the same red spots obstruct my vision,
the music fades from my ears.

the image of your burning brown eyes
stay locked in my mind.

it feels like i am slowly sinking,
sinking into a shallow tub of cloudy water.

my eyes feel like they are about to pop,
i unwrap the cord from my neck.

take a breath of sour air,
and start again.

the morning had no coffee. just had 98 degrees by 10 am
and a barn on the lean in the distance.
where time never cuts the grass and nothing happens.
dirt roads pray for death or slow traffic. and clouds like smoke
from a bellicose pipe… on the lips of a medicine man
who became a woman when a cloud called him “ medicine man “
while the peyote was barking without dogs, was unleashed
to prairie in the marsh where the bogs agog
with summer candy in its peat moss.
no dowsing rod to spare a child the ridicule of finding god’s pond
with a stick obeying a cop.
the morning had no mirrors. just broken glass and aspartame
and very minor miracles. no part of a red sea. only dust mites
and last night’s *****. the trucks won’t stop complaining
about the radio. because you have no radio.
and when you sing on those long trips to the corner store…
your truck is like “ what the ****? “
and “ this guy must hate trucks….” and all sundry regalia of suffering
from a hole in the muffler and a tone-deaf pilgrim
on half a tank of sunshine and vermouth.

with a dent
in a twist.

it's really too bad
that nicotine
leads to addiction

and it's too bad
that street drugs
cost so much

too bad that
alcohol isn't
given to minors

too bad that
i can't afford
to properly
destroy myself

too bad that
i've always
felt the need to.

the price of coffee has not
necessarily gone up
most people are just buying
the wrong brands.

i didn't shed a tear
not one
i'd lost them all two
weeks before
and my waterproof
mascara laughed at
my mother's assumption
that i needed it.

for someone who is
loved i suggest a tombstone
but for someone like me
cremation is better
because there is already no
question of the likelihood
of eventually
being forgotten.

i found a tension rod
in the hall closet this week
i don't know where it came from
or why it was there
but i know that when we find
something we've been wishing for
chances are we will commandeer and
use it for our own selfish purposes.

pearls in a pill bottle
cursive handwriting on a silver tray
ivy up the noose
razors with the rouge

i don't think it's romanticizing
suicide
i think it's showing how normalizing
suicide
becomes when it's always
in the back of your mind

when there are many
many days where you spend all your
spare moments contemplating if
your out is a better alternative to this.

they thought i was lying
when i said i didn't care
but i wasn't lying
at least, not about my hair
if there's a truth that's found in lying
that's something i'd gladly dare.