He tears my heart out when he's silent
When I'm begging on my knees with a loud, crying please to hear him speak my name

I'm ripped to shreds because I'm ugly
I know I'm ugly
So disgusting and horrible on the inside, that my bones have fled and left me nothing but a deflated pile of meat and flesh

And if I heard him say I was beautiful just one more time, I'd smile so ridiculously large that the stars would refuse to shine
Because they'd know they couldn't compete with the glimmer of my gleaming grin
But his words will never come

I'm so tired of these lonesome tea parties I'm pathetically throwing
Where no one is invited and there's not a drop of tea in the *** or any of the cups
Clean cup, clean cup
Move down, move down
I guess I should wash some of these ******* cups, now

Stop sign
Stop sign
Oops
I ran the ******* stop sign
And oh ****, so did he

12 drafts later
And this poem is still ******* garbage
I tried to say something profound
But I had to start by Googling the definition
Plan B
Say something honest
So I wrote a verse about young love
But I have the soul of an old man
And I’ve never had a girlfriend
Dead ends
I want to write
I really do
But I’m lost for words
And the more I try to write about myself
About who I am
About what I’ve felt
About what I feel
Socrates
The only thing that I know for sure
Is that I know nothing at all
I heard someone say that once
Not sure what it meant
But surely it must fall under
“Having intellectual depth or insight”
Profound [Def. 1]. (n.d.). Merriam-Webster Dictionary
**** it
I’m not a poet.

Maybe they do it to drive me crazy
I don't know
But there are words constantly knocking on my skull, lining up, and begging to be chosen
I never choose wisely
I'm irrational
and sometimes I suspect I do it on purpose

I've never been one of those girls,
you know, one of those girls who looks happy
One of those people that are easily approached
I'm uninviting
Like a shack at the bottom of a dirt road
that's been boarded up
and the property line is covered in caution tape

My antiquated style has people baffled
My attitude turns people off
And when I actually try to be likable, I end up hating myself

If there was a direction to go, I'd take it
But every paved path is closed off for construction
And pretty soon, there won't be any direction at all
Just one place where we stand
and never move again

for that girl at a concert in 1968*

she shed her clothes
in a moment's abandon
and danced naked
before the swaying crowd

she was young
she was beautiful
she was a vision
of possibility

she must be
approaching 70 now

she is someone's
grandmother

she spends her days
in sweats feeling her
knee replacement ache

were she to suddenly
dance naked in public
her children
would commit her

still, sometimes
in her secret heart
she imagines
doffing her clothes
and twirling
once again
within the music
of a more generous time
before her world
was damaged beyond
recovery

she imagines,
but she doesn't

   ~mce

Ah, cell-phones:

I know it dates me
and sounds crotchety
but oh how I miss
the old days
when talking
to yourself
in public
meant you were
crazy, probably
schizophrenic,
maybe dangerous
or possibly
a saint or mystic
with a direct
line to god.

Now it's just a
helicopter mom
calling her
daughter away
at college
for the third
time today
to reassure
herself the girl
can't exist
without the
eternally
present sound
of her voice
giving advice
the kid probably
won't follow
anyway.

Joan of Arc
was burned
at the stake
for listening
to the disembodied
voices that
assault us
wherever we go,
every day.

Doesn't Seem fair.

I wonder who
has that stake?

  ~mce

When you come of age
among Camaros, Mustangs,
GTO's and Challengers,
it seems somehow sad
to hear the pussified sound
of a Prius go puttering by
like Death driving
something sensible.

  ~mce

My day was spent Here
reading, writing,
meditating and practicing
kung fu forms,
quite content Here in my
aging baby boomer bubble.

I know that Somewhere

a surgeon struggles
to save the legs of a child
blown off by a landmine
from some forgotten war

and Somewhere

a startled soldier
who never knew what hit him
slowly burns to death
in his mangled humvee

and Somewhere

a shy small Muslim woman
trips the timer on
her suicide vest
and walks into
a marketplace prepared
to die for her god,

but I have lived those lives.

Here and now,
I am no longer a man
of this century
or even this
dying digital world;

no longer
in the Somewhere,
Now content to
play out my hand,

to just be
in the Here.

  ~mce

If I Hold Your Hand, I'm Holding On For Dear Life.

I feel out of place
Out of place like a mushroom in a green salad
Like an all-male rendition of Cats on Broadway
Like Godzilla on Melrose Avenue
I feel like an adoptee in my own body
It's like "Hey! how long have you been here?"

My sentences are cut short whenever I try to speak because
Of all the train wreck shows that people could watch, I'm the one that's been off air for billions of years
Relevance
That's what I lack
If I open my mouth
I sound like I'm from another planet
A stranger on this earth, in this land, in this city
And I can't forget my mother's words
"You'll fit in somewhere."
But the boat to ****** island already left, and I'm a bad swimmer

Let me feel at ease
Let even my whispers make sense
Let me touch someone without feeling like I'm burning them
Let me do my campaign of shock and awe like a living creature in a cabinet of curiosities

I feel out of place
Like the lightning that falls inches from the tree
Like a satellite thrown off the Earth's orbit
Out of place
Like a missing sock ****** for the rest of eternity
Like a plastic bag drifting through the wind, thank you Katy Perry

In my own skin
I feel too big and too small
All at once
This rock in space feels odd, like it's not home
But the mothership is long gone
And, what can I say
I guess I'm stuck here