write the book you
want to read
but don't read it
once it's done
because you'd be
quite sick of it
by then.

we **** those people.
we tell them
'oh charlie...'
'this is awful.'
'so lame.'
'so cheesy.'

we patronise them.
we embarrass them.
we **** them.
unless
their poetry is rounded
at the edges.

smoothed over
thought over
edited
workshopped
touched up.

"we want to see
your best self"

**** that.

give me your first draft.
give me the spontaneous.
initial *****.
show me your edges.
show me your
******* guts.

the real artists
hide.
even they can see
we **** those people.

I do an awful job
of pretending you aren't
beautiful.

you creep in with alarming
frequency, and I don't know
why I try so hard to
stop you.

I would like to
be the world with
you, but i'm still
frightened, and I don't
know why I try so
hard to calm
myself.

it's easy to be,
i'm told.

I looked over at this guy
on the bus next to me
crying into his backpack.

you learn pretty early on
in life, that it's wrong
to tell someone you
really dig, and would like
to ****, that you love them.
especially if they are more
attractive than you are.
more especially if they
know it.

I looked over again and
he's trying so hard
to smile now.
'good on him for
trying,' we should say.
'good, **** it all
straight back up.'

I don't want to
look at that
and you sure as
hell don't want to
be seen.

it's like watching a elegant array
of dancing barbie dolls.
there's some beauty in it,
but it's plastic beauty.
there's no rawness, no guts,
no emotion.
cheer is not an emotion.

cheer is not happiness,
or elation,
or bliss.
cheer is the exhibitionist,
mechanical representation
of real joy.

one girl was really good
at cheering,
but her partner kept
messing up.
I could see she was angry
that her partner was ruining
everything.
but she was grinning bigger
than the rest of them, because
that was part of
the routine.
part of the
cheer.

he messed up because his body
was wrought with tension.
he couldn't relax and live it
because he was too ****
stressed.
too **** worried he might
ruin the cheer for
everyone.

i used to look out
the car window
and sonic the hedgehog
would jump from car to car
and swing from streetlights
to keep up with us
on long car trips.

later, i played i spy,
i'd pick a cow
or something.
cows are not as interesting
as sonic the hedgehog.

these days i'll read a book
or listen to a lecture
or sleep the whole thing
through.
it's still not as interesting as
sonic the hedgehog,
but i'm 19 years
old.

I loved a girl once, she had long dark hair.
She could draw, I watched her draw wrinkled faces.
She kept her mattress on the ground, her tongue in the air,
And with the mattress, and the tongue, we went to new places.
It was weird, which I liked, romance was boring.
She'd chew on my jaw and I'd spit in her eye.
No request for sensation was worth ignoring,
We were all *** for tat, we were high for high.
Then she left, as she would, and I felt fine.
I mean, I felt like ****, but I kept this in mind:
I still have those days, and those days are mine,
And I have other dark haired girls to find.
       Now that she's gone, my drink's all that's near,
       But that's okay too, I can spit in my beer.

"have you ever ****** on the roof of
a moving train?"

"no."

"would you like to?"

omar loved his guitar.
he took it to pubs, clubs and parks.
he took it on trains, buses, to bathrooms.
he went to bed with it.

omar loved his guitar so much
that he cut a hole in it
so they could make love.
it hurt like hell, but
it was worth it.

three months later, omar
and his guitar, who was called
Vera,
had made love two-hundred and
thirty six times, and a
viscous mess lingered
inside her.

one day the mess
became sentient and it
slid itself out of
Vera's whole and onto
the carpet.
omar came home that day to find it
soaking up the linguine in his pantry.

within days it had doubled in size.
within weeks it had grown soft, wet arms
and legs
and fingernails.
after three weeks its form was fully recognisable:
a guitar, with arms, legs and a head, and
a thin sheet of human skin, stretched over
it.

on it's forehead were the six tuning pegs.
and strings were stretched from its forehead
to its crotch.

one time one of the strings snapped and omar
had to replace it with
one of Vera's.
it had a mouth.
when it was old enough
omar made love to it too.

i'm writing this down
now.
i've never written
before now.
I remember writing
but
even that memory
is what's happening
right now.

I see you
and I
saw you
now.
I love you
and I
loved you
right now.

can you hear the
rain?
can you know
it
without needing to
tell yourself?

we are all
always experiencing
the same everlasting
moment.