"What's your name, pretty thing?"

"Tomorrow, you'll never catch up to me."

She told me she had leprosy.
She hated everyone, including me.
She spoke in seas of divine prophesy.
She said her new scars were scabbing.

I told her I'd eat her leprosy.
I hated everyone, but she intrigued me.
I spoke in droplets of dissonance.
I would pick her scabs with shards of glass.

I'll make you mine Tomorrow.
You will become my Everyday.

There's a point when it all becomes okay,
a sense of divine clarity,
when you know for certain that no one wins,
the rules are always bent,
the good ones get away,
and summer is always spent.

There's a sound finer than your favorite music,
a voice begging for your safekeeping,
when you know for certain that at least one person,
for one spell, wants yourself, your health,
the gifts turn old,
beauty levitated by introspective wealth.

There's always a trail, there's always four walls, never an escape,
a broken heart crying for your broken neck,
when compliments wash ashore against a sea of catastrophe,
their hate proves your worth, your weight, your sting,
a perpetual feast of old, distasteful words,
your frightened mouth fired in haste.

I.

I lay beside the canals in Esmeralda, city of water.
For hours a shadow and an oar and a boat approach,
and in the distance unseen girls hum a melody,
a melody not wholly unlike the sound of the lapping waves.
The sun rises and sets in a matter of moments.
My skin crinkles, molts, regenerates as fresh
as a babe's. I think of father, of mother, the words
not the people. My hands move now on their own.
The left points to the Saint Cloud Bridge and I say,
Saint Cloud. I'm in my body but outside it. A little god.
A deliberate historian. I record everything.
I think I always did. My right hand waves
to an acrobat on a clothesline. Behind
the acrobat a small stucco home crumbles
and rebuilds itself. My right palm
covers my mouth and I kiss it.
The veins running down my arms
appear to be filled with different colored inks,
reds, blues, greens. A shadow and an oar and
a boat approach, closer, closer.
A single swallow flies above the water, dipping down,
wetting the tips of its wings, climbing upwards over the
balconies, the rooftops, the sun setting, the sun rising,
blessing its flight. My right hand traces my uneven
and ever shifting face. What did I look like as a boy?
Did I have many friends?

II.

The shadow offers his hand, eases me aboard
his small boat. We push off back the way he came.
He says a few words to me, the
only words exchanged on our long journey:
I used to live in the city, he says. It nearly
drove me mad. I moved to the country.
I cultivated a garden. I installed a wood stove.
This was healthy.

III.

A small delight, to watch the shadow
command the oar, the grace in it.
I think of a woman's dress. I think
of the word rustle. I feel the word rustle.
My left hand points to the shoreline.
Spanish moss hangs from a bald cypress.
I say the word, Fire, and the Spanish moss becomes
engulfed. I say, Stop, and everything
stops, even the sun. Its position makes
me think the phrase six o'clock. While
Esmeralda, the city entire, is locked
in my rule, I step out onto the water.
I find I can walk across it. I know the
city's name, but I'm not sure I ever lived
here. The blades of grass feel foreign
on the soles of my feet.

IV.

Four has always been my favorite number,
I think. A lightning bug emits a flash of green.
It is the only creature unstuck and I follow it.
It leads me through a snow covered valley,
through a yellowed wheat field, through
a suspended dust storm. I brush away the particles
and they drop to the cracked earth.
I'm in a desert now. A woman sits with her legs
crossed. I sit with her. I feel the urge to tell her
a joke. It's apparent. She feels the same urge.
We both try to get the words out, but we keep
laughing, our minds rushing to the punchline.
Before we finish our jokes, we die. We decompose.
We turn to skeletons, our bony mouths full of ash.
We're born again, our joy and humor now with a depth centuries old.
We laugh, death much easier than we'd expected.
We try to tell the jokes again. The cycle beings and ends and begins.
The lightning bug insists that we move on.

I'm led to a gate. Guarding the gate is a girl
with a red ribbon in her yellow hair.
I ask if I can call her maiden.

I can almost see through the girl.
Rolling hills and a crystal stream
serve as her backdrop just beyond
the gate. She summons me with
a gentle wave of her hand.
I lean down. She kisses me.

You're my first kiss, she says.

I hope I'm not your last.

She takes my hand and insists we walk backwards.
The ground is uneven, my feet unsure.

There's an old saying I'm sure you know, she says.
The definition of madness is doing the same thing
and expecting a different result. This applies to more
than recurring bad decisions. It applies to death.

What are you saying? I've been expecting a different death?

You've been expecting a different consequence of death,
but you keep dying the same way, the girl says. Watch me.
Be curious. But say no more. Don't diffuse death of its
wild alchemy.

We walk backwards through the gate.
I want a secret, something
the girl doesn't know about me, one
dark moment to add dimension. But
the thought lurks that she knows
more about me than me. Time speeds
up. Day turns to night. Snow feathers
down. Backwards we walk into empty
homes, into dry riverbeds, into the unknown.
We begin to fall. From what, I'm not sure.
To where, I'm not sure.
The girl grips my hand tightly.

When will I know that I've died?

Shhh, she says. No words. Only wonder.

I buy the gluten-free protein bar, peanut butter and chocolate, because this is who I am now. This is me. This is me as a lighthouse of personal fitness, a man of discipline, of a principle or two. And I surf only the most densely populated dating apps, looking—somewhat feverishly, I must admit—for a likeminded woman, a scholar, a child of the moon, a frequent quoter of the Dhammapada, an insatiable and acrobatic lover, and I imagine her driving the dark streets seeking me. Polly in a Prius. My future muse, near but out of reach. We'll reclaim the arts district. She'll piggyback to the open mike, her ****-me shoes clicking in her hand. We'll spend a year politicizing every ****** encounter. Consensual assaults in perpetuity. And she'll say I'm a white man. And she'll say I think this is my privilege. And she'll say she's into leather and she finds my *** offensive and she'll hold my head against the wall. And at the end, if there's an end, I imagine our naked bodies wrapped in a stained comforter, all of the desire spent. I imagine our minds sober and clear, wondering how we could have ever been so kinked out, so on fire for something, and yet so ******* unable to remember a single ****** or whether or not we transcended. I'll vacuum the apartment. Polly will take her Warhol prints, pack up the Prius, and go anywhere, anywhere not here. Seattle. Maybe Portland. A few weeks will pass, and I'll find a note in whatever book I'd been reading before she left. It'll say: I loved you to the max. I loved you to the max. I loved you to the max.

lucid in America,
     lazy, loose,
ladies of marble, hearts of stone,
the clouds are gathering,
     the trees sparse,
     coarse winds cool, collide,
realign the telephone lines,
smoke exits the nostrils in good time,
     three-piece suits,
     hard handshakes,
     heydays and hollidays both end in headaches,
lucid, loose, tight as a feather,
     riding the Times and drinking  empty cups,
     full and flavored, gentle, gentle,
     the melody is quaint,
     but the melody will play,
sing easy, kissing the graves,
the skeletons are lonely, ask them to stay,
brief and brittle, the remnants of the middle,
quake and make me realize the end has and always
will be nigh,
    egotripping brothers and daughters at pearly gates,
    walking crates half in dismay, half soaked in rays,
interlaced, tracing barefoot on interstates,
humming with the meadowlarks, humming at the dark,
sometimes we're art,
mostly we're stark,
      dancing and dying at once,
      trival yet trying, the beauty we're still buying,
      lucid, free, and easy,
knowingly drifting the pains, the plains
      of America.

Every ounce of grief
was in your head,
not your heart,
I know it was different,
but it didn't mean
we were dead.

"Honor him,"
you said,
implying I needed
to repent,
but I told you
that isn't my bent.

When you don't have rules,
you don't break rules,
no remorse,
no wallowing in regret,
no seek-out of redemption.
It's all a circular charade,
I don't have the time to stomach.

You make the rules
so your life plays like cinema,
so you feel like you are fighting
for something,
knowing at any given moment
you could retrogress.

I don't want to taste retreat,
there's no "honor" in that.
I'm straight. I'm progress.
I'm not digging trenches,
I'm not holy,
I'm not unholy,
I'm areté.

there is havoc at the tips of his skinny fingers.
there is passion and fury in his rhythm.
to the eyes,
he is nothing but a quiet silhouette.
but,
his sound
burns through your ears,
down your spine,
falling toward the floor
granting religion to your feet.

the guitars are discordant,
the vocals are merciless and incomprehensible.
the smoke is perfect.
******* clad women,
drunken men,
just dancing,
crashing,
clashing.

i stand idle,
a regular sore thumb,
in the collective chaos.

but the skeleton in the back,
conducts the shouting symphony
with a barrage of symmetry.

scream.
howl.
holler.

focus and control are his,
not mine, hers or, any of
the other hims.
a psychedelic metronome,
a machine
of a heavy metal drummer.

sweat.
hips.
hands.

i watch him closely,
silence inspiring the noisy.
his eyes closed, his mind
counting,
while my mind
melts,
and all anyone thinks or felt
was the beating of their
hearts, matching the beat
of his drums.

and you flow perpetually.
forsaken and lonely,
longing for a match.

a match to ignite,
a match to absolve,
a match to make you shine,
all pretty,
all light.

Our passage
shouldn't ****,
but when we pull
the blades from the
****** bath,
who's to separate defeat
from *******,
luck from loss--
you've lied dormant,
getting lax on the sweetness of love,
but yesterday
like a bat out of hell,
you awaken--
writing 3,
strolling up to me
confidently and whispering,
"compete".
A shiver for my spine,
a sudden grin,
and itchy fingers longing to bend--

My dearest friend,
now we begin,
should we pick a dueling topic?
A type of verse?
An emotion?
Draw the bounds of battle, Clark--
let's let the kiddos watch
from behind glass
as we tear our lives anew.

The immediacy of wolves
Send her home, home
Unborn benevolence
Undone pasture lifted
Dust-howled into hell
Bright iron and tongue tied
At the end of not all--but
Something
Something
Something
And it means so much
Much much more than it should
This something
And leave it at that:
Mystic bliss
And leave
Leave the voice of the prophet
to be noised and white
The IV drip
You used to wait on summer
Thou shalt not
Not anymore

Put all the
elderly eye sores
in monochromatic,
ammonia scented
cages.

We’re sick of their
unsightly nature,
And their unjustifiable
hormonal
rages.

Who care’s what
lives they led?
What stories they could
tell.

Let them all go insane,
(if they haven’t already)
to the sound of a
teenage
certified nurse’s assistant
texting her boyfriend
like hell.

Let them rot in defecation,
and fears.
Let them pray to a god
who no longer cares.

Let us go to work.
Chase ***,
Apply lip gloss,
bat our lashes,
and drink
our beer.

Occasionally going to an elderly’s
funeral
to stare.

I met a woman at the laundromat,
six-foot tall in her flats.
She bore the scent of a bachelor's degree,
class C cigarettes and warm whiskey--

oh no,
here I go,
down to the river to cleanse my soul.

"My name is Tangerine," she splintered,
75 cents and a steady hand remembered.
I've got an incessant woman miles away,
but your proximity begs me to stay.

oh no,
here I go,
down to the river to cleanse my soul.

Tangerine had two crooked teeth,
a penchant for Plato seeped.
She was a batshit woman,
a bona fide tombstone,
an endless corridor,
and a paper bag dream.

oh no,
here I go,
down to the river to cleanse my soul.

the bombs fell on my family,
i looked to god,
asked,
"is that all you got?"

no, no, i was not shocked,
for 7 years the
prophet on the
24/7 news
told me it was coming.

he lies bloodied.
his idiot legs standing *****.
he's roadkill on cruel pavement.
and the rest of the world straddles
what's left,
between their perpetual tires.

sip.
utter ****.

never drink wine
that's cheaper
than the corkscrew.

sip.
still ****.

why do i want every woman?
all in the worst way.
my intentions are utter trash.

sip.
grimace.

my love is rehearsed,
well-versed in chick flick lore,
my love is mostly a slow bore.

sip.
spit.

you bought a megaphone so god could hear your cries.
you stole many a writer's pen, because you liked the taste of ink.
you broke your own heart gently for the ability to relate.
you sharpened your teeth on the spines of an old boyfriend and dusty books
written by dead men.
you are here to win.

i broke the cross around your neck and called it false advertising.
i covered my writings and body with gasoline for the thrill.
i picked the scabs on my heart because it's a bore to mend.
i strengthened my hide by digging a bed for myself in the warm moonlight,
dead men,
the best company to choose.
they don't judge,
and
they're cool with my decision to lose.

you created a monster,
then got ****** at your monster
for being a monster.

i created a ritualistic woman,
me at my most masochistic,
she fell me and used
my writings to
stoke my funeral
pyre.

fading flesh,
melting ink,

fire, fire, fire.

the culture cut into our wrists.
feeling all or nothing was the trick.
kurt and elliot were dead,
pretty prescriptions we all wed.

we talked vicious and vague.
it kept our parents afraid.
only bought music if it was recorded in omaha.
quoted lyrics to the traditionals, oh my god.

the corners of every corridor were crammed.
glazed eyes making meaningless, drifting forlorn.
"i feel sad"
"gee, that's awful bad."

if they weren't depressed,
they were called liars.
if they were on anti-depressants,
they were kings.
if they attempted suicide,
they were a pope.

projections we were.
of all the dead words we heard.

The veiny, tan arm of the male nurse, rests too long on Sam's shoulder.
I stand outside of the door's frame until the ******* gives me an
"uh--", loosens his cords with a saliva hack, nods
and brushes past me on his way out.

Sam looks like she found herself on the receiving end
of a riot at the gates of hell.

I take one last suckoff from my fast food straw, making that
obnoxious vacuum noise.
Sam's navy blue lids flutter, open, she connects.
"Oh -- hey, man. How's it goin'?" she asks taken aback.

"Not too bad, lady."

"Why are you dressed so nice?"

"Um, I--uh just got back," exhale, "from your mom's thing."

"Gawd," her lids close tight, nose scrunches.

"I'm so sorry for your loss," the cliché sentiment bounces
off the ancient yellow walls with a awkward thud -- falls to the floor.

Soap opera dialogue from a microscopic, mounted television makes its presence known during a dense break in our conversation.

I sit down in the chair next to her hospital bed.

"What are you staring at?" she spits.

"Just you, you look so small."

"Hospital food tastes how funeral homes smell."

"How long have you been in here?"

"Closing in on two weeks. That's why it took
so long for them to bury Mom.
We were hoping I could come."

"Ahh, gotcha. Why are they keeping you?"

"A few of those internal ***** injuries that
get doctors in a tizzy. Was Gloria there?"

"Yeah. Yeah, her and her family."

"Stuff still weird with you guys?"

"There isn't 'stuff'."

She fidgets, "You know what I miss most about my mom?"

"What's that?"

"Anytime I was feeling like **** she would cradle me,
and kiss my forehead. Made ya feel safe you know?"

I get up, sit on the edge of her bed, wrap one arm cautiously around her.
"Is this okay?"

"Perfect."

I brush her extremely light, blonde hair into curtains around her forehead.
She closes her eyes as I kiss. Her hand grips my wrist tightly.

"All better?"

She grins slowly, "Maybe one more."

I bend down, she elevates before I can reach her brow,
snags the **** hanging about my neck, and crashes her lips
hard into mine.

She moves her lips desperately, ferociously --
clasping them tightly to mine.
My head starts to get light, my hand runs down her side.

"Ahhhem."

We quickly tear our stitched lips free.

Gloria walks out the door.

"no, it's just funny you should say that."

"why?"

"because I work at the capitol."

"oh yeah? what's the most interesting thing about it?"

"i don't know, it's ******* boring."

"nah, there's gotta' be something."

"not really, man. i mean, i guess the toilets are the busiest i've ever seen....nah, nah i'm serious, man. you know how most fellas use the ******? not at the ******* capitol."

"you know why that is, right?"

"why's that?"

"'cause politicians are full of ****."

when you dance with me,
look at only me.
when you smile at me,
make it real.

when you touch me,
i don't feel so cold.
when you talk,
my thoughts don't feel so alone.

let's keep moving.

when your hands fasten,
does that mean you only need me?
when you change the subject,
does that mean you love me?

please love me.

She's always walking through,
no claws ever get to sink into,
I'm sidelined, foaming, chomping at the bit,
buying bouquets and greeting grins,
there seem to always be too many others around,
we could sneak into the bathroom-discover what the fuss is about,
I remember you dressed all in black,
the second time we collided-- it was the funeral of my tact,
I hope to sweat the summertime to smithereens,
with you, my distant venom queen,
if it happens--what luck,
if not-what the ****?
We sway to stolen melodies in hazy suburban cities,
we fight tooth and nail for the upper hand of witty,
looting,
shooting,
moving in opposite directions in the name of discovery,
do you want to learn revelry?
I do, I do, I do.

up to alaska,
tundra and me,
tundra and me,
spit on my hands,
shook your hand,
sharp grin,
sharp part in my hair,
you said i'd be bald,
i was a faux pas,
down to portland,
free your mind
in fish bowl,
in windowsill acid,
you said "loosen your tie",
we spent two consecutive
nights throwing dollar bills
across the room as we shook,
slid, stepped fancy, some clumsy,
until free of constraining clothing,
we called landlords
told them not to worry,
i bought you four americanos,
you pounded them out,
you bought me three bottles of wine,
worst night of my life,
across to pine ridge,
you scored peyote,
said it'd help me see,
all i got was sad,
staring at weathered, forgotten men,
and their starving spawn,
we headed back home,
spinning the only cd you own,
bowie's station to station for
28-hours,
i said i loved you,
you said i broke my promise,
bit me, stroked my hands,
said, "well, i guess we'll see where this goes."

I can still hear you saying,
"This too shall seem trivial,"
everytime this city gets me down.

I keep a picture of you in my wallet,
hell, I've got pictures of you all over
the apartment, and even
a collection of your hairpins,
under the middle cushion of the couch.

It's hard not to waste hours writing
about the summer I spent
all my money on semi-precious stones,
and you blew yours on hotel beds.

When that Mike-Something weatherman
comes on the television,
I still remember your remarks
about his multitude of chins,
and I get sentimental for the sound of my laughter.
It was much finer then.

I've watched wonderful loves
throw bracelets I bought for them,
I've watched quaking bodies
beg to rekindle the flame,
but with you I expected something more.

I hope whichever Carolina
you settled in treats you well.

I couldn't get over myself,
kept telling all my friends I was dead,
and then you asked if you could sleep over.
I hadn't needed anyone.
But halfway submerged
in sheets, in white wine,
laughing your *** off,
I realized that all the
years I've been dropping
on this dangerous lifestyle,
are worth the expense
if for one evening they
bought me a few fevers
with you.

Alright, alright,
we're both alright
for the moment,
and that is more
than holy.

I could ask for you to stay,
perhaps for you to never change,
but there wouldn't be the hunt,
there wouldn't be any fun,
and I'm not sure if it's love
or time simply not spent alone,
but my breath is light,
my body heavy,
and you're falling asleep,
ear to my naked chest,
your heart
matching my beat.

Alright, alright,
we're both alright
for the moment,
and that is more
than I asked for.

sit, sit, sitting,
sorrowfully laughing
at the conclusion.

sweet, sweet, sweetheart,
i played prophet,
yet was surprised when i called it right.

no, no, yes
i think i will never exist,
just your projection.

do, do, don't
feel guilty, i, the wrecking ball,
finally crashed into myself.

see, see, cease
the reassurance charade,
i just wanted you to mean "i want you".

oh, oh, okay,
i will try to keep my hands at my side,
talk to you polite.

just, just, just
don't turn away, because
if my heart never breaks,
what was the point anyways?

what was the point anyways?
what was the point anyways?
what was the point anyways?

i'll ride the wave.
i'll war civil,
i'll smile,
i'll hold you, dear,
i'll step aside,
i'll drop all analysis,
i'll stay away.

did, did, didn't
i fall at your feet?
did, did, didn't
i lick each of your sores?
will, will, won't
you ever tell me what was the point?

lauren broke my stupor with a whisper,
"you're a slave to detail"
my trance was fixed on adam
and his shifty eyes,
his shaky lips.

lauren knew i was sinking claws,
"breathe, baby. think other thoughts."
my teeth were sharpening fast
off his sweaty brow,
his wavering hands.

lauren disappeared from me.
adam and me.

adam and
my ex.

adam and his lies.

"how can i rewrite my history-"

"what?"

"shut up,
how can i rewrite my history
if you dig her up?"

"what?"

"shut up,
adam you're a creep."

"i jus-"

"and you can't stay far enough away".

lauren grabbed my tensing shoulders,
whispered, "retreat".
my clinched fists didn't release,
nor did my stare,
nor my hate.

adam and his lies. adam and my ex. adam and his lies. adam and my ex. adam and his lies. adam and my ex. adam and his lies adam and my ex.

yeah.
u are prettier without me.
i'm cancer.
i'm ****.
i'm a plaster cast of ur ideal man.
i'm empty.
i'm far gone.
i'm ****** music.
i'm death.
u r purity.
innocence.
kindness.
love.
i'm death over and over again.

i won't live much longer.

u deserve a family,
someone who u can pass ur love to.

i'm gone.
i'm gone.
i'm gone.

i loved you more than anyone,
but i started ******* u over and couldn't stand it,
because u were the sweetest person
i ever met.

be happy.
              find someone kind,
                                         someone that is handsome.

let me fall into the shadows
like i was destined to.
   let me dissolve into nothing.
let me die alone.
    
                  whether
rope                or             bullet,

                  whether
alcohol            or             smoke,

let my self loathing conquer.

go on.
keep moving.
ever forward.

i hope u find heaven,
                     i hope u find picket fences.
ur pure.
ur perfect.

i miss u, but can't have u.

because i'm the antichrist.


i'm the apocalypse.


the nails in the crucifix.



the cancer u can't eat.

keep moving.
keep moving.
keep moving.

i love u more than anything and thats why i can't have u,
because i'm satan, and u deserve bliss.

i can't be selfish.

kiss those other boys,
                       they won't let u down.

i will self destruct
                      and worship the memory of u.

she will always begin with a pause,
her eyebrows will lift the wrinkles of her forehead,

exhale.
sharp stare.

she will always open with some battered phrase,
something to the effect of "we need to talk" or
"is something wrong?"

i slide a sigh.
roll my eyes
off to the
distant side.

she will always hope the drama of the event
will scare me into a newfound commitment,
it did the first few tries.

look to her play-tears.
read them like a teleprompter.

she will always use *** as the scapegoat,
condemning me for my high crimes,
my dwindling light of real integrity.

read her my
polished response.

she will cry for the remainder of her waking state,
we'll open our eyes only to find,
ourselves tangled in one another,
sweaty from the weighty night.
she won't be crying.
and we'll be in love again.

over and over and over
and over and over and
over and over and over
             again.

Silver vein'd and shaking through.
The night oppresses me with a speed relentless
and a sound constant: the insect hum, the air conditioned rattle.
And I drop myself and I tuck myself and I sleep myself
as best I can.
And her hushed song, her morning song, her routine song,
while she plucked herself white and shaved herself clean,
enters the sacred corridors of my sleep. And her face burns
into my mind. Something religious. She's a godhead,
one who exists with or without my permission. And I'd
sing along with her if it weren't for the sleeping. But I'm
diffusing all responsibility and I'm creeping toward the center
of that otherworld, where logic and time bow to her
and who am I?
so I bow too.
The days of my old life, the ones well lived, bleed in
and the regrets smooth themselves out and I dab at
her makeup with a wet napkin and I say this:

Do you have any idea how many times I've said
I love you to an empty room?

My body's on the chair.
The balloon's tied to the lamp.
It wavers and spins. There's a smell,
I'll admit, and the flies have
already left and been.
The small world outside
continues, no need of my
permission. The bluebirds,
the children, the dozers—
I listen. No dreams,
no memories, no love,
no hate, no suffering,
no pleasure, no propagate.

To be refleshed at the end of your last true summer,
to have fingertips—not your own—pry away the old
skin and charge the nerves of the new,
how could you plan something like that?
You're in a new body and in an old house.
The window unit moans. ***** clothes cover the floor.
He's more than fingertips now. He's uncombed hair.
He's shirtless and he's breath and he's in your mouth
and the taste is sweet, familiar, and just far enough away
to turn nameless and evaporate from where all names
originate: the tongue.

But he still delivers his tongue to you, your back arching,
you're a lost instrument singing, the notes bending, the
melody transforming, until God's refrain rings and ricochets
noiselessly in the chambers of your skull.
In space there is no center, you're always off to the side.

And he's there, at your side, and you both stare at the ceiling fan
and laugh. What else can you do? He is still. You are still.
He starts to say your name. No more words. We are home.

I was borderline batshit,
I hadn't slept for two nights,
and every time I closed my
eyes, my desperate mind
sent itself into R.E.M.

The hallucinations
were only fun up to a point,
as soon as I saw monkeys in
gas masks, I fixed another ***,
drank three or four cups,
I promised I'd wait up,
and Ms. Gloria had promised to come by last night.

My belly began to roar,
I ate a saltine, one **** packet
left, and then no groceries.
I opened the freezer,
a couple trays of ice,
half a fifth of *****,
"Ah, hell," and ****** off
the remainder in three or four hits.

I turned on the tv,
I forgot their was a war going on.
It didn't take long for my mind to bite.
I took a front row seat for the
viewing of my ego's defeat.
I was holding up well,
using the gunshots as a
backing symphony to
some poetry I was clumsily
penning.
It was something about
texting girls and semi-trucks,
but I lost the ******* notepad
I was writing it on,
I stood up to go take a ****,
and my head fell to the soles,
back met carpet quickly,
monkeys and gas masks,
I heard my phone ring,
I rolled on my side,
in an attempt to crawl to it,
then woke up 6-hours later,
to someone pounding the ****
out of my door.

she shrieks when she speaks--
she hooks me up,
transfusion--
black venom for my veins,
madness in place of melody,
or even respectable melancholy,
the guitar crawls,
the same notes beating it to death,
she shrieks when she speaks--
the sounds intertwine,
birthing a million-pound, ******* headache--
the runaway claustrophobia blues hit hard--
I unbutton my wrinkled shirt, throw it
against the couch,
Rachel asks me not to leave without her--
but when the madness bites hard,
she drags her feet.

I leave Rachel and the shards of my soul
somewhere between the dogpiss rug
and the whitewashed door--
enter the night,
soulless,
my ape body half-alive--
thirsty to die,
the wind eats my exposed skin,
my arms pump locomotion,
hop curb, clear cracks, gaps,
faster. faster. faster.
I scream,
echoes rattle the complex,
a child watches on a distant doorstep--
get ready kid, the next dose:
yours--

here i sit,
waiting.

waiting to
get thin,
get rich,
get renown.

knowing that soon
i will only drive in sunsets,
the radio will only play the sweetest jazz set-lists,
and the young girls will all be whistling.

here i sit,
waiting.

waiting for
original love,
substantial proof for christianity,
and absolution.

knowing that soon,
i'll be respected for wisdom,
*** appeal,
and my national pride.

here i sit,
waiting.

lost in well-intention,
wedding bells mentioned
everyone expected to see
anna in white.

there were nights
the possibility felt alright,
my shaky, stained hand
loosely chained to anna's.

but
anna, i'm frightened.
but
anna, i'm young.
but
anna, my love may be mostly pretend.

the days move like parades of funerals,
words sound so important but dissolve incessantly
cold grow the hands, dim go the eyes.

there was a weekend of mercy,
when i believed strength of bind,
sorrow was distant, and your
novel face filled my mind.

but
anna, i'm frightened.
but
anna, i'm young.
but
anna, my love may be mostly pretend.

i was two leonard cohen albums and three cigarettes in.
the night was falling in ribbons around me
and my empty passenger seat.

the windows were gracious,
hosting an onslaught of wind
that carved at the cool, contained
nature of my hair.

i was lost.

there was no meaning in the pavement
my tires demeaned at high speeds,
though i wanted there to be.

i took up two lanes,
as i fumbled the lighter.
i attempted to light the fourth,
only to find the fluid was far gone.

i felt just as worthwhile as the unlit
cigarette,
and cohen's phony sentiment.

driving pointlessly into the darkness.
looking for meaning that would
cling to me.

i wanted individual soul.

a holy moment where you know your life stands for beauty.
a holy moment where you aren't thinking about
***,
cigarettes,
ex-girlfriends,
and parental expectations.

i put on swordfishtrombones,
let mr.waits howl as my cancerous thoughts
ate away at my remaining humanity.

just night.
just a lonely interstate
with an empty passenger seat.

the music plays,
plays nervously
with reassuring caution,
as if to say,
“hey,
it’ll be
okay.”

but the sentiment
comes off
as
flimsy.

to add to
the atmosphere,
there’s one light on
in the apartment.
trying so hard to
be illuminating.
it’s 2-something a.m.

coffee is still being poured,
being drank,
as my sight rolls over a sink
full of ***** dishes,
and eventually
finds a busy cell phone
left alone on the counter.

the body moves momentarily,
the words flow with high viscosity,
the mind is traffic-jammed with
thoughts of casualties and
thoughts of beauty.

there is no her tonight.
no fingertips to trace the
lines about the face.

a good woman will reduce
a man to measly rubble
when left in the company
of
isolation.

there’s no meaning.
there’s no love.
there’s no laughter,
no, not tonight.

tonight there is only
that old friend misery,
and brief interrupting
respites of holy
memories.

my sweetheart's brass words
ricocheted in my hollow hall of a head,
the fresh priests and the ancient lords,
had fallen on their own swords,
I didn't feel like bleeding so I went to bed.

I woke to find all the people called me
slowly disintegrated in a colossal whirl,
the celestial dreams fed to an angry sea,
my weary hands were ripe, red; ready to be
in front of the painter's forgiving hurl.

the remnants struck the canvas with mad speed,
cutting, blending, burying the flickering light,
I split the transformation with a hopeful creed,
from now on I'm the freedom you need,
with a echoing clap and a weighty bellow- I broke the night.

they are already past their peak,
at only 18
that's a hard fact
to feel.

but if you asked
them how much
they had left,
they truly believe
they haven't
even started yet.

but i see decay,
gravity, and
metabolism are
already betraying.

miss teen something or other
rattles on and on about her
ingenious selection of
"georgia on my mind",
she doesn't come off
as a queen,
as she twitches with every
side glance toward me,
as her hands fumble
awkwardly,
as her ******* appear through
her t-shirt,
so much for something or other
royalty.

her friend miss broken arrow
of 2007 goes on and on
about her fattening ***,
but her friend reassures her
that the judges like that.

i can see them better than
they see themselves.

i see them as stretch marks,
as time-battered vocal chords,
as wrinkles, as used up
objects cast aside
like boring toys
flung by hungry boys.

50 years from now
if they make it that
long,
they will look into
withered mirrors
with runny mascara
about their eyes
and they will
wish,
that someone
would just recognize
them for the things
they did.

i feel so sorry for
the formers,
never again reaching
the height of glory.

i've got a fixation for your eyes,
       your eloquent form controls my mind,
       if you don't care, i'd like to stay awhile,
       hours are cheap, so how about the night?
i'm allured by your laughs at my feeble tries,
      when you repeal my determination,
       i will remind my adoration isn't in short supply,
       where did we land on the night?
i'm an addict when it comes to being a part of your life.

I told you, I don't want that kind of girl.
The way she bent the strobe- and the moonlight,
the way she kept telling me to shut up,
the way her heels acted like asterisks --
Marie, she ain't my kind of girl.

I told you, I'm just waiting for my head to clear.
I need fall to end the crow and vulture's flight.
I need to get unkempt and shut-in.
I need the pills to pull hat tricks --
Marie, I need a few more weeks.

I told you, my body's not ready.
I'd love to defend the howl and hiss of night.
I'd love split rent and shudder skin.
I'd love the pushups and matchsticks --
In the spring.

I promise, Marie.

because green leaves
and restoration sunshine
bore the hell out of me.

because love for me
has never been forever,
just a face i show for a scene.

because spring and winter
for me never exist,
i seem to live in the months inbetween.

because at the surface
my subject matter deals
with nothing past my *** drive.

because every word i use
is a staple of every
third graders' vocabulary

because this poem doesn't rhyme.

because i write stark reality
instead of romantic
imagination.

because they aren't me.
every poet may be their biggest critic,
but they're also their biggest fan.

Call me crying, sweetheart.
The sound of you cracking,
would be a joyous symphony
to lonely ol' me.
Your defeat would only affirm
my prophesy.

I love you, kid.
But that doesn't mean
I don't want you to be
absolutely miserable.
Get ******, call me bitter,
cruel, or a synonym of sorts,
but allow me to remind,
my use of the word "love".

I saw you stand alone.
You had a majestic, individual soul,
now you are a blinking projection,
of what some hungry boy wants
you to be.

How often do you see him
when you don't undress?

How often do you whisper,
"I love you" without making a mess?

I hope all your thoughts
are second thoughts.
I hope all your fantasies
turn to lucid dreams.
I hope your tethered body
tears from the seams.

I love you, kid,
and I want only victory.

i open the envelope of night,
*******, the stars have never been so necessary.
with one deep breath i declare genocide on all my worries.
in this late hour, passing pavement is worship,
cigarettes, the Rolling Stones, and left lanes
are the holy trinity.

i'm a righteous man, honey.
you can be righteous too.
what are you doing right now?
nothing?
good.

A weakness crept in.

we bought a flag when you enlisted.
we were so proud.
we prayed for the war to end
when you journeyed out across the sand.
when you lost your life,
we didn't care how long the war had to go on,
you could not die in vain.

eyes close.
earphones.
"imagine".
feet hit cement.
feet hit in rhythm.
and then something
forgotten hits my ears.
hits my brain,
spine,
spills to my soles.

i forgot in myself,
what i owed myself.

eyes open,
street lights and speed bumps,
my habitat.
crystal conscience,
i realize it isn't the art of moving
your feet,
but the art of moving the ground.

no sound tonight.
just me tonight.

think of god.
wonder how he's holding up.
if he misses me.
i think of her,
how angry she must be,
but i know no regret.

freeze frames of
merciless memories
play on repeat,
as lennon snarls on the third and fourth track.
for some reason,
the night assures me,
god is really quite real.

for some reason,
i think of that passage where it says something
to the effect of if any member of the body should
sin against you,
cut it off/pluck it out.

all i would be is
knees,
        shoulders,
                    and a snout.

let me restart.
no degradation of my mane,
no compromise of mind.

i want respect,
i want the love of honor,
i want hope,
and i want people to say,
"he's living for today."

Dawn coughs its way to noon,
the sun bears down
blistering my skin,
asking questions,
highlighting each flaw--
I take one last drag
from one last cigarette,
put out the flaming tip
on an ant hill--
Joshua J. Hutton, the Destroyer--
a sizzle,
a scramble,
where do we go from here?

I call my redheaded love,
ask her to spend the afternoon
listening to me read old books
full of filthy poetry,
and as she sighs,
I slit her throat to see what's inside--
a candy apple coated fever dream
of future her and me,
a hatred of my mane,
and a longing for the far corner of everything--
I stitch her milky neck,
kiss her ear,
rub her shoulders with my
rotting hands,
and tell her
purgatory just got easier,
knowing we piece
with blood
and beauty,
holy men rejoice,
****** get jubilant,
this smoldering mess
connects.

I saw texting girls
collide with semi-trucks,
and though they lost the fight,
well, they left their mark.

I've kissed a wrecking ball,
and as my building fell,
I felt like a petal on the wind,
I hope she misses me.

You are an angel,
wading through a drunken hell,
and I have called out,
but you are afraid of listening.

I've seen true believers
spend lifetimes bellowing about regret,
and I've seen the nomads write
laws in understanding sand.

And when our haste comes to claim us,
don't pull your hair out
or place ash upon your brow,
cling to the love on your serpent's tongue.

The pure are always proud, stones in hand,
us ***** ones perpetually bleed,
and crawl upon the worn ground.
Sister, if you remember me, why haven't you found me?

I overheard that the watches are tired of ticking,
the calendar hung itself,
your mother's eyes are dry,
and all our crimes will fall from on high.

I spent three months pulling red hairs from my teeth,
eight lodged in ***** hair,
two sipping bottom shelf wine,
and now learning how to drive
past cream-colored envelopes,
filled with future foe.

Sorrow takes getting used to --
happiness wanes over paranoid shoulder --
I mark calendars,
I stock coffee filters,
but the ends and beginnings
blur in boredom.

I spent a century waging a war,
four more making amends,
and now the record skips.

Memory bends,
bedrooms and bathrooms
smell the same--
funeral parlor
and pulpit martyrs
sound the same--
centuries and months
age the same.