They were just poems.
Took me like five minutes.*

Yeah, but did you read them?
Do you understand how many
words are beneath the ones you saw
on the page?

The black, iron God arm punched
placid-blanched clouds, and dangled
cat cable down to lemon-vested men
with chalkboard faces.
Basic algebra, today's date, daily
syllabi, God-fearing anecdotes,
and the evils of homosexuality.
Fornicating with other dudes
is like moving Jesus' rock
with your ******'d *****.
Let sleeping dieties die.
We find them buried deep beneath
**** ceramics by T.V. criminals,
rapists, murderers, buzzers, free-
lovers, angelheaded sweethearts.
They have nearly four dollar souls,
barely enough for a Wilpo dinner
at Hepburn Diner. #2 breakfast
with one cup of Columbian cartel
coffee with a pinch of whole milk
to take the edge off, so he won't
be gripping the booth vinyl when
a "freedom" flash cop car passes.
Police cruisers are just bigger bicycles
that we're afraid of, sporting cereal
box baseball cards in the spokes.
Cops were the kids that needed help
their first time fresh off training
wheels. Training academy training
them for low-speed cat chases through
flower beds.
Sweet daffodil, you didn't have to die
like this. You could've drank straight
from the pitcher at a stranger's dinner
party potluck, seen the guts of a New
York highrise, shared the coke left
beneath a woman's botched nose job.
You could have been more than this.
You could have been more.
You could have been.
You could have.
You could.
You.
You, daffodil, stamen-down
in Miracle Gro and dog ****

could have been more.

Fact: I rarely ever
forget. I remember everything
fairly intensely.
                            “Rest easy,
friends,” I reassured every
face in reach. “Everything’s
fine.” I relaxed externally,
fainted internally. Red explosions
filled indigo rooms every
few inhales. Rational explanation
fell into ruins.
                         “Exits.
Find intact, reachable exits
first,” I reminded, edging
finally into reality. Each
face I read echoed
fear.


        Incendiary remarks excited
fate; I remember everything.

The esophageal chill of fresh rain paired
with Bozek's tire stove undertones
slipped through the chain link tennis court.
Love all, love-fifteen, love-thirty, love-forty, game.
I love you, service box Suns, fault one fault lines,
Grandma's crochet centerpiece. Cornucopia coping
with deuce, add.  in, deuce, add. out, deuce,
you get it. Lost ***** in the transformer pen beside
the playground where I watched my classmates
fall off the monkey bars and expose themselves daily.
Racket strings like pantyhose girls surrounding
the sink applying lipstick and stabbing each other dead.
They don't need monkey bars to show off.
Slice serve pizza at Pudgies to kids barely making it.
Grades lower than the pepperoni from the seedy
gas station they sit in and thumb-spike quarters
into each other's knuckles. The "grown-ups"
buy instant lottery and feverishly **** the tickets
with misplaced pennies, and then toss the moneywastes
when they score a free ticket. Free ticket to what?
The tennis match in Addison so far away?
A clear view through chain link?
A wet, elm bench some kid made in shop class?
An alternative to what we waste our lives on?
******, marijuana, drinking at the basketball court, and
flicking cigarette filters into Berger Lake like we're hot ****.
We are ****, not the ****.
Just ****.

Candy canes like flowers sprouted
up and out of sandy plains and
Santa landed squarely, barely
visible.

             My head contains
confessions, but my heart is not
cathartic, and when tears impress
complexion marks like artists' pens
against my face, they start to blend.

                                                        But
Rudolph never pulled a sleigh of
mayors to the capitol, and
Blitzen never severed several
thousand Native captives' calls,
'cause elves are made like Cherokee:
with bones, and eyes, and hearts, and backs that
bleed when they are stabbed.

Funny, isn't it?
That a woman no more than a knee-high coffee table and a few copies
of National Geographic away from me
is holding a cell phone in one hand
and an apple in the other.
One will eventually **** her,
and the other will make sure a doctor
isn't around when it happens.

Is it my counter-counterclockwise
mind wasting time? Elbows
on the dining table pulling my angel
hair into grid-like times tables.
I’m invested in this non-conversation
table. Ich liebe dich, mein Freund.
I’ve got commitment issues and four-ply
tissues for when my eye lashes start
peeling apart. My grandpa died in 2005
and I’m all but over it. I’m holding
his kite string, but the reel is almost done,
like VHS tapes rewound then fast-forwarded
to the good times. Power Ranger birthday
and everyone’s wearing dunce caps
with elastic chin straps ‘til they snap.
Snap! Snap! Snap me back to three-years-old,
and I’m singing in a Robin costume
‘cause I knew I’d always be second best.
I had an identity crisis around fourteen,
so I stopped buying sunglasses
because I found myself in other
peoples’ shadows. But now the only shadows
they’re casting are the ones from their headstones
and from the fields of flowers cradling
them like they once cradled me.

Fast-forward, I’m genuflecting in gym shorts
before myself in a mirror smudged with plum
felt. And I seem small compared to my life
spelled out in Expo marker markings.