I want one sharp enough
to cut through this garbage import porcelain,
I want one sharp enough
to cut through god.

Ain't even hungry yet,
just desperate to cut
something uncuttable
into beautiful pieces.

Poly grip feels good
in my aging hands,
are you sharp enough
my shining friend?

Serrations are preferred,
whetstones and gravel.
Gimme something to slit.
Something to bloodlet.

Something whole,
something begging for
division.

Something to flex my arm into.

"Yeah buddy, how've you been man?!"


"Let's forget that, want to talk about the things
we've forgotten?"

He looks at me analyzing, and perplexed by,
my intentions against the blank slate that is my face.

"Yeah! Right? Been trying hard to forget
this winter dude, the snow is killing me!"

Matt turns away, takes a slug and summons Vince over
in order to order a shot of cinnamon whiskey. I turn to
wheel of fortune and start counting letters in potential words
when I say

"I bet I've forgotten more things than you can remember"
"..."


"Excuse me?"

He turns back with fireball eyes and whiskey in his hand and
I'm startled by the voracity of his intoxication. Smiling yet totally
instigated he looks me in the eye, takes his shot and states

"are you ridiculing my memories man? You think you had it
harder than me?"
pointing at my chest
"Anyone can see how privileged you ******* are."

I shut up, turn back to wheel and practice my silence.
He drains his beer and steps out into the suffocating snow.
Beautiful snow.
I imagine stuffing great white handfuls of the wet stuff
into his face for all eternity.
Is the snow killing you now BUDDY?!
Lets talk about the weather MAN!!
Tell me all about it DUDE!

These ******* people
I surround myself with
make it impossible
to enjoy the
allure of death.

So I guess I'm cursed
to keep on living.

Thanks a lot.

******* *******.

This bottle's been pressed
from two separate halfs.

As is much in life.

Love.

Teamwork.

We're all just as bound together
as this bitter vessel of liquor.

Just gotta pay less attention
to the seam,

and focus more on
what's inside.

Every time
The trees sigh,
I feel
A slight wind blow.

The sky sings
With whistling birds,
Swooping
In the falling snow.

A taste of lime,
A sprig of mint
Floats
Atop a cold mojito.

Twinkling rings,
Headlights glint
Briefly,
In an ebb and flow.

Luminous lies
Shine light on
My mind,
My eyes are windows.

Simple things
Convolute, in the
Face of
My writhing ego.

The day flies
On the wings of
A black bird,
A single cawing crow.

Wallowing, no,
Relishing in
This feeling,
Like watching a plant grow.

I can't,
and furthermore;
I ain't even want to.

Dance, hum and sing.
Something about rings.
Teak, teal, topaz.

I can't.
Don't ask me
if I can.

Don't ask me
nothing.

taste the turmoil
on my trembling tongue

sip
slurp

and I'm gone

Ain't much for sermons,
And I don't need a church
To see that it's more than
Just a nap
in the dirt.

Ain't had much thought
On what it means to die,
Too busy living life
One day
At a time.

But I swear I still see
Glints of God shining
In the slats of evening sunlight
Cast through the venetian blinds.
I see God in my brother's
Smiling green eyes,
In my aunt's jubilant laughter,
In my grandfather's volunteering
Of all of his time.
I see God in my Dan,
An admirable man,
I see God in the way
Others see just family.

I pray to my mother
To be the kind of person
That my family may look at
And see a glimpse of God in me.

The next time I come see you
I want to read to you.
Like you always used to read to me
before turning out the lights.
For every time I wouldn't hold your hand,
I want to hold it twice as long now.
When the blankets slide down too far
I want to put them back on you.
If your pillows fall flat
I want to fluff them for you.
When you cry
I want to be there with
a fresh tissue for each tear.
I want to quit my job
and be there next to the bed with you.
I want to ask you what I should do
when my world is falling.
I want to do everything you do,
and be just like you.
I want to laugh.
I want to hear you laugh.
I want to read to you,

forever.

God is the way sunlight bends through an empty shot glass,
throwing cascading fractures on the solemn bar top.
God is the skin I crawl in
and peel away by two layers at a time
above the ****-filled blisters left
by that same old sun
on happy afternoons.

God is a drunk
and doesn't give a ****
about what
I think he is.

"It's always sunset here!"
she said with an airy laugh.
"Like a land of infinite twilight,
or a place where the golden hour
persists forever. It's like a dream!"

She turned and smiled at me.
The golden rays of the frozen setting sun
turned her hair into liquid bronze,
and I marveled at the visage.

"I'm happy you like it here"
I said with a bitter grin.
I saw my reflection in her glimmering eyes
and the taste of copper flooded my mouth.

Blood on the pillow.
Bit my tongue in my sleep again.
It's dark in this room,
blankets all askew
and my teeth are dry
from snoring.

It'll be tough falling back asleep
because the dichotomy between
reality and my dream
is too vast.
Too great a divide.
I'll be imagining
That dream
all day long.

There's no... Glimmer.
No, sheen or glint.
There's not a single hint
of iridescent shimmer.

There's no learning,
nothing here to glean.
I've checked between
the lines, discerning
only a hollow vastness
where others have seen
bits of what it all means.
I've found only plastics.

Torn and terrible,
the way I've been.
A living dream,
nothing's untearable.

*** of needles,
all held together with a rubber band.
Baggies and cotton ***** and
a spoon with a blackened bottom.
A length of rubber tubing.
Shot up and nodded off,
she seemed happy that way.
Even sobbing, she seemed somehow happy.
She didn't want my help
and I didn't have help to give anyway.
She wanted blue lips
and the peace of the infinite.
She'd gone cold
and I never was a fire.

Anyone can be a god.
But it takes true grit to be a dog.

The road of indecisiveness
is paved with dead squirrels.

Hands behind your back.
Alternatively, I may allow
self-pleasure.

But no,
I mean,
I love hands in general.

You can learn so much
about someone
from their hands.
How their fingers move,
scars,
and self care.

I like to touch them
with my hands,
hands are the best
for touching.
They're so
innately sensual.

Grabbing, caressing,
pulling, holding,
slapping, knotting up in hair.
Beckoning.
Warding off.

Tickling.

I enjoy
tickling.

Work ran late.

He's been waiting all day
To take me out for steaks.
I fumble my keyring
And pick it up again,
I always get his house key
Mixed up with mine.

Asleep on the couch,
A Hallmark movie
Playing unwatched on the TV.
He must've seen this one already.

"Hey."
I touch his shoulder
And smile at him when he looks up at me.
He smiles back.

I wonder if he still believes
In anything.

"You ready to rock & roll down to the Banquet?"
"Yeah man, I'm starving."

Her love shines like
a sunset through venetian blinds,
leaving me stripped
and striped with shadows and light.

Her love is the knife dissecting
my spine one vertebrae at a time.

I hope she likes
what I really am inside,
because I spill my guts
just to hear her sigh.

Learning the language
of recycling

I now speak in clinks
and broken bottles

There's no real reason
That I never called my step father
'Dad.'
I came up with some throwaway line
When Mom asked me to call him that.
I was young, but I remember saying
Something along the lines of
"I respect my Dan more than I respect my Dad."
She must've thought that was adequate reasoning
Because she never brought it up again,
And I've called him Dan ever since.
I think now I may have missed out
On an opportunity, but there's no way to really know.
At the time I thought that
If he had been the one to come up to me
And ask me to call him Dad,
Then maybe my answer would've been different.

I can't decide whether
I never consider my biological father,
Or if I constantly think about him subconsciously.
I wish there had been a day when
He wasn't a kind and loving person to me.
I wish he would've been more obviously
Cruel,
Or sick.
People told me he was schizophrenic,
But that was never what I saw.
I only ever saw my Dad, y'know?
If he had been more obviously sick,
Or maybe if my memory wasn't clouded
By the idealistic, fuzzy veil of childhood,
Then maybe it would've been easier
To accept it when he told me he was leaving.
But when someone who only has ever loved you
Shows up one day just to
Say goodbye,
Well... I don't know.
I guess it makes it harder
To let go of hope.

I see a lot of him leaving,
In myself.
The idea of running away
Is appealing.
The prospect of chalking up my
Lack of responsibility
To something like a mental disorder,
Or wanting to be crazy,
Has always been so alluring.
I guess at the end of the day
Everyone wants to be like their Dad.

Without my mind's
electrical circuitry,

there's no time
besides eternity.

oh, sugar packet
spill your contents thoroughly
make my coffee sweet

Maybe I'll read a book
Or play some tetris

Dad ain't taught me much,
but one lesson stuck with me
after all these years.

He taught me how to disappear.

But now I'm alone
because he never told me
the rest of the story.

I never learned how to return.

I guess I'll keep waiting
for him to finish
teaching me.

I'm good at waiting.

When I stop
to read the signs
I can feel them
reading me instead.

I've viridian envy
for your Teflon tongue.

How painlessly your words slide
from between your lips.
Sure it may be non-stick,
but it sure is cancerous.

I'm always tied and tired.
A stuttering, blundering mess.
That's all that I can manage
when I try to address.

I'm a poor orator.
A vocal trainwreck.

Thus I turn to an inky friend:
My true new blue pen.
My words don't fumble,
or stumble around,
when I take the time
to write them all down.

My fingers don't stutter,
they don't get stuck on
certain letters.
They don't get stuck on
my first name,
or last.

I'll write it all out for you,
I'll write the whole world down.
Although I have to take a break
at least for right now, because

my hand is starting to cramp.


I guess it was all just a moot truth.
I guess my muscles do stutter too...

**** man.
I literally can't stop drinking.

I took a day off,
yesterday.
But it don't matter.

I was bitter and angry
all day today.

So I grabbed a bottle
on my way home.

I'm an alcoholic.

But I'm a poet too?