The way Sunday sits in its secret hideaway paradise
at the end of the week
It's legs carelessly kicking at the lake,
with wet bare feet
making concentric circles in the water with its toes

That's how you make me feel.

huh, what time is it?
phone slips back into pocket
huh, what time is it?

a bear with regret
making its bold confessions
from behind a meme

life in the future:
computer in my glasses
yet still no jetpacks

ancestors hunted
only ate what they could ****
now we have WalMart

flowers were once wild
bananas used to have seeds
- how we shape the world

summer in the park
kids hopscotching on pavement
dad checking email

the oldest known song
carved on a lover's tombstone
- “pretty much YOLO”

digital tombstone
her face no longer ages
she is immortal

relaxed at the beach
at home - panicking mother
phone dwells in the lake

so long out of touch
childhood friends reunited
- thank god for Tinder!

The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will be live-*

The revelation will be streaming through your Windows
laptops and smartphones.
The revolution will be blogged
Tweeted, liked, shared, RE-blogged RE-tweeted
and Stumbled Upon in between
midnight ******* sessions
sandwiched between funny cat memes.

The resolution will be HD.
It's evolution will be high speed.
The whistles will be blown at with frequency.
The revolution will be commented on;
Scrutinized.
Vandalized.
Scandalized.
Stylized and advertized.
People will pay attention -
People will forget to mention
that some stand up, occupy, riot
and die.

The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution be streaming live
through the filter of your choice.
The facts will be democratized.
The democracy will be corporatized.
The corporations will personified.
People, objectified -
Spied on and villainized  
The powers that be will will lie, deny, and try to justify.
The people will be disenfranchised.
Prisons will be privatized.
Death drones will be utilized.

No one will bat an eye.
Because revolution will be multiplied, over-simplified,
The violence, normalized.
Lives, sacrificed
to satiate the Golden Calf's appetite.

The revolution will not be televised
but Jerry Springer will...
Go figure.

Society detests innocence
Often shaking hands with ignorance
Exchanging phone numbers with bliss.
We hate it cause we’re jealous.

So we send loaded words their way.
Our mouths, like pistols
shooting bullets full of hate.
Someday we shall see the error of our ways.
Until then,

******.
We call him.
He who has yet to be used,
Or more so, use another for pleasure
******, and then leave a woman and a ******
on a Hotel’s bathroom floor,
alone and broken.

Square.
We say
To she who has never felt the itch.
Needed so badly to scratch it
and get her fix
that she steal from her two month old daughters college fund
so she can fly away and forget….

Try as we may, we never forget
How it feels to fall from the sky.
So, we know how to make a mockingbird cry.
We know how to make a mockingbird cry.
And we know how it feels
to **** one

be still - do not blink
I can’t wait to remember
this moment with you

one hundred kids drown -
Community is canceled-
what a sad world!

face lit by the screen
empty head, so full of thought
digging for some truth

aimlessly driving
through a beautiful landscape
made ugly by roads

From behind your canvas
you peer up at me taking in the details of my body.
Your scientific eyes studying  me
cold
with neither lust or disgust
as if I were a vase
or a basket of fruit.
Not long before this we embraced one another
in the throes of passion.
You've never been more into me.
The skillful motions of your lips and tongue,
throwing my body into religious convulsions
and praising your name.
It intrigues me how you can turn that off.
How you can refrain from smiling
as you draw the outline of my ******.
How my naked body so near and ready
doesn’t cause that animal I’ve come to know so well
to overpower the artist in you.
I’m truly fascinated, filled with both admiration and jealousy
for that woman you are creating.
I know that In your mind,
we've never been closer
but you look so far away
hiding from me behind that easel
cheating on my body with your interpretation.
No doubt, she will be flawless,
and have none of my ugly imperfections.
She isn’t even finished being born and I hate her already.
Although, I’ll lie when you reveal her to me.
I’ll tell you that she’s beautiful
that I really like her.
Then, I’ll make love to you
right there on the floor.
Forcing her to watch.

Her eyes are so deep set now
that in a certain light
they are just holes in her face

She is so thin now
from the chemotherapy
her skin seems little more than
an empty balloon stretched over her skeleton
and tied off at the scalp,
to keep what’s left of her from falling out

She shakes so bad now
that she needs assistance
to cease the drought
on the jagged landscape of her lips

Now, her days are spent
in an endless sleep
punctuated by a waking sleep
in which she does a lot of staring at walls
and vomiting

That waking sleep, or living nightmare,
is itself punctuated by the occasional friend
come to mourn at the gravemarker
that is her hospital bed
She now has sympathy for the zombie
knowing what it’s like to be dead
and alive at the same time

She thinks, if she had the energy,
she might bite people too
just to remind them
that she’s still here

Afterward,
I asked “Where to?”
“The beach?” She replied
“Too cold.” I said.
“Fine, whatever. Take me home, I guess.”
She’s too much like you.

Even now, ten years later,
she still swims in my old hoodie.
The pink and blue butterflies on her fingernails
barely escape the sleeves.

We’re sitting in the sand
she is looking at the water
as if searching for something far out in the distance.

Remember when we babysat
all those years ago?
She stole my hoodie
called it her “Cloak of Invincibility”.
She meant Invisibility,
we were watching Harry Potter.
Today, I wish it were the former.

“Are you going to tell my mom?” She asked.
“No.” I said “But you should.”
I wanted to tell her about what happened in ‘92
about her mother’s battle with depression
after a similar thing happened with her
but that’s your sister’s story to tell
so I did what you always say I should
and let the quiet between us be.

I watched the waves roll in
and crash against the shore.
I noticed heavy grey clouds heading toward us
“It’s going to rain” I said
“Let it.” she replied, with a calm acceptance.

She’s grown up so much
since the cancer took you from us.
You wouldn’t even recognize her.

She looks nothing like her mother
Or her father, for that matter
She looks
…well, she looks like you.
The spitting image.

“Why the beach?” I asked
after a long while of listening to the waves.
“This is where it happened.”
I felt an anger rise up through me
and I was already clenching my fists
before I realized there was no direction
for that aggression to go.

I took a deep belly breath,
and refocused.

“Why come back here?”
“to see if it felt different.”
“Does it?”
“…a little.”
More silence.

I watched her writing things in the sand
with a broken stick she found
and then pushing her palm across the words,
wiping the letters into each other,
cleaning the slate,
and again, writing in the sand.

“You know…” She said, finally,
“I was thinking for a while,
about keeping it.
if I had,
if it were a girl,
I would have named it after her."
she didn't have to say your name out loud
for me to know
“I miss her,” she added

"Me too".
The waves kept hitting the shore
and eventually, the rain came.

I drove her home,
she offered to give back my hoodie
“Keep it.” I said, smiling
she shrugged and took it with her.

On the way home,
I drove passed our old house
the new owners are letting the grass grow
too long for my taste.
It seems everything has been growing in your absence.
Except me.

The first time we met
was on the playground
at Lakeshore Park.
You were six
and I was seven.
You shared your ice-cream cone with me -
Vanilla-Chocolate Swirl.

We met again a decade later
in high school,
neither of us remembered the incident at the park
until our parents showed us pictures
of us covered in the stuff
holding hands.

We stayed best friends for a three years
because I was too chicken-**** to ask you out
but somewhere along the way
our unbreakable bond came undone
you drifted off to some Ivy League school
and I stayed here
convinced I could find another way out.

After that, I pretty much forgot all about you.

That is until today,
I was at the park with my niece,
and I thought about you
I sent you a message on Facebook -
asking if you were back in town.

Then, in anticipation of our reunion,
I read what people were posting on your wall:

“Rest in Peace. You will be missed.”

…****.

I believe we met in heaven
or was it hell?

I was too drunk.
You, soft spoken and understanding,
didn't know me at all.
Yet helped me to my feet
and asked what I was doing
in the park
this late
on a Tuesday.
I told you that I was bad at lying,
then proceeded to ***** on your shoes.

I didn't know then that I'd marry you someday.

There’s this tattoo I wish to get
if I ever get rid this fear
of making decisions.

It’s this little girl, maybe seven years old or so
she’s holding on to an aged dandelion by its neck.
Her eyes are closed and open to a whole other world -
she shoots a wish toward it
with every muscle in the body
that she doesn’t know the names of yet.

The seeds are propelled across my back
and transform into the shooting stars they always dreamed they’d be.
Somewhere below
on an otherwise empty beach
are a couple of teenagers
discovering themselves inside one another.
They kiss and tell no one.
The blanket promises to keep their secret
and the sand sneaks into places it knows it’s unwelcome.

They are drunk on the passion of the moment.
She’s lost in the stars
and wants to gently scoop those lights from the sky
seal them in a mason jar
and watch them do their cosmic dance around each other
to remind herself of how small she feels under them
and how amazing it felt to be everything and nothing at the same time.
She holds her breath, closing her eyes
sending up a wish in the music of young lust.

Meanwhile,
on my rightmost shoulder blade
There’s an older man, looking down a wishing well
at the two young lover’s play.
Smiling at his memories
which, like the ink, are fading.
A wish falls out his mouth and speeds down into the darkness
it bounces off the back of the boys head,
and is gobbled up by the greedy sand.

They sat across the table from one another. One girl staring at her notebook. The other’s eyes fixed on her classmate. On the broadside of the table sat a dark haired woman, the only smiling face in the room. The shy girl’s crimson hair hung out from under her hooded sweatshirt as she sketched axes on the front of her notebook. The other girl’s golden locks hung in curls around her face. Her beauty was undeniable, as was the disdain in her eyes.
“So, can one of you two describe to me what happened today on that stairwell?” asked Mrs. White, the guidance counselor at Jacob Grimm High. Despite the gossip floating around the school about her, a smile was always plastered on her face. Most of the children found this unbearably creepy. “Nothing ma’am. We were just having a friendly conversation, when that pig came along and insisted, very forcefully, that we come here,” the blonde said, sarcastically, her eyes never letting go of their gaze on the other girl.
Mrs. White chuckled “That’s not how it happened, Goldie. C’mon, tell us your side of things.” Goldie rolled her eyes. “Well, Mrs. White, it’s like this: my bio class was just letting out, and I was heading down to calculus. She comes flying UP the DOWN stairs, like a maniac, slamming into my shoulder. I hit her, she hit me back. Now we’re here.”
“Is that true, Ms. Ridinghood?” asked Mrs. White, turning her head to the other girl.
“Not entirely,” she answered, finally joining the conversation. “Ms. Princess here was going up those stairs before I even got to them. To be honest, I was zoned out, just following the sheep. I’m not having the best day, so a friend gave me something to take the edge off this morning. I was following her up the down stairs, apparently and she turned around and started coming at me, shoving my shoulder as she walked past, then got offended – like I did something wrong – and hit me. So I punched her back. We wrestled for a minute before the rent-a-cop came and broke it up.”
“Hmm.” Mrs. White turned to Goldie, who was looking down the floor. “Goldie, why were you going back up the stairs?” ,
“I don’t wanna talk about it.”
“So you did go back up the stairs and come down a second time?”
“It was actually my third time,” Goldie admitted, embarrassed. “The first time I went too fast, the second time I went too slow. That time would have been just right. I have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder . Go ahead, laugh it up.”
“No one’s laughing,” Mrs. White assured her. Although Red was a little, until Mrs. White turned to her. “Can you tell me why it is you needed to be ‘zoned out’ today?”
“None of your business, that’s why,” Red snapped.
“I have read your file, I know what day it is.”
“Then why did you have to bring it up?” Red was now agitated.
“For Goldie to hear. So you can better understand one another.”
“*******! What kind of understanding am I to get from this preppy ***** with a silver spoon up her ***? I’ve spit puddles deeper than her!” The two girls rose up, over the table. Mrs. White was able to get in between them.
“Now, both of you need to just calm down and talk this out like civil adults. Keep in mind, this is your only alternative to expulsion. “
Once everyone regained themselves, Red spoke again, this time directly to Goldie.
“Six years ago, today, my grandmother was murdered.” Goldie began to see Red with new eyes. “Remember The Wolf
“That guy who went around vandalizing houses?” ?”
“Yeah. He was hiding out in the woods. I was going to visit my grandma, who lived out that way. I saw him. He’d shaved so I hadn’t recognized him from the news. I told him I was going to my grandma’s place, dumb idea—I know. He suggested a different route, said it’d be shorter. By the time I got there, grams was gone. He was in her bed, dressed like her, waiting for me. His eyes…were so…big. If it wasn’t for Larry, a woodsman working nearby, I would be dead too.”
“I heard about that! That was you? Wow…I’m sorry. ” Goldie shook her head in amazement, then added, “Didn’t the woodsman chop off his head?”
“No. He shot him. Larry carries a gun when he’s working in that forest, because of all the dangerous things that happen there.”
“No doubt, that place is freaky. I got lost in it once, when I was six. I ended up at this cabin. I thought it was abandoned. Imagine my surprise when the family came home. I was sleeping in the kid’s bed, and I’d eaten their food too. I think I even broke something.”
“How’d that play out?”
“I did some time in juvy for property damage and theft.”
“Wow…that’s so messed up. At least you learned your lesson, right?”
“Oddly enough, no. When I turned eleven I started breaking into people’s houses. I mean, I didn’t take anything, just slept in their beds, or watched TV. I never got caught again.” Goldie sounded mildly disappointed.
“You know,” Red interjected “we are a couple of freaks, aren’t we?”
“Yeah. Hey…where did Mrs. White go?” Goldie said, finally realizing that Mrs. White had made an escape somewhere in the midst of their discussion.
“I don’t know.”
“Oh well…did you hear she has seven midgets living with her?”
“That’s just a rumor,” Red said.
On that note, the bell rang, and the two girls left the room giggling like old friends.

I
The phone was screaming in my pocket
its voice was muffled by the pile of clothes
on top of it

The hotel water was almost too hot
it blushed my scalp
and cascaded down my face
in a way that should have felt like baptism
but didn't

After what felt like an eternity
the call went to the black hole
that is my neglected voicemail
now at over a hundred missed calls

I didn’t want to talk
not to Dad, not to Mom,
not to my fiancé,
and definitely not to some reporter
trying to make our ****** up family
the topic of the nine o’clock news

II
The pipes in the wall
clunked around for a second
as I turned the ****, cutting the water off
I stepped out of the shower
somehow feeling less clean than when I entered

For a moment I stood there,
towel over my head
in complete darkness

I closed my eyes and saw him
standing across from me
his eyes, locked with mine
dad’s gun in his shaking hands -
pointed directly at my head
unblinking, full of hatred, anger
and fear

They’ll call him a monster
and knowing what he’s done,
I won’t be able to say they’re wrong

III
Sympathizers will say that the divorce
messed him up somehow
or that he inherited our mother’s mental illness
or that he played too many first person shooters –
which is just ******* stupid

Lying on the hotel bed,
I nakedly examined the ceiling
mapping out the distance between water stains
like a cartographer

The last time he called me
he was in tears,
because some ****** from his school
beat him to a pulp
and shoved his face in dog ****

I can’t help but dwell
on something I said to him that night:

“People like that don’t change
they become ******* adults
and keep kicking people around
because they can
Because they’re rich and we’re poor
and they don’t want to see people like us
we remind them that the world isn't perfect
and doesn't revolve around them”

I don’t want to believe
that I planted the seed,
that the one time he listened to me –

IV
Six people died
most of them, kids no older than seventeen
one teacher, and a janitor - tagged by a stray bullet
two kids have been in critical condition
for the last three days

He must have been terrified
in those last moments
before the cops riddled him with holes

He must have regretted it
or at least regretted
not having an escape plan

He never did think things through
unlike me,
connecting the countries on the ceiling
drawing imaginary lines
of cause and effect
and trying to figure out what it means
to be a big brother
in the absence of a little one

Lee was posted up in in usual spot
back by the stacks,
with his phone on life support.
Its umbilical cord was knotted up like a nest,
and held together by electrical tape.

It sat next to his vape
box and a stack of books
about the GED, twenty-fist century
side hustles and back issues of Ebony.

People come in and out of the library
and everyone says hi to Lee,
He is the man to see,
He asks about their lives and gives sage advice –
How you been, my man?
How’s the kids doin’, girl?
How’s married life treatin’ you, my dude?

My man, you gotta do this.
Babygirl, look into that.
Don’t wear your hat like that,
Boy, ya look silly.

Lee lives in a van
that he parks nearby
so he can job-hunt on the free wifi
even when the place is closed.

If you feel sorry for me, don’t
says Lee
I’m the freest now I’ll ever be,
so, don’t you dare take pity on me
I’m doing all I can do,
being all I can be.

Everything’s  temporary.
Tomorrow I could be you,
you could be me
we’re just one bad day,
one scratch-off lottery ticket away
from swapping places, my man.

Yeah, I live in that van
parked outside the library
but if you think I’m sad,
you’re thinking wrong,

Won’t see me moping, or doping
floating along
you won’t see me frowning,
or drowning,
singing a sad song.

I’m happy with all that I got
who wouldn’t wanna be in my spot,
I’m The King
of the Library Parking Lot.

How lonely it is
walking toward the sunset
my cell phone is dead

Semantic satiation
is when you repeat
a word or phrase
so much that it loses
all sense of meaning

Grim Milestone
sounds like the protagonist
of a paperback thriller series
by Patterson
or one of his ghosts

Grim Milestone
sounds like the title
of a Goosebumps book
about a killer street

Grim Milestone
sounds like a gloomy rock
on a lonely corner
whose only purpose in life
is to tell people
they’re on the wrong path.

Grim Milestone
Grim Milestone
Grim Milestone
Grim Milestone
Grim Milestone
Grim Milestone

I keep thinking
that maybe, if I say enough
my heart will ache less at the words
when we pass the next one

Scraping off
The smiling Santa Claus faces
Dim hope fading
With each metallic fleck
Flicked onto the kitchen floor

Yet, she will buy more
Always more
And always the same numbers
On the gas station tickets
She buys with a bag of chips

And gas-station humus
With gas-station pop,
In a gas-station cup -
Too large to hold in one hand -
That she fills to the brim

With hope
She never lets herself
Get to empty
She fills her soul with
Perpetual certainty
That one day, she’s gotta win
She’s just gotta

So she plays the game
Plays the odds
Fills her cup
Fills up her tank

Drives to two, three, four
Thankless jobs
And never lets her soul
Get to empty

She’s just gotta win
Fate has gotta give in
To her sheer ambition,

She knows it in her bones
Maybe not this time,
or next time
…or the time after

But soon
…definitely soon

I killed Jehovah.
Now slay your Jabberwocky
only then - true peace.

Remember that chick
who pulled her hair back in a ponytail
had glasses
and wore ripped jeans
that she Sharpied murals on
out of boredom?

You’d see her in class sometimes
mumbling to herself
and doodling
while the teacher droned on
about the scientific method.

She always made you curious
but you could never get close enough
to hear what she was saying
or see what she was writing.

She promised herself that one day
she’d keep a diary
to keep track of the truth
but every time she tried
it turned into a collection of
half-thought-poems
and half-drawings of half-things
half-human and half-something else.

Never autobiographical
never the truth.

She seemed like the kind of girl
who is a self proclaimed vegan
scrawny little thing
with ex-hippie parents
like if you ever talked to her
she would be all in for face
about “going green man.”

So she took you by surprise
when she beat the fattest kid in the class
at that hot-dog eating contest
that chubby ******* didn’t stand a chance.

She thinks
the truth is just the lie
that you tell yourself the most often.

People called her “book-smart”
because she wore glasses
and was bad at math.
But she wasn’t really,
she was people-smart
in the way a scientist is rat-smart.

She’d sit on the swings at recess
and watch people
her eyes were concerned
like there was something they had
that she lacked.

Her locker was always empty
she took everything home
every night
she left
no residue
no aftermath
no memory behind.

She dreamed of living out of her car
and opening a coffeeshop
and being free.

She knew she was destined
to prove there was no such thing as destiny.
That we make our own reality.

And all of this you found
endearing and admirable.

Remember her?

…of course you wouldn’t.

You would have her more like this:

That weird nerd who doesn’t talk to anyone.
has long hair and draws on his pants,
is awkward in every conceivable way
- and possibly gay.

He spends all day in his notebook,
writing who-knows-what.
Who cares -

- about what his dreams were?
He was just another background character in your life.

There was one time you cheered him on,
at the hot-dog eating contest.
The only time you ever touched his hand
was to give him a high five for that.

You always pitted him.
silently.
Never out loud.

She was there.
Hiding behind his eyes.
And she loved you.
As much as one could love someone in seventh grade.

But you never loved her.
You couldn’t have.

She didn’t even know she existed yet.

My father made me a makeshift dollhouse
one year for Christmas.
It sits in my room now, having been untouched for years.
It's cheaply made from a recycled dresser's wood
The insides are bare, lacking furniture.
When it's obvious flaws are ignored
it's sort of perfect.

Like it's patheticness has some charm.
I can't help but think that it is the perfect metaphor
for my family.

I glance out of my driver’s side window
and see a boy
trudging miserably down the sidewalk
his essence radiating awkwardness
this long haired kid, maybe twelve years old
or just turned thirteen
wore hand me down boots that are too big for his feet,
ripped jeans, and a bookbag slung across his shoulder
in the dying days of July
whispering under his breath
maybe reciting poetry
or telling himself a story

And I honestly think
if time is fluid, like the oceans
like the monks say
then maybe I’m glancing over as a wave breaks
and I’m looking at myself
I couldn’t tell you how many times
I made that journey on foot
my heels throbbing, my legs begging to be broken
my hitchhiker’s thumb, had given up all hope at that point

I think about giving myself a ride
to wherever I may be going
but then I remember all the lessons I’ve learned
from time-travel movies
the one universal rule being not to meddle with the past
something about a butterfly’s wings flapping in Beijing
and a tsunami in New Orleans
or whatever
so, instead I honk my horn
and the traffic light turns green

I watch the boy, who might have been a younger me
in some distant past,
look on with curious anger as the cars pass
for a moment
then return to the story already in progress

he grows tinier and tinier
in my rear view mirror
until he is yesterday again

Once upon a time
This was known as "the river of many fish"
We are told this as children
like it's a fairytale
our parents, trying not to laugh
as they tell us of a time
long before their own
when this was the place to be
If you wanted to be somebody
you came to the town with the name you can't pronounce
and you could have your American Dream
Newly free men and women
arrived early and bright at our train station
their sleeves rolled up and heads held high
ready to kickstart their lives.
The gears of industry were turning here
in the land of wine and covered bridges.
Once upon a time
there was a trainwreck here
a lot of people lost their lives
even more lost their way
as time rusted over the wheels of progress
and our water
once so full of hope and prosperity
caught fire and burned for miles in all directions
scorching the water, and suffocating the fish
Today
this is "the river of much pollution"
We have always known it as such
A town were depression is both
a hereditary emotional and economic condition
Where pessimism is our only tradition
The train station no longer operates
The free man's grandchildren's children are up before the birds
trying to find a way to kickstart their high
chasing the American Delusion
"Ashtabula does not have a drug problem"
The police told a friend of mine
as her two year old daughter looked on curiously
at a strung out stranger who wandered into their home
and took their bathroom hostage for two hours
He shook uncontrollably
His eyes overflowing with emptiness
By the time the cops showed up, he was long gone
tossed back into the river
The fish in this water have nothing to lose
If evolution is true, we can sprout legs and lungs
crawl onto dry land and breathe
but the current prevents it here
It's hard to see the glass as half full
when you can't drink the water
I suppose we could drink the wine instead
and stumble inside of a bridge
seeking shelter from the toxic rain

It's long drive on this highway
The window creaks its jagged way down
I breathe in the new air
for the first time in months

George Watsky is building
his Cardboard Castles in my stereo
On repeat-

I think of Emerson
On repeat-
Skip-
On repeat-
I think -
I feel like his transparent eyeball
Repeat-
His eyeball-
I  begin to understand
what has always seemed
a clumsy metaphor

I begin to feel -
one with everything
Skip-
everyone is love
Repeat
Love
Every-Everyone is me
And you
Skip-
Everyone is all I need.
Repeat
I am all I need
And you -

I don't need anything
Except for -
-more road
-more time
-more gas

the CD starts skip-skip words
Hopping - lines
Reminding me
Of finite fuel
Repeat-
finite time
with work looming just hours away
Repeat-
death, just decades away

Then, as if responding to my overturned thoughts
My ****** speakers belt out:

Hey ******* -
The sun is shining

Old gentle vague dark sea
stars uncoffined above
my drummer grave
blind of age,
meet Mr. Numb Feelgood
he is dying - chasing smoke,  
following a blind parade
wanderin’ anywhere forked like Yes
at every dusty, homely, strange-eyed landmark
until driven deep down dead

Dear old diamonds,
my sleepy southern song spell fades ,
my past was a young clown
dancing, swingin' my magic heels
raging and cursing death’s grip on time

Now, I feel that morning’s fierce burn
vanishing into a tambourine memory
and I’m caught madly dreaming
against the ragged anywhere
to return green tomorrow

Remember that chick
who pulled her hair back in a ponytail
had glasses
and wore ripped jeans
that she Sharpied murals on
out of boredom.

You’d see her in class sometimes
mumbling to herself
and doodling
while the teacher droned on
about the scientific method
and she always made you curious
but you could never get close enough
to hear what she was saying
or see what she was writing.

She promised herself that one day
she’d keep a diary
to keep track of the truth
but every time she tried
it turned into a collection of
half-thought-poems
and half-drawings of half-things
half-human and half-something else.

Never autobiographical
never the truth.

She seemed like the kind of girl
who is a self proclaimed vegan
scrawny little thing
with ex-hippie parents
like if you ever talked to her
she would be all in for face
about “going green man.”

So she took you by surprise
when she beat the fattest kid in the class
at that hot-dog eating contest
that chubby ******* didn’t stand a chance.

She told me one day
that she thinks
the truth is just the lie
that you tell yourself the most often.

People called her “book-smart”
because she wore glasses
and was bad at math.
But she wasn’t really.

She was people-smart
in the way a scientist is rat-smart.

She’d sit on the swings at recess
and watch people
her eyes were concerned
like there was something they had
that she lacked.

Her locker was always empty
she took everything home
every night
she left
no residue
no aftermath
no memory behind.

She dreamed of living out of her car
and opening a coffeeshop
and being free.

She knew she was destined
to prove there was no such thing as destiny.
That we make our own reality.

And all of this you found
endearing and admirable.

Remember that chick?

...of course you don't.

Autopoiesis.
Autocorrect: Autopsies?
Such a pessimist.

I'm lifted.
Floating to the place where I'm just high enough off of the ground to feel the boundless freedom
and just low enough that coming down won't hurt me a bit.
I'm seven again.
On the playground where me and my schoolyard buddies used to play tag.
I would have never imagined in my youth that two of those kids would be gone
by my senior year of high school.
None of that matters now.
Randy is seven too, and he doesn't even know what alcohol is yet.
Sarah is six again, and has yet to know that your heart can be broken.
Dan is "it", and all the girls are running from him.
but this was a time before the needle and before the germ.
Back than they ran from him because he was "it",
now they run from him because they don't wanna catch "it".
No one would have guessed it,
That this was our fate.
That we would ever grow older.
That we would ever grow up.
That five students of our graduating class would be mothers.
That two of my best friends would be dead.
None of that matters now,
I'm seven again.
We're playing tag.
The swingset is a safe zone.
No one can touch me here.

The only thing I like
about nights like this
is that it gets so dark
and the skies are so clear
that they look like
the little boy who trapped us all here
decided to have mercy
and pin-***** little tiny airholes
in the lid of our mason jar

but there aren’t enough
to make a difference

Her lit cigarette burns
so brightly from the porch
against the darkness
like a lighthouse
...or a bug zapper

I don’t see how anyone
can smoke at a time like this
when the air is so heavy
it’s like breathing cement

everybody’s angel bodies
find happening midnight
on Kansas pavements
hipsters’ motherwords are wholely robed by time
instant everything is ordinary
buggered city  immortals --
annoyed, parentless, marijuana everymans
swiftly digging unknown eternity
groaning strange in the long mysterious night
roaring, vibrating kindness
from their holy tongues
blazing inner hideous human gold
draining ***** forever
draining everything
forever -
Moloch, Buddha, Abyss
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

hiding in plain sight
a moon-flower in full bloom
gotta share this -click-

hey there, i am a
Buddhist existentialist
ask me anything

the little bird shouts
in a sea of other birds
all we hear is -tweet-

I couldn’t tell you when I started doing it
Or why.
As far as I know it’s always been a part of me
My parents were certain it was a phase.
That this, like my nonexistent terrible twos,
would come and go
and the people in supermarkets would stop staring.
I know now how odd it looks.
I don’t blame them.
Imagine a miniature me, burning a hole in the floor
pacing back and forth
Hands clenched around an action figure
Mumbling nonsense to no one in particular.
Perhaps, they’d assume, to the toy in my hands
that my eyes were strictly fixed to.
“Talking to myself”
They called it.
Like I was crazy.
“Quit talking to yourself!”
My step mother would slap the toy out of my hand.
“You’re a big boy now, stop it!”
Maybe I would have if she took time to talk to me without screaming
or if my father were home enough to see how much she hated me.
How she Isolated me from her children,
the very ones who grew up to hate her more then I ever would.
But to me, it wasn’t something strange or crazy at all.
It was – is – kind of like watching T.V.
only more interactive.
I would tell myself a story.
The action figure, or whatever, was like an actor – a template.
For anyone I wanted to create.
The world around me would melt into static,
and I’d play both audience and performer
Putting on shows full of fantasy and magic.
Adventure and romance.
Tragedy and madness.
My own private little theater of distractions.
The older I got,
the smaller my actor,
and more private my performances became
until my action figure became a pair of toenail clippers.
Small enough to be hidden in my pocket
If I had to descend into the real world without any given notice.
The way I acted,
when someone walked in on me
You’d assume I was doing something naughty
and maybe I was.
Maybe it was wrong to indulge in the imaginary,
to live for fiction
but I didn’t care.
It was the one world I didn’t have to share.
I eventually would,
But I liked that I didn’t have to.

When I started writing these crazy stories down on paper
English teachers took notice,
and saw in me,
an apprentice.
Someone who could live their long forgotten dreams of being…
I don’t know.
I don’t think they did either.
They taught me the mechanics,
Putting names to the concepts I had known and used for years
that’s how I came to writing and to poetry.
How I became what I always was,and never will be again:
A little kid, telling  a story,
with indifference to the audience,
or lack thereof.
For no other reason,then to escape everything
If only in the moments when no one is watching.
Every now and again,
I still like to slip away from the crowd,
pull out my toenail clippers from my right front pocket
and see what’s playing.
I know, I may look and sound crazy
talking to myself over here,
and maybe I am.
But at least it’s not a boring conversation

It's not you, It's me.
No - you know what, it IS you.

You can't keep coming around like this.
It was okay at first, but we had our fun,
had a couple snowball fights, and hot coco nights
but you and I both know it's run it's course.
We're over.
In fact, honestly, you overstayed your welcome this time.

What do I mean?
I mean, you're cold, you're bitter, your relentless and pushy.
I couldn't take it anymore.
And when you coming back like this every other week, honestly,
It makes me consider moving.
You're like a stalker.

Oh her? Yeah, that's my new season.
She's nice, warm, and beautiful.
But she's shy,
she's not going to come back out until you leave.
So, you should go.

Look maybe we can try this again
In a year or so - maybe.
Just give me some time.

I don't miss you yet.

Sometimes I muse about the strangers in my life.
I like to pretend that some of them have telepathy like radio
and when they see me as they always do,
in the commons at the school,
jogging past me on the sidewalk,
or in the polite but awkward silence of the elevator,
I wonder if I intrude upon their fuzzy bubble of mid-morning consciousness.  
If my inappropriate thoughts make their way through the static of theirs.

I almost want to apologize to the woman who jogged passed me this morning.
She didn’t need to know that I scratched my nuts
sniffed my hand,
and the scent of that ball-sweat brought me back a time when the room reeked of sin,
in the afterglow of rough ***, and that it made me miss
Her.

And that classmate didn’t need to know
that I secretly hoped the girl
that they keep talking about on the news would just show up dead,
so I don’t have to hear about it anymore.
Or the guy I just shared the mandatory hellos with,
if only he knew that just before we talked I was pondering the best way to induce mass hysteria
- a plan involving a *** of one dollar bills and LSD -
not that I’d ever actually put it into action.
Chaos is just fun to think about sometimes, I think.

And now I’m thinking of how weird it would be,
if one of these people tuned in right now and overheard me musing about them.
Woah…that’s so meta.

I gotta write this **** down.

High up on the far back wall
in the back of the factory
where I sell my free time
is a constellation of dirt, chipped paint
and cobwebs
forming the shape
of a bear
lounging in a hammock

I have coworkers who insist
that it's a monkey,
trapped in a net
but they are wrong.
It's clearly a bear

Ursa Somniculosa,
or, as the layman may call it
the Little Napper

No matter where I am on the floor,
I can see him hanging there in his hammock
enjoying his perpetual vacation
maybe sipping on a nice tall beer
soaking up the sun -

not being a trapped monkey
like all of us down here

There is always a breeze here
and there’s a white gazebo
in the shade of the house
it is all as perfect
as it would appear
to Norman Rockwell
In the back, there’s a flowerbed
the names of the flowers, I don’t recall
and perhaps
never knew;
but the names on the headstones that sleep there
I’ve always known
and I will remember them
until my name is worked into a rock as well
Over here used to be
nothing,
but now there is
a taller than tall apple tree
as old as I am
and twice as wise
I come here sometimes when
life gets too congested and I
need to breathe
or sometimes just when
I have nothing else to do
but think and write about things
I don’t know

I sit back in the gazebo
pretending to admire the comforting cornfield’s endlessness
like the simple man I sometimes wish I was
I imagine I believe in God
or at least, Heaven
and pretend to feel them looking down at me
I smile at myself
on their behalf
I think about all the years
my grandpa spent building that house
and the stories he told me, my father,
about the kind of mother she was
and I think it would make them happy
to know that someone hasn’t forgotten
about the place that,
for some reason, I can’t quite figure out,
always has this breeze

We are a generation
raised by children
raised by children.

Growing up *****.
Maybe that’s why,
we’ve been avoiding it for so long,
and passing down lessons
on how to fake it.

He was seventeen.
His mistakes were still somewhere down the road
he so relentlessly trudged through the heavy weather
after storming out of his father’s house,
eager for independence.
Unsure what that meant.

He is my father -
responsible for all that I knew for sure as stable.
Yet, our table was held up by coasters
and we had a few too many late nights
sitting on milk crates
around a kerosene heater.
Things were never steady enough
to worry about them falling apart.

No one is perfect.
Although, I thought he was,
and he wanted to be
he just didn’t know how.

No one does.

This is the man who signed me up
for an in school group therapy session
in second grade
because it would get me out of class for a half an hour -
good lookin' out, Pops.

I learned from him, that life is about those little things.
There was this rule in his car about not leaving
until a good song is done playing on the radio.
It doesn’t matter what you’re late for
the world can wait.

I also learned from watching him
that life will **** your spirit.
That debt will eat you alive
only if you let it.
If you wait long enough, it’ll go into collections
eventually they will stop calling
and that’s all you really want.

I learned that no matter how bad you have it.
You can always afford to show compassion.
I learned that people will walk all over you.
That doesn’t mean you should stop.

But compassion takes its toll.
Years of chronic depression skewed my view of him.
At fourteen years old I became comfortable with the idea
that I might one day walk in on my dad hanging from a ceiling fan.
My only reassurance
was when he told me
“I won’t **** myself…I’m afraid it would hurt too much.”

I learned that love fades and sometimes stops cold
but that doesn’t mean you should give up on it.
I learned that sometimes there’s a good reason
to suffer through a bad marriage.
But once that reason doesn’t hold true
it’s time to break away, for your own sanity -
even that means breaking a heart in the process.

Then my Mother came back into the picture
slashing through his Achilles’ heel.
Watching my father fall was not an easy thing to see
but this wasn’t just my Mother’s doing
this was years in the making.
This was a poorly built Janga tower.
This was just a matter of time.

My sister told me,
in a rare moment of bonding
on stormy night,
while stuck at a Denny’s,
that she thinks it started
when his best friend died
a whole lifetime ago.

She shared stories about her memories of him
She got to see him play
and laugh because he felt like laughing
and not just to forget he has reasons to cry.
I envy her for that.

To me this was the man he'd always been
but in these weakest moments,
I saw myself.
For the first time in my life,
I truly don't want to be like him.
It hurts to admit that.

A man once said
that once you realize your parents aren’t perfect
you become an adolescent,
when you forgive them, you become an adult,
and when you forgive yourself
you become wise.

I feel no need to forgive my father.
I accept that he is human
and that he didn’t teach me the things he didn’t know.
What I did learn from him are the important things:
the value of compassion,
the pain of regret,
the unconditional love of a parent,
and most importantly
that stability is an expensive illusion
and bad things happen
to those who take theirs for granted.

On cement pillows
resting for revolution
nearby, the grass grows

Sitting a corner booth by herself,
sipping on a Long Island Iced Tea
and reading Keats.
Hands down, she's the most
captivating person in this bar.

Fingertips calloused, and hands nicked and scraped
like she'd been in a fight with experience
and went down swinging.
Eased into her seat like slipping naked into a hot bath.
Smiled with all her teeth
like no one was looking.

Left her phone at home,
in pieces on the kitchen floor.
Tonight was the night she was going to forget all about the custody battle
the bill collectors
the late night fights about who was right
and who was left in the room with all this shattered glass to clean  up
the long sobbing nights with her pillow and her secret shame
the regret for time poorly spent looking for love in bars and cold blue eyes
the years that separated her from twenty-two –  when she was young and delusionally happy.

With her body language, she unknowingly spoke to me:
Tonight, I came to drink and dance.
Don't bother me with pick up lines.
Pick up artists, go find another canvas.
Mine's been painted over plenty.
I don't have the time to save anymore white knights from their mother's ***.
That fairytale story always ends in Shakespearean tragedy.
Plus, the **** horse leaves scuff marks on the dance floor.

I take one last sip
and slip the bartender an extra twenty-
tonight the nightingale drinks for free.

I leave before she can thank me.

The sensitive arch of her soul
tickles with longing
for reunion with fresh cut Spring grass

The dark and humid trappings of unnatural comfort,
man-made warmth for a bitter season,
makes her free-sprinting spirit claustrophobic

And although she can see the gleaming snow for miles
and can appreciate the appeal of a nice blanket
She hates shoes,
how heavy they can become on long walks -
a soggy burden in the name of convenience

She sees the grass peaking out form under it's Winter covers
and her Nike wings twitch with anticipation
for a sweet chance to shed superfluous layers

Until then
She blues dances in the dark
looking for a faint spark
and in her dreams, she runs
through wild fires

If experience has taught me anything (an unlikely assumption)
it is that if a woman ever tells you
-straight up-
that she’s a *****
she is not lying.
this advice is not at all useful.
at least; it hasn’t been for me
since every single time it happens
I insist that she’s just got low self esteem
or she’s  joking
or she’s just had one of those days.
But a few months to a year later,
I find myself on the blindside of the road
bags barely packed
rushed out with the trash
in shock and agreement.
But see,
at least for me,
It’s hard to believe someone
when you’re in love -
which is not unlike losing your glasses
and sort of seeing blurs of people
not nearly as clear as you would with sober eyes.
I don’t expect anyone to heed my warning
I believe it even less than you do
to be honest.
I’m just a little drunk
and in a funk
and thinking way too much,
as I’m prone to do from time to time
in bars like this.
So, don’t pay me any mind
or do
I don’t care, really
how’d we get on this topic, anyway?

The only thing I like
about nights like this
is that it gets so dark
and the skies are so clear
that they look like
the little boy who trapped us all here
decided to have mercy
and pin-***** little tiny airholes
in the lid of our mason jar

but there aren’t enough
to make a difference

Her lit cigarette burns
so brightly from the porch
against the darkness
it reminds me of a lighthouse
...or a bug zapper.

I don’t see how anyone
can smoke at a time like this
when the air is so heavy
it’s like breathing cement.

The campfire is whispering
something about...memories?
I can't hear it very well
and I don't speak it's language.

The fireflies are out tonight.
I watch the children chasing them
they blink in and out of existence
like little teleporting fairies -
Proof that the little boy who trapped us all here
has not yet succeeded
in snuffing out all of the magic.

One child is sitting away from the group.
swinging alone
carving imperfect circles
with her toes
into the dirt below.
She is staring up at the stars
she looks - concerned.
I cannot help but
wonder what she's thinking.

The campfire is dying.
I watch it gasp for air a few last times
before putting it out of it's misery.

From the prompt: The End Of Monsters

“Nobody asks why the chimera needs killing.
It’s a lone thing – a wrongness,
a distortion wandering in from elsewhere
burning the straight plowed fields of us”
- E. Rose Sims (On Cartography and Dissection)

He took his vorpol sword in hand
and with it, slayed the last Jabberwock.
Claimed its head, and placed it on a mantel,
in between Grendel’s arm, and the Minotaur’s horn -
Trophies of his conquests.

He told himself that he was making the world safer.
Still, that didn’t stop the nightmares.
The memories of the screams let out by the faun
as he plunged his dagger into its neck.

The way the chimera begged to be spared,
in is best human accent, before he thought to cut out its tongue:
“Please, no ****. Who will look for my family?”
“No mercy, not in this world.” He tells himself.
“Monsters need to be killed.”

He told himself that he was the great Dragonslayer.
The adventurer.
Eliminating the native threats
so that his people can safely claim the land.

Now that his deed is done,
the final monster, slain.
Our hero hangs his vorpol sword up on the wall.

Yet, he lies awake at night
unable to sleep,
he stares up at the stars.

He dwells on a bone chilling thought -
that maybe somewhere in a distant land
there is a map being made of his home town
and some undiscovered other
has labeled it -
“Here Be Monsters”.

Silver-bearded ex-hippie
endless pony-tail
fedora and wise eyes.
I wonder if he writes
like Ginsberg -
or at all.
I decide that he should.
He has stories to tell, this man.
He looks like a professor I had one semester
a lifetime ago.

My first memory is of dying.
I felt like I'd lived a full life
And now I was gladly fading away.
My first last words were
"Tell Elizabeth I love her"
I don't remember knowing Elizabeth.
I love her though, or at least I did in that moment.

The next thing I recall is being twelve
Sitting on the toilet in the girls' room,
thinking to myself:
"It looks like there was a war in my ******"
I sat in there by myself until the last bell
Too embarrassed to face the classroom of sharks
With their hungry eyes fixed on me - bleeding in the water.

Which makes me think of another first -
I was eighteen, never smoked **** or even drank ***** before.
"Son, there's a time and place for everything - and that's college"
my dad always said. So I took his advice.
I ate like 3 of those mushrooms.
I saw music, like music notes, coming out out the stereo.
They tasted like stars - like longing and hope.

Like how felt outside of that reststop in North Dakota.
When I ran away from the boarding school with Sofia.
We sat there on that bench in the rain.
Hand in hand - a truest love we would let no adult tell us wasn't real.
We were whole in that moment.
A wholeness I'd never know again.
One time, after going down on me
She told me I tasted like music.
I laughed out loud
I didn't know why.

She broke my heart.
I was a business tycoon,
A man of great wealth
I could have anyone I wanted,
but not her.  
She didn't know what she wanted. She needed guidance.
So I found her, and we both got what we really wanted.
I always get what I want...
...I don't like this memory.

I was one hundred and thirty seven
Days sober.
When I got the news.
My only daughter -
Barely a woman.
My fragile little doll -
Was ripped to pieces  by monsters.
No reason.
Just evil being evil
No one can deny who they really are for too long.
Some people are serial killers,
Some are heroes,  
Some are alcoholics.

I don't remember much about that night.
I woke up the next day,
and I was 21 - officially.
I'd probably have felt better if I wasn't so hungover.

I'd puked in the store's bathroom.
My nerves were shot.
My body was shaking.
I couldn't believe what just happened
- this was just a part time job to pay off student loans.
This Is not the **** I signed up for-
The guy came in - skimask and all, like out of a ******* movie -
His gun pointed directly at my head.
demanding all of the money in the register.
I reached for the panic button, all subtle like they taught us in that half hour seminar...

"You press threat button kid, you die today - now give me the money and this will all be over soon -"
I recall saying in the most macho voice I could muster.
I didn't want to shoot her. Hell, she looked cute, I'd rather date her.
But that would be another life.
One I can't afford to ponder.
This was the reality.
I had to do this -
She had what I wanted - what I needed.
It's dog eat dog out here.

"Good girl"
Shadow dropped the bone at my feet.
I picked it up and tossed it back into the endless grass
As it spun like boomerang in the air -
For some reason, couldn't tell you why,  I thought about Frankenstein's Monster.

Some parts are really fuzzy,
I hold it close to me - the fuzzy parts against my skin.
It's a quilt blanket, stitched together of pieces and parts of found cloth.
My father made it for me.
My very last first birthday gift.
I cocoon myself in it like a womb.

I can’t remember
exactly what we had been fighting about.
All I know is this was the moment I started to ask myself
why I had fallen in love with you,
or even if.

I think I was complaining about algorithms
and how I didn’t understand them
and how math must have been invented by sadists.
You looked over my shoulder
and laughed at me.
That’s college math? That’s so easy. You must be *******.
Ok, that’s not exactly what you said
but that’s what I heard.
So I shot back with an
If it’s so easy how come you’re not doing it?

An hour later,
after egos and knuckles were bruised
upon the basement walls
and things were said that were meant
but not to be heard aloud
and we both had time to calm down.
I came back down stairs
and heard you sobbing in our bathroom.
I opened the door to see you
naked and shamed -
razor blade in hand
and your left leg
leaked thick and red
hiding the pattern of
horizontal slices
what would become ugly set of scars.

I felt many things in that moment:
pity, anger, guilt, and confusion.
Mostly I was just asking myself
why I had fallen in love with someone so clearly wounded -
and I hated how repulsed
I was by you that night.
I couldn’t stop thinking about how selfish you were.
How you clearly overreacted -
and how there was no way I’d win this argument.

Under the mask of the comforting boyfriend,
I sat beside you in silence.
I held your hand.
There was an itch in my throat
from uncomfortable words.
I swallowed them
and kept rubbing your back,
Instead I lied:
I told you we would be fine
that this didn’t change everything

that I didn’t hate you now.

if the world was ending in 7 days -
nobody else knows it
but there's nothing anyone can do to stop it
how do you want to spend your last week on earth?

***?! Who is this?

sorry [sadface emoji]

...
I'd go looting.
break into stores, steal TVs, printers,
whatev I can get my hands on

why?
i mean, what's the point?

The **** of it.
Never been looting before
You?

nope, never been looting.

I meant, what would you do with your last week?

i dunno
that's why i'm taking suggestions

Wake up earlier

Spend less time online
Spend more time outside
Every day, do something that scares you

Take more deep breaths
Realize you can't control certain things
Dance naked to 90s music when no one else is home

Meet new people
Meet old people – they have better stories
Listen to more people's stories
Learn to see things from different angles
Learn to look for Better Angels

Walk more
Drink more water
Drink less caffeine
Don't leave the coffeepot on when you leave the house
Be more aware of your bad habits
Be more patient with others' bad habits

Seek something every day
- even if you don't find what you're looking for,
at least you won't have wasted the day

Don't start smoking – despite what you may have heard
about what it does for stress
Worry less -
about what you can change
Change what you can
Stop writing cliches

Stop blaming your inaction on your home town
or your parents
or your emotional instability
Take responsibility for your inaction

Read more often –
you have books you haven't touched, ever
Write by the water –
the white noise of river helps you think

Return more favors –
people have been kind to you
Be kind to more people

Don't small talk –
small talk is for small minds
Don't ruin a good conversation by talking too much
Make something every day
(art, love, decisions, etc)

Go to bed earlier

Found on the beach this morning
by New Floridian tribesman
were sea-softened pieces
of the torch
the stone lady held
ages ago
before we found out
that freedom was just as imaginary
as any other silly idea we've ever had.

They propped them up
against what was left of the old Mouse-Man monument
their edges touching in a way
so that they may together provide shade
to any passing child of the wasteland.