Alright so if you walk in to my bedroom
Pressed in the far corner is my bed
The headboard against the left wall
And, if you’re lying in it, the left side against an interior wall of the house
On that wall, the one on the left side of the bed, is a painting that came with the house
It is a long rectangle
I would describe its artistic value to be
Obligatory-Motel-Room-Painting
Blocks of color and weird squiggly bits
Not a picture of anything as much as a tool to bring the end table and the drapes together with the sheets
It’s on canvas stretched around a wooden frame
Nailed into the top bar of that wooden frame, dead center, is a jagged piece of metal
Normally you’d just put a nail in the wall and center that bit on the nail there you go
But this house has those paper thin walls that a nail with an ant on would tear through like Robin Hood sliding down a royal banner out a castle window with Maid Marion under his arm
So you can’t just hang the painting on the wall
But the room has crown molding
So instead of a nail in the wall
There is a string tied to the jagged piece of metal that extends up the center of the wall to the top
Where the string is tied to a fishing hook that is clipped into the crown molding

All this is to say is that sometimes when I lie in bed alone in my thoughts or otherwise
I reach my hand up and push the painting
Like a brother in the backseat being told not to touch his little sister I just kind of give it a poke
And I watch it swing from side to side
Or rather I expect to watch it swing like a marble on a string in a pendulum prop at a CEO’s desk
Side to side
Evenly
But it doesn’t
It wobbles while it sways
Like how at Disneyland
The Tea Cup Ride
The cups spin in circles while they go in circles
The painting wobbles while it sways back and forth
And I just don’t get it
Like I don’t understand at all
See I’m a smart conceited man so this gets on my nerves
And I know that if I spent my junior year of high school, first trimester, third period paying attention to Mrs. Whatever’s physics class instead of eating turkey sandwiches in the back with Sean then falling asleep that I’d be able to tell you exactly why this happens
But I got hungry at like 9am back then and I can’t help that I didn’t give a **** so I can’t explain it

And all of that was to say that I spend most of my daily energy trying to feel normal
Trying to be a sane person
Waking up all five days of the work week on time
Showering and brushing my teeth
Taking my kid to school and not forgetting to pick him back up after work
Not taking shots on my lunch breaks
And we all have the internet
And we all like poetry
So we’ve all heard the phrase “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting diff…and you know where I’m going
I’ve been in therapy since I was eight
Been on all the medications
Kept myself alive even when I didn’t want to
Worked a job long enough to get promoted a couple times
Live a real life, with real consequences
And every once in a while if I’m not looking too hard
I start to feel like a normal
Like a sane person
Like someone who is of his right mind
And then all of it gets undone by a ****** painting hanging on a string in my bedroom
Because I know what it means about me to push that painting and expect it swing every time and to every time watch in shock as it wobbles while it sways

Pop a few Bukowskis to set the day off right
And sip a little Hemingway to keep me feeling bright
Smoking on that Ginsberg, mind is opening wide

Doing lines of Robert Louis Stevenson,
and a Hookah full of Baudelaire
Ingesting Kerouac, it feels good I swear
Coleridge into my lungs, floating on thick air
Shooting up some Burroughs, my literary affair

I begin to lose sight of reality, taking some Cocteau
Tripping with the Kesey, my life is nearly through
A final hit of Huxley as transcendence I try to pursue

But old Walt Whitman, is where I say adieu.

I need one more
I need to forget a little more
I need to remember a little less
I need to remember a lot more
I just need to remember it differently
Better
The way I wrote it
The way it ends when I'm sleeping

Dear bartender
Make it a White Russian
As white as her dress would've been
One Pina Colada
Tan as the sand would've been
One more Gin and Tonic
Sparkling as her eyes
***** Cranberry
Red as her lips
A triple shot of silver tequila
As clear as my intentions

Marry me

Bartender I want to drink until I forget she said no
Bartender I want to drink until I forget I ever asked

Dear Bartender I want to drink until I remember she said yes
***** til my head rings wedding bells
Gin til my body ticks raw rice
*** til my cheeks flush honeymoon
Tequila til my ring finger itches
Whiskey until she loves me too
Whiskey until she come back
Whiskey

I tried to
write
a poem about you
but instead
I scribbled a
big, orange-ink blob
and I figured
that made
just as much sense.

Head to the body
Swallow hot toddy

A dash of narcissism

To make the throat burn
Make my insides churn

A dollop of ego

And I'm getting drunk
On your self-absorbed funk

All mixed in hot

I do it recreationally
Unconnected emotionally

We pretend we care for one another

MESSAGE GOES HERE
     BE BRIEF

Do your thoughts have limbs strong enough to choke you?
     THERE ARE ARMS HERE –STOP- THOUSANDS –STOP-

Can I see fragments fester in your dilated pupils?
      MY EYELIDS HAVE GROWN THICKER OVER TIME –STOP-
      CAPILLARIES ONCE BRANCHING OUT FROM LASHES HAVE ERODED –STOP-
      INDEPENDENT RUMINATIONS HAVE BEEN CARFULLY CONTAINED –STOP-

Then, at what point do your ‘ruminations’ make you colorblind?
      NOW –STOP-
      I WILL PAINT MYSELF BLUE TODAY –STOP- AT LEAST I THINK SO –STOP-
      I FIGURE LACERATIONS WILL LOOK NICE IN PURPLE –STOP-

After they bring brownness, are you fit enough to die?
      WITH LOVE
      –STOP-