suddenly ***
is a conscious decision.
i don't like it,
and neither does she . . .
but it is what it is,
and what it is
is something neither of us
should have.
i blew out my voice
on the first three songs
and ended the night
rolling and bleeding in the street.
so i guess it was
a good show,
no matter how it sounded.
my stomach hurts
and my brain won't work
and the rest of me couldn't possibly care less.
the disappointment
is nothing
compared to the loss
i did not know i could feel.
where is the joy that came with emptiness?
the feeling of
hey . . .
you're you.
i'm me.
that's enough.
it's never enough.
and still, i couldn't care less.
i was laughing, there
in the street
rolling back and forth
and back
and forth
and bleeding, for all to see.
laughing, because i couldn't stop thinking
there was just as much of a chance
a car would come
and see me to the end
as there was of the nothing
that came.
i rolled, i bled,
i blew out my voice,
and no one noticed but me.
my throat hurts,
and she looks away.
suddenly ***
is a conscious decision
and one i am not prepared to make.

they spur us on with mock encouragement.
a goal like a carrot
dangling like a participle right before our eyes.
and the tragedy and the misery
and the waylaid things
and the guilt they bring
storm around inside.
and the light that hides just seems to bind
when i can not make it shine.
but, 'on,' they scream,
'you must go on!'
they will not let it go.
i guess the mud doesn't seem such a bad place to rest
when you can't seem to lift your head.
so we strive for some vague representation
of something we saw on t.v.
and the time just ticks away.

so look at us now . . . they're selling us war!
pick it up at the most convenient store.
and now no one is paying attention.
forcing it on unwilling consumers
flooded the vast spectrum of media with rumors
these weapons of mass destruction
are just one big ******* mass destraction
and look! there's no one paying attention.
we've all turned our heads
in some middle easternly direction
a more reasonable enemy than our own ******* poverty.

but don't speak now, for we have not the time.
just look.
or march.
but be quiet.
and so we set sail
to ****** ourselves
as the majority disagree.
and we fumble around in our pockets
and shift our eyes to the sidewalks
and step over cracks and break our own backs
for our orange and coveted prize.
but who gets the laugh when we all realize
our surprise was just death in an edible disguise
and a grave is a grave, regardless of whom it holds?

'on,' they cry, and 'on,' they cry,
so shuffle, and sigh,
and avert your eyes
from the light that hides
and will never shine
on anything we do
until we forget these disgusting concepts
of death as a path to the truth.

it broke while i was sleeping.
tangled around my wrist
the sheets
my heart.
i had no right
to sleep
with so much at stake.
i could fix it
with a knife
a pair of pliers
(and no real skill at all)
but is that really what it takes
to salvage a relationship
these days?
what it means to me
is not what it meant to her
but what it means to us
is greater than us both.
is it meant to be broken?
am i meant to fix it?
should i have even worn it
day in
day out
for all of these trying years?
creeping up on a decade
since i have seen her face
i still wear the ******* thing
as if nothing ever changed
and even i
don't know what that means.
it broke while i was sleeping.
i should have stayed awake.

anything less than everything
is something less than nothing
less than nothing
less than
nothing
and the rhyme goes on and on.
beauty takes a detour
through loneliness
with silence in the backseat, sitting, staring,
still, the road goes on and on.
her stomach was a contour map
crags and valleys
and fault lines
creeping toward each horizon.
the beauty bewildered me
overwhelmed me
blinding and sacred and innocent,
hiding every
time she took a breath.
“Don’t look at my belly,”
she whispered,
as my eyes traced every crack.
following every line,
riding the highways of her flesh
from
one side to the other
one end
to the beginning and
back again.
“i love it,”
i whisper,
“i love everything about it.”
less than something.
less than everything.
less than nothing.
less than
no    thing
less
than nothing.
the silence should have been a warning,
and sometimes,
i will think it was.

these bars of bone
this fence of flesh
this cage that holds me in
i sweat and shake
and cry and moan
it crawls across my skin.

caricature fades
the roles he plays
the act that he puts on
what's underneath,
it's small.  it's weak.
it's dopesick, and alone.

forget the fright
the fear of night,
and all the mares they bring
to gallop through
your frozen frame
and teach you how to scream.

don't try and dream
don't try and think
don't even try to sleep.
just let the horsemen
do their thing.
just lie alone and weep.

and as the war
plays out inside
your body, and your mind
you take the past
you burn it up
you take what you can find.

i welcome you
to hell, my friend.
just dive right in the flames.
learn your demons well,
my friend,
and call them by their names.

a million little miracles
standing in a line
laughing at the little man
who chooses not one time.

crowded, there.
elbows and hellos and farewells.
dream
after
           dream
after dream
withering
decaying in a flash of images
of people that will never be
and chances that will never be
taken.
encounters
that will never
                                  occur.

again, a new dream
stands up to take his place.
his place,
and the air rushes in
to fill the gap
where the old dream is no longer,
and the new dream has yet to be.
the air rushes in,
closes in,
fills it all in
and when the disappearing dream
declines all else but its own
                         decay
it blinks.
vanishing into a single point of
                            light
                                   a frozen face
                                                a
                                         fractured
                                                 (smile)
a piece of god
                       of self
                                    of soul
and when it
blinks
it winks
it darks
               and it is gone.
the dream is
                                                                                              worse than dead.
                                               the dream is
            worse than gone.
                                             it simply never was.
it simply                                                                                            never was.

the air rushes in
again
always filling in
and the new dream swells with pride.

i
am the dream
that will make
the miracles
and save this man
from the self he
secretly serves.

the new dream opens its eyes.

the air
          rushes
                       out,
                              grows thin,
                             breath becoming ragged
before it has even begun.
eyes tear.
drip and run and **** sadness
and water and cloud
at the heat
left behind
in the wake of the evaporating atmosphere.

refusing to gasp or swat at tears,
the dream stands straight and tall.
i
am the dream
that will make
the miracles
and save this    
man
from the              
self  
he secretly serves.

one moment of attention
a second’s worth of will
and the air would be endless and free.
the dream would be endless and free.

before blinking
the first
(and only)
time,
the newborn eyes
                                                                         swollen, itching
                                                                                                eyes
grow wide in unfeigned horror.

dream after dream
from the footprint under his shoe
to the ****** horizon
of crimson and death and loss
stood screaming.
                           dream after dream after dream
                                        standing and screaming and
weeping
clamoring to be heard.
a cacophony
                                                               so loud
                                                    
                                                     so very ******* loud

his newborn crusting eyes
saw the sound
through the red tint
of sorrow
and loss, the tint
that in mere moments
had become
the only vision he would ever know.
saw the sound
he
saw the sound
so loud
               the fragile air
pulsed and scattered, convulsing.
the sound so loud, he saw it
before the sensation
                                of hearing
                                                  occurred.
before hearing
before blinking
but weeping, always,
                                                                                                  weeping . . .
he saw the screams of all the dreams
through eyes that leaked decay.

                                                       one instant.

one flashbulb spark
second in time
to give this dream
(any dream
any of these dreams
any ******* dream at all)
breath.

one second to pause
to give
one thought
to give
one chance
to give one breath.
to give. to give.

and the air would be endless and free.
the air and the dream,
both endless,
and free.

                                                    i am the dream
he chokes,
                                                                                              his eyes burn and
                                                                                                              weep,
                                                                                               itch and weep
                                               that will make this man
                                                                                                            he cries,
ears ringing
forsaken dreams
******* screaming
crimson and ****** and loud
                                                 save the miracles
                                                 he secretly serves
he shrieks,
                                                                                                 hands clenching
                                                                                                  into futile fists,
                                                  &