begin with a
disinfectant wipe
and wash your eyes
right off your face

(it might sting a little
but that's a small
price we all must pay
before we die)

next grind your
toenails down to a fine
sheen using only the
shower curtain

(it may take hundreds
of years and that's why
i'm telling you to
begin immediately)

let the roots of your
hair dig down into
the ground and slowly
bury your face

(at this point in the
procedure you may
pass out from lack of
air or lack of hope)

finally tattoo morse code
messages behind your ears
with a rusty safety pin and
old charcoal art pencils

(it doesn't matter what it
says because nobody can
read it back there nor
do they actually care to)

and submerge your
nose into isopropyl
rubbing alcohol just
to smell poisoned

but most importantly
of all when you begin
to experience pain so
intense you do not
have words with
which to describe it

always tell yourself
that nothing is real

n o t  y o u
n o t  a g o n y
n o t h i n g
i s  r e a l.

then take down the
noose hanging in
the back of your closet
turn off the light and
fall into the deepest
sleep of your life

*(whether or not you're
real or not doesn't matter
it just matters what you're
telling yourself to stay alive.)

a panic attack
in a parking garage
and an elevator
to escape

(a closed box moving
rapidly downwards is
not an especially
relaxing means of escape)

a summer of brief
digital inhalations
watermelon candies
sticking to teeth

(there's nothing like
rainy cities at night
to hurt your eyes and
make you dead inside)

cold feet somebody
has got cold feet by
the air conditioner
phone in hand

come to think of it
i never really asked
for love just expected
somebody would supply

i see everything
reflections and spray
painted numbers and
multiple ellipses too many

(i say nothing
let all the images and
thoughts collide so you
think i see nothing at all)

i'm afraid and my
hands won't stop
shaking so i'm never
going outside again.

A duel you've challenged me to
One you can't hope to compare
You be the fly and I the shoe
Or maybe a rabbit i will ensnare

Go ahead make your move
Try to out verse me
You won't be this smooth
You'll be on your knees begging a plea

I'll cut threw your sappy verse
**** all over your rhyme
We can carry you out in a hearse
It won't take much time

So bring me my glory
Lay at my feet
Your fight won't be much a story
Once your deceit

i keep a red
second place
ribbon on my
bulletin board
to remind me that
i wasn't good enough

i keep defeat in
my back pocket
and failure
on my skin.

(i didn't realize
how nice it was
to actually be
good at something
and i didn't realize
how easy it was
to stop being
good at something)

took the things
i was good at and
cashed them in
for a quieter night

i can't eat
can't sleep
can't write
can't design

bake a pie
write a poem
cross stitch
crochet
i'm not
bad at it.

i still have
hobbies but
it's not like
it used to be
i'd rather
be cleaning
at least i can
do that well

(isn't that
a little odd
considering that's
exactly what somebody
a little bit too close
to me was feeling
when his world got
turned upside down?)

i'm just not
good at anything
not anymore
but it's my own fault i'm sure.

(i'm 42% sure
i don't exist.)

intensely greased
plastic hair
secondhand green day
coldplay in the rain

i love the sound
that waxed paper
deli sheets make
and i could choke
on a glassed reflection
of celery salts and windex.

(i'm 42% sure
i don't exist
because when i look into
my eyes i see someone else)

i'm not catholic
and do not
understand who
st. peter is

but i wonder if he won't let
us into heaven because we're
failures or if we're failures
because he won't let us into heaven

(i'm 42% sure
i don't exist
and questioning how
bad hell can really be.)

too quiet for a saturday
i wrote the word
decaf so many times i
forgot how to spell it

decaf
decaf
decaf
decaf

(does decaf
have two f's?
because i don't have
two f's to give anymore
i mean i would but
i can't even find
vowels much less
extra consonants)

when i was a child
i always counted in
mississippis
now that i'm older i
find myself counting in
cappuccinos

i dreamed my
legs were bleeding
and i remembered
that they're not

i want so badly
just to sleep in
a bag of crystallized
ginger and swim
in a mixing bowl of
tasteless tea.

(i can't tell what's
real anymore
but i'm 42%
sure that i am not.)

we had been mopping
the kitchen floor all day
and the dirt never
stopped coming back

and earlier we had sprayed
the entire front porch
down with the garden hose
and now it was still wet
which made it feel as if
it had recently rained when in fact
the grass was a crunchy
brown carpet of regrets.

the night before we had
drunk orange smoothies
laced with lime and something
aged sleek and dark

(i think it must have been
the reason we couldn't
sleep that night
lay awake in my parents bed
and i told you why i
wouldn't go swimming
until the sun rose
the dog barked
the birds screamed
their morning songs
and my body stopped its
nightly spasms of fear.)

and the next evening
we put on a miranda lambert song
(the one we drank to
in your mother's van last winter)
sat on the wet
porch swing
and cracked open
our first beers

they were
really bad
i gagged
because it tasted
like carbonated
banana bread with
too much stale
baking soda
and we poured half of them
into the flower beds

the next morning
was sunday
and we had milk and muffins
in the kitchen with
simon and garfunkel
then went back out to the porch
drank iced coffee in the
eleven o'clock sunlight
and you said
"if this were a normal sunday
i would have been up at six
at church by eight
and done teaching my first
sunday school class by ten."

(is beer as much
of an acquired taste
as coffee is?
because i can't ever
remember not liking it
i used to think it was
bitter but i always
liked it anyway.)

i didn't say anything
because i didn't want to
say what was on the tip
of my tongue
that this kind of sunday
had become my normalcy
and our variety of saturday night
no longer felt like underage
drinking and more like
the way i was meant to be.

it wasn't until years too late
that the oceans once painting
your skin into a weepy
vacation canvas finally
dried and made their salty
descent down your throat.

i hope that one day
you find your mind wandering
back to some sunbleached
air conditioned antique shop
a cool and dim refuge of
kitschy proportions

and i hope one day you can finally
appreciate an afternoon that
may or may not have held
your greenesque day of peace

(by greenesque i mean that
not only was it green but
it also held whispers of the last
chapter in your favorite book
the part where all the pieces fall in place
and nobody is happy with the outcome)

you're just a bundle of
nerves and memories
the kind that keep you up at night
and your hair uneven lengths
the kind that flash before your eyes
through grainy old photographs
and pictures engraved so deep
inside a screen you question
whether or not they
ever even happened.

there are gravel roads
somewhere out there
that smell like home and
kind cold water in a july drought

and i sincerely hope
that you someday find
one of those state-parkish
leafy hollow spring hills
settled deep somewhere
inside your heart

and i hope that someday
you drive all alone for an hour
park on the side of the road and
watch the woods for no reason
except to listen to every love song you
ever knew in your youth
and i hope that your breathing stays steady
and your eyes stay dry and starkissed.

i would cross my fingers
shut my eyes and tie my
esophagus in a knot if i knew
my wishes could grant you peace

and i hope that when you're older
your beachside sunburns and
deep fried fatigue are washed away
by all the seasons of upstate mountain air.

clean counters
clean floors
dogs
homemade pies
plants
flamingos
privacy and respect
dishes that don't match
a radio in every room
coffee in the morning
iced tea from a spigot
handmade afghans
fresh linen smell
quiet

and how
could i
possibly forget
you?

did you hear
the news?
they've
discontinued
mornings

now all we have
is nights
stretched out
too late and
the worst coffee
you've ever tasted.

(put on your
warpaint
or just your
eyeliner
nobody is actually
looking)

now we're all
s c r e a m i n g
before the sun
has even risen.

they've
discontinued
mornings
how does that
make you feel?

(it makes me feel
like absolute ****)

error
error
caffeine
not found

pile your
triangles and
terror into a
text box

the margins are
glaring
your coworkers
sleeping

error
error
**mornings are
discontinued