dings turn into a cacophony of squabbling in
letters, messages, calls, and texts, piling high,
unanswered and housing banal pleasantries.

Friends, family, acquaintances, oh my!
Tugging at my ears, begging for words,

always always always always always
asking asking asking asking asking

"how?" "how?" "how?" "how?"
"how?" "how?" "how?" "how?"

always always always always always
asking asking asking asking asking

enough.

I push a finger to my lips, hushing them, reverently
then I steeple my fingers with the grace and dignity,
deserving of my hands, the church. "Quiet, please."

Solitude is bliss, and isn't. Incessant whispers rising,
chirps turn to caws, claws to screams from murders,
for attention. Clucking at the hour, every single one,

ATTENTION. ATTENTION. NOW.

I will return, again, when my energy is regained
and I can sleep, and I can even dream of things!

then I will have food, be rested, get my strength,
a little flush in my cheeks, red marrow in bones,
and then prepare for a flood of fronted devotion

I didn't realize there was a gun in my mouth until I heard the safety click.

I hate the sound of my teeth

on metal
on metal
on metal

and the way my tongue eagerly traces the muzzle, the safety, until I look up,
my lips wrapped around a barrel, while I beg like I've never begged for any other,

and I buckle

to my knees

teeth crunching against the metal in the process
                                          and I feel my joints rusting and breaking,
because my nerves have been trained like steel and I  have been waiting,
waiting in a way
                     that makes me ashamed,
                                                  just for you to pull the trigger.

                                                       ­              Please.

                                                        ­          ******* it

                                                            ­        *********.

all I can thin k about is touching my index finger to my thumb
to make a circle

the three left extended

where
where
where did the appeal of everything go

?swept down the river of fermented potatoes and unanswered text messages

and the time differences between me and your arms.

You couldn't say sorry enough.
You couldn't say sorry enough.
to make you remember not to do it again.

I'm over the concept of a tumultuous relationship. I'm winded. Spine wounded around my bed.

Grasping for air.

You couldn't say sorry.
Enough.
I'll be kissing somebody's else's freckled shoulders when you call next.

I say, "hunger"
you say yes and I want to show that you are art.

I want to watch your compassion radiate a phosphorescent glow and your untrained talent play out in shaking droplets over plastic keys and strings

and honey,
you look like a god tonight

what's your name

wish I could say

wish you were here
wish you were near
wish you could stay

wish I could say

wish I wouldn't go
wish I didn't know
wish for no pain

wish I could say**

wish I'd see you again
wish it wasn't so
wish you'd come by
wish you didn't say no

Split me op en,
In eve ry
mean ing.
It would be
just.
*please

Everything is too soaked in wine
for me to comprehend why

why
why

they'd be so cruel
in misunderstanding

a burned chair
six cigarettes stubbed out
an empty bottle of champagne; absinthe

"If only."

a long whistling breath precedes a long draught of red wine.
a long day.
a longer remembering.

"If only I weren't stupid."

I rub my feet in silence.

I say, I say in a tortured tone.
For while a pitter and patter of idle time streams between your feet you forget,
ever so cruelly, that the starch of the sun that saturates your being waits for no man
no man
and that here you clasp some life in your being and it moves like a coward in a silence, escape.


So soak. Soak up every spot of sun with your hips, swiveling to face the new and the truth that lies wavering between the touchable and intangible.

For now, you soak up the sun, but more importantly...taste the night.
Taste the crispness in a colder and indifferent world that reminds you with a bleak search for darkness that by God, you have explored truly nothing of this world and that all you can see is the stars.

You have yet to explore this world and yet all you can see from whence you came when you yawn at the night is the tiny lights of the worlds unknown.

By God,
what are you still doing standing still?
Taste the night.

Oil slicks of sweat and grease are pushed up to the forehead in afterthought
Depressions under your eyes and cheeks are murky and dark and deep
made from too many days and nights
in a purgatory hell waiting for slumber
Mumble through the spit, you salivate at the idea of a thought
Your skin makes a scraping noise when you move and
broken-off hair lies in your hands,
blood is caked on your skin and nails and teeth
from a ferocity I cannot control or understand and
where did all these
scabs
scabs
scabs come from?
peeling and picking and flicking them off
undoes the perfectly sized wrappers on the wounds
and you are rawer than the day you were made

yelp and gulp, open your maw,
then scream as loud as you can
for as long as you can until
you are raw and rotten from the inside out

I wish I could live that panicked fever dream of being an artist in the fifties or sixties,

where I am writing, in Greenwich Village, in a barely-furnished apartment at three in the morning,
the aching howls of human animals and screaming sirens attending to laws and emergencies floating through an open window.

A black cat creeps in from the fire escape and jumps up to the desk, lazily, where I am sitting
with a bottle of something cheap next to an overflowing ashtray, and I am

biting down a cigarette, while clicking-clacking on a typewriter.
"Ding!" shrilling puncturing the air whenever I come to the end of a thought,
and thats when I pluck the cigarette out of my mouth, ash it, go to the next line,
and then fervently begin again.

I squint down into the empty bottle of wine

"Is a relief from embarrassment here?"

No.

Shame.

Swirling what's left,
I drink to poor memories.
I drink to forget.
I drink to soothe.

A GOOD WAY TO GET A WOMAN'S ATTENTION IS TO SCREAM AT HER THAT OH MY GOD SHE'S VERY PRETTY OVER THE INTERNET AND OH MY GOD CAN CALIFORNIA EMANCIPATE FROM THE UNION YET WE'D HAVE A SELF-SUSTAINING ECONOMY I THINK ON A MILDY UNRELATED NOTE MAYBE I AM SERIOUS MAYBE NOT

soft hands run over couches, chairs
cracked voices offer a name--alcoholic
desperate and streaked with age

awkward without the wetness
that allows us to forget

instant gratification has met a wall
in hand is an absence of excuses and a wrinkled receipt

$you trash.00
$owe them.00
$owe me.00
-------------------
$a better time.00

whoever said sobriety is clarity
denied
twelve steps down the church basement
and the suddenness of a fog

While dragging a green lighter through a damp parks,
I've learned an empty beer can is universal and a cigarette is the shortest measure of time for a conversation.

You get lost on trains that you pay too much for,
you feel cramped on planes you pay too little for,
and burnt barley smell like cat food.

Bridges in the rain
are more beautiful than the destination you're on them for.

I've come unglued
You said once you need me, but I need you
I had no idea and now you have no clue

You're miles ahead while seconds are lost
I'm turned over every inch
from boil to frost

but you're untouchable, at least you say
till I wander into a dark room
in some way, some day

But still I don't know if I'm on your mind
and I still can't know if you're still just mine
or if you'd say, if I could ask
you're
still
mine
but I still think of you, it still lasts.

It would make my mother cry
to know I chose the way I'd die.

IF you get me a phone made of gold
I MIGHT call, finally.

But I can't listen to such pretty words
out of a chunk of plastic and glass.
...you're better than that...

Here's the plan:
This Wednesday,
meet me.
Someplace you like;
you always know the right place.

scorched
       singed
by the moon's hot rays
soaked
I wait,
drenched in a sea of salty sweat
choked by the twisted sheets as big as sails
my screams are lost in the folds and
valleys of white
that stretch tightly around my legs

hot sticky breath rolls out of my nose and mouth
I can feel my heart beating in my face

no anesthesia for the intolerable discomfort
of being
alive
when you
only
wish to sleep

I called. Once. Today.

a snap shot of the dark:
I deleted your number.

do you ******* remember me
do you ******* remember me
do you ******* remember me

??????????????????????????????

if you call me, if you return,

I will answer you
like a stranger, "Hi?"

It is only fair
because you keep pretending.
as if we don't know each other.

Please, stop.

Please.

****, dude, help me
I don't know any better

Stop it. Call me back.

plastic casing of grubby cash
avoiding the truth of my priviledge and circumstance
thirteen bruises and grabbing some ***
and here I am drunk, doing a dance

walk around
turn around

pop the lid off a beer with a fork
and remember, so sweet, and so cold,
how young you were fourteen hours ago

trudge in the mud of sculpted strip mall gardens
hedge around a wedge of forgotten iceburg lettuce

and let me know between the waves of coffee and Lexipro
what it must've meant
to turn twenty-two, a month ago

Girl
while you
were sitting
shattered
I was
depressed as hell
drinking to death
over being a mirror
for you
for you for your
ego


while I remembered why
I didn't go to therapy
with a case of misanthropy

and a bucket of wine

because of your name on it

remember next time I tuck your hair back
remember next time you tell me

that you want to **** some other girl

I knock my head against my head
in the grey hole with my head in a wall

and then I remember steve roggenbuck telling me to market the moon
and that walt whitman existed and he smelled his armpits and rejoiced
and then I have to say I am a poet, I am not bound

to be a poetto be a poetto be a poetto be a poetto be a poetto be a poetto be a poetto be a poetto be a poetto be a poetto be a poetto be a poetto be a poetto be a poetto be a poetto be a poetto be a poetto be a poetto be a poetto be a poetto be a poetto be a poetto be a poetto be a poetto be a poetto be a poet

"MAN WALT WHITMAN WOULD APPRECIATE THIS"

to
that
head against head

I wish I could sing, play the acoustic guitar.
But I do not have the patience to practice daily.

I wish I could make really great art.
But I do not wish to try, only to fail.

I wish I could understand what they're saying.
But I cannot connect their lips and the sounds.

I wish I could keep them close to me.
But I do not have the stamina to care.

I wish I had a reason to be unhappy, maybe.
But I don't even know if I'm unhappy or not.

I forgot and now
I am stretched and exposed, a taxidermied specimen against the wall.
Pins punched through my achilles heels and wrists and
everything hurts so much, constantly.
What's the worst is the fog that's implored my drunken brain to circle
like a cat near a hearth, and s u b  d  u e itself.
It only stirs to blink m u g  g  y and gooey eyes at me before
it yawns and eats away at my body.
I am embalmed, alive, with no protest.

I forgot to get more pills. I forgot, I am so sorry.
I called them and they sent them and it's been three days
It should have been here by now.
I should've been able to move, to breathe, to think without being frustrated
by every insufferable task.
It will never get better, it will never be better.
I just want my p i l l s to be here by now I can't e ve n t h i  n   k

Someone said that having secrets was like holding an invisible box close to your chest. Nobody can get close and they can't see why.

It's in the ******* way.

I overturned my box, papers all tumbling out--you could've picked up any one and asked a question.

You said nothing, upturning like a fish. Belly-up boy.

I picked softly at your lip, finding a tattoo on the inside of your lip.
It says "*****" but it might as well have said "YOU'RE STUPID" to me.

I tried to pull any information I could about it out of you.
I got nothing, like *** from a stone.

I know you have a better time with other girls that are much, much kinkier than I
   but here's the thing,
    
                          your friends are really annoying.
  
         And you can be very boring, I'm sorry. Read more. Write better.


                        I always think in a year it'd be better.

With dogeared pages and vanilla smell
old, good books are all fine and well.

But, I can say, I'd much rather mind
kissing my way
                     down a drowsy man's spine.

The world has jumped from east to west
My fingers can no longer reach out of my window and touch trees
They reach out to grasp the air
up thirteen miles high in the sky

I sit in my white tower alone
"She will be better because she is here." the people below say.
"It is better..." my sage said.

Show me why.

A little bit of death will occur in two days,
between enough hours to tell me that after
three nights (maybe even four)
I found a clasped hand and the grace of a man
who knew me not
merely a week ago

and one who will survive, a little death while longer,
beyond a great veil
of a sea, a prairie, and a prayer.

It is utterly inexplicable and incredibly difficult
to properly pin down a scrap of an idea of anything, or even feeling
for you, for me,
                 or for both you and me.

I don't mind now,
but I'll mind if you do.
But, I'm okay, alone.

+++++

But still, I know something and
I don't know much about this something or not,
but I know these few things:

first,
I've felt compelled to you longer than I'd care to say
second,
I think I would prefer for you to stay, or at least that I would*

      *if you ask, or even give an inclination you want me to,
    because I don't know if you do,
  and that is what worries me.

Babylon is gone.

Commonalities are gone;
speech was lost with every story.

I have time, I am young
I abuse it too much.

You don't have time and
I abuse what you have left.

and

you are beside me,
but I am alone.

We built Babylon, together.
In a quest for something
just, like-heaven.

You look at heaven and
I look at you,
the haven I once saw and

I can't understand,
(confusion of tongues)
and we've lost mutual language.

I crumble,
Babylon falls.

Brown bottles of cold beer
with a short walk up the street

my feet, they meet
absolutely absentmindedly

It costly exactly ten dollars, thirteen cents
for a glass pack of this beer
and yet you've cost
four years to present
in presence

you're a whole lot more intoxicating
for a shorter time, much more than this pack
much more dreaming
without the fun
without the end
to this long held
hang
over

I don't love you
or you
or you
or you
or you
or you
or you
or them
or them  or them  or them  or them  or them  or them  or them  or them  or      them  or them  or them  or them



where's the intimacy gone when I **** nowadays?

Father,
I must remind you that I am your daughter.

I have been hewn from
your own flesh and bone,
and though you may forget,
I am you.

Father,
I must remind you that I am not my mother

When you look at me,you see my other half;
I walk and talk and laugh like her.
You see my mother,
in my gender and my face.

I am more her than you.
We both have the darkness
that can summon thunders
and grant us empathy, unbounded.

Father,**
I must remind you that I am not your son.

When you look at me, you do not see
the same keenness of mind and
quiet grit both you men possess.
I am sorry I am not better.

I speak to him, instead of you
in times I need a masculine support,
and when I face moral quandries.
I learned not to ask you.

I
sleep

and

drink

and

brave dark nights


I
cope

and

seek

and

wish for fights

I had a dream
that a man and I were making a painting together,
each of us making one quick stroke before sliding it back to the other.

We were painting a pair of eyes,
blue, like I used to paint.

I would concentrate with my thin brush
and turned the hairs in eyebrows into
wriggling creatures of the sea,
with a silver shine to each of their scales
as they dashed and dove,
before breaking the surface

During our painting he tried to convince me
to run the company that produced these canvases
to run the art gallery that featured artists
to run anything, and he became exasperated
while I just smiled, squirming a little
for all I wanted to do


             was to draw a pair

                                           of great big blue eyes

                 as deep as the ocean

                                             and as shiny
                                                               as fishscales

comely youth beckons to me, curling,
as I trace a finger up soft thigh undersides,
slowly and easily.

you entertain me.

let's get coffee.

I'll listen to you, you can show me everything
in the nooks and crannies of your pink little brain

I will take it from you, and
then love you empathically

but,
maybe,
maybe not,
for I have fled.

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.

I taste
illness
and
smell
of
sick.
I am deprived,
just end me quick

writing for an audience pushes me more than a nothing
art for art's sake?

ask Hume who remains the longest

Velvet pants that force hands up
bitten necks allow repairing enzymes supreme;
hard hips felt under broken nails
while twisting ******* never felt so serene.

I see he and his beauty in bottle on a shelf
Pour me a glass, I could use some myself
So make the light in your face stay forever,
neither furrows or sorrows, would it be better?

glass bubbles in saliva
thoughts putter on a bedroom floor
sweatshirts left on somewhere better,
and I want less of wanting more

clinking teeth and unmet gaze
staring l-shapes from feet to toes
the empty town is a soundless maze
and with all of you, the sounds impose

smothered in a snowbank
breathing in the absence of sound
I'm caught in the grooves of ice, spinning my wheels
a hand dealt by cars and too little salt

if I hold out my hand, I can't feel my fingers
puffy and frozen
an extended hand, out on a limb

brown and barren

8 AM

light

8 PM

dark

repeat
onononononono

can I

just
    watch

                        quietly
while you

                                                   glow?

It is so foolish and too dangerous
to care for much these days.