Red dirt ***** dogs
mawing mouthfuls of matted fur
with far more fervence
than the sunset behind them.
Here at the end of the road ...
"Watch this mom!"
I watch.
The trees, the falling sun,
this little boy, my youngest son
and these rust red, mud red mutts
who do not see the sunset slipping
dimming.
They don't see my eyes attempt to hold all of it, infinite.

My mouth is a monster,
howling down houses.
Rotting roofs are no match
for my madness.

Eat you up and drink you in.
I want you
The way I both fear and love the sunrise
The way that mo(u)rning is work
The way illumination
Is painful
And full of hope.

Biting back bile like
When I believed I could be born again and the bible was a buoy
Floating on whiskey breath.
I never could "be good" then.
The only absolution
Is slow execution
Dying the same way baseboards turn brown
The way cobwebs climb corners
Forgotten
Until they're ***** enough
To need attention.

with the leftover rig of someone’s unhappy decisions
and the smell of animals left too long without attention
I curled up for a few days in the cold on hide-a-bed mattress
like the ******* ****** I never was
only thought about being.
“What was I thinking?”
Fifteen and wishing
I was ****** chic
a “beautiful disaster”
a ******* model painted dead for TV..
~that~ was my aspiration.
Fast-forward to the bottle of whiskey
and the smell of old dog ****
and a lingering need to hear that man’s voice.
I was so angry.
“She ****** me off so much.”
There’s little cessation
from the stream of ******* they spew.
“How could I love and hate someone so much?”
“That’s what abuse does....”
Products...
results...
that’s what we are...
from a mass social experiment gone right.
“They want you fat, lazy, and addicted to something.”
“Well, they have me.”
I hear some people have a handle on things...
got “****” together.
I hear that man’s got a job and is pretending to be someone
for someone’s family.
If I had enough room, I’d weep for them.
My tears are all ******* though
in fear of the future and a lack of control.
What the **** do we do?
Where the **** do we go?
That trailer
I thought I could save it.
Cleaned the walks and the carpets.
Drank myself to sleep,
freezing,
thinking
I was so righteous,
so destined for ...
something.
anything
except
that trailer.

The problem with being a well rounded individual is
there are less corners, less lines...
and it’s sort of a question of what came first:
the fruit or the color?
How the wind does ravage the mountains
to stones and boulders!
I have wondered
often
about those things...
nature versus nurture,
and who or what there is to blame
for human behavior.....
both the crux and salvation of experience is experience itself...
The journey is the lesson is the reward.
There is no way but through.
“I’m strong enough already.”
The seed
is the tree
is the fruit.