i would never blame you for a second for second guessing. i can’t even blame myself for wrapping you up in this since it happened the other way ‘round and most experts agree that you shone so splendid no prosecution could convict, nor would they. yeah but it wasn’t your idea necessarily, and it wasn’t exactly mine either. yes, so blame is out the window on its way to meet the pavement. we could have a 50/50 split, like we always did, if...when...i set yours aside, so you know; never too far from reach. you helped draw the blueprints i’d’ve been lost without. and i know you’ll never talk and i’m not worried if you do. i’ve been in prison since you didn’t show face at the rendezvous. really, all told, dice on the asphalt, i couldn’t hate you for staying put since in essence i shout stick up and if nobody moves, then nobody gets hurt. everybody knows that. everybody knows...

I. let me steal your sleeve
you are my tangerine dream
put a banjo on my knee:
sing ye me soliloquy

II. we were building you again
from blueprints drawn by
something greater than
your inherent vice

we‘d been crossing out
redundancies and
false identities but
you must just feel
too safe with them
or they just treat
you all too right
come nightfall

archaeologist
in a way, maybe
you had love you
on your eyelids
while i dusted
the detritus from off
your perfect bones

maybe never what i am
could have been just
what it is i represent
not the container
just the contents

III. “the world is quiet here”
quiet, still, but no more calm
this story will undoubtedly
be too long and overdrawn
and i’ll be around whenever
you remember me but please
remember where you left you

this christmas
i made a list of one thing
which i have made before
no yuletide greetings this year
i dont need these jolly objects
pawned to me in baby’s name
—flagrantly monetized cheer

my one wish this season is
for my grey matter to be
excavated from the
cavernous skull
where it dwells
to **** the
stress tumors
chart the folds
and creases
see the thoughts
recede and swell
and note the ones
that cannot cease

dust off the phrenology tables
plug that hunk of muscle
into the corporate singularity
cut it open stick it with nodes
until it shows a semblance of stable

further the science of
melancholloquial syntax
divided by synaptic response
to diagnose a serotonin deficiency
or a sore lack of scruples, perspectively
or maybe i’m being overly dramatic
as is the modus operandi of poets

no removal may indeed be necessary
however still it surely tops
my list for santa’s eyes only

it could just be this
100% USDA organic
supercomputer i grew
is only in need of
a good spit shine
or a collar
in the name of
the father,
the son,
and the almighty dollar

humble not thyself for them
until they force you to

mistake not tolerance for embrace

sometimes you give love
just because you love
the love given to you in return
and that’s still selfish

so for once just give

just give me
the ******* lobotomy
i’ve been begging for
since i’ve been such
a good boy this year

(depending on who you ask)

to have loved and lost a flibbertigibbet
is quite Carrollesque in essence

not only by virtue of
the Frabjous nature
the mere look of the word evokes
but as well in the ways by which
the beginnings and endings
unfurl in Burbled Absurdance

to fight for this love
in an effort to undo
the losing of it
will lead you only to
Gyre and Gimble
in the Wabe

have the breaths
acquiesced and
left on my desk
this evening

leave out the parts that
make too much sense
and fill in the rest with
fevered intuition

gripping on the third rail for balance

was it a secret i’d been
plotting this heist for years
or was it a need to know basis
since by all accounts
it was better when
you didn’t need to know
and i only told the one
so i know who to blame

this love has been condensed for clarity

blame it on a misfired synapse
only if you truly must to sleep
cognitive dissonance if anyone asks
but it isn’t that deep it’s just us as we

i’m not sure i’ll ever love correctly
i dont think the time is ever right
i’m not sure the devil would respect me
i really only see you in the dark

it’s alright to hold my ersatz heart
no great loss if it should slip and fall
never seemed to work right save for art
you really only see me in the light

sorry that i thought it was a movie
forgive me for believing in the dream
everything i say becomes
a way in which to cope

hearts and minds are always in the weeds

the world goes
regardless of you
it pays no mind
so why pay it
anything