My wife, a psychiatrist, sleeps
through my reading and writing in bed,
the half-whispered lines,
manuscripts piled between us,

but in the deep part of night
when her beeper sounds
she bolts awake to return the page
of a patient afraid he'll **** himself.

She sits in her robe in the kitchen,
listening to the anguished voice
on the phone. She becomes
the vessel that contains his fear,

someone he can trust to tell
things I would tell to a poem.

being loyal is pie
being good is cake
one never wants to lie
when love may be at stake

Once upon a time
a little bird strolled by

and cheeped, Love is REAL
with the voice of a seal

Your doing it right, boy
just be her toy

and everything will be alright
Don't fight

Because when she leaves
There'l be nothing to breath

but Smoke
for it was all a Joke

to her.

I like to write, but to rhyme
would be a crime.

because my imagination runs dry.

I can't begin to express...
but I regress.

because once you feel the need, to see
all that is forbidden.
The sun can't blind you from the truth.

It's ******* 3 in the ****** morning,
a twisted mind trying to write,
the most flawed paper known to man.

While the well established sleep,
so somberly on their egyptian silk sheets.

I want to rip these sleeper's vocal chords out,
so that in the morning,
only my voice will be heard.

In this perfect ******* paper,
with it's perfect ******* footnotes
and its not so perfect creator,
hopped up on caffeine,
ready to be the perfect ******* innovator,
of another person's ****** ideas.

Her name is Tiffany.

We met when

our orbits collided

                                  and crash landed,

on a wooden picnic table

                       in the dead of night.

I saw the world in her eyes—

and she had this spirit about her
       that made me want to follow
                her with an umbrella
                       the rest of my days
                             so she wouldn’t
                                    even be
                                      bothered
                                                by the rain.

I swore, I’d make her believe in                        h u m a n i t y.

Conversation, spit-balled from her lips like a machine gun

trigger stuck—

we tore through topics

                    like bullets tear through skin,

I tried my best to keep up.

We dead ended on the subject of children.
She grew silent, pale.

                      “I should be the mother of twins” she stammered.

I’ve been told I have quite the poker face, but in that moment

                                                                               I know she saw.

Turning her head as if to answer my unspoken question

“Miscarriage”
                        she breathed.

I spent the next however long soaking in her story, like a sponge.
I could tell,
                               she doesn’t do this often.

I have no respect for fathers who stain the honor of father
with a ******'s blood.

For boyfriends who can’t hear the word “No.”

over the sound of their
                                          d e s i r e.

These men painted her the color of smashed hymens.

On her wedding night,

she won’t forget.

She can’t give                                            what’s been stolen.

She finishes.
I exhale—breaking the silence first.

She looks at me, with all the innocence they must have stolen from her,

and i wonder

if she can

hear me

b r e a k


This, is the kind of story you read about.

I had no words to fix her— I couldn’t fix her.

All I knew was I wanted to sear my flesh and

m
   e
       l
         t

into the crevices of her broken self

and convince her

It will be okay.

“I swear, I’ll make you believe in
**h u m a n i t y.”