sometimes i just want to close my eyes
and forget

'                          reflected flight:
heron's wings curve, touch
                           in autumn's kiss










'

Your new side was fake
And covered in all the rust you need
To start a war.

There were springs sticking out
From holes in the mattress
The night you told me
I was void of form.

It must haunt you now
To think that I'm such a good abstraction.

Lacrimosa,
Lacrimosa...

My dear,
I'd prefer to sing alone.

To think of you washed
In all the colors falling
Like Whistler's Rocket
So far below the moon...

I cry away any sanctity
Placed upon me in my youth.

When I am stricken
With all the words
Uttered over the silence
Of our modern, beautiful
Communication...

I will fall silent.

I will fall still.

I will be quiet,
But I will be swift,
And I will be void of mercy
To all but myself.

i don't watch home movies
hate them
reason being because
when i was young
i was looking for a movie
my mother
had recorded for me
and accidentally
put one in the vcr
that i'm not sure
i was supposed to see
i know the obvious response
"uh oh, ****"
sorry to disappoint
they were only marked with dates
  1991
on live television
montel williams asks my father
"how can you just throw
your child away like a piece of trash?"
   1994
i spend so much time
in the emergency room
that my parents stop
penciling in growth marks
on the frame
of my bedroom door
i always thought
it was because they believed
i would never grow out
of this sickness
sometimes i believe
the reason that they
never bought me a dream catcher
was because they never thought
i'd live long enough
to see them come true
   1996
i am eliminated
from a spelling bee
because i didn't know
the 'dad' is silent in 'family'
   2013
before i got into poetry
i used to do standup
none of my jokes were funny
one of the other comics
tells me my skits are dry
sometimes sad
he says "why don't you joke
about something like your family?"
so i say
"i never wore any sunblock
because i didn't want anything
to keep me from my father"
i say "what do you call christmas
without lights or heat?"
before he has a chance
to answer
i say "1997. better yet
why don't you
make like a dad and
leave"
   2014
every time we drive
past the hospital
my mother reminds me
how much it cost to save my life
like she'd rather
have her money back
she doesn't have to say
that sometimes she wishes
it was me who had died
instead of my brother
i can hear it in the way
she says "love you"
sometimes i imagine
that if i were to die
that she
would pick out a casket for a child
because she never loved
the person i became
yesterday i told my father
how close i'd been
to suicide lately
and he said
"that's my boy,
livin on the edge.."
and i can't remember
if i laughed
or cried

The temple priest has rung his bell.
A cloud of smoke from candles and lamps
Haloes the Goddess, glowing bright
This beat of drums both maddens and dulls.

The incense burns: so heady the musk,
Our senses flounder in the flood.
This endless chant of sacred words
Soon drugs our lips and stuns our minds.

The Goddess, always staring down:
Her painted pupils cut through smoke
And read the secret thoughts we think.
We somehow feel this within our hearts