I was brought into this world
Against my will,
And I refuse to leave the same,
Even if you think my brain is ill
Or debate if I'm really sane,
The point of the matter is still
That this life's a ******* game
Full of cheap plastic thrills
And cheaper female names
That infiltrate your sense of peace
And without taking any blame
Tie you up with internal chains
And make you scream with quiet rage,
Passive aggressive forms of pain
That melt away
The tired bones
From your tired frame
Till all that's left
Is a stone
With a phrase
Engraved
That's supposed
To explain
What the world gained
And lost
From the compost
That replaced
The face
In the grave.

Do you remember the
First time I saw you?

Probably not,
Since you didn’t see me,
But I wasn’t being
A creep,

You were walking down
My street
With your little dog,
In a black and red
Hooded flannel
And a pair of ripped
Jeans

And I was standing at
My kitchen sink,
With the windows
Right above it
Drinking a glass of
Water and
Gazing outwards

And there you were,
Moving left to right
Across my sphere
Of sight
Texting and not paying
Attention to your
Dog taking a ****
At the foot of
My driveway.

You came by the
Next day,
And the day after that
And I made up
My mind
I’d talk to you.

I waited outside
On my porch
But you never
Came,
I didn’t see you
Again until that day
At my little
Brother’s baseball game
As you cheered on yours.

Now I’m yours.

The other morning,
As opposed to this one,
(There was indeed
Another morning)
As I walked the
10 1/2 blocks to work,
I passed by a playground
Full of post grad
Parents who dress
Real nice
Real fashionable
And all of their
Children who are
Dressed the same, in
Non gender specific
Garb, because it’s
2011 not last century
And they run and
Scream and get
Their thrift store
Clothes all *****,
They laugh and I
Hear crying
And reprimanding
And ‘good job!’
And I can’t help but
See the future in
These kids, with
Their well adjusted
Parents adjusting
Them well to the world
And making sure
They follow all the
Advice in the hip
Parenting and child
Psychology books they
Read, and I see
Among the smiling
Innocent faces
Yet to be
Drug addicts
Wife beaters
Alcoholics
Strippers
Drunk drivers
Liars
Cheaters
Thieves
Heartbreakers
And the occasional
College grad
Who will be well
Adjusted
And will adjust
The child they have
At 34
Very well to the
New society
So that
Child can become
A date ******
Or a car thief
Or a vagrant
Or maybe a college
Grad who
Will be well adjusted
And adjust their child well.
Our children are the future.
Go to school, kids.
Adjust.

I’ll take it as a lesson
Not to play games,
Cuz this ****’s got me guessin
Whether I am or not sane,
Or whether this mess is
Because of my brain
Or because those
Doing the messing
Aren’t true to their names,
Or maybe they are,
**** it, either way
I go to the bar
To slam scotch in my veins
And watch as the cars
Circle in the drain.
These people believe they’re driving forward
But they’re going in circles,
Forever toward
The singularity.

I want to react
But the act
Is getting too real
To enact my plan
To realize
My plan
The plan I have.
I have it.
Don’t believe me?
Me neither.

But that doesn’t
Make that ether
Disappear,
It doesn’t matter
If its clear
It’s still fuzzy
It’s still fuzzy
Where’re all the details?
You’re spinning tales
And I’m spinning
Towards fails,
Two more
Allowed before
The fall
It will come if they
All bring it about
If it comes around
Who am I to give
The go around
To the go
Ahead sound?
I’m not.

Neither are you,
So let that **** flow
And glue your ears shut
And trap itself in the
Negative space
And remember
Remember always
The face
That belted
The sounds
The notes
The subtle hints
At doubt
And expectations
That pass
Without
Fruition.

Lead me to perdition
Yellow canary
Fly fly fly
Out of the sunken
Black lung
And spread the
News when
You return
To confuse me
An olive branch
A laurel wreath
And an infant’s hand
Held in your beak,

I command you to speak
Of flying free
And color
And sun
And the hate that breeds
Within the youth
That believes in truth
But sees the vultures
Feed at the kissing
Booth
On young ladies
And beaus
And constant flowing
Prose
That’s just babble
Cuz no one knows
What that rabble
Really holds,
It’s not gold,
It’s not happiness
It’s cold
And happening less
Often than the
Human breast
Can use to soften
The hard day’s
Unrest.

Let’s
Build a coffin
Of wedding dresses
Cuz I’m coughing
And these dressings need
Changing
But the nurse isn’t coming
Even though
The alarm is clanging
Away above my door
But its so easy to ignore
A sack of flesh
Waiting to die
In their Sunday best
In a hospital bed,

With fluorescent
Lights
Illuminating
The dead
We gather in parlors
And iron our collars
And say how much we
Will miss
The missed,
But what will we miss?
The memory of a kiss?
It’s a memory
In the contemporary,
It takes time you see
For it to exist and
For my brain to be
Stimulated
By the bliss
In me
You instill
But still I’m in
Too deep
I don’t want to keep
Losing this much sleep,
It’s not good
For you

To see me
As you do now,
Towelless
In the bathroom
Powerless to
Escape the vacuum
Of the drain
In the middle
It’s dark when you look
Through
But you know where it
Goes?
A river of ****
That flies through pipes

Like this river of **** I
Write that
Flows in through
Your eyes
And out from
Your shoes
Into the sky.
Lol.

“****” she said
“that kid can shred”
I agree with her
And she sits back down
She slides her back
Back down the wall
And I follow her
And we both sit
And listen to this kid
As he ******* shreds
And we laugh
And we are blown
Away
And we are alien to
The crowd
But we move our
Heads anyway
We match the sway
Of the kid’s powerchords
And we are next to one
Another on
The needstobevacuumed
Carpet
In an olneyville
Apartment
And he
Is really really
Shredding
And I’m really
Weakly betting
That I’ll be getting
What she is betting
Really really
Gambling

On

It’s getting to me
I’m really getting
To me.

A gamble is fine
If you let me
Set me up
For you to knock down,
So knock it down.

(By the way,
Your boy’s
A clown)

But it’s ok,
Cuz there’s no
Frown upon
My face
As I sit with
You, back
To wall
In this *******
Place,
Listening to
This kid shred
All over the
******* place.
Luh yah babe.
Keep the pace.

Don’t stray from sidewalks,
Cuz the grass doesn’t
Slap the bottom
Of your flats with
The same firmness
Of paved furnace
Baking in an august
Heat,
Your feet might get wet
If you step off the curb
Because it rained
This morning,
And the good lord’s word
Said don’t stray from
The path of the righteous
And its hard to be righteous
With wet socks,
Don’t block the flow
Of people, keep walking
Or they’ll get really ******
And start talking ****
About how if you
Don’t walk faster
They’ll give you a kick
Swift to the ***
If it’ll make you go quick,
And you better stick to
The paved sidewalk,
No stepping off
To let them pass,
Keep with the flow
And keep their pace
And hope you’ll
Go someplace
Where all the
Conformity makes
You feel good
About yourself.