citizens now have American flags
drilled into their skulls.
As an act of kindness,  
Our fabulous leader,
has given each of these citizens
the choice of keeping or removing
the flags. Of course, if one were
to try to remove the flag,
a tiny explosive would detonate,
as one can never be too sure
if a citizen would use the flag
as a weapon -- and, of course,
there is no promise that the flag
wouldn't touch the ground,
so Our fabulous leader explained
that flag burning would be an
acceptable method of removing the
flag from this plane of existence.

Here, today, we have political pundit --
or political genius; you decide --
Ryan Tomlinson to discuss this radical
new way of life, we unfortunately have
to endure. Ryan, what are your thoughts
on the controversial method of discarding
the flag: a symbol of our strength, love,
                                          and freedom?

"Well, I'll tell you Mike: you think you're
the mad one, you should ask my wife
about my reaction when I learned about
this atrocious tiny explosive destroying --
yes, destroying -- our great and mighty flag!"

Haha, is that right, Ryan? I bet Nancy got
the Rowdy Ryan I've met on Nickle Shot Night.
What were her thoughts on your reaction --
better, yet, what was your reaction, Ryan?

"Well, I can't tell you exactly how she
reacted to my reaction, because I wasn't
really listening. But, I tell you, ever since
He Who Shall Not Be Named left the office,
Our fabulous leader has had to adopt some of
his wild and, frankly, immoral methods --
which would include the burning of our flag."

You got that right, Ryan. It reminds me of
when my oldest left for college, leaving behind
some beers that little Matthew ended up drinking.
My point is,  He Who Shall Not Be Named
has left some stains that still need to be cleaned up,
but I am confident that Our fabulous leader will
scrub those right up; if Matthew can do it, so can he.
To move on, here's an issue I have
that no one is really talking about, Ryan:
Not only are you detonating this flag -- a
flag that millions of men, God Bless Them,
have fought and died for -- but you're also
covering this symbol of freedom in the
blood and gore and scalp and guts of
these dangerous people who would love
nothing more than to see our symbol destroyed.

"You hit the nail right on the head, Mike!
These people don't understand what it is
like to be an American; to deal with their
oppression and policing of our values.
They already have succeeded in dividing us
when it comes to this whole flag removal
method. You can't reason with these, people.
You can try to offer them a Benjamin;
you can try to give them tickets to Transformers,
but these people will never respect us or our
way of life. And these liberals are right behind them!
I'm not sure what the liberals plans are, right now,
but you can be sure they'll use this whole flag thing
to exploit something. Hell, they're already talking
about how we should teach these people to **** --
what if they get to them, first, and teach them to
**** on the GD flag?! The liberals are helping divide us!
That's what they do!"

You are so, so right, Ryan. This country is full of
the wrong ****; and is going down the toilet.
Well, unfortunately,
we have to go to commercial, but you can bet
your keister that we'll continue this important
discussion that involves your liberty,
your job, and your soldiers.
Mad Mike in the Morning, with special guest,
Ryan Tomlinson -- be right back.
Don't go away.

After long dark,
you can find me in my mind;
taming serpents; kissing girls.
You may not understand
why I've been the way I am.
You're under-educated
and that's only half your fault.

Sometimes I am imprisoned
within the waves of an ocean
that always misbehaves --
but it's not my fault; just the
way the god rolls: making halves
and making wholes.

After the short syrup of light,
you can find me hiding, true;
pulling off ticks; kissing boys.
You may not comprehend
the way I'm fumbled together.
You're under-educated
and that's only half your fault.

Always I am imprisoned
within the crash of culture;
my thoughts treated like worms;
my illnesses considered contrived.
But it's not my fault; just the
way you guys roll: ignoring halves
for conventional wholes.

White whiskers rooted above the trumpet player's lips;
his body moves like a sci-fi parasite, as he spits out songs
at the big bellied, Skecher-chic, boardwalk children.
The kids give a moment's interest before passing by like
armored flies, if armor were cheap cotton shirts and
helicopter parents.

Sooner or later, the sunset meets the brim of his hat.
It's a mystery as to the speed of the trumpet dropping
from his lips to its case, but you'd have to find someone
who cares about those types of things.

His brown, leather, Payless feet jut outward; away from
one another and towards American stores reflecting themselves:
Italian restaurant, Thai restaurant, Car Insurance, Dollar Store.

Quicker than you'd think, his denim hips are clamped by
the wooden arms of a misplaced deck chair, relocated to
a dining table as small and low-income as the man who
saw the dreamlike orange and purple sky drift away
behind the cemetery gray blanket of smoke, rising from
a fractured ground littered in mud-bathed, leaking bodies.

When the night has only begun to settle in, the man's
thick hands carefully adjust her picture, for he fears
the paleness of his fingers will leave more of a residue
than he is accustomed to.

Kept within the copper and green borders, she has
only begun life; twenty-three and never having to apologize,
there is still so much left to the imagination; her olive grey
cheeks are sided to his eyes, ready to be jammed with
baby, mommy, and daddy fragments of windshield;
waiting for the last embrace of a sturdy steering wheel;
her hair still dry and not dampened by insides coming out
or the flying weaker-than-you-think half-gallon of whole milk
that covered -- or washed, depending on your attitude -- the
back of her fifty-three year old head; the eggs fortunately
missing twelve times, hitting what was left of the windshield,
leaving an image comparable to the wall of a bar that not only
has a dartboard but also a man with terrible aim or who had as
much alcohol as the man who slipped his car into Margaret
and Joseph's life.

Joseph looks away from her picture, as his glass eyes begin
to shatter. Running fat palms and bulbous fingers through
the white, over grown lawn on his scarred scalp,
he says her name three times before retiring to the mattress
Margaret picked out.

I have a hard time in bars,
specifically ones I don't belong in.

Sometimes I stand at the bar,
this wooden horseshoe, among
other faces that I probably blend
into. I want to say, Can you see me,
but don't because why would they?

My friends are mostly gone,
scattered across states like bats:
blindly searching for life.

I didn't deserve them, anyway --
that's not self-pity, that's just
how it is.

At most midnights,
I find myself swallowed by
existential terror.

Like most Americans,
I want to be the best
and have more than my
parents ever did.

Anyway, I don't belong in bars
because I think I am better than
the people there and someone,
who thinks that type of stuff
doesn't deserve a drink -- just
repercussions.

I think I deserve everything
but I don't work hard enough
for the books, people, and love
I imagine.

Perhaps I am plain,
like discount yogurt, waiting
to be touched before I expire --
but there's strawberry, which,
of course, is so much better
than plain, low-fat yogurt.

There's not a universe
where I am low-fat;
why would that happen.

I am stunted: four years
behind every one else.
People like me stay
strangers: the darkest
inside the night.

They say we're degenerates
as we walk with sore shoulders,
flimsy backs, fractured dreams.

The word millennial is used like
some derogatory word --
we're meant to feel like ****
because our parents failed us.

Because smartphones help us
release dopamine.

Because we're addicted to
virtual realities.

Because we **** strangers
that we hope validate us.

No one understands why
the news says this about drugs
and this about violence -- or why
we do 'those things' and if we
have any '******* sense'.

It's beyond them.
Maybe beyond us.

It's higher than our weekends;
lower than our expectations.

She wore a windbreaker as red
as her parents voting habits,
and smoked American Spirits
as rough as the next-door
skateboarder's hands.

At 18, she was bored by
teen-aged touch,
and looked towards the
thirty-five year-old avant-garde
painter, who meandered in his
sun room, like a soul
pretending to be lost.

At 20, her parents told her
to go to college, to go to
'some place other than here'.
So, she went and had skinny,
Greek fingers with chipped nail-polish,
dip down and inside of her, without
judgement, without thought, and,
with this touch, she felt free.

At 24, she was an undergrad with
an apartment and a guy named 'Blake',
and Blake said Brown and she said State.
And when Blake left, she felt complete
despite losing something meaningful.

And when her story started to go on forever,
her body spread across the pavement like
seeded jam on burnt toast, scraped thin,
without image and without future, lost
inside crevices and cracks, a memory
or thought, wandering nothingness.

There's a reckless wind
whipping 'round the
frayed ends of my hair,
its exodus from the sides
of cars blurring by.

Jazz drummers cycle
flurries of taps and nods.
Twitching wrists for dollars,
their cornflower blue suits
rising with the street sound,
becoming a tent for sweat,
reaching for the dangling dark  
held up by clouds and the
screams of horns and the
chimes of chatter.

And here I lean, inside a corner
between an entrance and an exit.
My dreams are starting to
last as long as these cigarettes,
I probably spoke into the chainsmoke --
being pretentious and afraid
under the spill of streetlight.

And here I am, harmfully hoping
my friend comes back, that he
didn't suffer, that he is with god,
that god exists, that I grow into
something that would make
him proud, my parents proud,
make me proud.

All the pretty girls trot the walk,
like surreal thoughts with
white converses and high-waisted
jeans holding the eyes of the few
guys and girls going home alone.

There's no proper way to end this
besides for raw ***, real violence,
and more money.

My government only cares about me
once every four years.

My bank account controls me.

I can't buy anything unless
it wants to **** me or love me.

Your pretty face,
all scattered in black,
back to the steel --
that's how they
disappeared you.

My emptiness is
measured in rust;
drenched in the rain
that'll soak your dust.

I've wrapped you in
the red wind-breaker
I've never owned,
hoping it'll change some--
--thing, anything at all.

That'll soak your dust.
Please, Please, tell me
you won't leave me be.

There's your voice
an ear-worm in my --
I wish you'd come back,
my little guy.
I'm such a degenerate
with you off of that
tight-rope I've found my--
--self on. Why'd you gone,
Where'd you gone, my son.
Where'd you gone, my sun.
Where'd you gone, my son.
Where'd, Why'd you gone.

That'll soak your dust.
Please, Please, tell me
you won't leave me be.

If you wanna be the same,
be the same with me --
I swear we’ll always
blend right in.

And when you say
you don’t like Jaws,
I'll still be a Peeping Tom
behind your books.

When you lie, Maggie-Pie,
about the movies you’ve seen,
it makes the Tom Waits you like
seem contrived.

Degenerate drug kids,
too high to be a star,
in love with moments.

Give me my moments,
my lifeless promise
to always have a car
and insurance.

If you wanna be lazy,
be lazy with me --
I swear we won’t
ever do ****.

And when you bop
your head to Kendrick,
I’ll watch you melt
underneath the strobe.

Place your finger on a globe,
tell me where you think
you could be, then tell me
about your perceived
self-worth.

Degenerate punk kids,
with more ink than squids,
and a tip-jar future.

Give me my future,
my hurried ten years;
you know my twenties;
you know my reason.

Give me my reason,
give me my reason, give me my reason.