The things we say to one another:
we could
choose
to make them mean something.

I could tell you that I love you,
even though we've never
really met. You could
tell me that you're dying
and it scares you.
We could talk about the rise and fall
of injection-moulded empires,
the rise and fall of your
mother's chest, as she
took her last breath.
We could vow to behead tyrants together.
We could promise
that we'd never fall victim
to that same sickness. We could
compare our hurts and find a
connection
in our mutual pain. We
could try to share our loneliness,
and maybe the world
would be less lonely.

Or at least we could
speak,
like you're a person
and I'm a person, like we're both
made of the same
beautiful, doomed matter,
only separated
by social convention and
accidental skin;
we could say something worth saying.

Instead: plastic bag tax, The Match,
weight loss and where to buy
the best factory-seconds shoes,
the televised finals of something or other,
the rising cost of corned beef, the
obligatory conversation piece
about the weather.

Can't we talk
just a little bit
bigger than this?

If I somehow
***** this up, and die
in some stupid, boring, clichéed,
romantically tragic way
while I'm still sort of
young and
sort of attractive, and
you are, too,
I hope you
**** on my grave,
howl profanity at the couldn't-give-a-**** sky,
and curse me inside-out
for being
so derivative and
predictable.

'Don't you ever worry,' she asked,
'about being written off as
a poor man's Bukowski?'

I answer, quite honestly
for a pretentious, wannabe poet:
'I'd be happy being
anyone's
Bukowski.'

Which was a cute line, I thought,
but she still
didn't **** me.

Maybe I was
someone's
Bukowski, but I
definitely wasn't
hers.

Less than 10 miles from my house
is an insane asylum
(Granny said "nervous hospital")
(Papaw said "***** hatch.")
It is built on an Indian Burial Ground.
There is an adjacent golf course.

How long, oh lord,
before we get to see
affluent white men
in stupid pants
running for their lives
from a swarm of psychos and
the ghost of
the displaced Noble Savage?

She smiled
her best hurricane smile
with lightening instead of teeth and
eyes at once anxious and unkind,
whispering first,
“you ain’t near good enough.”
Then,
“I’m probably going to **** you tomorrow.”

The gate has
an intimidating portcullis
secured with
a five dollar padlock
from Ace Hardware.
That’s enough to keep me out.
Over the high south wall I can see
broken glass treetops,
not so much reaching for the sky as
probing it for weaknesses.

I stand and stare
as day turns night.
Some far off moon rises;
a sickly crescent
that reminds me of

a smile
    
    like a hurricane
        
           with thunderheads
                
                  instead of dimples.


Suddenly
I am filled with dread

for tomorrow.

Speaking of how
these Ladies of the Night
must hate Daylight Savings Time
since the sun doesn’t set until nine, and
the cloying summer scent of honeysuckle
drowns the smell of their knock-off Gucci Guilty.
Except there’s that one A.M. Pro
who works the whole stretch in front of
The Towing and Recovery Museum
from 7 something till lunch.
She’s tried to keep a low profile, but
is hoping to meet that one lonesome soul
who needs to get blown
at ten o’clock in the ******* morning.
Sometimes I wave at her when I drive by,
wishing her the best,
whatever that may look like...

The fasten seatbelt warning light is flashing on my dashboard but
I’m buckled in, rest assured.
That’s probably important, but
it’s like what Don Q whispered to Sancho through the Spanish gloom:
“I need you.”

There are more songs on today about suicide than love,
My beauty queen friend died of a ****** overdose
A day before her fleeting birthday.
A kid in my brother's third grade classroom
Hung himself "trying to be Spiderman"
When not even a week ago
He was trembling on the playground,
Begging for help when no one would listen.

Girls flash pieces of lumped skin called scars,
Proud of them because they have overcome.
But I guess no one ever told them that those scars
Were supposed to be metaphors,
A smoking gun at the back of a hero.

There's a kid in my class who picks at his scabs
And pulls his hair
And I can picture him
At the bottom of the bottle in a year or so.

We find more solace in fiction than fact,
Because 35 people were shot this weekend in my hometown
But in Megaman the shots never actually hurt.
We shouldn't be thinking about all the violence, though,
Because at least Miley twerked a solid and dropped it low.

A drunken fool killed an old couple last week,
But all I heard on the news was that Transformers 4 is spiking the charts
Even though Michael Bay directed it
And he can't make a movie
Without filling the seats
With people wanting to only see
******* and ***** and explosions they could see
If they looked down their own street at the right time.

Sometimes I get caught up in the mess,
Obsessed with those who post offense on articles
While we ignore the fact that a baby has been cured of AIDS!
I bring myself to wonder at the insignificance of you and I,
As bullets fly and young girls cry
Over slashes and stretch marks in their thighs.
If mirrors are out greatest enemy, than
Why are we fighting the bosses of our lives,
Ready to strike down the opposition?

Life goes on past all these insecurities.
There'll be graves to visit and chances to take
But I'm not the only one who thinks this way.
I can't be the only one who thinks this way...

So here's to Spiderman,
Who told us that with great power comes
Great responsibility.
Throw your fist in the air with me and face up to that.
We've driven ourselves to suffer far worse
Than we have to.
Fight the important battles and
Leave the rest to sand.
And come back to me,
Refreshed and renewed.

Bring my reasoning your weak and I
Will make them whole once more.

It's been one of those days
Where I hope that you still stalk what I've written
So you may potentially see
That I'm starving for salvation.

I stare outward
With formaldehyde kisses
Caressing my arms.
I look at the knotholes in the train tracks
Because that is the last place I saw your hand
Before it went under.
I absolve myself with work,
My hands too tired to hold you
At the end of the night,
My eyes blind to your suffering
With every drop of *****.
I will swear to the day I die
That I am the ****** time has ******
Time and time again.