don't drink
like you don't mean it,
drink like you want it,
like you want no more
sorrow
and a ****** is in dire need,
put your lips
all the way to the cusp
of bitterness
to the very vector
of unhappiness,
let your tongue
loll in
the shadows
of your mouth,
let it droop and kick back
against the acid wash,
but don't hold it too long,
sorrow is a monster that likes
to creep in
at high tide,
when everything is under covers
and restless.

Kick that **** to the back of your throat,
kick it to the bottom of your heart,
the top of your soul,
the end of your salvation,
the tipping point of your love
and the blasphemy
of your hate.

Don't call out to her now,
she isn't listening
and you're not even close
to being finished.

Some things are sadly poetic
Like the cougar whose boyfriend
Won’t come back outside and she’s alone
At the only table in the cold
smoking a pall mall,
Having a beer.

Some things are refreshingly poetic
like leaving the office for a bit with the boss
and going somewhere
where there are domes made of pure gold
and priests who pour milk on them from
helicopters.

Some things are interestingly poetic;
like the poet, turned novelist, turned artist,
who does landscaping to cover the spread.

Some things are courageously and nostalgically
And hurtfully poetic,
Like not seeing your family for nine years
Because the money’s good where you're at,
And plane tickets and passports are outrageous.

Some things should not be
poetic, but they are, because they are truthful
And that is verse;
like the waitress who was *****
when she cashed her check at a grocery store
after the night shift
and she wasn’t the only one in her car
when she got back.

Some things are poetry because they come
Into this world quietly
And bleeding internally,
and yet they survive
Even though their lungs are full of fluid,
And they can barely breathe.

Some things are poetry because they happened
And nothing can change that.

And because
Poetry is
unchangeable, immovable, and
grotesque, beautiful, uncomfortable, calming,
disfiguring, life-giving, ****** up,
Possibly ******, possibly a nectar
That God
or whoever the ****
allowed to be put on paper,
Possibly a way to talk about pain,
Possibly roided up with someone else’s words,
Possibly a way to talk about
the pure dream of a girl’s body
Without being  a ***** *****.

Poetry is love in the worst
and most unimaginable ways.

With a few strokes'
He drew a crazy boat
Full of perverts and lepers
In the middle of the desert. The lepers
Were picking at their skin and the perverts
Were getting drunk and pulling their *****.

Some hung over the edge
Of the boat like they spotted water. Some climbed the mast and
Hung themselves looking like ripe peaches
From the distance. A red, red moon just
Sits there in the background
At the top of a black sky
staring at the whole thing
Fall apart.

The painting stops. The painter
Coughs up some blood and his heart,
And shakes his brush like a maraca,
Making his music over blood, perverts
Lepers, and a red moon.

A girl stands behind him,
Beautiful and horrified, because she
Is witnessing a nightmare, and she wanted
To feed her head full of it, full of dreams
And demons, droughts and terror,
and wake up a
Prophet.

You have
my
heart.

It's not
eloquent,
but
eloquence
is
for
roses.

I don't need
a thousand
words
to say
how much it
hurts
when i mix
my emotions
with
whiskey.

There is
no
nectar
as sweet
as the
spilled soul,
and I hunger
for
more.

Even as
I puke
up my stomach
with a thousand
stings.

To the lake
is where our prayers
were air.

We dipped
our poles in the water
and bobbed
with our floats
in the bladder of blackness.

Nelle and Sabrosa
laid down together at the edge
of the still body
as the beasts of night
laid down at their feet.

Me, Dang, and Matt
took sips straight
from the mouth of Kentucky.

The night
creamed me.

Burst into a thousand
remembrances and I wanted to cry
with the fish.

I got angrier and angrier
and eventually we all left,
because I was yelling too loud
and the fish burrowed deeper
into the stomach,
a stomach I had yelled at
as love.

With so many poles
and so many fish
I slipped into the lake.

Let my body
wilt in that sink
where babies were made
with dead bodies,
dead ******* and dead *****
and spasmodic fish bodies
that were made for one thing.

I thought that thing was love,
that's what got me yelling.

The beasts let their whiskers get wet,
even their paws,
as they tapped at me in that water,
hoping for me to rise,
a flotilla of flesh
upon which they could feed.

And so we walked away
from the lake
wet,
and drunk,
the windows down
feeling the paws
and gills
in connection with life.

Nelle and Sabrosa
holding each other
in beach towels.

Me sitting in the front on a plastic sheet
Dang had previously reserved
for the fish we would some day
broil and eat.

So,
I sat on a plastic sheet,
made for love and loss
of the lake.

I sat on the bladder and
upcoming womb
from which night ******
and then made love
with the dead beasts
and catfish
of a shallowness reserved
just for me.

I just wish no one
would know
that I'm crying.

That i'm inside
this lonely house
and I'm putting on different suits
just to get through.

I just wish you'd take me back,
just wish you'd give me one more chance
because you've got a hold on my heart
and it just won't let go.

Touch me with a kiss
or hand print on my soul,
I don't know know what it means to love,
but for me,
it's defined by the threat
of this super-massive black hole.

You **** me in,
and I want to let go of my light,
for the last second
of my life.

Love fills me up
and I water the garden
desperately.

With dead petunias on the floor
I crawl on my knees
just wishing for them to grow.

what is regret
but a bitter berry
that you suffer
through the day with.

What is it
but a place
in the heart
that opens
and closes
like daylillies.

Because I think
about you so much,
even as I walk to the liquor store
I count
hashmarks in the road
in as many times
as I held your eyes.

There are too many
hashmarks
and not enough
of your eyes,
perfume,
cheeks,
tiny fingers
in mine.

I miss you so much
and it's wrong
that I spend time
with my boys
and different girls
knowing
that they can't tread
the asphalt
like you can.