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Callum McKean Jan 2015
Altho nobody knows - and I’m not
telling! - I’m a dope fiend
******* hound and not in the
harmless sense i am
drug vampire, nocturnally creeping
into houses thru
open windows & easy doors taking
kitchen spices & cabinet cleaning

products
cooking little pills & powders
outta strangers’ **** i spend full
moons in velvet in backyards
falling out bathroom windows hopping fences
hoping your mother never finds out
Callum McKean Nov 2014
I want you to build a swimming pool
in my bedroom before you leave
and I want you to fill it with my guts.
I want you to put my fingers one bye one
in your teeth and snap them off and
tack them to your arms like fleshy feathers.

I want you to pop out my eyes before you go
and mount them glimmering on your forehead.
I want you to crawl into bed with me and
slip off my shoes and my shirt and
sing me whisper sounds that flitter
under the covers and while you sing nail

what’s left of me to the mattress and
kiss me and put the mattress on the porch
and splash the porch with my blood
so the neighbor’s know I’m made of
the real stuff
and leave me there dripping off
the ground with your love.
Callum McKean Nov 2014
Corn syrup! on blue table-wood!
The librarians
kick you out, right after
you get it,
the heart monitor high that comes
from so much well-spent sugar.
Callum McKean Nov 2014
In a last ditch effort, I
Spread myself thin,  mistakenly
Dreaming up elephant scenarios.
Are you for real?
Because I think you just wished
Yourself into existence
Like a wooden puppet
With an existential nose.
Delightfully androgynous hobos
Light my days up
But I have no extra cash!
I am going to the races today
And I must bet on the winning horse.
Callum McKean Nov 2014
I’d like to be young Ewan MacGreg
or an NYC ***** circa 1977, spitting
over balcony railings and pushing
thumbtacks into white-washed
walls. All I’ve got for my
Ocean Voyage is a bed - and
so it becomes a boat and
the sheets are washed every day. And
from these clean travels I promise
I’ll mail you words on a regular basis
as long as you
promise to be waiting on the other
end, ready to pick up the envelope that
the greasy green teenager dropped you.
Ready to dig with bathrobe and trowel and
write me back about what you found
buried in the ink! As long as you
don’t disturb the soil. And remember, all
this excess comes from me, the
kid with the killer grin.
Callum McKean Nov 2014
Last night, someone
blue and beautiful brought me
my dinner, her lips all
lit up from the inside. Sitting there with profiles
distorted by pleasure, we
recognized the shape of the
moment as it lay

distinct and glassy against our
skin. There were no questions -
“What are you thinking? What do you want?”
We didn’t need to ask
these, sitting on the wrong side
of the window while our lovers
hid in the crowds outside.
I didn’t need to know where she went
when she was out of my
sight because I could already see

her leaving, red socks on
white tile, slipping
as if out of the house her
parents had left her
down to the ground floor
and out, over
the welcome-mat puddles and grey-dirt paths -
into the world, the sky open to greet her
and the rain dropping like
shards of glass.
Callum McKean Nov 2014
It’s time once more to get
down to our small-town brunch.
We’re sharing an identical
caffeine headache but we
know that a swift combination of
dog hair and sore eye’d

stares will ****
the cures they send our way.
Today,
the menu is plagued by locust
taste, and it’s only after
we begin to recognize
drought in our speech that
the coffee comes.

Now, I know you’ve heard my spiel
about impact communication
(I have a fervent need to
talk minus the mouth as
middleman) but I’m currently
wishing for
the vivid fluidity of
talk before evaporation,

when it’s red on your tongue.
My longing’s born in
absence of such; here,
even the coffee’s dehydrated
and gray. I drink

and I dream of a summer spent
crafting paper boats out of paper
and breathing life into their
folds, sailing them
soggy in whirlpools and eddies
sorry to be seen off

too soon.
We finish our desert meal,
syrupless pancakes that
stick to the roofs of our mouths.
The bread we finish with
is stale earth. As we leave,

I imagine a return to the drained
creek. I can see now
your cracked hands
laying the disposable vessels
onto dry ground
and asking them
to float.
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