Swallow hard
the food that congeals
under your skin
to divert the gazes
of perverted men

and hangs you closer
to your death bed
where calloused man hands
can’t ***** you,

your memories,
poor girl.

Your exclamations of love
are a reflex when you've
done something wrong

which isn't very often,
but I am the leader
of all mistakes.

I suppose you could call me
Captain **** Up --

how can I be of assistance
to ruin your day?


My "I love you"s are more frequent,
like gusts of wind
that come in with the sea --

you've become so used to them,
but wouldn't mind
if they stopped.

You're adaptable like that.

Me?

Well--
I'm still waiting eagerly
for the wind
to wash over my face

even if it means
you have to knock me down
with it.

Tattooed and holding cleavers,
we chop off our limbs
to give as random gifts
and lop off each other’s
to sew onto ourselves

between rotting brown brick towers
on infinitely numbered streets
in dim drywall suites
all along the gray, hazy horizon

hanging rusting lamps
flicker incandescent light and

swing above our pill heads
whose floating eyes
dilate
to watch drops of blood
mix
as the needle and thread
yank us closer to becoming
clones.

in a dim lit bar,
where orange hues
soften our brains,

our pathetic pulsing hearts
spout whiskey blood
into our muscles

and we flip quarters
into each other’s creased hands,
waiting for the other to

drop the game,
our eyelashes flashing
distracting cravings.

but

your eyes aren’t chocolate pools
until rye sets flame
to your inhibitions.

i won’t take the invitation
for a sticky dip.

Funny
how we animals can set a time to gather,
and gather we do,
to imbibe keystone poison
made in some factory,
we don’t know,
we don’t care to know,
as it fuses with our blood
and makes us careless to the talking and dancing and flirting and fighting
we claim to enjoy,
if we can remember
through the two-way mirrors that
our stiff blood glazes over our eyes,
reflecting in on ourselves our own incomprehensible
madness,
revealing to others our all too comprehensible
likeness,
making them laugh warily if they haven’t recognized that
they can’t stand the sight of us all
trying to claw our ways back
down the fractals of our lives
to childhoods we’re always
forgetting.

Like geese in the north,
I must flee from you when,
in your face,
I see the temperature cool,
your cheeks crinkle and turn the bright red
of an old maple’s dying leaves.

For soon your heart will be cold,
and the wind chill of your thoughts
will bring necrosis to
the most hot-flowing limbs:

I, who tends to run chilled,
will be dead in the day
with eyes frozen open,
the green of my irises
frostbitten to a dull gray.