when i recite my poems
i don't shout
or laugh
i'm not asking your opinion
seeking your approval
or challenging your belief
in god

i don't even have them
memorized
and don't want to
i'm punching out words and feelings
from a page
like the grand marshall
of a ticker tape parade

i'm so tired of poetry slams
where dignity is stomped dry
and teenaged lesbians try
to change the collective consciousness
of the older generation

there's nothing original
in poetry anymore
every black kid has a poem
which starts with him holding
a black and white photo and
the lines on his great grandmother's face
as she sweeps the yard with a broom
made out of a bundle of twigs
and no shoes on her feet
and he's put it in a book
or won some scholarship with it

while every feminist ****
and post-pubescent *** have
heart-wrenching tales
set to the soundtrack of a john hughes flick
of a time when they were
mistaken for a man or
forced to **** a fat man's ****
in an alleyway somewhere
in Cleveland or Boston
someplace where the cold
pavement left their knees bruised

what if i told you
we've all ****** his ****
and nearly all of us hated it
we've all shoveled ****
and your sob story
doesn't make us cry

i still shake and crumple
the paper
no matter how many times
i read on stage
i still mumble and cough
and spill my drink
but maybe that's why
i've never
won
a
prize.

i wish i was a black poet
or a woman with a twisted ankle
even a teenager filled with brooding angst
because then my poems would hold more weight
people would listen
i could recite them with my eyes closed
brow furrowed, talking with fists
my throat swollen with passion
i'd get applause -- an ovation even
for spitting on the microphone at poetry night
blowing the roof off
destroying walls
seeing all rooms at once
instead of despondent laughter
in an empty bar
the clinking of glasses
and the obligatory whisky after.

but i'm white
and only in my twenties
living in a vaccuum
nothing terrible has ever happened to me
sure, i have problems

but who the **** wants to hear about
not learning how to tie my shoes until i was 9?

quitting every sport, not because i was bad
merely because i wasn't the greatest to ever play
and no longer saw the point?

adhd and couch surfing in new orleans?

how hard it was to learn to roll the perfect joint
when i was 17?

the fact that i had an itchy ******* last month
but switched to organic detergent
now it's a field of velvet daffodils down there?

no one's posting youtube videos about
doing laundry on a tuesday
not meeting a pretty girl at the laundromat
instead teaching a mexican boy multiplication tables
and a couple jokes, then leaving with
half your clothes still ***** because you gave the boy
the rest of your change to buy a girl he likes
a pack of her favorite gum tomorrow
or
losing your cell phone until thursday afternoon
then the bill collectors start calling

i have good credit
i bought a used honda last year
at a good interest rate, i haven't missed a payment
i'm never bothered at airport security
i live alone, take my coffee black
or with cream and sugar
write checks and balance a budget
on sunday mornings
hate cats, never vote or testify in court
i went swimming yesterday
laid down in thatched grass, alone
don't smoke anymore
quit drinking too
don't own a boat
time moves so fast
i cook, sometimes with wine
friends seldom visit
i stand on the balcony, naked
my house is quiet
except when it isn't
and jazz floods the kitchen
i dance through the hallway
with an invisible lover
and she drifts silently away
uninterested in my melancholy poem
as i slosh sweetened tea on my bare chest
i hang on
she hangs up

you were there for me the first night
i got drunk and drove home
smelling like cigarettes
you were inconsolable
gave me ginger ale
got on your hands and knees
scrubbed ***** out of my mother's new carpet

when i tried to apologize the next morning
through tattered lips and clammy pores
you just smiled, kissed my eyelids
gave me water, let me orbit the drain

on my 17th birthday, you were there
when i drank myself into impotence
showed you hidden things in dresser drawers
we snored our futures into the same pillow
you lied to my friends, said i took your virginity
and i didn't ask you to

i was there for you the first day
of the 9th grade when both your eyes were closed
but you were pretty in your
matching purple sundress,  i kissed your ears
as if i could leap into your body
live there awhile
you said your brother gave them to you
he was born drunk and mean

i was there for you when he died
early on a cold morning in december
we shot bottle rockets
into the sky, so glad to be alive
welcomed the sun shivering naked in the river
drank an 11 dollar bottle of champagne
giggled and ****** on the floral tablecloth
of your mother's kitchen table

i was there, whispering lyrics in your ear
watching white pigeons in my periphery
as the grave of your best friend
pulled salt out of your eyes
you were inconsolable
i held onto you as if
you would float away
i still believe you might
i've been holding strong ever since

my mother was a dental hygienist and dad thinks he's an architect
which means i'm used to sharpened stainless steel exploring the interior of my jawbone and lying to my father to let him keep believing he built me from the ground up.

to the pretty girl with dreads whom i met stumbling down the strip last night around 1:30, i never asked your name.

you were drunker than i, which is an impressive feat. i followed you into a greasy dimly lit punk rock bar and we danced to 80's *** pop.

i remember i twirled you.

at last call you asked where i lived and then laughed when it wasn't within walking distance. you led me by the hand to your house.

descending the stairs into your basement room, you referred to yourself as a "cellar dweller" and we both laughed at that.

i met your dog and he liked me. you offered me a beer but took off your pants instead.

we had all kinds of anonymous *** for an hour and twenty three minutes and then i left without cuddling. you were already nearly asleep.

i left my wallet tangled in your sheets.

i remember the taste of my own blood
fondly
i remember my broken nose bone fellating my own
grey brain-mush
and how i could smell my own
ocular nerves
and my scattered smile
like a third period hockey player eating
a puck
and glancing at his mother in the crowd
i remember a moment suffering in the opposite of blindness,
and a canadian wearing a sombrero and chinos holding a guitar
i remember high testosterone levels
and blurred vision
i remember what knuckles taste like
and how bone feels against bone

but he remembers it too
he remembers how concrete tastes
and how embarrassment runs
like blood to the head of a man hanging by his feet
he knows the conclusion of concussion and
how much a hospital visit for a broken arm costs.