I decide it's better to live like a hang glider,
to look down at rivers
snaking towards hips.

Better to hold handlebars
like cold lips.

Better to take the tongue to teeth,
than try to guess what's
in her coffee.

I'll be high
in the morning;
still a speck in her eyes,
as she pukes in the Cheerios
and tells me not to look
because it's unbecoming.

But I've seen her puke when
we're watching the Dog Whisperer.

She'll be staring up at me

and I know
that
she'll
be thinking about hanging a motherfuker
with a tight rope pulled
from a trapdoor
hinged by her
lavender *******.

Let me fall to the earth
through that opening.

Crush me
with the nails
that hold you together.

I
think
"I'm sorry,"
is what she said
to him.

She'd broken down
all lines of communication
and he was hungry
as hell
for her taste.



And what he said to her
was the most
bitter of all the greatest cover-ups.

"It's okay."

Bitter like scuppernogs
in North Carolina
when the sun reaches down
and burns sweetness away.

It was an assassination
of faith
that day
they lit two cigarettes
with one lighter.

That day
they sat outside on park benches
unearthing each other
while trying to hide.

"So," she said
to him.
"Did you know
that I can roll the tightest blunts
in the universe."

And he said something,
something
falsified,
something
calcified,
something
ha­rdened.

"That's dope."

Because the love drug
had taken all control over him,
and rage
couldn't come out of him,
he didn't have the spirit
or the *****
to say
that he'd drank himself to death
all day long
because he thought
she'd strapped on an oxygen tank
and flown to the stars:

Distant
as
a
supernova
burning holes in that
murky
purple
night.

I saw her
walking from the bodega
and it was hotter
than a tick
cradled under my *****,
and from there the fire
spread.

I was listening
to life
after
death,
had that **** on BLAST,
and she was carrying groceries
in the crook of her arms,
plastic bags
swinging
in response to the weight of each other.

Back and forth,
until I thought they might
just get ideas
and run away together.

And right there,
with my windows down;
my eyes on her,
hers on the concrete,
I wanted a forty,
cause forties clear my head
and my conscience
was banging me in the side of my head
like two bags
full of loaded groceries
on
frail arms.

Pac would tell u
he waz gunna
throw a riot
and he'd tell ya
y.

Rappers nowadays
throw a riot
and don't have the inteligente
2 tell you why,
see now it's
about
mizguided bravado
and *******
it used 2 be about
all the old homies
and
G.I.R.L.S. u used 2 know.

**** isn't the poison,
the poison
is
what you preach
from diamond-studded
constructs
of impermissibility,
you trace the path
of the ants across
the earth
with your finger,
telling them where
to go
and when,
so when we have
a new king,
he will dream of dreams
on ocean planets,
with the stars
swimming,
the galaxies
breathing,
the cosmos
deeming
that all
is right
although not altogether
good.

When I place my heart
in hell,
I place it in your frying pan.

When we ****
I see the listlessness in your eyes,
and I'm not hurt,
because at least you're there,
and you're letting me enter
you
for
a
moment.

At least your letting me be a part of you,
and that's what I think *** is,
more than an entering of the body,
it's an entering of the soul.

So when I push my *****
I push
my hopes
my regrets
my hurtfulness
and my
******-sociological
*******.

Can you take me,
because I'm crazy
and I've got a few ****** up
idiosyncracies.

So when I catch
this love **** quick,
it's on a whole 'nother tip.

I might just fall in love,
and Natalie might come calling
again,
so don't be hurt
when I resume with her
and I chase every single girl
I could have loved
into the distance.

Don't be hurt,
because
misguidedly,
I think I'm meant to be with her.

What does a grown-*** man
do?

Does he wear a suit
and
tie?

Does he fish on the weekends?

Does he go to work in the morning,
and deal with constant pressures
on his head?

I think a grown-*** man
kicks his kids out
when
they're not acting correct.

I think he cries
when they sleep
in places that aren't home,
and scrounge
pennies
from their pockets
to get some Micky D's.

A grown-*** man
loves his life
because this is the only one he has
no matter
how
bad.

When he goes to work
he listens to jazz
because the trumpets
remind of him of his
baby's
gurgles
and
that child going hungry
isn't an option.

His wife and him fight
because he thinks she's not
raising the kids right,
when she really is,
but he's really got fear in his heart,
the good kind,
the kind that makes him compassionate
when he kisses his
baby daughter's
lips
before the sun has come up.

When I think of a grown-*** man
I think of my father,
even when he's ****** up
to the nth degree
and I can say I love him
because he is the tree
and he has carefully
tended my plot of earth
even when he dealt with a dearth
of love.