i don't watch home movies
hate them
reason being because
when i was young
i was looking for a movie
my mother
had recorded for me
and accidentally
put one in the vcr
that i'm not sure
i was supposed to see
i know the obvious response
"uh oh, ****"
sorry to disappoint
they were only marked with dates
  1991
on live television
montel williams asks my father
"how can you just throw
your child away like a piece of trash?"
   1994
i spend so much time
in the emergency room
that my parents stop
penciling in growth marks
on the frame
of my bedroom door
i always thought
it was because they believed
i would never grow out
of this sickness
sometimes i believe
the reason that they
never bought me a dream catcher
was because they never thought
i'd live long enough
to see them come true
   1996
i am eliminated
from a spelling bee
because i didn't know
the 'dad' is silent in 'family'
   2013
before i got into poetry
i used to do standup
none of my jokes were funny
one of the other comics
tells me my skits are dry
sometimes sad
he says "why don't you joke
about something like your family?"
so i say
"i never wore any sunblock
because i didn't want anything
to keep me from my father"
i say "what do you call christmas
without lights or heat?"
before he has a chance
to answer
i say "1997. better yet
why don't you
make like a dad and
leave"
   2014
every time we drive
past the hospital
my mother reminds me
how much it cost to save my life
like she'd rather
have her money back
she doesn't have to say
that sometimes she wishes
it was me who had died
instead of my brother
i can hear it in the way
she says "love you"
sometimes i imagine
that if i were to die
that she
would pick out a casket for a child
because she never loved
the person i became
yesterday i told my father
how close i'd been
to suicide lately
and he said
"that's my boy,
livin on the edge.."
and i can't remember
if i laughed
or cried

I didn't want
I didn't want to begin with
I didn't want this
I remember the days before I was born,
the great nothings of that time are branded,
seared and scarred
into my mind
I didn't want days
I didn't mind the nothing
It was quite pleasant, if I recall correctly
that grey nonexistence
that black nothing
I didn't want all these somethings
I didn't want at all

It was comforting.
But the questions hurt
and the wanting came suddenly, harshly
and it will never leave
we are beings of want
beings of try and try again

I don't want to try
I don't try to want
I try
I want

Did you want to be alive?
Did you try to be born?
Did you choose existence?

I know I didn't.
It was forced upon me.

I hope every time that you think of me
It ***** you up so bad
That the only thing you can think to do
Is drink yourself to sleep that night.

give it up for the "get down's",
frown with a clown soul,
dont pretend -
clamshells break my friend.

sentenced to life in a paragraph.

get high for the low life's.
i shoot cops through a needle
straight to my heart.

paraphrased a life sentence.

only one lesson lessens.
and time drags and flies away,
one more city to bury
in static dreams .