once a boy called me for three hours just to talk about my favourite
movie. i never said i
loved him. like everything
else, winter murdered whatever we
had and the next
summer was very
foreign. once a boy loved
me and never told
me. the last night he walked away from my
porch i pictured him as a cloud of
tears, as a white
flag. once i loved a
boy and when i told him, he said ‘i
know.’ my best friend tells me i’m good at making
fists. i try to find
god in vintage wallpaper and downtown
bars, sitting so
long that my ears flood with the signal
notes of a lonely man’s
saxophone. here, you can smell cemeteries and
playgrounds on the same
street. here,
boys never love you
back. once, i broke a rock in my bare
hand. once, a boy i hardly ever
talked to told me that i was a good
poet in the way i explained
things and asked me please not to become a
dead one. i didn’t know what i
meant when i told him i’d
try. once i loved a boy so full of
anger that his god begged him for
mercy. i think i almost
loved a boy once.

lately I've been spinning in
circles and counting calendar
days like your kisses, you don't
know what I've been
up to, last week I went to my own
funeral.

everybody was dressed a hell of a lot like
me, all black and black and
cobwebs, crying into their
hands so hard it seemed like a collective
effort to break the world
open.

you weren't
there, I touched everybody's
face but you weren't
there, it took me only two
minutes to figure out where you'd
be.

her hands were gripped around the back of your
neck like a noose, lying in your
bed, still covered with a ton of my stray
hairs that had fallen out last
time you swore you'd try to be
gentle.

when she said your
name i imploded in on myself like a chemical
war, all the bones in my body trying to get
out. did you tell her you loved her,
too?

I took some of my stray
hair and stuck it to your
back, if she took as much time on you as
I did she'll find it soon
enough, and I hope she
does. I hope
she breaks you. I hope
you wake up and she's
gone so that you know what
hurt tastes like. I hope
you lose her as quickly as I lost
you, and you can't drag yourself out of all the
rot she leaves behind on your bedroom
floor.

I hope she doesn't go to your
funeral, because I sure as hell am
not.

there’s people whose dads don’t even know their
face but that doesn’t change what i
have. that somehow doesn’t lessen the
blow. that’s
nice you got bit by a
shark and all but nobody ever asks me about
my scars, the ones you can’t
see. i try to take
baths to feel
whole again but the water hits me like a
fist when i drop down too
fast, like all the hurt in the
world never meant
anything. i guess what i’m trying to
say is that i love you, i love
you, and i remember the
night you punched my name into the bedroom
wall because i tried too hard to
save you, i tried too
hard to **** the poison out of
something already
pure. i guess
i was hoping you’d question how i could smell a broken
bone from three miles
away, how i could find bandages in the blackest
dark. i guess
i was hoping you might end up saving
me, too.

Numbers tick down.
An idle buzzing.
A man speaking
   but
       no
           words
               come
                     out.

Muffled sounds from the other side of the room.
Running in circles
around what we really mean.

Perhaps if the buzzing would just...
                   STOP...

Outside people shuffle about like ants.
Preoccupied with the task at hand,
the ants carry an enormous weight
              blindly
back to their queen.

"I'd like to-"
buzzzzzzzzzz
"Start with-"
buzzzzzzzzzz

ENOUGH.


Silence
Everything feels different in the silence;
          numbers move more slowly;
          circles become lines;
Everything changes.

I don't want to be the one to make that decision
again.
I'm sick and tired of being in this state;
the limbo where I
bend over backwards
trying to safely get under that bar--
just to get back in line and do it again.
All over again.

You see, the worst thing about this sick game
is that it gets harder the longer it goes.
Some ******* is holding a beam
a foot above the ground and
I
have to slither under it.

I suppose I could quit now...
Forfeit before it gets too hard
and I break my back.
But then again, I could still win.

And somebody is singing a song
in the background
"Every limbo boy and girl..."

And it's stuck on loop and there's no escape.

Until one time I break my back
trying to get under a bar that is too low.
"All around the limbo world..."

Though the pain is unbearable,
it's better than being part of that game.

"Gonna do the limbo rock..."

And just like that the game starts over.
But this time I have to start from where I left off:
broken and tired.
And one foot off the ground.

"All around the limbo clock"

I'm a white, male,
American dreamsicle
who says "****"
way too much
to not be cool.

I read about my father issues
on my mother's face.
I hate things and people
because the news told me to.
Art is ****** and ****** is art;
when Billy killed Sue,
my heart raced.
Do drugs with me
or do none at all;
promise me when we're high
we won't fall.

There are ******* on the street
and the cops are shooting them.
There are ******* kissing
and old, white men are scared.
There are mentally ill people
and they are "seeking attention".
There are women with voices
and old, white men are scared.

I am an American Dreamsicle:
cold, unhealthy, and killing your kids.
You can buy me for 40% off
and I promise to take 60% of your ideals.
I am what my parents don't want me to be
and that is the appeal.
Little do I know, I am every thing you are
and that is my cancer.

the
people living next door to me probably wrote newspaper articles about their neighbour’s
promiscuity, thinking
we were ******* when
really doors were just being
slammed with an exuberant amount of
passion. anger
holds more truth than love sometimes and
often, winter forbids happiness to
be. i
cut my hair to teach myself
loss and i guess it came in handy when
you left. too much,
you said. i was too much. too much
hugging, kissing, writing,
clinging,
clinging,
clinging. i
was the dryer sheet desperate enough in
love with your tshirt that i had no
plans to ever let
go. i
don’t hug you as much anymore, and
i never kiss you. but
i do still call you twice a day. i guess
i’m still working on that ‘not clinging’ thing. i guess
i’m just as awful as my neighbours
thought. but
there’s a difference, i wore you out, you wore me down.