eyeshadow ground into
a finely powdered bath rug
feet stained gold and as
straight as sink ringed coffee

(it's a perfect day
to run away
from all the crew neck
collars choking you)

fall face down into a
cornfield and climb
dead pine trees clear
up to the blackbirds

(i think you were once
upon a time the one who
never spent weekends
home and hurting)

i am not your past
not your mistakes
i am not who you used to be
but won't say it didn't shape me

(clattering red and
white checks skittering
across the floor as
hydrogenated oils)

i know you're
disappointed
sometimes in who
i've turned out to be

but i am also
disappointed
sometimes in who
i've turned out to be

(only ever thinking about
ceiling fans and my latest
mistakes or an odd assortment
of unspoken disagreements)

i can't breathe under
highway overpasses
in parking garages or when
my hands are made of leather.

(suburbia is just a
repainted mid-century
modern way of covering
up dysfunctional families)

here and there
then and again
i remember that you
probably don't love me anymore

i understand that
neglect destroyed you
but you don't understand
that involvement destroyed me.

after the rain
tide out
  the sea
   a sliver of mauve silk
    in the distance
     sand pockmarked
    with footprints
   like paintbrush stipples
  a mishmash of patterns
naked to the sky
all pastel hues blended
with a slippery finger
  ultramarine
   into a violet yawn
    into a lavender blush
     into an apricot kiss
    the mellow slosh of water
   chatter
  sun setting
as a pinkish glimmer
slithers over the beach

Fall in love
Get your heart broken
It makes for better writers

Yesterday, I was tired.

Today, I am numb.

Tomorrow, I will be strung tight.

And after that, who knows?

if you’re going to try, go all the
way.
otherwise, don’t even start.

if you’re going to try, go all the
way. this could mean losing girlfriends,
wives, relatives, jobs and
maybe your mind.

go all the way.
it could mean not eating for 3 or
4 days.
it could mean freezing on a
park bench.
it could mean jail,
it could mean derision,
mockery,
isolation.
isolation is the gift,
all the others are a test of your
endurance, of
how much you really want to
do it.
and you’ll do it
despite rejection and the
worst odds
and it will be better than
anything else
you can imagine.

if you’re going to try,
go all the way.
there is no other feeling like
that.
you will be alone with the
gods
and the nights will flame with
fire.

do it, do it, do it.
do it.

all the way
all the way.
you will ride life straight to
perfect laughter,
it’s the only good fight
there is.

she's young, she said,
but look at me,
I have pretty ankles,
and look at my wrists, I have pretty
wrists
o my god,
I thought it was all working,
and now it's her again,
every time she phones you go crazy,
you told me it was over
you told me it was finished,
listen, I've lived long enough to become a
good woman,
why do you need a bad woman?
you need to be tortured, don't you?
you think life is rotten if somebody treats you
rotten it all fits,
doesn't it?
tell me, is that it? do you want to be treated like a
*******?
and my son, my son was going to meet you.
I told my son
and I dropped all my lovers.
I stood up in a cafe and screamed
I'M IN LOVE,
and now you've made a fool of me. . .
I'm sorry, I said, I'm really sorry.
hold me, she said, will you please hold me?
I've never been in one of these things before, I said,
these triangles. . .
she got up and lit a cigarette, she was trembling all
over.she paced up and down,wild and crazy.she had
a small body.her arms were thin,very thin and when
she screamed and started beating me I held her
wrists and then I got it through the eyes:hatred,
centuries deep and true.I was wrong and graceless and
sick.all the things I had learned had been wasted.
there was no creature living as foul as I
and all my poems were
false.