We ride bikes
to parks in our heads
and pedal our bodies
to safe-ish places
  in our beds.

We spend cash
in eight minutes,
that we worked
eight hours for.

We talk about
our ceiling
but are content
at our floor.

We experience
suicidal ideation,
on a day-to-day stasis,
and insure our
  troubled vessels,
on a six month to
  twelve month basis.

We ride bikes
alongside trainless tracks
and wrestle, naked,
on our backs,
smothering the grass,
muddied past our feet,
we ride our bikes, incomplete.

The trees outside my neighbor's house
cover shame like my neighbor's blouse.
And the yard, oh my god, so perfect;
so, so, so suburban you could
stay safe, forever or however long it feels.

Her porch encloses her dying husband,
breathing out of a tank, or with a tank,
as if living with assistance is anything new.
And I think, well, I know she was once
married to a semi-famous musician;
some guy responsible for some important
'new sound' during the fifties'.

As the sun begins to sit, on this Virginia
horizon, I swear I am as lost as my neighbor,
digging around in her yard, trying to fix up
the place before darkness falls. I guess we all
are trying to fix stuff up before darkness falls.

The birds are chirping or screaming -- you decide --
under the coal dust sky, searching for something
but, probably, wandering around and around,
hoping that something makes sense or
presents itself. I don't know how birds work,
but this is where I say something; something
that we can all relate to. Something that really
hits the nail on the head. But life, like poetry
or teenage boys, or bloodied noses, or nonsensical
stares from that girl in 8th grade you regret being afraid of,
is unstable, meandering, even pointless. Oh so, disarmingly
  pointless.

It's dark and the light leaks out
like the change in my pockets;
like the blood from her nose;
like knowledge from my head.

And I can feel myself being
  swallowed by this systematic
long dark. I cannot remove myself,
  a gut-worm in the lower-mantle
belly. Watching video-cassettes of
  my birthday. I don't know what
happened to my birthday video.
  I don't know what happened to
my parents or what I did to happen
  to them.

The light leaks, again, and I
choke on my celebri-thoughts;
mentally-******* to the
waves I'd give on a book tour
or studio lot. Talking about some
movie that made some money,
somewhere in Santa Fe or L.A.

The news is channeling my president:
a swollen man that is the physical representation
that a lot of American people are parasitic;
lovers in racism, xenophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia,
homophobia; scared of everything except the 'straight-talking'
magnate they put in office. Not playing president; playing God.

I'd hate to get political, though. I'd hate to ramble on
and on about something I don't know enough about to
**** myself over. I can feel myself picking up steam.
I can feel myself getting redundant but embracing the
bruised ego and poor technique. Loving the entrails
spilling out of the splits of my fingertips;
more beautiful than the brains I bashed on the sidewalks
of old Morgantown. Morgantown, a town so kind you
are gently destroyed by its over-crowded masses,
dying to be different or drunk -- I suppose that's not very
different than most places.

But let's get back to these trees that I haven't even talked about.
Let's get back to the kitchen table with the hollowed hard-drive,
with wires and cords flopping to the sides, like a
gutted spaghetti eater with poor stomach acid.
How terrible. I'll never forgive myself for that last line.

I feel so rudderless. So cynical with a touch of cliche.
I keep pushing back that age for success, thinking
that I have the luxury of choosing. My vocabulary is
limited. My intelligence is assumed; probably a void,
where delusions manifest and asian **** rewinds and plays,
  rewinds and plays.

Some wolves mate in the glow
of a satellite so slow,
can't see it move -- not to
  the groove.
And music plays,
  from a radio, retro.
Gotta spill some blood
and add a cigarette
to my silhouette.

American Spirit for
my american spirit;
gotta tweet my thoughts
because my friends
don't hear the words I say.
  Ah, no; wanna live in
Los Angeles,
  Ah no; wanna live in
New York City.

Oh, no.
Oh, no.

Some babes in the hay;
laying in a pile, so deep
  cannot find my body;
cannot fall asleep.
  Random rambling to
what my media tells me;
cannot find my mind;
cannot fall for this.

They look like thumbs,
throbbing at me for
  my attention.
Yelling over each other;
yelling when
  I'm not allowed.

Ah, no; wanna live in
Los Angeles.
Ah, no; wanna live in
New York City.
  Wanna be
validated by the wolves.

but what do you do when you're
a shell
a shell
a shell
of the being you used to be
i swear i thought i was the world
now i look at my hands and i
don't know them
don't know these freckles or those lines
i remember i used to tell my reflection
that she was strong and deserved
something good
but i don't know those eyes anymore
so how can i tell that to a stranger
tell them they're loved
how can i when she and i are all we have
and i don't love her

The old man sits in the dark,
fire by his radio, listening to
John Legend sing about his all,
which I guess is a lot since
he goes on about it for
four or five ******* minutes.
I sit here and think about all the reasons
I hate 13 Reasons Why. I sit here and
smell my candle, to my future.
I think about Miley Cyrus *******
and wonder if she feels pleasure
  like you or me.

I don't know what kind of creature
  is out there.  I don't know
how  to  feel  about  the  world.
My bedroom door may be paranoid
for me,   and I have anxiety over
  knocking that may never come.
Or maybe it will come and I'll
  be ordinarily unprepared for it.
Unprepared for it, as I normally am.

Visions of Japanese women
  dance on the ceiling, like silver
statues in garments of gore.
Or maybe they're not Japanese
and that I am a racist or under-
-educated -- which is most likely
the  same  ****  thing.
  They dance on my ceiling
and I stare, no longer wondering
if I'm rude, if they're real, if
the house I live in is current-
-ly losing value. These type
of things just happen, swear.

My candle is burning bright,
reaching towards the hugging
  blinds; smelling like sea salt
and an ocean I will never touch.

I met a genius on the train
today
about 6 years old,
he sat beside me
and as the train
ran down along the coast
we came to the ocean
and then he looked at me
and said,
it's not pretty.

it was the first time I'd
realized
that.

little dark girl with
kind eyes
when it comes time to
use the knife
I won't flinch and
i won't blame
you,
as I drive along the shore alone
as the palms wave,
the ugly heavy palms,
as the living does not arrive
as the dead do not leave,
i won't blame you,
instead
i will remember the kisses
our lips raw with love
and how you gave me
everything you had
and how I
offered you what was left of
me,
and I will remember your small room
the feel of you
the light in the window
your records
your books
our morning coffee
our noons our nights
our bodies spilled together
sleeping
the tiny flowing currents
immediate and forever
your leg my leg
your arm my arm
your smile and the warmth
of you
who made me laugh
again.
little dark girl with kind eyes
you have no
knife. the knife is
mine and i won't use it
yet.