how to not make waste;
cry over everything so
pain does not go to

the flies over graves.
let it go to art or love
maybe something sane.

water your plants each
waking day so they can live
but when it comes time

for burning season,
cry over everything so
they know you miss them.

the fields are empty
now / a cremation of your
dust you couldn't have saved

anyone/ so you
exist in utter shame and
return to our dust.

wonderful dexterity is required
to  be clasped tight
flush against wooden walls having knives
thrown at you.

(most people call that a relationship.)

2.

the board i stand against is
a miraculous work of pageantry,
showing only the abuser’s side of the story while
the rest is hidden away amongst
a work of cabinets and springs
pushing landed knives away from limbs.

(most people just call that stockholm syndrome)

3.

this trick, when well executed,
leaves you with knives lodged just below
the crotch
leaves you close to death
but not with it.
it leaves you questioning:
will he do it again? (he does.)

(most people call that abuse)

you don’t get to feel
thunderstorms under fingers
not like i did then

you are not the roar
you are the whimpers
the crook necked panting
your skin melding with other skins
learning new ways of exalting
(holiness or blasphemy-- i don’t know.)

you are not the water
you are not the water
you are not the water
you are the wine
a drink,
half served,
half severed.

you are not the tired reminder
you are the action the moment meant to be remembered.

i think it only makes sense that i give up
and kiss away the last memory
of being human.

learn new ways
of taking fire and turning it into art.
take off finding old ways and methods that
are just as good as she remembered kissing the sky with
pure heat.

i don’t quite remember
was it patriotism or fear?

i don’t quite remember
was it a gunshot or a celebration?

can we eat today without guilt?

it goes up in smoke
she looks on // he looks weakly
all things are half broken in this lifeless stupor.
understand,
a firework is just a reminder of what we are
burning, tired, exploding.

there is a god dying in America
somewhere over the **** ivy leaves
encapsulating whole monument walls
where i have not seen sense in years
and i can smell-feel-taste the god dying in
this paralyzed America.
he stood six feet tall
unassuming hair and a soft puerile face
where leaving thought on skin made sense and
where we could see him fully and foolishly.
he stood with angel wings and vexed spirits
floating above the carapace of the earth
dare not touch what is not his to touch.
he could make and marry and sell America
but instead took a powerless position
with a headache mind
and decided to stay along with vagabond america.
and we used to think america was godless
but no it's worse; it has a God who has
decided against taking the government's side
meaning; all of your philando castilles and
michael browns will come back to shame America.

it is late June
there is no bell to ring
or song to be sung
so the silence is just heat
all the holidays passed and
broken in the heat.

it is late June
and i am dissociated in the
sunshine. they say that
this makes us human
but i am a drab recollection
of life and not a reality
all realities are
broken in the heat.

it is late June
and somewhere across
fourteenth and V we find
ourselves crying in tongues
and ******* ourselves
don't you know that's the proof
of a poet?

it is late June
i have yet to give up on you
but you are broken
in the heat.