just about a year ago
you were unpacking my delusional suitcase

it was a carry-on

i had thought
i had just gotten back from hollywood
i had just come back to something good

i dreamt you were unpacking my delusional suitcase
i had thought you were saying:

"come to, un-be-comely
come to my loneliness
you'll get hired

come along to my loneliness
come around to my loneliness

you'll talk too much and
you'll get nowhere"

just about a year ago
i had thought i had come back
to something good

it was a carry-on
it didn't last long

i met him in 1989 in a study hall class
and haven't forgotten him since.

a month ago,
i found out he had died in 2014.

the girls liked him
he'de tell me what was playing on his walkman
so i listened, learned, put a penny in an envelope
and mailed it off to columbia house

some weeks later i received my 12 cassette tapes.

i quit eating and got creative with eyeliner.
i memorized a lot of cure lyrics and went to study hall
prepared.

the semester ended and we weren't in the same
study hall class anymore. he ended up transferring to another school.

but i still had hope.
i had memorized so many lyrics.
i had gotten my hair cut into an inverted bob
and learned how to dye it black.

it felt like anything was possible
and it felt so good.

the next year
i transfered to the other school, but he wasn't there anymore.

the year after that
i transfered to an even worse school
he was there

finally.

soon after that,
emily became his girlfriend

one day, i ran into them at the park and ride
as i was getting off the bus

we spent the night on the sidewalk
outside of emily's dad's house.
none of us were allowed to go inside,
not even emily.

but emily managed to sneak inside
and stole a jug of homemade alcohol,
which we did not call moonshine.

emily fell asleep with her head in his lap
while we talked, smoked three packs of cigarettes (all mine), and drank the homemade alcohol that her dad had made.

emily wanted to be a fashion designer.
he really believed in emily and her drawings.

the sun came up

and i caught a bus home.

we both ended up
dropping out of highschool.

names for no one
named by no one

poems about nothing
poems about everything

aren't they the same thing?

no function, no form
but now is the hour
it's how i get through
to the next one

two packs of cigarettes a day
it is getting expensive

old heartaches aren't forgotten
when nothing takes there place
and cigarettes don't pay the rent
freeform makes people stop listening
agoraphobics don't have much to write about
but need to say something
to someone

i wish i'de never met you.
all you did was hurt me in a way
that keeps on coming back, no matter how much times go by.
it was the way you looked at me,
like i was the ugliest thing that you had ever ******
and it made you feel good to let me know.
and it got worse from there, because you threw me away
and then would sporadically write to let me know
you were gone for good.
you were a total ramsay bolton type.
some days i have a memory and can't breathe or function.
i still have nightmares of you

trying to beat me to death, calling me to list off all the things that are wrong with me.

if i can't forget you, it would be great if someone would cut off your ****. sometimes i fantasize about hiring someone to do that to you in your sleep. you could wake up dickless and i could be free of you. but back to the poem:

10 and a half years haven't gotten me anywhere
i've been too old for too long

Bob Dylan
Neil Young
Rolling Stones
Leonard Cohen
Paul Westerberg

everyone is too good for them now,
especially you,
i read that in vice

they made a list of the worst musicians of all time
and all those names were on it.

Johnny Cash was on the list too.

west london fire stories
stories i can't finish
you are in this story

what's the problem called
when the sun is coming up
and you've been awake all night because
ugly sleep sleeps all day,
and the groom's ******* are
too large for his beard

someone said no to reality
someone put the greed in poverty
but what can i say, what can i say
forgot who i was long ago
don't like who i am today

my back was turned
when the rainproof cladding of grenfell tower fell
while the london fire burned

cheap, chinese, and rainproof
that's how
the rainproof cladding of grenfell tower fell

sixto rodriguez
isn't good enough for you

her faded name makes do
she has an inner wrist tattoo

someone said,
"there are a lot of uncreative people out there who have a need to express themselves"

how true
how true

west london fire stories
burning up the day,
london fires burning down and out
before they burn away

daily all day robes
and a story i can't finish
i won't make it out, there's too much
i don't want to say

so late in the day
wasting life away
unheard singing
should probably count for something
maybe today, maybe today, maybe today
so late in the day

instant coffee,
INFP, unfinished story
cheap chinese burning debris
blazing away on the bbc
so late in the day, so late in the day, so late in the day
& the day becomes another day

must be so nice to be you
always voting for justin trudeau
all your better things to do,
all the better looking women you were born to pursue

london fires burn down and out
before they burn away
& the day becomes another day
maybe today, maybe today, maybe today

i planned for the worst
and got priced out and let down
when it didn't happen

i waited for david stockman's predictions
to come true
i don't get turned on by doom ****
but it's my only chance at buying low and selling high

real estate prices keep on rising

the smiling all-cash chinese buyers at the open house
pointed their fingers at the water view of puget sound,
said something in chinese,
then laughed

it was sunny out that day, so the water was brightly lit
giving off the impression it would always be like that
or would always end up returning to that

the approximate time frame for the upcoming financial crisis always gets pushed back
so i'm still waiting