I put his ***** in my mouth,
and he puts mine in his hand
and we laugh in unison
except my laugh sounds
like I'm gargling marbles
and his laced with
painful joy

We're on my mother's bed
and it's my fifteenth birthday;

The television is on,
and the sound of a
newsman fills the
evening air

60 dead and 5 others wounded
is all I can manage to hear

as he begins to make his way inside
of me, a silent joy consumes my
soul and I'm floating away to Heaven

I see God, and I feel him
fill me with contentment;
his hand is placed on my forehead
and I kiss his fingers
as they slowly leave my face

The front door shuts
loud with a bang and
my friend and I struggle to put
on our clothes;

It's father;

I've gotten
used to the loud,
calculated steps
he takes up the stairs

We both sit on the bed
and act as if we just finished
praying

The door opens
and he smiles,
and asks us
why we are
sweating;

but his eyes make his way
to the television;
he becomes distracted and tells
us with a grimace on his face
to go downstairs and
play a game

I grab my friend's
hand and rush
down the stairs

just to be alone with
him once more.

Will you hold me
against my past deeds?

What if what I said
back then
was the byproduct
of a different
mind
at the time?

Who am I now, if not
the same person I was
when I was given
the breath of life?

All this contortion
just to be liked;

all this self-destruction
just to feel alive.

When does it end?

I wake up from a nap,
and it's mid-afternoon

My phone is dead,
I forgot to charge it last night

Would my boss believe
my reason for being late?

I'm sorry sir,

but I came home to a messy room,
her ***** clothes were piled
on the edge of my bed when I got
home, but I didn't have the heart to
clean them

much less get rid of them

There was red flannel shirt
that smelled of menthol cigarettes;
Pall Mall Menthols -- her favorite

and a few tanned bras
strewn across a handful
of Hello Kitty underwear

When I saw the bloodstain
on one of them, I began to cry
and cry till I couldn't take it no more

We could've had a child

A little version of her,
a little version of me,
a treasure from the both of us

But where was she now
except at the house of a woman
who shared this exact same bed
with her?

The alcohol, the arguments,
the abandonment, and the
agonizing pain of wondering
where she was and who
she was with only destroyed
whatever little of myself I had left

There's not much I care about
in this solitary life of mine, not work,
not my things, hell, not
even my rare coins and baseball
cards come close

to what I lost when I lost
her

Do you understand my pain, sir?

Do you see why I don't feel like
making various caffeinated drinks
for busy bodies that slither
like snakes at the bottom of a well?

No, that wouldn't work at all.

I guess I'll have to say I was out
partying last night, and I left
my phone at the house
of a girl I was about to bang.

Works every time.

The pistol is on the desk;
the dog tilts her head;
someone is at the door
and it isn't her master

A car passes,
and the street lamps
light it up like
a torch;

it rumbles past
the house, and a
window is shut

The feet of darkness
press upon the floor;
dogs can be heard in the
distance; their masters
asleep, dreaming
the American dream;

their children
in love with
the children of others

A television hums
a late night lullaby;

and the fans
sway back and forth
hissing at the callous
feet of laborers

A loud noise cuts
the day in half

Now the moon peeks
above a cloud
to investigate the sound

Much like the animals,

it's indifferent to the violence
and virtues of others

but that doesn't stop anyone

from waking up;

be it from a headache,

or another

broken heart.

Hello to everyone,

I suffer from an
paralyzing case
of shyness,

Hello from inside of my head;
I want out, but is
there an escape from within?

Let's greet each other
like the dusk and dawn;
before Time splintered
us into separate halves;
before Space
arrived
and took
everything away

Hello, I see you noticed
the tears streaming down my face;

It doesn't give you the right
to ask me what's wrong
or if I feel
any pain

But would you just stay
anyway?

At least until the voices
become silent
whispers at the end
of this deep
dark
cave

Hello, self
it's been a while
since we last talked;

and if I remember correctly,
it was about

how much a oneway ticket
to hell would

cost.

My friend extends
her arm and in her
hand is a small bag
of Cool Ranch Doritos,

'Ere you go'

I say thanks,
as I pick and ****
at each chip carefully

'They ain't women
for chrissake'

she says,
annoyed at how
meticulous
I can be at such
ordinary things

I grab a large one,
perhaps, the largest one;
caked with red, green, black
sprinkles, like a flat
earth birthday cake
ready to be eaten

I take 3 bites,
slowly, as though
they were drags
from a cigarette
before the hanging

'Thank you'
I say, more grateful
than she could ever
imagine

'Aint no thing'
she says

And out of nowhere
I begin to think about
what I'd like to feed my children,
and what stories I'd like to read to them,
how I'd like to teach them
to dance my father's favorite dance,
and sing my mother's favorite
native songs, and on and
on these dreams
unravel before me

I am filled
with sprinkles of
hope, nothing too large,
nothing too small

but the kind of hope
I deserve to have,--

seasoned
on this fragile
heart of mine

i woke up today
just to cry myself
back to sleep

i thought about the world
but in pixels and tones

the wheel of color
spun and spun
until it washed
my dreams in gray

and i sank like
a cloud of smoke
into an old woman's
mouth

i stood among others
and noticed their
shoulders were being
pulled by strings, and their
knees clanking like
aluminum cans
in their faded denim jeans

i laughed a little laugh
and felt a tear roll down my cheek

a hand crept out of the shadows
and swam in my creek,
told me it would be alright
and that i should get back to sleep

and so i did, but then
i dreamt i was alive

and the glory of God
had shown me the way

i was overwhelmed
with worry, wasn't
i born to one father?

and what of mother?

these two creatures
sit like ravens on their perches;
cawing for my return but i did
not look back; for i know
what their feathers have in store for me

i speak in a human tongue:

let you go i must, i say;

as though speaking
were much like guiding a small
part of heaven through
bitter soil

let's leave here, i say
to my love, let's become
better

and my eyes
shut forever, my mind
no longer a seeking missile
desperate for a target,

but like a thread
guided by a compassionate
hand, i am woven

into the fabric

of forgiveness