I look at my broken purple-tipped fingers, holding a cigarette drawling with ash
cupped around the ghost of a brown beer bottle, the smell permeates my fingers

painted purple with polish named with "no more film"

No more film. Huh. That's not a question.
I click the shutter, but nothing's there to capture the permanence. To project onto.

Nothing will be lacquered with a gloss
a painting of time with a smooth finish.

There might be a flash, but still nothing.

I might have disposables, they're costly to purchase, costly to develop. Same-o. Same-o.
They cost around ten dollars to develop, that's cheap, but expensive, in large quantities.

I balance a beer off of the white mound of belly that holds my food baby
I have named him Alberto, and he is tacos

and I am hearing, and but not really listening
it doesn't matter, we're having fun, it's alright

as the chatter of girls and boys, joking,
and full of charm and giggling, poking fingers
I look at their beautiful faces, grinning

smile stretched ear to ear, tan and freckled, lightly pink
on my striped bed with good food, good beer, crumbs in the sheets

ready to kiss faces, to break in my bed,
to blush scarlet, thanks to them, me too
and I am an amiable animal, for now

they want me to be serious, to take it seriously. To look at sunrises calmly and seize coals and watch over red-blooded, man-fueled wars about bravado, integrity, and land. To look at money, a simple representation of labor, and see what it drives other to do, to do for me.

to crush cigarettes and testicles under my boots,
to crawl through mud and barbed wire, smiling

with grit in my grimace
salt rolling, sweaty brows
twisted locks of dark hair
tobacco-brown spit, ground
and filthy, caked in mud
teeth bared like an animal
white eyeteeth crunching

Scorching earth where my feet touch down.
A cigarette put out on a tongue. No more talking.

They want me to see and that, in the dark of the night, in the light of the day, when the sun rises and sets, there is pain, always, elsewhere and everywhere. So I will not tarry or joke or be frivolous with the battered souls of others and to think, to think about applying anything I know, to run along with the vigorous social constructs they ask me to dissect and then revolutionize, because I am young, and I will sprint faster, against accusations, and only briefly.

They want me to look at the world like a runner looks at the red track,
with their toes and sinews coiled as hard as steel, a pinnacle of human
at the height of athleticism and possess the ruthlessness of a rabid dog
drool rushed into foam and mad from dehydrating, my brain swelling

with my hormone driven
red, hazy, athletic rage,
gunning my ambition
for some organization.

No.

I will fight, yes, but I will not fight for a name on a card, shield, or building.
I will fight for the sake of fighting because I am contentious and I am wrong.

I side against hero and villain, because I am the ambiguity,
that languishes, resides in no-man's land, antagonizing both.

Being disliked in purgatory is sometimes more easy than chomping at the bit,
for blood and the power of cracking a black bull whip, so I can avoid this terrible avarice and corrupting beauty that comes with working hard, especially for the greatness
                        that I did not ask
                                       to be ****** upon me, while I wished to remain enigmatic.

I am a wee banana slug with a broken shoulder
crawling with my train of sparkling slime over

the caracasses of horses I've beaten to death,

twice, for each, at least.

I
beat them to
death

beat it. beat that horse.
and I will bless it with my sparkly goo

I have not earned the clichés.

I cannot, but do, make generalizations, judgement

I have no debts to pay, those who I hold and hold
me in ill will are hardly warranted to do so, really

I blankly stare, blink,
and then I move fast.

I am not sad,
I can assure,

I am just not here.

because there is nothing, there is something
an engima, some colorless-genderless name
that holds me by the scruff-nape of my neck
and pours me a glass of water that now fills

fills me up more than a garish kitch thing-y
with a name and a brand and a plastic case

I sweep up the broken glass and pay,
to make it better, I'll pay for mistakes

I wish I could have a big cry or a big bitter laugh
or bind up a wound, but, they would be falsified
it'd be fake and contrived, all crocodilian in ways

but there is just nothing, which is something,
which is to say that in here there's not a thing

I will wait on the banks, I will shine my little scales,
and I will be golden, and not be a thing really, at all

I cannot put my finger on my dissatisfaction

I cannot slake my thirst
I cannot sate my hunger
I cannot itch this scratch
I cannot imbibe it better
I cannot forget it, worse

deaf--dumb--blind--limp--sad--stupid

I feel I am seeing in the second dimension
when I know the fourth is called for, now!

I cannot expunge this record, these memories, or the lack thereof
I cannot remember the effort, or, where things stopped or started

I cannot describe this inexplicability,
I cannot remember the introductions

criss-cross logical thinking
twanging words, tungsten,
copper, and sheets of steel

sautered, bolted, shorted
circuits crackle and spark
blue like the ocean water
burning the water in skin

and I find nothing on an endless loop around the
Möbius strip, no, nothing, neither starts nor ends
I'm stuck in some Escher stairwell, so frustrating
I feel like an imbecile that knows not of a named
thing that stands before me, if it were a snake, it
would bite me, what, (                    ) it is so close?

boy, this stings,
this ***** to be

struck by something, and
                             I don't know
                                                             what

I cannot find relief from catharsis
no, that hasn't ever worked at all.

dizzying, myopic thing that keeps me awake
show yourself, show me how, or what, wants
this thing thing thing this thing of something.

I cannot find my (          ), no,
I cannot find anything at all.