"Write what you know."

I want to write about
beautiful things,
but I only know
ugly.
Ugly hearts and stone blood.

Fetid loyalty.

I want to write about a love as pure as honey,
but all I know are the poison-tipped thorns of betrayal.

If I could put the right words
in the right order
at the right time
and explain what it means to lose you,
nobody would care.

I'd like to write about
my happy family,
laugh filled birthdays
and joyous gatherings,
but I only know
fractious,
secretive,
*******.

I want to touch another soul
make a connection with my words
share a part of my self
and help someone in the process,
but all I have been taught is
taking
keeping
lying
hiding
running
ruining.

I would love to write
like Pablo,
of wheat
and bread
and fields that don't weep,

but all I know are
desperate fumblings
in ******,
beer soaked bathrooms,
back alley
drunken
*******
by black
barely passable trannys,
diseases and
barely consensual bloodstains.

I cannot speak of such things.
It's bad enough I think about them,
even worse I write about them.

I write what I know.

Stop cutting.

I get it, life hurts.

You want to feel, something.

You would rather watch your own blood seep out of your body from a self inflicted wound, than experience the hurt you have inside.

I get it. Stop cutting.

You choose to hurt yourself because you are overwhelmed by the pain you have caused another person, even if it was unintentional. The thought of that person whom you have such strong feelings for, suffering because of your actions or in-actions, is almost unbearable.

I get it. Stop cutting.

You don't know what to make of your situation. You don't know how a person like you could end up in such a ****** up scene. You feel stuck, lost.

I get it. I do.
Stop cutting.

Your parents ****. They don't understand the kind of **** you are going through. Sure they were kids once but that was different. Things were different back then. They don't get you and they probably never will. They don't care.

I get it. Stop cutting.

You really want to hurt yourself because you get off on the pain. You want it. You need it. You deserve it. You were put on this earth to suffer and you accept your role as martyr.

I get it. Truly, I do.
Stop cutting.

You need some sort of release. Something, anything. Anything but the consuming black,
nothing. The sweet release that only a razor can provide is the only thing that seems real to you amidst all of the drama.

I get it.
Stop cutting.



There is chaos in your life and the secret solitude provided by your ritual seems like an oasis.

I get it. Stop cutting.

You like the way your skin splits open.  You like the way you can touch the cuts underneath your clothes. You like the way the scars remind you.

I get it.
Stop cutting.

The love of your life has abandoned you, leaving a void that nobody will ever fill. Ever.
You are completely and utterly alone.

Life *****.

I get it.

You however, are beautiful,
inside and out,
scars and everything,
and you are not as alone as you think.


Please,
Please,
Please,
Stop cutting.

I put the boy to bed
and sat reflecting
for a few minutes
about my blessed
offspring.
His face lit up
tonight
when I told him
that he was Grammas's favorite.
He is everybody's favorite.
My gift.

My salvation.

I looked up the story of Abraham
again,
and much like grade school,
I thought
**** That.

I listened to the new Trent Reznor project,
not bad.
I think of my
little brother whenever I see Trent's name.
I took him
to his first concert ever,
Nine Inch Nails.
Kicked ***.
I thought about my ******, ******* little bro.
I'm going to have to beat his ***, just ***.

I fired up a joint
as I put my
massive
music collection
on shuffle.

Genre: Electronic.

Shuffle: Puscifer.

I sifted through Craigslist
and saw an ad
for being a radio dj
for a grassroots
community based
nationwide
station
where you play whatever music you want
as long as it is not top 40 *******.
I could do that.
I could do lots.
Lots more than this, anyway.

Shuffle: Mike and Rich.

Buzzed.

I thought of my mother
and how
neither her nor I
are realizing our full potential creatively.
I called Mom
and we are
going to start going
to poetry readings.
She's gonna read my poems
and I'm gonna read hers.  
It's a start.
We are cool like that.
We laugh lots.

Shuffle: Awolnation.

I'm pretty high by now.
Then I read another article on NPR about mix tapes.
I thought about you.
Again.

Still.

I thought about you
and
the mix tapes we
used to give each other.

Shuffle: Massive attack.

****.

Angel.

I put this song on at least five of your mixes.
Even the cover by Sepultura.

The great nothing sighs deep and cold within me.

I started to write a poem.
This poem.
This poem for you.

They are all for you.

I know when I write I purge,
and you just keep coming,
like a
viscous
black
lie covered
rope
being endlessly pulled
from my gaping broken skull.
Will I ever reach the end of you in me?

Shuffle: Lords of Acid.
  
I rolled another joint.
You used to hate it when I
would pick you up
and have
Show Me Your *****
blasting.
But then again, you didn't like anything I used to listen to.
You didn't like much about me, did you?
Just that one thing.
It's no wonder though, you ******* hipster.

Shuffle: Moby.

Jesus man how many songs does this guy have?
He's like the ******* Bob Ross of geeked out techno.
That must make aphex twin the evil mad genius.

I made it through shuffling without crying
but I can't listen to the mixtapes.
Cd's, really but who's counting?
You would.
You.
I cannot
wait until
you becomes
her
and then
her
becomes a breeze of a memory,
wisping across my cheek
almost indiscernible
and
leaving
only the faintest whispers
of amber and earth.
Soil.
Soil and Ancient root.  
I can't listen to any of the great CD's baby.
My dearest.
My darkest.
My sickness.
My Love.
Beloved.
O, Fortuna, why?

 Shuffle: Dragonette,Take it like a man.

Ha! Well played, shuffle. Good timing.
I will eventually.
Until then
I will continue to pull your oily tendrils from my open throat.
I will continue to try and forgive both of us.
Myself most of all.

I will continue to write.
I will pull you
out of me
and
flog my canvas
with your shadows.

*They are all for you, Dearest.

Look at where we are now.
We have **** stores on every corner.
Our fifteen year old pipe dreamers
just collectively **** themselves.

We have dubstep finally.

Who the **** needs
an instrument
or training
or talent
when
I can steal fruity loops
and make my own ****?
I make dope beats at the same place
I
"write"
"poetry".

A cold fog is seeping into the park
across the street and I like to say "****" a lot.

Google makes me feel like a ******* king,
ordering my minions
to go and fetch me
the whys and wherefores of
how butterflies communicate.

Why?

Because *******, that's why.

We have countries revolting
against *******
who have been in power
for decades
but now we have
Facebook,
*******!
Take that!
You can't get away with ****.
Ask Osama.
How long will it take before peace sets in?
Will it take as long for the machines to take over?
Both outcomes seem inevitable.

We have as much ***
as we can download
and pretty soon

our reality will be completely virtual.
If you got the money, honey.

I see our white bloated
underbelly
sagging and scraping
****
against ***** beer stained floors,
a crimson trail,
bodies in the swath
of decadence
and a most
revolting pursuit of debauchery,
Thank God!

It's fun to go off the grid sometimes,
like when cable
and the interwebs
become that luxury
that you can't justify,
you know, reality.
Ha! What a joke.

It wont be long until some clown
figures out time travel
and we all burn up in
the resulting feedback loop.
That's what the big bang was.
Some other clown,
some other place,
figured **** out.

It's not gonna be me, Jack.

I'm on the cusp.
Not really, I am a full on scorpio,
*******.

But

I was lucky enough
to remember
rotary phones
and lite brites
and playing ******* outside.
Sounds nostalgic and sweet, right?
**** that,
those hours I spent
burning some heavy metal logo
into that stump outside mom's house?
With a ******* magnifying glass
*** we didn't know what cable tv or mp3's were?
I was dreaming
about **** shops
and making weird ****** up
noises that sound alarmingly
similar to fuckstep.
**** YES!
I was bored as ****
and couldn't wait for a day
when I could plug in a new
******* universe,
my universe,
my way,
I create the characters and the storyline.
My internal apps do the rendering.
Get it?
I was thinking of that ****
way back when,
so it makes sense that
someone
a little more ambitious
and well funded
was making that stuff,
even back then.
The farmers don't let the sheep know much, do they?

That's all well and good mate,
but how happy are you gonna be
when you lose all your **** because
some 22 year old knows more about
binary than you do?
How ******* awesome is your pabst
collection and your dad's old 45's gonna
be when you are *** out because you
thought you could become an internet
billionaire and your sister just got tired
of carrying your ***?
This world is ******
and we are growing out of our pants too fast.
Even the smart ones aren't gonna be able to keep up.
Have fun mother *******.
Do it now,
NOW!
Get laid as much as you can
with as many as you can,
but love them all,
and mean it,
you *******,
this **** isn't gonna happen again.
We are on the cusp of the singularity
and it's gonna be one hell of a ride.

You are not here.
I can not touch you.
I can no longer walk between
the two peonies on my way to
your porch.
The peonies are there, but it is no longer
your house.
How many times did I mow that lawn?  
Keep it tight to the tree,
round and round the peonies.
Good boy J.J.
God how I hated that nickname.

I see you now,
at your desk in the corner,
pall mall burning
in your shoe shaped ashtray,
crossword puzzle folded neatly
and your glasses half on your nose.

You were the toughest woman I know.

" Was ist los, Wer ist da?"

"It's me Gram"

I'd come around the corner and you would look at me over your glasses.
I could always tell what I was gonna get from you by the looks on your face.  
None of us have poker faces.

Even if I got the head shake of disapproval, there was always a hint of a smile, a smirk.
I know I was your favorite.
I got away with ******.
  
In your grey stuccoed rooms
I found my sexuality,
I tried to end my life,
I cried,
I ******,
I watched others battle until bloodied
and
I fought many
of my own battles
in front of your fireplace.
I saw a family blossom,
unfolding layer after layer
of beauty,
death,
secrets
and joy.

I saw strong men crumble in your dining room.

Countless were the times I would hang around on the fringes of conversations,
unobtrusive, but ever observant I was.
I learned so much from your phone calls, your conversations.

I think of when I have been the happiest
and it was when I was being tucked in by you
up in the king room.

My belly full,
freshly bathed,
the smell of avon's skin-so-soft,
clean sheets
and the softest pillows
in the world.
I was safe.
I was loved.

Waking up to
bacon and
french toast and
apple butter and
captain kangaroo and
your creaky stairs,
I have never had it as good as that.
You made the best french toast ever.

And then I got older and taller.
My marks on the measuring wall kept creeping up and up.
I got closer to
uncle mikes and
butch and...
was big jim on there?

I grew into a ****** little teenager,
I went from asking you for candy money,
to concert tshirt money
to bail money.
Through it all, you were there for me.
I would show up,
head down and repentant,
ready for my berating.
I wonder how different my life would have been had you not been around
as long as you were?

That day when my dad
came and took me
when I didn't want to go,
I kept looking back
and crying for you,
You said it always broke your heart, that look.

That was my introduction to manipulation.

It was in your basement
I found the steaming remains of debauchery.
I met most of my demons
for the first time
in the shadows
of the mighty sycamores
on Lincoln Boulevard.

You are not here.
I can not touch you.
You died and we fell apart, all of us.
We barely hang on,
it seems.
Your children squabble and flounder still.
Alliances formed
and broken
and rediscovered again.
Silly, this constant ebb and flow of intimacy.
Blood is thick, right?

We are doing ok though, I promise.
You would be so proud of us, I swear.

Our kids are happy
and we teach them words
like deetdeedles and shoisel.
I still make french toast your way
and Anne's house has the measuring wall.

I still do crosswords,
I love words, because of you.
I write, I  live, thanks to you.

The willow tree is gone
but the peonies are still there.

Ich leibe dich, Gramma.

I am trying to remember your tattoos
and I cannot.
You had a goddess on your calf,
but which one?
There are the vines that started on your ankles,
I think,
and wound up your strong legs,
traveled the curve of your hip,
to where?
Or did they begin on your arms?

****, I should know this.

I remember the heart on your ***,
the mermaid on your chest,
the rocket ship, somewhere.

I spent so many hours looking at these tattoos
I should know them as well as my own body.

I don't though.

The edges blur away
into skin
and elbows
and smells
and sounds
and feelings.

When I try to think of your body
I feel my hand tracing the curve of your back.

I smell amber and wine.

A fertility goddess on the shoulder,
laughing and tumbling
out of bed together in a
breathless heap.

Crime scenes, willow leaves on your neck.
Drawings by Luke, a rocket, a cat, and was there a heart in there?

I should know this.

I tried to memorize them on so many nights.

I should ******* know this.

The lilies on your arm, I can taste your stomach.
I tried to look back at the captured moments.
Never once did I think,
take pictures of all her tattoos,
one day you wont be able to remember them.

One day you will not be welcome to look or touch.

I can remember every curve of your body.
I remember every fold,
every scar.
I can feel your soft feet and your stubble covered legs
I would not want any other way.

But...I can't see you baby,
I can't see you.

How many times
did my hands roam your canvas?
How many times did I long to be the ink
in your skin?
I wanted you to
take my pain and make it yours,
carry me around with you,
as you.
I wanted you to blend our pain
and make it something beautiful.

I can hear your voice,
the one I thought you
used
just for me.

The stain of you covers me and I just want this taste out of my mouth.

I had to do it again.

I had to willingly
walk into the face of danger
and get rid of another stray
you let in.

My hand still hurts.

You are the most beautiful person I have ever known.

I have seen you beaten
and bruised by men
you have loved.
I have watched you struggle
for years with your own demons
of addiction, depression, poor choices
and lost loves.
I have seen your face
cry
far too many times.

Through the years
we have waxed and waned,
driven each other mad
with rage
and consoled each other
on our darkest days.
We have laughed,
cried,
screamed,
loved
and hated ourselves,
together and separate.  
I have left your side,
sometimes with thoughts of never returning,
of leaving behind all the pain
of our lives together and seeking my own pain,
only to return to you always.

We  got high together,
got clean together,
and have been everywhere in between.  
There were times
when you have been

so spun out

that you were unrecognizable
as a human
except
for your shape.
Other times you have been
the sole beacon of lucidity
in the dark chasm
of my
great
nothing.

Throughout all the beatings
we have suffered at the hands of others,
all the times some stray you let in robbed us,
all the dope deals gone bad,
the missed holidays,
the broken promises,
lies,
the good intentions gone bad,
through all of that your unshakable faith in
God
has always been a source of your inspiration to go on,
to move forward,
to keep smiling and more importantly,
to keep loving others.
Your willingness to help those
who are in need,
those
that have have hurt you,
and even
those
that you know are going to
hurt you,
has been both a source of
consternation and frustration
along with teaching me
how to love others,
how to have compassion.

You are the most beautiful person I have ever known.
I love you, Mother.

Blood in all the right places.

Your square ******* head
looks just the same,
a little older maybe,
some new lines around the edges.

Still the same crazy shine in your eyes.

Years later the same traces,
barely discernible
to the unknowing,
of earlier
disgusting
scenarios
being played out
in your living room.

I  smell the rancid
sweat of old men.

I  taste the curdled,
sour milk
of your breath,
recently begging for
alms.
I hear your hands
pleading whisper,
palms
being offered up
as your eyes
lower.

He owns you.

Don't think, because we're ******* again,
I have forgotten the lies,
the tears
the gnashing and wailing
the avoided phone calls
and vague half truths.

Half a truth is all lie.

I can't listen to the ******* cure
ever again with out feeling empty.
Way to go robert smith,
you big ******* depressing
*******.

Ever since you told me
lovesong was yours and fuckfaces
song I can't listen to some of my
favorite cure songs without thinking of....them.
Them being you and him, not us.
Us being you and me.

I can't listen to cat stevens
because harold and maude
was our movie. Ours!
Now, the last love song makes me cry like a *****.

I can't listen to ******* inxs anymore.
Never tear us apart drops me to my knees.
I can't listen to the kinks
or edith piaf
or talking heads
or leonard ******* cohen
or great lake swimmers
or fever ray
or peter sarstedt
or portishead
or killswitch engage
or paul mccartney singing maybe I'm amazed
or pearl jam
or ween,
especially ween, one of my favorites, *****.

Gotye is a prophet.

If I even think of antony and the johnsons,
my chest seems to cave in on itself
and I am filled with such a deep despair,
a longing for something,
anything
to take away
the pain of knowing
I lost you.

I can't listen to so much good music out there because that was our thing.
So many times we would lie in bed after loving each other
and listen to mixes we had made for one another.
Those were my favorite times.
Sipping whiskey with lime juice,
Reveling in your smells,
your juices covering me.
Your dog farting so bad
all we could do was laugh
or we would puke.

The first few notes of alexi murdochs
love you more, bring forth tears like niagra.
I cannot listen to that song without crying immediately.

I don't understand how feelings like that go away so suddenly.

It's *******.

This isn't a poem.

Poems are supposed to be beautiful
and about love
or beautiful and about loss of love
or just plain ******* beautiful
about something like a ******* tree
or a nice view
or flowers.

I have to write about how I hate the empty ******* space in my chest whenever I think of your name.
I have to write about the thousandth time I cried over you,
like now.
I have to write about how
the bright blue
of our love was replaced by
the ***** brown of
our lies and deceit.

Nobody gives a **** about that stuff.
I can't write a ******* poem to save my life.
I want to put down on paper
the weariness and exhaustion.
I want to express how I feel
so that maybe I can save
someone else
the pain of suffering alone.
I want to write you the most beautiful poem on the earth,
the one that makes you
understand just how much I care
for you
and how much and I love you
and I want you to read it
and forget about your fears
and past hurts
and realize I am the only man for you
and nobody else will ever come between us ever again.

But I can't.

I am not smart enough.
I am not creative enough.
I am not...enough, for you.

I don't want to even try anymore.
I want to forget you like I said I never would.
I want to love another like I said I never would.
I want to be a liar, like I said I never would.
I want to stop loving you, like I said I never would.

I want to listen to love songs and not miss you.

I realized the other night,

as I stood
screaming
at my son,

that I was breaking
our hearts.

I walked away
as soon as  I saw
the line
in the distance.

The line that
I will never cross.

I walked away
and felt my fathers fist
across my face.

I spared my
precious boy
the terror of
being beaten
by the man
he wants to grow
up and be just like.

I walked away
when I saw
the tears well up
in his innocent eyes
and the confusion
contorting his face,
when I heard some
frustrated father
misdirecting his own
anger and confusion
towards an undeserving
child and realized the
******* father was me.

I heard my father screaming at his woman about having a kid who would do "whatever the **** I tell him to if you hit him hard enough" and realizing that kid was me. I remember a part of me withered when I heard this.

He was right.
My father conditioned me
to take a beating.
He taught me how to
shut the **** up
and do what the **** I am told.
He taught me not to question his orders,
even when I knew they were wrong.
He taught me obedience
by beating me.
He taught me submission
by leaving me no other choice.

He taught me how to be broken.

I learned my lessons well.
I let people push me around because that was my place.
I let people get over on me because I didn't want to confront them.
I lost my girls to other guys because I was weak and scared.
I got passed up for promotions because I was hesitant and indecisive.

How do you forgive someone for conditioning you to be a failure?

How do I reconcile loving my father for the frail human that he is and hating him for the vile and abusive monster that he was?

When I saw the look on my sons face I wondered briefly if that was how I used to look when my father was berating me.

Right before fist hit face.

How the **** could he hit me with that look of fear and confusion and conflicting feelings on my face that must have registered somewhere in his drunken mind.

I can't help but think
it must have been devastating
for him,
somehow, someway.

He stopped apologizing for the beatings and
I stopped thinking
I didn't deserve them.

All of these thoughts and feelings passed
through my brain in a split second
and I turned away from my son.

My precious son.

My reason for existing.

My everything.

I turned away from his tear
stained face and sat down to cry
for a while myself.

I knew that I had caused some damage.
I thought back to all those times I sat crying in my room as a kid and wondered what would have made me feel better at the time, besides the obvious of not just having my *** kicked by a grown man.

42 years
of  gnawing pain
and frustration
and fear
and silence
and tears
and rage
and crushing loneliness
and shame

and fear and fear and fear

walked up the steps to
where a ******* 12 year old boy
sat alone.

42 years
of  breaking
the cycles of abuse and addiction
walked up the stairs and
spent the next hour
healing what I had damaged
in two minutes.


Later that night,
as I lay in bed questioning
every ******* decision I have ever made,
again,
I heard some sort of noise that startled me.

I leaped out of bed and took a quick route through the place to see what the noise was.
I never did find out what caused it but I called up to the boy quietly and asked if he heard it.
It appears he had been awake as well and had been rattling around in his own thoughts.

My boy had been thinking about death.

He was realizing the eventual imminence
of our own mortality and the weight of that thought was
crushing.
I was there for him, though.
I was able to put his mind at ease.
We talked of death, and life, and God, and philosophy
and we had a wonderful conversation
together sitting in his darkened room.

His small hand in mine, we healed each other.

is what I tell them, now.


"I am only going to hurt you.
I promise."

I will laugh with you
and I will let you see my core,
and you will want so terribly much
to be a part of me

you will do almost anything.

"I told you not to."

I will let you in.
I will open myself completely
and make myself vulnerable at your feet.
You will trust me.

" Stop."


I will tell you about my family
and you will meet them.
You will think you understand me.

Did you think I was lying when I told you I was a *******?

I ******* told you.

I'll make you feel like the most beautiful
woman in the universe.
You will know in your bones
that I am yours alone.


It will be magical and true,

at the time.

We will be in love with each other. Madly, crazily, undoubtedly and completely in love and it will be the most wonderful and pure and good thing that has ever happened to us both and we will pledge eternal loyalty to each other and we will both mean it and we will be happy beyond our comprehension.

Then... I will

change.

I will grow tired of you.
I will become distant.
I will become indifferent.
I will become cruel.

You will be confused
and cry
and plead and pout and sulk and berate and beleaguer.

You will question yourself
and your motives, like it was your fault or your failing
when it was neither.

If it makes you feel better,
I will apologize.
I won't mean it though.
Not all the way, not like I should.

It was just me
being me
and doing

exactly

what I said I would.

and when I hear of your death,

I will fall to my knees and weep

for I will know that all I have now are memories.
I will not be able to call you out of the blue.
I will not be able to drive by and not stop.

I will not know that you are ok and safe and warm.
I will weep because a part of me dies with you.
I weep now thinking of that day.

You are my rotten lover baby.

No other as pure as ours.

I will weep the day I hear of your death.
Most of me dies with you.

A breath,
in deep,
Eyes black,
and I smell your amber skin.

Another breath,
I feel your hips
cradle my hands.

Centuries between us,
yet a breath away.

I write these words
but can't feel.
My words ring cold as ******,
no echoes there.
No warmth or weight,
ashes.
A grey frost on ancient soil
as midnight blooms cold.

A breath,
in deep,
Eyes black,
and I smell your powdered skin.

Another breath,
I feel your hips
cradle my hands.

Nothing between us.
A breath away.

These people
They do not even see me.
they are blind to me
I am not invisible
I walk by them
I see them
they don't see me
they look away
look at the floor
they look around
they look anywhere
but my eyes

which is fine
for if they did
they would see
the eyes of a madman
a lover
a father and a brother
a ***** hobo
a ragged lonely nomad
a slave
a tree climber
a ruiner
a fighter
a healer
a *****

They would see centuries upon centuries of amber and curry and garlic and sand and bones

If they dared
to step a little closer
they would smell the *** and soil of a thousand worlds
the blood
the ****
the tears
of a million little girls and boys left in my wake
lilies and lilacs and roses and daffodils would mix with
mangoes and dragons blood
and sweaty lust.

I am Love and I walk among you.

Drugs and diseases.
Flesh and bones.
Whiskeys and waters.

Hi she said with such a cute ******* smile.

Hey I said. What's going on?
she gave me the up and down look
and I knew right away
she wanted me to **** her.

You workin' tonight?

Yeah, I'm workin tonight

Such a cute smile
and an *** that I
could bounce a quarter off

Ah **** man. I took a long drag off my smoke
and turned to walk away

But only because I'm trying to get to Kansas City for...

I didn't really
give a **** what the
rest of the story was.


yeah yeah


Such a cute little thing.

I walked back into the bar
and took my place
among the dead.

I was going to write a poem

about the distance
I walk
girls to their cars.
You know, to the door?
down the stairs to the front porch?
out to the first step for that last, awkward hug?
do I really like them?
Am I concerned for their safety
or is this just
the obligatory,
socially and culturally
acceptable
distance for me to walk with this particular individual?

Did I even get out of bed?
Is the distance I walk directly proportional to the amount of feelings I have for that person at that time?
Or does time of day or night play into it?

Do I actually walk them
all the way
down the hill
to where they are allowed to park,
if they are a one nighter but it is 3 a.m.?

Or perhaps to the end of my lawn,
at the opening of my small,
rickety,
barely noticed
fence,
which keeps nothing in or out,
to hold them so tight that they know,
they just know

with every molecule in their essence

that I am theirs,

all of me,

and that I do not want them
to leave
but if they must,
I shall be waiting

eagerly

with every molecule of my essence

to breathe them in again,
to feel them near me again,
to smell their sweat again?  

I was going to write about that.
But then I thought,
why not write about your plants?

I realized the other day,
while watering my various plants,
six in total,
that all of them had been given to me.

They were all gifts.

By women.

My dear mother,
both of my  beautiful sisters,
two  rotten ex-girlfriends of mine,
and a kickass lesbian friend
I met through somebody
that got walked to the front porch.

Surely
there must be a poem
in there somewhere, I thought.
With all the females
and the ***
and the plants
and soil
and life

and all that other *******,

surely
I must be able
to conjure up

something beautiful,
something wonderful
and profound
and bewildering
and inspiring

and all that other *******,

but sadly for you
dear reader,
all I could come up with

was this *******
you just read.

The good thing is,
I didn't write this for you.
I wrote this for me.
I have to.

June. Warm, breezy day.
Three O'Clock, all beauty ceased.
Now, only ennui.

**** man, how are you
going to get out of
this one?
I guess you are going to have to tell the truth.
But some people do not want the truth
some cannot give the truth to certain loved ones,
others believe that the truth is what must be spoken in every word.
But its like walking back down the mouth of the cave,
to the prisoners still shackled, watching shadows, and trying to explain the sun and the trees.

I would have better luck
trying to

**** this wall

than trying to get you to
understand something
which seems so obvious
to
anyone,
everyone,
but you.

Maybe we are wrong,
maybe you are an enlightened one, come to save our poor wretched souls.
But that seems highly unlikely dear, for you are far too selfish,
and shallow,
and oblivious to reason and accountability.

A line has been crossed,
that which has been done cannot be undone.
But are you so ******* arrogant
that you think you
are not worthy of forgiveness?
Do you think
your crime is
so bad you are beyond redemption?

You think you have leverage, but your fulcrum is weak and I am persistent and voracious.

The ruiner,
your precious
little nickname for me,
carries more significance
than the
destruction
of your

sweet honeycunt, darling.

You never should have given me that stupid ******* painting.

I have known what a vile creature you are since the moment I laid eyes on it and I have carried that knowledge with me.
You forget how intuitive and analytical I am. You forget how well I read your every glance and subtle body gesture. You forgot how much smarter I am than you.

Your inconsistencies make sense now,
now that I have accepted you as a liar.
Your patterns are predictable,
which makes your *******
so much
easier
to tolerate.

My sweet little liar.
I love you the most, baby.

You are going to die
before me.

I already know this.

You are going to get fat
and go completely blind
and probably,
eventually, they will
cut some parts off.

You are going to fall apart
in front of me.

I know this.

I still choose to stay.
I will be there
through all the appointments,
the stickings and pokings and cuttings and bleedings.

I have only wiped
a few *****
in my life.
Mine,
my son's,
a few babies
of friends.

I already plan on wiping yours
when you cannot.

I will draw
little sugar skulls
on your prosthetic feet.

I will make sure you always have enough medicine and it is always refrigerated.
I will help you
in and out
of the bathtub.
I will massage your legs
and arms
and back
and head
and neck,

every day.

I will make our boys breakfast
and walk the dogs
and make sure everything
goes back in the
same exact spot
and keep a file with all the pertinent medical information
so I can fill out all the paperwork.

I will take you to
all those folk rock shows you love so much
and describe the singers to you.

We will still garden together.
I can see you in a chair,
barking out questions
about our harvest and me,
going back and forth,
bringing you the biggest squash
to hold.

You see, I have given up thinking
I am ever going to
give myself to anyone else.

It is you and you alone.

So, when you start to fall apart,
and you will fall apart,
don't worry baby.
I am going to be there to wipe your ***.

If my eyes should betray,
pluck them from their holes.
and if my hands deny you,
cut them from my arms.
and when my feet turn away
from us
smash me at the knees
for I would rather be
blind and lame
than not be yours,
in your garden of grey blooms.

Aching skin,
Boiling blood,
My lust consumes.

Hands long for your throat,
crave to be wrapped in your hair,
pulling you closer. Close enough
to feel your heat, to smell you.

My lips, Ah my lips.
My lips and tongue implore
for the wet heat of your folds.
I must taste your flesh
before I wither from attrition.

Union.
The singularity of ingression,
transcendent of all earthly attachments.
Sublime.

Release. An unfettering of all thought,
leaving only feeling.
A divine conjunction.

And after, the only sounds our breathing.
Still as one, unencumbered by thought.

We rest peacefully in our oasis, sated.

the stubborn silence of mountains.

You are earthen. I am fluid.

As my soft May rain
kisses the willow's leaves
before falling into your warm soil,
the sweet breath of spring
and new beginnings soothes our tired, wintry pains.

The water feeds the root.

My head upon your chest,
a cloud filled lake on a patient mountain.

Memories of our moments,
rocks on a riverbed,
worn smooth and beautiful by time and silt.

Your lava burns a path,
a fertile home
where future fields of wheat will see no tears,
before finally,
with a fiery sigh,
you come to rest in the salt of my ocean.

The ancient root drinks the timeless water.

The mountains nap. The oceans breathe.

A moment,
a look,
a hand on a leg becomes
a small stone of your love
skipped once,
twice,
threefourfive times
before settling to the bottom
among a thousand other memories
polished smooth.

The willow branches caress the shore.
The lake rests in the mountains embrace.
Rain and roots, earthworms.

At last, at last.