It creeps in through the windows
and through the vents. Through the eyes,
and through the tongues, and through
the ears, perhaps, but always
through the eyes and always the tongues.

It creeps in through the words and
the mouths they arise from,
—always in whisper,
right below the earlobe,
with warm, tickled breath—

It creeps in through you and the
death is cruel and the death is
fair and the death is always eternal.
The death is cold and it is calculated
but it is always full of passion,
pulsing in the veins till the very moment
the heart comes to a stop.

It is love in the bathroom stalls.
It is love in the beat-down bars where the
beat-down people drink their lukewarm beer.
It is love in the truck bed on the side of
some unnamed, midnight mile down I-95.
It is love in the worst way.
It creeps in and it kills you,
and it kills you, and it kills you.
Each death a little different, but
death all the same.

In the morning there she is.
She’s making coffee, or in the shower,
or headed to work.
You’re looking for your pants,
or your shirt, or your wallet,
perhaps some combination of the three,

The whole time wondering
how the hell you’ll ever make it
out of this alive.

Cutting off blood circulation,
inflammation,
hand is turning
black to blue.
Poor fool's face
must've been
made of steel.
Typing with one hand
on a late morning,
3rd cup of coffee
finally getting the heart
pumping,
wondering what he's doing.

Hope the *******'s face
fell off.

There's a
primal urge
that rips through
the body
and you cannot stop;
blow after ****** blow.
Until someone pulls
you off,
bones shattered
all across your hand.
You can't even tell.

Till you wake up
late one morning
and you're typing
with one hand,
wondering
if that *******
had as much trouble
brushing his teeth
as you did.

There are very many beautiful women
that I will never know
and very few beautiful women
that I will, but they never
stay long, seeing quickly how
low I am beneath them.
There are also some who are not
as beautiful and I will know them
equally as well,
if not better than the others.

More often than not there are more
of those than any other kind,
for I am ugly and luck
is often bitter toward me,
if not at least fair.

The ones I do not know
are always more beautiful
than the ones that I do.
Sometimes it saddens
me to think of things of
which I will never know;
the beautiful women
or the touch of the moon or the
pale white beaches of Greece.

More often than not I avoid
thinking on such things for long,
if at all, and I can
be content with my few,
fleeting beautiful women,
--who come to me when
luck has made a mistake
and leave again when it
is corrected--
and the few others who
are more like me
and can accept me as
their own.

So very many people speak
that so very little is ever said.
Words pour in from all around,
surrounding, inundating
those who dare listen.

The little overheard
through the din
is oft rathered to have
gone unheard after all.
It is so very unfortunate.
Here, my addition to it.

I hear the woman underneath me.
She’s sore, tired.
Worn out from some
other man, I’m sure.
She croons in my ear.
Make love to me, she whispers,
take it easy, nice and slow.
Not too much, not too much.

And the man at the bar next to mine,
talking to the bartender,
cautiously ordering a drink.
Can’t have too much, he says,
can’t get too drunk, he says.
Not too much, not too much.

It seems everyone is taking
it slow these days. Too much
caution for this shotgun
existence. Too much fear. You can
smell it on them like cigarette stench
from a guilty smoker.
Everyone is rolling up their windows,
staying indoors, under the covers.
No one lives much anymore.
Not too much, not too much.

I down my drink at the bar and
break the man’s nose.
He doesn’t fight back when
he gets up. I spit and walk out.
Home to the woman and
she’s crooning in my ear.
Not too much, not too much.
I am violent and rough and she hates me,
I can see it. Still, when it’s over she leans
towards me and asks if I love her.
She says it with hurt eyes.
“Well, do you!?” she cries.

Not too much, not too much.

There was a homeless man
across from me in the park.
He walked over, knees crooked,
hanging upright onto a cane.
His beard was wild and unkempt.
His hair nearing baldness.
The jeans he wore were worn,
with the fabric torn and eroded,
washed in color around the ankle.
He spared me a glance as he rummaged
through the trashcan beside us.
Women and children laughed and dance,
oblivious to the man’s pilgrimage.
He found a half drank mocha latte that I had
seen cast away minutes before, and I watched
as he cracked a shy, crooked smile at the find.
He sat, and eyed me as he gulped it down.
Only for a few seconds did he sit,
accompanying me in silence. Then he arose,
placing the cup carefully back into the waste,
and walked off toward the street.
Off toward some other feast,
some other treasure,
his cane dragging his feet onward,
step by weary step.
Life can be beautiful in the little things,
if you allow it.

I used to eat dinner with his family.
I would drive over there,
once I had a car, and have a
meal prior to going out. I never enjoy
eating with another set of parents.
Each has their own rituals,
habits, structures around which
they sit down together.
I was an interloper. No one noticed
the awkwardness but me,
perhaps, but in my eyes it was palpable.
His mother didn’t work.
She was a mild-mannered woman
who cared for her children
because she realized that was what
one was to do. She was the
one who would pick us up from
concerts in her Mercedes SUV
and take us home before we could
drive. Or to the movies. She
didn’t mind if it was rated R.
She was a hero for that. His father
was a businessman. I didn’t know him
very well. I shook his
hand when we were older because
men do that. I don’t think he
minded me. His little brother was four
years younger. He was my
savior at dinner because he didn’t
understand the regulations.
The slurp of his spaghetti kept the
tension light. After the accident
I only ate with them once more.
It’s hard to associate with people
when the mutual interest is gone.
Especially with the guilt choking
down any conversation starter
in my throat. I didn’t speak much
that last dinner. I tried very hard
not to spill on my suit. I was the
interloper still. No one noticed the
guilt but me, perhaps, but in
my eyes it was palpable.
The brother didn’t slurp his spaghetti.
The tension choked in my throat
and I think I started crying.
No one spoke.

I slam the glass on the table,
it shatters. The simplicity of action
and consequence allows me a smile.
The bartender knows I am drunk.
I do not mind. I clean up the mess,
beg off forgiveness, order another.
He is skeptical but the tab is open
and the money is good. He has two
kids at home, he does not need to
babysit here as well. I am spilling
down my shirt but I don’t mind.
The drink is good. The TV is on
but it shows nothing. It is too late
to have anything worth any attention.
I should have left earlier, perhaps, but
there is a measure of freedom in being
at a bar alone. She is in bed. Someone
else’s if I am lucky, mine if I am not.
It has proven to be an even coin toss
these days. I look at no one.
I talk to no one. There are few others
in the bar. I finish the drink
and look up. The bartender
shakes his head. I scowl but
underneath I understand. I am
someone’s mess to clean up.
I do not mind. I stand.
Fingers gripping the table seeking
equilibrium. Take a look around,
and stumble toward a man I don’t
know, much larger than I. There are
a few things I decide to let slip that
I have heard about him and his mother.
He doesn’t appreciate my honesty.
I throw the first punch and none more.
I apologize for bleeding on the floor.
He splits the skin in the corner of my eye.
I laugh and another snaps my nose.
The concrete feels good against my
wet cheek and I decide this may not be
a terrible place to rest.

We are raised to fall in love. We are wired
to find someone, something, to make us happy.
We are told that it cannot be done alone. Hand flat
against my thigh. Neck crooked, arched in the broken
bone agony of release. Round rings of red inflammation litter
the surface area making up the forearms where ember
once touched skin. Each stroke of the canvas sizzling
into life with a calm hiss. Whites of sallow eyes are
juxtaposed by the dark rings around them before shutting
themselves to darkness. Another stroke, another hiss.
Head tilted back and our body is not our own. Her face is mine.
Our face is our own twisted in slack-jawed ecstasy.
Another, another. Clenched hands stretch lifetimes
across paneled floors. Remember the first time.
There in the laundry room. Pierced skin. Burnt flesh.
Remember the pain. Another, another. The *******
revulsion of knowing it is never going to end. The feeling
of emptiness. The feeling of never being whole again.
Another. Knowing that the body is only the conduit.
The surface area on which to catalyze reaction.
Where we end and we begin. It is all one body. Our hand.
Yes. Our neck. Yes. Our face. Our forearm. Our needle.
It is all one body. Another, another, we need another.
Melted into one. We twist and moan and **** and
bleed and bite and destroy another and another
and another. We are all the same. No longer feel
the cigarette, twisted and held in cauterized flesh.
Quickly. Each ******, each stroke a beautiful painting.
Colors blur the walls of vision and we are all the same and we
are all the same and we are all the same. Another.
We are raised to fall in love. We are raised to fall in love.
Another, another. We are all the same. Where do we end.
We are all the same. We are raised to fall in love.
Where do we begin. We are wired to find external happiness.
The needle in the haystack. Where do we begin.
There is a disconnect between the ideal and that first,
****** ******. There, in the laundry room, needle in my
arm and inside a girl I don’t remember.
Each stroke paints a perfect picture. Her face is mine.
Remember the first. Remember the last.
We are all the same. There is
no end. There is no beginning.
We are all the same.
We are raised to fall in love.
There is a disconnect.
Each ****** ******,
each whispered hiss.
Oblivion.

Here we come, happiness.

Here I am, drowning within
myself. Ripping my hair out
for weeks, it seems.
Torn between what is right
and what is good. Unsure what
those even mean. Yet here I am;
breaking bones under a cross
I'm not sure I wish to carry.
Breaking down to a place I'm not
sure I want to visit. Fighting a fight
I didn't mean to pick, and losing
a war I never meant to finish. Here I am
in the trenches. Here I am.
Knee deep in a love I never really knew, in a life
I never really wanted. Here I am. Treading water,
waiting for sharks to smell the blood.
Come! Here I am, I have nothing left to lose.
Come, take everything that remains.
I've been ripping my hair out for weeks,
here she comes to the door now, here she comes.
Sharks where are you? I am sinking,
hoping for an easy way out. Don't let me down.
The footsteps only get louder. Don't let me drown.
Here she comes. I am here and here she comes.
No one should have to feel this way about a woman.
The last breath chokes out of
collapsed lungs and
she smiles.

I remember the summer
of 2009. Before the world
turned itself inside out.
Before everything crashed
into everything else.
I remember the quaint
beach house my family
stayed at, with the pink
walls, and the room that
I snuck you into one night
before I left while everyone
else packed and slept for
the drive home. All the cute
shops down the street. The pier
where I would sneak beers
from the cooler of the vendor
selling them while you
distracted him. Bumming
cigarettes off of old men
for the two of us with the
wink of an eye.
You were beautiful.
You were everything
I’ve ever wanted in anyone
since. You kissed with a hint
of vanilla and tobacco and
heineken light that blended
so wonderfully I haven’t
tasted anything since.
You were beautiful.
I was sixteen.
Not much behind you,
but somehow worlds apart.
Now I am old. No longer sixteen.
No longer stealing beer
and cigarettes. I wonder
if you ever went back to
that beach. We were only
there for two weeks. Met
you four days late. Those ten
days were not enough. We would
sit under the pier at midnight,
you leaned against one of
the pilings, cigarette forgotten
in your hand, somehow always
touching mine. Oh, I remember
those two weeks, July, 2009.
Wonder if
you do,
too.

Not much like this high.
Your brain about fifteen seconds in
advance of your body. Staring around
at your friends. Blood dripping
from your nose. They don't tell
you about the nosebleeds. They don't
tell you about the burn that guts you out
right behind the eyes. The ache in
your chest as your lips curl and your
eyes roll back. Not much like this
high, boys and girls, not much.
Chopped and cut; a one way ticket
to El Dorado. Your spine breaks as you
attempt to stand. Your legs buckle. Time passes.
You're on the porch, knee deep in the pool,
******* it feels good. Time passes.
You can't eat. You can't drink. You can't blink
Not much like this high. It don't last long though.
Here comes the tide rolling in. Here comes
the Downs. Down down down. Killing yourself
is too much to pass up on these days. Too much
going on not to take a trip. Get up. Get away.
Haven't eaten in days, just crank. Chop up.
***** up. Line up. Inhale. Don't forget to breathe.
Saved a hundred dollar bill for the occasion.
Break it in. Go go go. Quick, before the
Downs come. Go go go. Screaming from
the inside out. What have we gotten
ourselves into? Vicious cycles and
bad habits that won't break.
Vicious war within ourselves; broken bones,
nosebleeds, and all of everything burnt out.
Our souls turn to ash as we lean in closer,
and laugh because we know we shouldn't.

You can’t trust a pretty woman.
Those eyes, ethereal, glittering
in focus towards your direction.
You can’t trust a pretty woman.
Caught between the burning touch of
skin on skin and the soft taste of lust
in the nape of her neck. Her hand
is in your hair, perhaps finding its
way down your back. She’s smiling
through clutched lips, perhaps nibbling
on yours. You need her for a minute
there; all pride, all dignity, cast astray
for her fix. She understands this.
She capitalizes on your momentary
weakness, slipping the knife
slowly between two of you ribs.
You feel it miles away.
You feel it, pain careening
from far off, clenching
your teeth and muscles.
You can’t trust a pretty woman.
You pull away, look
into those eyes.
Nothing.
Nothing but that smile,
and the sweet taste of lust,
dead on your tongue.

I know the store is closed yet
here I am walking the half-mile
from my place. An hour before
she had driven from her
house on the lake down
to my cluttered apartment and we
made senseless, loveless *** on the
kitchen counter. It was quick and
impersonal. My hand on her hip.
Hers in her hair. During we didn’t speak.
Afterwards, however, we shared
cheap and endless conversation.
I didn't want to know any of it.
About where she was working,
how her ex boyfriend used to beat her.
I made the decision then to never
invite her down again. The baggage
was too much. For a good amount
of time she sat there, describing her
new dog, how she felt weird going
out to the bars we used to frequent,
how she needed someone to get
her off of the market.
I told a joke or two then, easing
the tension, before I begged mercy
and excused myself to get
some eggs and milk.

The problem with poetry
and it's iterations within our
generation is that we have
grown soft as writers.
We are so worried about
if she thinks about us, or
whether he really loved us.
Or if our hearts will ever be
fixed again. It is disgusting.
Have some spine, comrades!
**** yourself a ****** on the
floor of the cheap motel.
Drink the bourbon out the bottle
until you puke your mother's
homemade meatloaf into
the kitchen sink. Hell, do
whatever needs to be done,
let's just stop with the
dramatic, self righteous ****.
She ****** someone else
because he was better, he
doesn't love you because
he doesn't have to. Your
heart was never broken.
Have a drink with me and
let's go out, give ourselves
something real to write about.

They tell you to quit smoking.
They tell you to quit drinking.
To quit laughing,
quit loving,
Living.
Because it shortens your life,
they tell you.
Because it's bad for your health,
they tell you.
Have a drink, friend,
have a smoke,
that's what's good for the soul.
Long walks at two in the morning
skipping stones over concrete oceans,
that's what's good for the soul.
Pretty women with pretty
legs, that say all sorts of
pretty things, but never too
loud, or too often, that's
what's good for the soul.
Watching as those pretty legs storm
out of the hotel room after
you said the wrong thing again. Fixing
up that last glass of
whiskey and enjoying it
alone instead. Fighting in
the back of bars over
spilled drinks or spilled
words or someone who slept
with someone else. That's
what's good for the soul.
To take a hit and to hit.
To love and to hate.
To live.
That's what's good for the soul.

Wax drips out from gently
smiling jaws. Teeth melt.
Tongue unfurls, colliding
out of a gunshot-wound
mouth. Lips slack and empty.
Molars bend, bend, break at the touch,
all brittle and slipping down
a tunneled throat towards
the epiglottis.
Stop the breath
in the lungs, burn the
esophagus, choke down
saliva out of distended glands.
Everything breaking and bursting and
everything falling apart and
The realization that you just
can't say 'I love you'
anymore.

The night sky is
staring back at you.
You're checked out.
It's all gone to hell.
Bought a one way ticket
halfway to Shambhala.
The Christmas lights in
the tapestry above flicker
and fade out of conscious
thought. The moon hangs,
slack-jawed and silent,
shaking your shoulders as
you kneel into the pavement.
"Won't you leave me be?"
But no, he's calling the sun
and he's begging for help
"*******, stop it!"
They're driving you crazy.
The pavement is beautiful
against your cheek.
But here comes everything
You're flying on clouds,
and there is lights from the sun
and the moon is there, crying,
"Stop it, stop it!"
All you want is the pavement.
And your mothers screaming
through the glass. And the lights;
white and bright and cruel.
You only hear the pavement,
you only see the night sky;
staring back at you.

You burn with an incredible passion.
That stubborn pride, that brilliant
anger, all bursting underneath
a strained composure and your
need to be the tough one. It
flares out from your eyes,
those rebellious chocolate
pools reflecting every word
you choke down. I am awed by
the passion you hold, the fire
that drives your every move.
It is what allowed you to love so completely.
--A tactic I could
never seem to comprehend--
However, love and hate burn from
the same flame, and the hate that
now warms your chest is reminiscent
of the love it once was. I do not
blame you for it. I envy you the
opportunity to feel so fully. I envy you
the hatred that burns in your chest.
I envy the love that it once was.
There is no flame here.
No passion to burn. Only the
cold concrete of thought and the faint
memory of a warmth I could never hold.

Everywhere I look I see
my old women, moving on.
They are happy in love --perhaps
unhappy-- but nonetheless
without any thought or worry
to the well being of my soul.
I see them in photographs. I see
them in sweet glimpses as we pass
on separate sides of the street.
I see them with their children, and
their loved ones, and their everything
that they once gave to me. I sometimes
envy the lives I have pushed away. Sometimes
I stay late at the typewriter, pushing keys
into the memory of old flames and burnt
bridges. The vultures stare at me,
at what I have become, and their
cackling laughter can be heard
the whole world over. The road
I have chosen is not a
glorious one.
They have won. They have
their money and their love, and
that’s all they ever wanted. I could
not give it to them. I hurt them all
in order to hurt myself-- perhaps
to save myself-- but they are gone
regardless, and I am left in
what is left.
The ***** are quick, the nights
are long, and the love is
missing. But the words are there,
omnipresent, keeping me aligned
with what I’m here to do, and
who I’m here to do it with; myself.
There is no alternative. There is no
happy in love. There is ink and there
is paper.
The road I have chosen
is not a glorious one.

She was behind the bar, and her long,
trim fingers managed the glasses with
a dignified grace. There were
burns in her forearms from cigarettes
and her hair was choked into a bun.
Some of the hair didn't stay and instead
hung low over her face.
She was pale, but not unattractively so.
She blushed easily and her face was always
slightly tinged with a reddish complexion.
The skin around her eyes crinkled
when she truly laughed, but
more often than not the smile never
reached her eyes. I came to the conclusion
that she was terribly unhappy, and it hurt
me to think of it.
Many of the men in the town
considered her beautiful and made passes
at her with whims and wits to
subjugate her to their intentions. She paid
them no mind, however.
She had a man. He was
stationed in the war, but she wore
his coat in the winter when it
was cold. I came to know her through the bar, and our conversation
grew friendly over the months passed since
I had moved to the town.
Her man was killed from the war that spring and not long after
she left the bar. I heard
she had moved away from the city
and soon I had moved as well.
It is years later now, and I never told her as much, but like
the one woman from a movie
you saw as a kid and dreamed about, I
don't believe I've ever been as in love
as I was with her there; in that terrible city,
behind that terrible bar, smiling without her eyes.

We would go on drives
to get away, to see where
it would take us. Flipped a coin
at each intersection; heads for left
tails for right.
We came through a small town,
took a left to a dead end, facing into
a grove of trees right on the bay.
And there, in a clearing through
the trees, there was a battered,
wooden park bench where
we could sit. It had part of
the back missing, but it was nice
to sit and look at the ocean.
It was such random luck that
led me there to that moment
with you that I find it hard to
believe I could ever
be that lucky again.

I'm gonna take you for a ride
on a big jet plane when we're done
with all this. With wings as
big as dinosaurs, and it's
gonna fly so fast you
won't believe it!
Pretzels? No, no no,
there will be pizza and
ice cream on this flight.
All the soda you can drink.
Oh man, we're going to have
a blast, buddy. Close your eyes.
Can't you see it? Imagine, you
and me, flying that big ol' plane.
Don't tell your mother, but I talked
to the pilot, he said he would even
let you fly it! Isn't that something, buddy?
Isn't that something. Go ahead, close your
eyes, think about pizza and ice cream, and
fast big huge jet planes, and soda, and --there you go,
nice and tight-- and how fast we're gonna fly,
and we're gonna do flips and dips it's gonna be the
best time ever. Keep 'em closed, buddy, keep 'em
closed and keep smiling, I'll be right here
the whole time, buddy, I'll be
right here waiting when you wake up.
Just know daddy loves you, so much.
Don't ever forget that.

It smelled of gasoline.
A lone tire twisted
in protest as the
rest of the Earth stopped.
I felt suddenly tired.
The tired that burns your
lungs to breathe and holds
your hands clenched and
crossed to your chest.
There was a strip mall
across the street, but the
signs were half out, and the
names of the stores were illegible.
The streetlight flickered from
amber, to red, green again.
It smelled of gasoline. Late spring air
thick with new and unwelcome scents.
I felt each breath choke down into me
and looked at the sky, dark with the stars,
none visible in the city light.
There was schrapnel strewn about.
Charred metal fuming atop the street.
It was all one could do to look
at the flickering of the streetlight,
the signs with the names of the shops, the
dimmed sky, all with tired
eyes and clenched fists.
It smelled of gasoline. The light flickered
back to red.
The tire came to a
still and fell over.

Oh darling, I hope
you understand, I only slept
with you because you look
so devastatingly similar to
Ben Affleck, merely
for the fantasy of the
thing. You must understand
this sort of coincidence doesn't
come around all of the time.
I'm so terribly sorry if
I gave you any sort of false pretense.
Oh love, don't give me that look,
it's just I adored him in
Argo. You remember that one?
With all those cute business
men running around trying
to make a movie? Oh but love,
it wasn't a real movie, you see? And there was that Ben
of yours with that beard, Oh darling, you have
his jawline I am sure of it.
Oh sweetheart, it was a delightful film.
We must watch it together sometime, I
promise you won't regret it. Oh, look at the
clock, it is time to be getting on, isn't it? I shall
most defnitely give you a call in the coming days,
won't I? Perhaps we can get dinner,
wouldn't that be nice? Yes, yes, I think it would be.
Me and my Benjamin, oh love, we look so cute together,
there is no doubt, but I must be getting on, there are
so many things to do, you understand I'm sure?

Unfortunately,
I have found myself
at the end of another
failed experiment.
SUBJECT 17 has yielded
no results substantial
in deviation relative to the others.
No exceeding qualities
or aspiring hopes,
only the same shallow devotions,
same tangible-driven emotion.
I have only managed to
catalyze tolerance in the
subjects toward my behavior,
with no noticeable steps
moving toward interest.

Give me one woman
who enjoys Hem like me.
One woman
who cares about literature,
or good music that provides
something deeper than the melody.
I've been looking for too long.
17 times I've given myself up for
the experiment, 17 times I've
stepped out on the limb.
However, the poet's life is not a life
of acceptance, interest, or accolade.
We are tolerated
by the subjects we surround
ourselves with,
until they grow tired
of our late nights spent
with attentions elsewhere.
Leaving us with ourselves,
until we realize that isn't
such a loathsome place
to be.

There is a beauty in this,
though it may be hard to see.
There is a beauty in this,
somewhere.
In some angle of light
refracted across
this shattered mirror reflection
of something that used to exists
but does no longer.
There is a beauty in this.
We laugh as we were,
smiling through a fog
of uncertainty.
The company is adequate,
the type where silence is
comfortable instead of awkward.
Perhaps we even cry, when warranted.
These moments of passion that blend
the colors and burst through
the frame. All else appears
to fade, if only you'd look
close enough. And I would not
mind a narrowing of the vision.
The bigger picture has
dulled in color and left me
numb to the detail. That is what this is,
a step closer toward the mirror, a look
closer at the brushstroke;
there is a beauty in this
if only you'd look close enough.

Being eaten alive cannot be
that terrible. It was a tempting idea,
as I thought on the vultures
that wait there upon the fence.
As I thought on the beaks
snapping at my ventricles, claws
grasping with taloned ferocity deep
into the pit of my stomach.
It cannot be so bad.
Inside the bar, I sip
on scotch and soda
I was out with a woman;
an older beaut that led me
in magnificent circles
of conversation till
I found myself drunk and
without a word to say. Slightly
later in the evening I
ran into an old flame that
I never wished had gone
out. --Yet as they do,
so did she--
This vulture was stunning
in the lamplight of the
plaza, asking me over a drink
how I came to have this woman out,
in all this time without one.
Boredom was my only answer.
Its tendency to draw me in,
with an excusable neglect to
realize the futility of such sport.
She knew, merely in the look she
gave me. She knew the ***** secret of the
skin that grasps and yearns for that almighty friction.
She knew, for indeed she played the
game well enough. Many men have found
her since me, and many more would
seek her out and find her, until I was
merely a tally on the mark. But she
knew that moment, over scotch and soda,
how bad the vultures had me, she
knew that moment, sitting there upon the fence,
that she led the charge.
She never said a word, finished her drink,
took a dance with a man I'll never know.
The woman I came with stormed home,
enraged over something I'll never know,
and the world danced around me to
a tune of which I'll never know.
Instead, I sat over another scotch and soda
and wondered how
bad it could possibly be
to be eaten alive.

I'm digging a knife
into my prosthetic limbs,
imploring my body for a reaction.
--like a prayer;
calling out for an
answer though one
is never expected--
There are these gashes
down my shin, in my mind
I see angry cuts that bleed
out, pouring sweet hemoglobin
onto the tile floor below, coagulating
into a beautiful scar.
It is only a vision; fantasy of the mind.
A quick look downward reveals
only chiseled tendrils of plastic.
Yet I'm still digging.
Knife after knife.
Limb after limb.
--first the left arm,
then the other,
both the legs, soon
up towards the torso--
The knives get larger
now they are serrated,
and sharpened to the death,
begging for a wince of pain,
a drop of blood
to quench that thirst.
Each **** holds new hope;
a magnificent anxiety.
Each knife holds a gleam
of excitement deep in the steel
that draws cursive across
my corpse.
Still, no spillage ensues,
naught a flinch from my tense
anticipating nerves.
But you, my new knife,
are quite exquisite.
Could I, perchance,
entreat you to gut me?
To slit me open?
Dig out my corpse, knife,
find me something worth hurting for.

Perhaps I'm lying.
Perhaps I've been lying
this whole time.
Perhaps my apathy
manifests only as self defense;
as denial. How can one
understand the center of the
labyrinth from the outside? Or perhaps,
it is from the center of the maze that I stand,
unable to conceive of
the outside world. There is an
ambiguity in emotion
with lines blurring between
apathy and anger, between
love and hate. --as they seem
to come so terribly entwined--
So perhaps I am lying, not only
to you, but to myself, and in
consequence my soul is
stagnating and stalling out in an attempt
to break through toward the surface.
However, that's a chance I'm unsure if I can take
at this moment in time.
I don't think I mind it so much here,
stuck inside the labyrinth.

The touch of the woman is
the only thing that brings
you down from the cliff.
Hopped up on junk
or bummed out on bars,
or in them,
but, boy oh boy,
here she come round the corner.
And soon you're
seeing fields of
flowers --all swanky in
the wind-- see those hips
shake and dance?
see those lips twist and curl?
There she is.
And your mouth is dry and wide.
And your hands are
sweaty and shaking
And your eyes are static and cold.
And you're seeing gold
for the first time in weeks.
God, isn't she a sight for sore eyes
and a feel for your blistered hands.

She's beautiful
there on the corner,
as I leave the comfort
of the bar toward the winter's
cold.
She's standing,
sipping on a parliament,
--Perhaps not the best
choice in cigarette--
covered up in an army
green coat with a fox fur
edging the hood and
framing her face
in an idyllic beauty
cast in the smoky fog
of cigarette and winter breath.
We passed brief conversation
back and forth.
She smiled with a grimace
and impeccable grace,
she laughed with a wail.
Terribly drunk and miserably happy;
in a life here between cities and here
between careers.
Here between men she never cared for
but aways loved.
She's beautiful
as she says her goodbye
with a trained grace
and a measured smile.
She's beautiful
as she stomps out the parliament
and opens the door
to a cab back to her
hotel and back to
her half-loved men,
her half-loved home, and
her half smoked cigarettes.
She only wanted
a little relief.
She only wanted
an escape.
I am a terribly selfish man,
but for once I wish
I could have a part
in that escape.

You sit next to me,
most unwillingly,
and I can't help but stare.
You have remade yourself;
a group of working parts
of which I am not apart.
Same beautiful woman.
Same beautiful pride,
with that air of regality
that leaves everyone else
pondering their inferiority.
However, now there
is something new.
An awe inspiring anger
that flushes your cheeks
and clenches your fingers.
You are gorgeous when you're angry.
You have this face that you put on;
a flare in your eyes and a
compression of your lips.
You would never let yourself
come down from this ledge.
--even though if you jumped
I would catch you, I promise--
You have remade yourself
into a new whole and
I have received my eviction notice.
But I know it's not as simple
as you allow it to be,
I can see the digs in the edge
of your thumbnails
where you bite into them with
your index finger.
Signs of stress
to anyone enough to know.
I see it in your flippancy.
You are not a reckless person, always
careful, calculating risk and reward,
but you've thrown
caution to the wind, it seems.
Perhaps an act of revenge,
perhaps of retribution,
it doesn't make a difference.
I only watch in wonder of the woman
I escorted out of my life, as
she sits next to me
unspeaking, unfeeling.
And I've never felt farther
in my life.

Walk up the street
and put a bullet in my brain,
right there, bang.
This is what we wanted!
Look at the excitement.
This is what we wanted.
See how it jumps up that barrel?
See how it pops and clicks?
Look at the excitement,
It's all for kicks. We're all for kicks.
A wonderful experience.
Splitting hairs into my left temporal lobe,
pushing through the dermis, squeezing
through the skull --oh, that tingles a little,
I must admit--
before finally sticking to
my primary auditory cortex.
My oh my, what a finish.
Anticlimactic, just as I deserve.
Appears that there is an
irony in everything I do.
I finally don't have to hear it anymore,
there's a bullet blocking me. Over and
over, but no more. No longer able to
hear you say those things you said
and my body collapses on the corner
where you told me you wanted me to die.
And I told you that what you were
would not happen again.
One promise I will keep.

It's not meant to be sane.
It isn't meant to be calm,
or rational, or easy.
It's meant to burn.
It's meant to burst out of you
like that yell you can't contain,
like that levy splitting at the seams.
Your mind is the concrete;
holding back,
double checking.
Your mind is that safety net
keeping you from falling.
But it isn't meant to be sane,
or calm, or easy.
So fall. Go ahead,
let it burn you.
Let it tear you apart, let it
rip you to shreds.
Let it break you down
in the licking fires of
passion. Let it destroy you.
Let it engulf you in that flame.
Let it burn you,
so that from the ashes,
love may be free at last.
Because it's not meant to be sane.
It isn't meant to be calm, or easy,
or painless.

So go ahead, let it burn you.

When the knife is in your
hands, I won't blame you.
When it kisses my throat
as you used to,
I won't blame you.
You with the kind brown eyes,
You with the silk strung hair,
You with the soft smile and
the burning fire in your chest,
I won't blame you.
Instead I will remember;
the touch that faded, but never
truly stopped burning.
The nights that ended, but never
truly left us.
The love that was extinguished, but never
truly burnt away.
There are embers even now,
smoldering in your hand around my neck,
I feel it. But the thin line between love and hate
is one I pushed you across long ago, and that
passion burns anger in your eyes, where once was love.
You gave me everything you had,
and I gave you not enough,
so when that blade comes to take
the rest,
I won't blame you.

You can't breathe.
The cold air burning
down your throat,
clenching up like a fist.
There they are,
in the backseat of a '98 Buick,
your mouth is wide open,
but the air won't inhale.
The blood is clotting up
around your brain,
and the the stars in
your vision fuse and form
clusters and galaxies of color.
You fall to the pavement and writhe
in anaerobic agony. The world
falls from blue to black to white
and your heart is clogging your
epiglottis, dead weight in the
back of your throat.
You can't breathe, yet you struggle
up to walk away, still
everywhere you turn
there's a silver '98 Buick LeSabre
and her, painted in
silhouette across
the back window.

Introspection is a hazardous
endeavor. If you pick too much
at the cracks in your character
you are likely to pull them apart
and underneath is everything
you hate about yourself, out in
the open now, rearing its ugly
head for all to witness. Yet here
I am, picking at the cracks. I am
pulling down the walls and I am
breaking all of the locks that bind
my character to the role that I have
played too well and too long. The
method acting needs an end. I am not
who I portray and I am not who I prefer,
but who I have grown to hate,
and that rotting of my person has become
a detriment not only to myself but to
all that are in contact with me. It is time
to cut the tree back down to the trunk
and get rid of the *******, the foliage
that covers up the bare, naked truth.
I am not who I pretend to be. I am not
who I prefer to be. I have twisted into
a creature that I hate, simply because you
hate and simply because you hurt. And
that is unacceptable. So the act must end,
and the man must begin, I am only scared
that if you hate the man underneath the act,
then there will be no other face to take the blame,
and nowhere else to hide.
But something's got to give.

The articulation of her body
holds a dialect of grace
as it twists and turns in eager
pleasure.
The music courses over her
like a shower head and the
silence is overwhelming;
when I look into her eyes
all is quiet,
dimmed in timid respect,
to the beauty and the depth
hidden deep beneath the caramel.

Her laugh dims the lights
and stops the band as I realize
I am the benefactor of such
grace, born from the breast
of a woman to whom I walk
always slightly behind. Her eyes
meet mine and only mine and
there is something there on
that dance floor, something
divine in the touch
of a hand.

Now, retrospect has glazed these
memories, adding
a golden hue
to that beautiful skin,
and that silver dress,
draped from her like
garland from the body
of almighty Aphrodite.
And that was love,
that was love,
there on that dance floor;
love in my eyes and love in
my heart and love in
every step we took
swinging in the Sinatra breeze
with old men like tigers
waiting for a misstep
--here you are old men!
here is my mistake
look what I have done!--

And the articulation of her body
dips and curves in beautiful
cursive away from me,
as I lay in the same place,
seeing her waltz into the night,
but am further and further apart.
That was love there on that
dance floor,
and the old men watched,
in awe and agony, waiting.
--Old men look how your
patience has paid off! Look
how she dances away even now!-
But there was love on that
dance floor, so even as
your articulation turns
sweet movements
harsh and jagged,
even as you climb
above and away from me
with every breath,
you cannot deny me that.

don't look them too close in the eye
don't attract their attentions
to excite them is to excite Death
and as He comes, meandering
up the stairs toward you,
so do they, as if one and the same.
don't feed them
don't allow them any emotion
for they slink down hallways
and bars, long tendrils like
glimpses of hope
and passion at those
fingertips
--keep the leash tight!--
don't let them touch you
He finds victims by touch
as do they, the killer
is in the contact
and a beautiful
tragic Death
but Death all the same
and they reap like the harvest
as He comes crawling up
the stairs quick behind
for He knows that as they go
so must He
don't look them too close in the eye
don't attract their attentions
don't fall in love
they strike with quick precision
and then slip quietly out the window
into bars and bedrooms of others
waiting to be reaped
and He meanders up the stairs
toward you

You're mother hugged me
when I walked in.
Asked how I'd been.
Told me it had been too long.
Picked me dry about
every little detail of my life;
where I was,
how I was doing,
how the northeast was treating me.
--Oh, it's all so splendid!--
She was enamored, your mother,
and I took you before dinner
in the back room
where your brother used to sleep.
--Like riding a bike, one never
truly forgets a woman--
It was magnificent
in all the ways I had remembered
and your father had cooked
the beef tips and broccoli
that he had made for your
birthday dinner all those winters ago
and we made small talk over the
beat of clinked china and good drink.
--They had a nicer bottle
of red for the occasion--
There was an intimacy to it
one that almost betrayed our
hidden skeletons.
It had been years since I'd seen you
I'd been away and traveling,
engaging in school
and intellectual activity
but the reason I left
--to find myself, if you recall
I told your mother--
was still unknown to our hosts.
Your mother hugged me
and the guilt ripped throughout like
a nail through wet wood,
and the look in your eyes
with your hand on your stomach
convinced me that we were both
condemned and that
damnation was the only honest
retribution we could deserve
and somewhere right this moment
there is a child
with her grandparents
making love with cheerios
and wailing her antipathies for the
world to hear
but for us there is
none.
There is only the look you gave me
as your mother hugged me
and the emptiness that filled
and still fills my stomach
much greater and
much longer than
your father's cooking
ever could.

how do you tell
someone you regret breaking
their heart
when you actively
participated in the breaking
there's no nuances
or loopholes you can deflect to
you merely ruined
everything you had and could have had
and you're sitting on
a Thursday morning at three in the morning
breaking holes in walls because this
woman is crying herself to sleep
but soon she is gonna get up
soon she is going to get out
--if not already--
and there are so many men better than you
and there are so many men better for her than you
and you had your shot
you got lucky, punk
but how dare you throw that away
how dare you flip off fate
he gave you a break
and look at you
have the nerve to think you'll be ok
but you don't know
you've eaten the forbidden fruit
savored that impeccable truth
and now everything else
is just a miserable shadow
of the love you tossed out with
the morning trash

there is no good love
anymore
all these little treacheries
scabbed wounds
scar and bleed and
the love is lost
in the hemoglobin

there's no good love
anymore
the drink and the
drive leave you
****** and forgotten
on the side of the motel room
picking at the scabs again

there's no good love anymore
all these little treacheries
like needles in the arm
or bullets in the brain
the act is drawn out
and overplayed
the women are all torn up
and ******* and
thrown out
they sit in leg crossed
anger in the corners
bitter and apathetic

there is no good love
anymore
to **** is to ****
everyone's running away
from something
the act is drawn out
the treacheries are
bleeding us all dry
and then you're hung
up like the carcass
in the butcher's freezer

there's no good
love anymore
no good no good

lost at war
on linoleum floors
erratic and awake
convulsing
begging
sweet relief
licking the inside
of your thighs
sparks of existence
spiraling up your spine
into explosions of neural
activity
the irresistible pain
that corrodes you
writhing with an insect agony
as the flames creep
up your arms
she is a cruel mistress
but she is fair
hollowing out your veins
falling to the side
a hand strikes at the counter
in an effort to catch
blood leaks out of your forehead
with the linoleum tasteless
and apathetic
cheek pressed and aching
you're naked in
a bathroom
groping at skin
you can touch but
slowly begin to not feel
fingers fall off
and turn to dust
in the blur
of burning buildings
and the troops are
storming up the steps
fire shoots up your neck
stiff with involuntary
spasms of ecstasy
flickers of love
flutter across the
screen of your mind
subliminal messages
scar holes into your
brain tissue
you blink in and out
as two realities merge
and the troops
barge in with two bullets
to the skull
and one in the gut
the linoleum is cruel
warmed by the ether
slipping out of you
finding channels in the grooves
painting square lines
away from you
two of them grab
at your corpse
harsh calloused hands
hold limp flesh
and the human touch stings
in ******* revulsion
the linoleum is gone
lines dragged into your
cheek as your teeth
raindrop onto the fleeing floor
pitter patter pitter patter
then its pitch black sensations
touch feel taste
everything numb
cold

eyes open to reality
naked and cold
blurred lines in the tile
lost at war
on linoleum floors
as you roll over
and lose yourself
into the open toilet

He sees you around
every corner he turns.
There's the back of a head,
and the brown hair parts
the way yours does,
or your olive winter coat
with the fur-lined hood
breaks across his vision
for a split second.
Then the angle changes
and the heavens close
and the reflection is gone,
it is another woman,
another pitiful replacement,
another worthless excuse
for something he'll never own up to.

Turn left and there
you are again.
It's the laugh this time,
a slightly throaty trill
echoing in a happiness
that never covered the whole
range of sound.
Keep walking, and there ,
yes right over there,
are the eyes that brought down
the walls of Troy,
or the smile that murdered
God in his slumber.
There you are,
again and again,
again and again and again,
but he hasn't seen you in weeks.

you feel so in love
until you realize
that everyone *****
and everyone smells
and you can't do it
it's not even the *******
that's the kicker
love is beautiful in
a vacuum
but in real life
it's an ugly terrible thing
filled with missteps and
half truths covered in
jealous accusations
I can't love you
it's so irrational
you're too beautiful
you flirt too much
you talk too much
hell you talk at all
I need the girl in the
glass case
the one tucked away in
the castle tower
where I can keep her safe
and can stay safe
from her
because
how can you love
something with the
power to ruin you

He never told you much
about the drugs, or
the kid who got out
the easy way.
He never really told you
how ****** up he'd been,
between highs and lows,
the arrests or the fights,
how he limped his life--
splitting out by
the seams--
into somewhere far away
where he could
stitch it all together
and ignore the scars.

He never told you how badly
his heart got pummeled.
He never told you how he didn't
stop that ******* kid from getting
into that driver's seat.
He never told you how hard
that hit him.
He never told you that it all
came at the wrong time.
He never told you about
the medicine cabinets.
He never told you about
the vultures.

He never told you why
he doesn't get too drunk,
why he's afraid of himself,
the way you are
but for different reasons.
How scared of falling apart he is,
especially now with you around.
Why he puts on that mask;
that face you've grown to hate.
He never told you how
stupid he was,
or how scared he is of you
because the power you hold.

He didn't tell you
a lot of it
because he thought
it seemed too trivial,
seemed too inane,
to give voice to.
He only sat there,
finally far away from home,
sewing and stitching
and smiling,
laughing off any questions.
And now he seems back together,
but still only by thin stitching.
It breaks on occasion,
so he's so glad to have you,
because you see the stitches
and see the scars,
unfortunately,
but don't seem to mind too much,
and he may not say it a lot
but god it was nice to
just be loved,
even if only for a short time.

So thank you, for
sticking around as
long as you did.
Thank you,
on his behalf.

the past is a mess
for most people
mistakes and missteps
missed opportunities
and meaningless decisions
coagulate into a mass of
regret and indecision
at where you have came
and that separation from where
you want to be

you can jump from
swing to swing
when you know the
safety net is there
all bottled up
in highways and
happy hours
long drives through
painted lines
and exit signs
long nights spent
swinging out
as far as you can
above that safety net
picking poison
from a stainless
steel spoon
and long mornings
spent picking up the
shards of a life
that longed to be
left behind
on the road
mile markers like handholds
climbing you farther and
farther up the mountain
closed eyes keep you far from home
rolled back in escape
those painted lines
those six lanes
seventy five miles
an hour toward everything
another spoonful
another baggie
another mile
keep me from thinking
keep me from feeling
keep me from the truth
all these safety nets
saving me from myself
another night
another fight
working futiliy to
keep that hand
tighter and tighter
around my throat

the night sky and I watched in
silence as he lay there
hemmoraging to death on the
side of the highway
staring up into
that celestial witness
there was only one tiny
blip of light
too close to the city to
see any others
but he stared at that small
little light and saw salvation
in it's beady, off-white eye
'oh god oh god' he wailed
'save me if you ever saved
any of us'
and I stood there
careful to not ruin
my shoes in
the blood
and the police
arrived and the
emergency services
arrived and
all these other
lights crowded
and competed for
the vision of
this man
pumping hemoglobin
onto the concrete
but he stared into the eye
of god and he felt
destined for salvation
he felt peace amongst
the cold pavement and
white double lines that
held his scattered corpse
he died knowing where
he was going
and as his innards
got cold on the median
of southbound I-76
the American Airlines nonstop
from Atlanta got ready
for it's final descent