it wears you down
smooth.
neat as the unfurrowed brow of its next victim.
mother holds our hands firmly as we cross-
baby takes a tumble in the road-
but baby, bae af, gets up.

violence loves, more explicit than we, in the pause occupied between our
breaths.
less noble but more real. love> embryonic, ****** goth (at last!)
baby drips forthright into pieces, ***-lunged in the afternoon sun from windowlings- useless. head-lolling and good
enough.

we
get up
go out. find new things to define us.

sugar-milk wants to. knows best. gets rest. spoon floating. doves drink.


don't pray.
society is disgusting.
self-preservation has always been vile.
i am filthy with less than these.

and now we are__

Normalcy is the new Punk.
destroy from the inside, baby.

get me somewhere.







/

We imagine ourselves among the dead, the dying, and the monsters that inhabit those spaces
As a way to feign immortality
In that we are comforted in the temporary untouchability of our placement, just off screen.
Or
Rather
In the shrinking down, to the screen, itself.

the saltpeter sea may yet swallow these
black-sailed ships

bleak obelisk .
reduce the risk.

and
swim.











[the power of i don’t know :  to the wielder, feels a burden - but serves as everything that keeps us from falling into Hate.]

Lost time
And lost to time

Measure me next, without the
Sun.


I am not yet the wake of air through the tussocked expanse//

Nor, the jazz-beat of her rain clamoring to disrobe that which is made modest by soil-cover.


Sky-wheel tithing .
Bluestone plaything.
Sight-line, leaching .

cradling a torn architectural drawing of the universe.
the sea spray can’t reach us here,
nor the rolling breath of the low clouds raking in and out of the dark-scaled pines atop the cliffs’ edge.
it’s a moonless night-world
at the brink of dissipation .

it’s a world-less willfulness that holds us back from restoring our sight-hounded hearts.

it’s a breakfast served up for something older than kindness,
we - the complimentary condiments of a finely set table for an ill pantheon.

even if things get better
           -even
       if
             they
      get good,
we can never be the same.

even if i can reach a point when i can say "i love you" again, (which by the way i still do- even though mostly i wish i could stop.)

it can never be the same.

even though no mater what happens, i'll still care about you for some reason- and i'd never wish you ill,
it will never be the same.

your name upon my lips will never be quite as special.


don't take comfort in any kindness i extend.
that's just who i am.
how i'll always be.
i'm still taking everything in slowly.

i never yelled.
or called you names.

not yet.

though i don't think i would- don't think i could-
that's not who i am.


i've tried so hard.

i wish that you had tried just a little bit harder
- a lot harder.
it turns out you really didn't try very hard at all.

it shouldn't have been that easy to bury 4 years of me giving you everything i ever could and more.
-for the love of god, you were the first girl i ever kissed.

that was in highschool.
that seems like a long time ago.

i feel old.

i can never be the same.

that reflects the light flashing off pale
fingers_
like glimpses of wet noses
in the looming underbrush

wet, hungry noses .

wind-rustled world.

sights and sounds
no longer .

And no matter how hard it comes down,
It never comes close.
Then, summer meant something other than sweating.
Then, we ran the abandoned shoppingcarts through pothole oceans on the side street behind the mall.
Later, she changed out of the wet clothes and came out pantsless in the oversized Sweatshirt that would define **** forever.


(With damp hair still clinging to the back of her neck)


And if all the sad anime teach us anything : It’s that when things change, they can never go back

All aggressors think themselves, the
Victim.


We battle now for the center of the human
Heart

We find ourselves lost
At first,
Beside the newly widened
Outer
Walls

Theseus ,
Theseus .

But the Monster always arrives
Here
First.

It’s a new kind of spear://with a
Handle so long, you can’t see who’s
Holding it.

It is a tool for a crueler form of
Cowardice -

The ultimate goal of
Man.

To seek reconciliation in the swarm of water droplets suspended in the air around your storm-haloed head

It’s breath and thunder that keeps us .
Still lifted up in
Wonder,
Even now


In time, re will re-condense -
As always - as the natural state of things.
Always falling hard at the end of it all


To the passenger jet in the rain
We salute you, 163 lives waiting to be lost
To secure a spot
On the evening news
And all the poorly written web articles to follow

I’m getting to the thick of it
I’m
Getting
Really sick of it.

I’m going
To
Open

Up

All human emotion,
Is what we want to say.

And what I have seen is that it is always exactly what it has always looked like

Gut get good and go do some
We need it.

black is the sand.
long is the posture.

cedars are split for us_in honor of the ages that will pass before they rot
away

i wonder where it is your ****** metaphors come from
when you say things like    "she tastes like strawberries."
i am disenchanted         miscarried
by what you are trying
to say, if anything.
this
social significance of a tangy fruit ripe for harvest- tiny for your convenience.   connotations of innocence   to sensuality, ***, lips

if it is literal. evoking a certain tube of tacky lipbalm that finds itself applied tastelessly and often-

a certain perplexing exclusivity of diet.
or at least a strong penchant for the thing, that.

or if virginal.
recalling imagery of children's clothing- characters and franchises similarly swimming in the same shared canon of bad symbolism.
if you try to push us
into displeasure. violence. or grunge.
to challenge the peacefulness or comfort of normalcy.
shock us.
bring me somewhere

that would be better poetry.

i've read you like: all of you-
a thousand times from anywhere. any time
some might say the universality is its highest honor-
sign of its perfection and
truth.
it is not.
lazy.never real
long bereft of impulse
it makes you feel good because you are told it makes you feel good,
brought up with it.
watered down by it
like many other things.

devoid of specificity or idiosyncrasy
and the imagery of the DD/lg goes wayside.

though fetishist art, at its norm, becomes insular and self pleasuring
(just as fresh strawberries)
it can still be used as a tool when used to break away from expectation
as long as you don't let it become itself.
for it is just as average as anything else:
falling into a bad creepy pasta.
reading the news on a phone app.
unjustly scolding a cashier.
telling a girl that her skirt is too short at her bestfriend's father's funeral.
parents driving offspring to suicide through religion and therapy.

they belong to you.

Grid photo
yves crayola

Indigo red

Hands traced
Walls and spaces
People and things and clothes

Blue smudges on a pink sweatshirt hanging up in the diner.

Blue smudges on the  darkwood paneled wall of a trailer

Blue marks on a window in an old building , papers littered amid  the cross-beads : cardboard cut-outs and
Flyers for events long passed

On a couch cushion, in a basement, where friends were

On a box of treasures

On a blanket on the ground

/
On a  greyed picket fence, with planks pushed through

Against the faded grass of a desire path

On chain link and locks above the bridge

On door and cabinet handles on the inside - glass and brass

On door handles on the outside - composition, unknown

On the dusty, lace curtains of the backyard door

On the bins in the attic, full of seasons

On the bins in the driveway, refuse

On my heart, and hope to

[full blue handprint visible over left breast - whereas other marks were more fragile, cursory, and accidental in pressure ]

True
Ghosts

Are the cared-about things
That you never knew to take (with you / care of.)


The lonely, yet fulfilled margin-scratch
The rope-less tree  
The tree-less yard
The yard-less home
The home-less mind

Imprints on human time.

was right .

the front door open.
the dogs not barking,
slapping some wet skinned faces in front of everyone,
wishing i was a broken bottle
or something.
there's want of a forest in my yard
-the whole world softing out:
action dust; to the girl that screams:
there's no such thing as sinners, there's no such thing as love, there's just people and what people do,
whole forests of paper feel your words.
           sincerely,
                            we're all just crazy.
sweet dharma dewdrops fell off the tongue of the clean-cut kid.
he had soapy teeth and no shame to speak of
and when he spoke to us, his fingers glowed
because.
did you think that words could do more than arms-
and that anything else alone could do more for you than a full bodied embrace.
and
i looked at the rose you had buttoned on your blouse and i tore it off and dashed it upon the ground
because of
the mist
and the yellow billboard
lit up softly like a wheatfield
and frost was setting onto the long blades of crisply dying vegetation.
and there is the matter of those ghosts in the parkinglot
unaware of the cars that skid by full of people, all with capacities to know and be known-
sometimes i wish i could tell them
that it's okay to reach out with soft red fingers, wet from running water, warm from hot running water rinsed
over our hands to bleed out the chill that leaches into our too-thin fingers on cold nights such as this.
meanwhile-whole forests of bright white paper
i think that if i ever found you,
it would be walking on a road next to blueberry blossoms-and close, dry
thicket branches that crunch swiftly sometimes-and slowly, others- behind our heels
and hands shaped like mantras gesturing towards us from trees- telling us to go this way, and that,
welcoming us with their imperfect notions of morality and telling us that everything was going to be.
light a match on the bathroom window,
take one step closer to breathe in the bad-handwriting of the graceless morning. put one foot forward on the floor-
one hand on your temple.
only time will tell
if this is hell or just a special hell for me and you
choke me in the white-noise drone
of the shower.
push against the vitalities of my neck-
offer your hands around my faltering voice.
tell me about the pharaoh.
and the legless learners of passion.
tell me that you need to fall forward onto your face just to remind yourself that you're alive.
drum against my chest imperfectly with your
fingertips.
the unskillfully applied paint on your nails already chipping off- (you do this thing with your thumb and
forefinger as a nervous habit and always ruin them.)

the sun come

i trace over my neck with cartridge-blade razors
-rip away the stubble like peeling off snakeskin shadows.
snow falls
dusting my eyes with the harpsichord sounds of porcelain.

there is no longer bitterness nor sorrow.

brain bombs obliviate_all signs of life in the city sqs.as all god-oid methods live on as a convenientandeffectivethreat levied bysquabbling heirs to her cold multitude of rancid throne-rooms/do you want to survive?
        the slow-panting dog shadow leans in closer, still,
/learn to dance the night.  … .. ….. … .. .. .. .

sleeping predictably, the city is at last disemboweled in favor of a new and ****-less being -
   all parking spaces, finally free.

she breaths right down the middle.
swings low to the ache of percussion,
and palpitation.
.
she said I should have been a painter.
maybe she was right.

sharing a subway car with neonazis
i hesitate-
having gotten out of work early for the first time
in a long time;
one ear left uncovered by the wireless headphones. on
the opposite side
the old man in the body cast and crutches
the young man., ,fat and bald.
talking about sin.
and what its like to be irish-catholic
in a boston that doesn't recognize them as god any more.

,covers the other ear after a few minutes to hear the full sound profile of my song/
i have decided that they have forfeit
their privilege to live

the sailor-scout of your head against    m  i  n  e  
              fades into silhouette
(like something    good )
your brow  is beating better than the oscillating fan sounds
   that
we think of in moments like this..

learning that ******* is beautiful
when lies are shared

--the [****** ]in her breath presses skin outwards

.slipping off like goldtone wristwatch
like.flipping through polaroids of people you don't know anymore.


the best is over as the bra is unhooked and falls to the floor like a bad parachute
.
as if it could
slice through cities


you shoot a look as
bulma thighs bounce
like dinosaurs in the forest.
a long pink shirt
is enough to **** them

.reclaiming history through ******-death
one pink imprint left behind at a time.

focus on the clouds
it is better if we don't know what happens to the marks

i think future history will show PewdiePie as Marcel Duchamp
and the ideas curated will be
something.

our children will **** themselves in the hundreds of thousands
because of (what) you (are)
.and you will think of it only as cleaning up.

**natural selection favors
                         the beasts

there is something i knew once
but barely
and on my good days,
i spend the whole of my life trying to relive
or,
.
and in museums
and in thrift shops
in **** sites
in blogs-
strange charity exhales,
slender tendril figurines. come out licking the music about the edge of
your mouth.
so that it might be told
but barely

it’s a breadcrumb world out there
and we are hungry in the woods

i wait beside the echoing pool
you trace out the lost path dripping down your thigh like a map
throat open and maw-ful
throat full and maw-open

lung fire
feeding on the wilderness .
belly-hot-want

our roots are :
/delvers
/divers
/descendantary.No


forests become obfuscations for removal :
[lost] is landless now
and a new animal arrives
it feeds on our  l o n g i n g  .
until we are starved and treeless•gut-ruptured full of promises


i roll you back onto your side
cheeks flushed_but cold

[do not hold harmless that which harms us]

c.

there are no white
chalk portraits on the wall like we used to
draw : bukowski, haruhi, and the ghost
line symbols.
but it's
the same orange vespa-knockoff sitting
on
the other side of the fence -
thesame withered brambles reaching out
beside the train tracks and dripping with water that
will
soon freeze. and bend them down to the
brown . earth . .
i am bowing too, .

w/out reverence
w/out  hitting the cue


i mark where i stood in microscopic pieces
of the bottoms of my shoes only
i go unheeded .as of yet

it will be
  the same as not at all .for most


these mornings are
  Flowers.

.


there are only two types of socks in this world.
those that get shrunk, and
those that get stretched out.

life, like laundry
is about adopting the best practices to hold out for as long as
possibl e.
you gotta fight the nature of things
to
remain


.

Respect people, but not necessarily their ideas. Treat others well, but never accept  fallacy by virtue of politeness, indifference, or short-term gains.

Do not reward bad behavior.
The squeaky wheel gets the grease. The crooked wheel, screeching and locked in place, needs to be be held accountable for its own failures and not be allowed to punish the wheels willing to roll.

Fight for what you believe in, but do so honorably. Have hills worth dying on, but  choose the tallest ones you can.

Seek always to better the world for yourself and others. Be willing to endure temporary disadvantages in doing so.
Do not be willing to accept permanent disadvantages in doing so, unless you are in love, and you are sure.

Seek to understand the impact of your words and actions upon the people around you and the greater world. Run simulations in your head. Weigh the perceived consequences with compassion, but do not allow yourself to be rendered frozen or silent by the threat of Future.

Everyone takes the short cut - and in doing so, renders the path congested, impassable, and ultimately unuseful.
Take the longer distance, do so quickly and with nimble but steady gate : hinderances fall away as you refuse to suffer fools and you will know the nature of ways.

Aim to be be patient on a geological scale-but never tolerant of cruelties.

Even if there are no absolutes in the taxonomy of good and evil, try to find and be what feels like good.  Don’t worry if that doesn’t bear aesthetic likeness to that which is commonly marketed as “the right thing.”
In so far as can be sustained, be a force of protection for those around you.

Know the difference between nice and kind. Nice is polite but allows for cruelty. Kind allows for rudeness but suffers no cruelty.

Take agency. Know your limits. Always seek to push them carefully, but deliberately - it will reduce the risk of being broken by them when your agency is removed later.

Expose yourself to things you disagree with. Disagree with things you are exposed to. Unconscious and non-critical engagement with the principals behind group polarization is what creates the vast  majority of humanity’s self-inflicted problems.

Tribalism is not always good.
Tribalism is not always bad.

Know the rules of the big invented games. Play these games to the extent of necessity only. Engage in critical thought like your life depends on it. It does. Know that the virtuous rule-followers of these games are food and fuckdolls for the gamemakers in the end.

i see you,
from flesh to your fantasies-
working towards muted cadence and clarity,
though choice and change-
dog-dare devilry and always the moon

and if i could stand to see you crying,
i would tell you
not to care at all

it doesn't mater
which of our fantasies fall.

As the gun
Rolls of the countertop
In the
Cyber cafe

31 is the new dead
I’ve had a glas of *****
And the only promise I’ll ever ask of you
Is to play iron and wine - trapeze *******
At my funeral if I die before you

P.S.
Promise 1.5 :
Slap anyone who is not listening and just talking, right in their useless open eyeballs

Until next time,
Signing out-

The bad good kid,
The one who almost found home

the dreams you have when you fall asleep (specifically) before the movie is over.
[like feeling safe enough to do so.]
like
winding up with cloud cover
and
summer, here already
like
no garden again this year -

waking on the couch
in the early morning
suddenly        and to
relative
                       silence





                                   .

i take my socks off.
i see
on her dusk
a crown of young birches rises up like spindled lines of pencil.
they don't prove their permanence to the old soil>
missing the big trees that used to grow
here.


her body,
like wet leaves burning. the paper bark peeled back from
her forehead
reveals the colony within the soft wood.
down where the air is
as
still as the inside of a halloween
mask,
the fingers of her evening clam up likewise-
and all that it touches
is damp again.

and as i lay my dead smile in her's
,our teeth rest together in
bliss

the blue bamboo print on your white shirt
wrinkles me in to
home

i rake my hands across your heavy thing
you shake like eons in passing
you quake my heavy thing
you real my fake away

curl


and you're
mine.

like years of church functions
rocking back and forth on chair legs-
******* the back against the corner
shoelaces stained by the summertime.
lock limbs in search of abandoned public restrooms
windowlit  and forgotten planter pots

legs shaking inside.. for want of dog teeth
flaking off. white as oxidized lead
beds. graveyards
for
generations of guilt titrating out of the skin hips

    out
of us like sweat
that iso-stains
precipitate.
your
sashimi eyelids_
my
diorama for you.

We cook slowly in the dusty window light
Splitting apart as we dry out, [denaturing our lignin ]
As the hazy rays sweep up

They will be scrawled across the floor and our bodies
Like the thin pencil marks of man made gesture

In the shapes cast about us
Wheeling
As
Only
We can

home
     is
     a dark forest
     by the sea
heroism
      has
      been bred out
our hearts
       are
       next :

is a flyswatter kind of love.and i am the unread newspaper pages wrung out before the casualty of your tightening/grasp.

gooey paladin you in gun powder real.like bucket like helm.scooping into pieces i can be soup.i can loopdy-loop
lemme show you my favorite
piece
of
meat

you ink whalebones in your smile, the sea-dark swarms
  up upon your palate
rushing back again in ruin
                           in a gulp
                           from deep tidal wants.

my hips lament your passing.as i wick away into the finger
numbing mist      lapping at your knuckles

you clothe your small shoulders
                                          with a shroud
every thread tries to hold on to the air that claims them
                                                                ­                      away
                                      ­       from brothers and sisters
                                             that all want the same for themselves.


they are vapid.


each breath is an arrowshaft cloven in two        off-mark

                                            ­    biting me.


i am not the currents dreaming of ******* you down
i am not the wind rubbing cuticles against your back
i am not draping you in
sawdust
.
as i press my thumbs up to ribs i dont
recognize
the feeling passes


dripping inside
presh ******* baby.

bitter but better is the sunshine of never
all over
her body
are dead things and dragons
spiders and stabbers and
ink thorny anklets
calf-twisting vine lines
and thigh wanting roses
fingers paint black tips and
lovers cross black lips a
body
lain naked
her lies of love broken
her eyes leak of lust rust
a bat on her breast
she rises from rest
she sits up
and pulls  
a black SG onto her lap
and whispers
"more"

A man in a mad world who refuses to go insane with rage
Does so unjustly,

As he sits on his hands
and waits to die.

I have been that man , seeking only sedation.

I come to find that I must face myself
And the injustices of the world

a cosmic message in a bottle:
and all its ever been is the same as now .
all mythos and religion;
all cult kingdoms; all god-kings

it’s not about what’s out there-
it’s about what’s in here that we’re trying to save.

i want fingers that trap you inside minuscule breaths.
the
shorter the better-

dragging down the seconds like shoes on in the lake water.
these
that threaten to tear off with each pump of the legs.
as the arms stay thrashing unawares, as they reach for a hand-hold that isn't.
as the ring around your mouth spits across the magazines on the coffee-
table, leaving marks.
as the pillows on the couch come misshapen to the point just outside of comfortable.
as the moisture gathers in the armpits.

dawn breaks.

heat rises from the roofs of automobiles.
eyes readjust to light that puts gunk back into them.
the city is like orange glass.
your hair
is hair.
i let drool slip across your ****.