Everyone
  is born pure,
    I think.
Imagine red-hot
  ****** metal.

Clay is given to two
  people. Two.

Sometimes one person leaves.
  The metal is too hot.

  Hey, this isn't for me,
he or she says.
  Shame if it's the mom.
Push it out. Check out
  of the heartbreak motel.

  But it's all the same,
I suppose:
  Mom or dad.

Red-hot ****** metal,
  sitting at the playground.
Teacher says,
  Play with the other kids.
Teacher says,
  Does the world seem big
    because it's so scary?
Teacher says,
  What is your nature?
Teacher says,
  Play with the other kids--
    think of it as
      networking.

  Time to graduate.

You ******* queer,
  said the news.
Yeah you,
  said the news.
Look over here,
  said the news.
Bombs, ****, *******,
*******, *****, spics,
******, school shootings,
drugs, suicide, famine,
STDs, rap music, Jews,
Obama, Putin, North Korea,
Ferguson,
  said the news.
By the way,
  said the news.
Have you seen
  Miley Cyrus'
nip slip,
  said the news.

Graduation night.

  Rumbling 'round the
warm, bath water
  city lights.
Her hand in his.
  She looks over,
What is your nature?

I had a teacher
  ask me that,
he said.

They ****** underneath
  an apple tree.

This is what the rain is for.
  What?
This is what the rain is for.
  To get us wet?
No, *******.
  Because I already
    had you wet.
Ha-ha. Very funny...
    No, it's for washing away
      memories of ***
        under a tree.

Birth.

Two people. Two.
  Let's name him,
she said.
  Let's fail him,
he said.

A cigarette after ***
  gets old
when it's the only thing
  burning
in your world.

When Netflix feels like
  family,
you wonder where
  everyone went.

******* feels like
  a cry for help--
So help you God.

Missing your home
  is second
to missing who
  you once were.

Eastern philosophy,
Karl Marx, Rawls--
We don't know
  any ******* thing,
really.

Pretending to be more.
Pretending to be smarter
than we really are.

May holes in our sides
let others see
that we're beating, too--
just not as ferociously
or as honestly.

May we vanish
into the darkness
that best suits us.

If the light is our night,
may we follow it.
Follow it...
Follow it...
Rebel from our frame.

May God grant us
to be more
than losers.

The night before, she whispered,
"The quickest way to break a heart
is to pretend you have one."

Howling,
like you've never heard before.
And she sat next to me, radiating.
Her body jumped with every bump,
as foam blossomed out of her mouth.

And I promised her
that I would get her there in time.
And her dealer promised me
he didn't give her anything.

Howling.
I was howling,
like you and I have never heard before.
And her glazed eyes would open.
And my eyes were wide shut.
Her body lain crooked,
like the antenna of the wrecked car
my grandfather left me.

And I wondered if the planet
was moving too quickly
or if I wasn't moving fast enough -
before I decided the only time
that was real, was now.

Howling.
The police sirens were howling,
like the suburbs have never heard before.
The wails were begging me to pull over.
And the flashes of red and blue
danced across her ivory skin.
She mumbled to her deceased grandma,
and I asked her to stay.

And in that moment,
I tried to numb myself.
I tried to detach
and let the river carry me.

Howling.
I was howling,
like the deputy
had never heard before.
I begged for an escort.
I begged to go back into my car.
He looked at her knotted body
but didn't see her like I saw her.
And he told me to remain calm.
He told me to stop yelling -
but I couldn't express enough.
I couldn't release enough desperation.

And the river carried me
to the rocks before the fall.
At the bottom, I knew she was dying,
and this killed me, most of all.

Howling.
I was howling her name,
like she had heard before -
but not this time.
No, not this time.

The night before, she whispered,
"The quickest way to break a heart
is to pretend you have one."

Elizabeth and God exist in a sunflower grave. Her mother and father slit her stomach open and watched the contents pour out like
spaghetti confetti.

Tommy, Elizabeth's boyfriend, rode his ocean blue Huffy, until the tread on his tires grew bald and until the grips were blanketed by dead skin. Looking for her, panoramic views of the horizon leapt beside him. Silhouettes of his legs, churned and kissed the orange and caramel dusk. With every tear in his hamstrings and calves, the **** in his sky grew and swallowed the memory of Elizabeth Mendenhall, Honor Student.

Margot, Elizabeth's twelve year-old sister, was an idealistic soul. Taking a Sharpie, she wrote on her sister's wall, "Liz, there is no death greater than the loss of self, and no life greater than one where we continuously search for what self is." Margot struggled with concentrating and frying eggs - but focused on the sunflower garden, dangerously and perfectly.

Hilary and Brendan were thirty-five and thirty-six years-old. They stabbed their daughter thirty-seven times. They don't know why they did it, they just couldn't think of a reason not to do it.

She begged for her life. The yellow petals of the sunflowers caught blood-drops and, after enough struggle, floated down to kiss and lay on Elizabeth's slow-twitch body. Hilary looked at Brendan and said, "What does this mean?" Brendan shrugged and said, "This is new to me."

The garden was an oven, and digging her grave was like pulling back on a cheap, plastic latch. Elizabeth had pale, pre-cooked pie crust skin. The slits in her stomach looked like peeks into a cherry stuffed filling. Crinkled lips looked indented by a stainless steel fork, back and forth, side to side. And the soil rained upon her like the reversal of hot vapor, returning home.

Elizabeth and the Sunflower Garden.

My mother held me,
and asked what was wrong with my world.
Her rubbery hands in my hair.
"I feel like a plastic narrative," I said,
"and there's nothing I can do about it."

My brain is a factory,
producing every toxic part of me.
******* until my hand gets lazy,
fantasizing about Lexi Belle
and being Martin Scorsese.

My blood is a vacuum,
alone in a crowded room;
my white blood cells like to
travel to my *****,
so I can someday infect
designer uterine walls.

Locked and loaded,
my heart exploded.
The tissue and issues
attracted crocodiles
that swam from the mall,
for miles and miles.

Store-bought baby, my body isn't ready,
to be stripped down to the bone,
and sold to teenage radios,
that'll broadcast my American moans.

Caucasian nightmare:
my skin is not fair.
Peel enough off with chemicals,
until I decide there's no more,
and hide the layers in bathroom stalls,
located in the bleach of Baltimore.

As fast as one runs from death
As fast as a car drives
As fast as a bullet flies
As fast as the earth does move
My racing mind just as fast too