i wish i was a black poet
or a woman with a twisted ankle
even a teenager filled with brooding angst
because then my poems would hold more weight
people would listen
i could recite them with my eyes closed
brow furrowed, talking with fists
my throat swollen with passion
i'd get applause -- an ovation even
for spitting on the microphone at poetry night
blowing the roof off
destroying walls
seeing all rooms at once
instead of despondent laughter
in an empty bar
the clinking of glasses
and the obligatory whisky after.

but i'm white
and only in my twenties
living in a vaccuum
nothing terrible has ever happened to me
sure, i have problems

but who the **** wants to hear about
not learning how to tie my shoes until i was 9?

quitting every sport, not because i was bad
merely because i wasn't the greatest to ever play
and no longer saw the point?

adhd and couch surfing in new orleans?

how hard it was to learn to roll the perfect joint
when i was 17?

the fact that i had an itchy ******* last month
but switched to organic detergent
now it's a field of velvet daffodils down there?

no one's posting youtube videos about
doing laundry on a tuesday
not meeting a pretty girl at the laundromat
instead teaching a mexican boy multiplication tables
and a couple jokes, then leaving with
half your clothes still ***** because you gave the boy
the rest of your change to buy a girl he likes
a pack of her favorite gum tomorrow
or
losing your cell phone until thursday afternoon
then the bill collectors start calling

i have good credit
i bought a used honda last year
at a good interest rate, i haven't missed a payment
i'm never bothered at airport security
i live alone, take my coffee black
or with cream and sugar
write checks and balance a budget
on sunday mornings
hate cats, never vote or testify in court
i went swimming yesterday
laid down in thatched grass, alone
don't smoke anymore
quit drinking too
don't own a boat
time moves so fast
i cook, sometimes with wine
friends seldom visit
i stand on the balcony, naked
my house is quiet
except when it isn't
and jazz floods the kitchen
i dance through the hallway
with an invisible lover
and she drifts silently away
uninterested in my melancholy poem
as i slosh sweetened tea on my bare chest
i hang on
she hangs up

when i recite my poems
i don't shout
or laugh
i'm not asking your opinion
seeking your approval
or challenging your belief
in god

i don't even have them
memorized
and don't want to
i'm punching out words and feelings
from a page
like the grand marshall
of a ticker tape parade

i'm so tired of poetry slams
where dignity is stomped dry
and teenaged lesbians try
to change the collective consciousness
of the older generation

there's nothing original
in poetry anymore
every black kid has a poem
which starts with him holding
a black and white photo and
the lines on his great grandmother's face
as she sweeps the yard with a broom
made out of a bundle of twigs
and no shoes on her feet
and he's put it in a book
or won some scholarship with it

while every feminist ****
and post-pubescent *** have
heart-wrenching tales
set to the soundtrack of a john hughes flick
of a time when they were
mistaken for a man or
forced to **** a fat man's ****
in an alleyway somewhere
in Cleveland or Boston
someplace where the cold
pavement left their knees bruised

what if i told you
we've all ****** his ****
and nearly all of us hated it
we've all shoveled ****
and your sob story
doesn't make us cry

i still shake and crumple
the paper
no matter how many times
i read on stage
i still mumble and cough
and spill my drink
but maybe that's why
i've never
won
a
prize.

you see, i've developed the front of a sheep and mind of a wolf
and concaved into myself like an irregular polygon because of the
people who roughly handled me like a last resort, never to fit in
and always to be confronted with my imperfections. these hands
are midas's opposites, converting beauty into the beast, scavenging
the bone marrow of others to keep me alive. the wall i've built up
makes the wall of china look like a scaled down model, because
the difference between jail and my ribcage is absolutely nothing.
they come hand in hand like best friends and i wish to drown the
sorrows building up in my chest with a tsunami with metaphors
that speaks of safehouses where people exist, not annihilation.

- kra

We dissected his synapses
sent him subconsciously
seeking theorized sources
of the substance
Thanksgiving is coming
and I'm stuck mute on my new path
If he comes bearing gifts
can I say anything
through the slow death mask
and scramble suit deceptions
that will make him understand
the murky depth of my regret?

hotels are casually destroying the enviornment
i love the feeling i get when
you accept that i'm
getting closer to you
I have so much to do but
let's get taco bell and
play minecraft all day
we can build a quiet town
while the world around ours
falls apart
snuggle baby, comfy love
baby talk, my sweet bliss
rotting me from the inside out, emotional decay
just one more
******* day i cannot handle
looking at your face
and i'm gone forever
I spend most nights suffering
but failing miserably
at relationships
babe if you only ******* knew
you were the closest thing to a soulmate
but the furthest away from true love
i still bang my head against the wall
I cover my ears and scream
when I can't handle the sound of this world's destruction
it's all louder and more apparent
without the saftey you granted me
you're probably happy as i'm being
tortured and devoured my soul
**** out and thrown away into a pit of
******* useless torment corprate casual slave hell but
we all die alone and that's what matters most so who rly cares

The world is a joke and I am the punchline.
Let the rhythm fill your senses and waltz in time like a pantomime.
Puppets have no need of string and most will even dance and sing!
For who believes such
SILLY things
as string, yes string,
that controls the theme.
But in the darkness, they feel the sting...
Still shadows dance along the walls and men with guns will roam the halls in search of what their told to hunt but never questioning.
never questioning...
as freedom falls...

The rebels screaming in the street believe the paths beneath their feet, so I'll turn and walk away from those behind a self made cage and let my lonesome comedic soul fill with slight romantic rage.

Freezing rain drizzles
off of my apartment roof tonight
I'm afraid of driving on sheets of ice
and I've only got six hours to go
I should be asleep by now
The numbers on my clock are an
irritatingly sharp red
and they stare at me all night
reminding me that they run things
Not sleeping is one of my hang ups
I have this bad habit of leaving my coat
on the floor
so this isn't my hang up
because someone
usually hangs it up for me
Although I'd feel like less of a burden
if I hung my own coat up when I come in
from the freezing rain
so I try
They know I'm just forgetful
so they don't get mad
They think I'm brilliant in other ways
which is comforting
Sometimes my hang up is wondering
if I am at all brilliant
if I am a good person
I run my fingers along all my old scars
and fight the urge to make new ones

parked like a limping jalopy on an amputee park bench.
watching young soft girls sell hard against the boulevard
so they can do smack out back with the white trash boys
who size me up.
hats crooked and backward like their mothers teeth and their own beliefs.
slouching and leaning in their stride like two drunken penguins
shuffling home from the ice bar, fighting over fish sticks--no real threat to any one but themselves.
their drawn out skinny arms with bad backs and barroom tattoos already turning blue.
this is our future--or part of it.
while a young couple breezes by both with their noses buried in iphones.
oblivious to anything outside their happy little bubble.

the entire sky felt too heavy
so it sunk to its knees
begging for relief
for the emptiness
that always follows the pain
numbness in place of agony.

this is the time of dying suns
that donate brilliant colours to the sky
for those who admire the deep red vistas
and feel the end of another lonely day.

hot shock to the system,
this is sunlight
breaking your body
with unbending hands,
the heaviest hit
hurting even the hollows
between your bones,

this is the time that shadows grow
scurrying and juvenile in their footholds,
the newfound cracks and crevices
where dying light has lost its strength.

the wind has birthed us
tornado children in the night
the dark swallowing us
to be as invisible as our mother
and just as powerful.
the sun is still shining
where you are,
as my head blushes against
a pillow.

this is a time of change
allowing the world to be something different
allowing us to escape ourselves
this is the night.