"Nothing like a good smoke,"
They say.

Maybe I'll start.

Asbestos infected living;
I am the saddest ******* earth.

Let’s just kiss and make something up.
It’s plain that I’m not sleeping enough
as a practiced insomniac you know,
and make coffee for us in the morning.

Last night we fell over laughing,
exhaling smoke I drawled,
“Everything in this kitchen it sticky”
everything.
For five minutes I think we laughed.

I made brownies.
You held me around the waist,
and spoke with your eyes.

Bukowski

your
seductive
stinking
honesty
makes my sanitized life
a lie

(poem dedicated to the late Charles Bukowski)

Tonight I married a graffiti artist.
This is the third time I’ve been proposed to
at some ***** house party.
This time there was an ordained all-faith minister
on the porch smoking a cigarette. That was enough.
I said yes.
We’re all strictly first-name-basis here, nicknames are even better.
So to him I’m just Mimi. Focused intently on my hand,
he draws my wedding ring with a permanent marker
and kisses each finger as he finishes.
There is a tiny replica of his tattoo on the underside of my finger
in addition to my gigantic drawn-on diamond.
It is my favorite part.
We talk politics and eventually art.
Turns out he’s sort of an amazing artist.
He said he’d put my name up on a wall but I don’t believe him.
Intricate, passionate, and thoughtful.
His smile is adventure.
That’s why I married him.
He asked to read my poetry and in my fuzzy judgment I let him.
Maybe he even liked a few phrases.
And he was polite as a hopped up boy can be.
Getting me home before three,
lending me his jacket without me asking.
I know he’ll forget to call, or that he even has my number.
and that we won’t watch Pulp Fiction
tomorrow.
That I was really just a glorified
snort of some white powder,
I am like all the glitter that fades in the morning
like smiles do, or permanent marker
after a few washes.

It’s three am.
Or actually 2:58, right exactly now.
Sitting in bed with my cup of mac and cheese
I made in the microwave
and woke up my roommate,
because if I’m getting sexiled until 2 anyhow,
I’ll make some ******* mac and cheese.
Blowing on my plastic fork
listening to Bon Iver sing about his skinny love.

That’s something that’s been concerning me lately,
Skinny love.
But I’m eating anyway.
Because rolling on the black top of the playground
(dark and secret, with just enough irony)
with a newly blue-eyed boy
made me hungry.

I
Sleeping in your bed till noon
a silent prayer
redeem me
naked angel pulls you up
bathes you
and says make one wish

with her uncommon beauty
the combination of the
sharpness of her teeth with the
sharpness of her words
you cannot help but
wish for
her

II
His head is heavy when he wakes
Redemption is curled like a child in his arms,
put to bed with a bottle of *****
but lemons killed the taste.
She didn’t mean to wake up.

III
The thin blues of your eyes wash over
The blessings are small and smooth
Redemption waits for you at the bottom of the stairs
the delicate curves of her feet
buried into the grass,
she bristles out to become all encompassing
running towards the sea.

On a Wednesday, Thursday driving
by your father's house
I come bearing gifts
but no one is home.

And all I want to do
is give back that
effeminate powder blue shirt
and say good riddance
to your mother's house.

gritting teeth,
smiling through the hate and pain
thirst quenching rain like death
bleeding gums
sewn to dead flesh
my mind like a opossum on the side of the road
each fetter breaks
as a new one's bound
timely sickness dancing on the wind's breath
there's no escape,
no escape,
no escape
from the poison fumes
that gather in my house
silent, building pressure
til it leaks through the cracks in the walls
and kills us in our sleep

a serpent boiling in a tin can
threads of fate
twined in a robe,
empathy
never coming
strange places
to find
a cure for
a disease
like a dog, hell
waits at the door
for you to come.
sweat drenched, clinging to sheets
stinging like an acid
you shrink away from the light
edged ever closer
like your feet
to the earth
unknown, but feeling,
i sit and wonder
what dreams do end
this sweet death?