i thought that you were
medicine when all this time
you were ******.

anxiety saps
my psyche. i'm trembling
uncontrollably.

i'll carry the scars
you gave me, wounds no one sees,
for eternity.

tonight, the joy and
sorrow mingle, equal in
their tempered measure.

i am a wayward brushstroke,
more water than paint, fading
in color like the skyline
just beyond the reach of the sun.
a peripheral image reflected
implicitly in sepia- tone photographs.
a mirage at the desert's horizon,
illusory and fanciful. i've grown
hoarse from shouting at the heavens,
calling out to a god of my imagination.
i'll dig a mass grave with every word
that makes its way past my parched throat,
iron lungs for tombstones. suffering
eternally, sorrow overcomes.

i beat my knuckles white,
half-collapsed on the floor—
begging and pleading
with you to open the door.
you shook with sobs
and nursed the black and blue.
i held you while you bled,
pried free the scissors you’d used
and wept phoenix tears
over your self-inflicted wounds.
i pushed my lips against the stripes
and sat shiva through the deluge.
i fall in love with everyone
i meet, because in every human
being there’s a little
bit of you.

i miss you like a thunderstorm
raging over an empty sea.
i miss you like morning dew
hiding in the shade of flower petals.
i miss you like old photographs
stored in dusty boxes
in forgotten corners of the attic.

i miss you like twilight
skipping quickly from dusk to evening.
i miss you like the swig of coffee
lingering, unloved, at the bottom of the mug.
i miss you like family movies,
glitchy home-videos Mom takes out
to soothe the passing tides of anxiety.

i miss you like lyrics
to a song i haven’t heard since i was fifteen.
i miss you like lemonade stands
in the midst of Florida summers, hot and sticky.
i miss you like the space suspended
between two seconds, trapped in a gap
to which i return infinitely.

i hear the whistle of a mockingjay 
play every time someone says your name.
a rebel girl in a patriarchal world 
defying the absurd iterations of hyper-masculine 
oppression that manifest themselves in solipsistic
displays of impotent aggression.
how do you muster the compassion 
to forgive seventy times seven?
i want to learn to love like you.

the white noise fades away
when you and i fly
down the interstate.  
the breeze teases 
your hair, the sun
kisses your face
the way i'd like to.

i hope you hear my voice
every time one of our favorite songs
gets stuck inside your head,
singing in time to the rhythms of love requited. 
have faith in me.

and i'm trying hard—
real hard—every day
not to lose my temper 
with these circumstantial quandaries 
that leave us wondering whether or not 
we should press pause.

instead i'll climb the mountains 
of your vertebrae so i might find
a resting place in the holiest of holies. 
if only i could shrink myself down,
dance between the synaptic gaps of your brain cells, 
i could see reality through your eyes— 
twirling like twin nebulae,
galaxies inviting me to endless epiphanies.
i want to lose myself in your universe.

your courage is infectious.
when i hold your hand,
i summon the strength to smash the State 
and all the arbitrary authorities  
trying to dictate the limits of liberty,
that instigate injustice and propagate malice.
it all just falls away until it's you and me,
forever us against them all.

you're like Hermione,
time-turner included,
feeding the homeless, 
leading a women's health group,
acting for a short film, 
directing a play, 
writing a novel, 
all in a day's work. 

and you breathe white-hot fire 
when you fight for the disenfranchised 
recognizing that those who are neutral 
in situations of injustice have chosen
the side of the oppressor and it's quite 
impressive how you stand-up for
the little guy or invite the social acolyte over
to your table to have a bite of whatever 
vegetarian dish you cooked up last night.

i see you on the silver screen,
in each new book i read ,
in every single note i sing,
latent remnants in recited rhymes 
of poetry from the one and only Bukowski:

i found what i love 
and i want it to **** me.

i brushed the tips
of her fingers
amidst the PVC pipe
as we sat
linked together
in lock-down.

our forearms stained blue
from the paint and tar
plastered to plastic,
holding down
the chicken-wire
purposefully designed
to make sawing us out
more difficult.

water protectors
chained together,
risking arrest,
the shackles a symbol
that we were willing
to trade our freedom
to save planet earth
from the 6th extinction.

sweat glued garments to skin
as the sun baked down from the heavens.
even if we failed today
to throw a wrench in the works,
still we rage against the machine,
still we sing our refrain endlessly:

*the people gonna rise like the water.
we're gonna face this crisis now.
i hear the voice of my great granddaughter
singing, "shut this pipeline down."
it's bigger than a paycheck.
it's bigger than a job.
if you won't respect our Mother,
we won't respect your laws.

we'd all
assumed she'd
choke
at the last minute.

boy,
were we
fooled.

she
fought tooth and nail,
chewed through the wires
we used to hold her back.

we placed bets
on when she'd give up.
seventy-five cents
on the dollar.

and what
were we
expecting?

she
swept the house,
walked home a queen,
and shared her wealth.

we thought
she was a girl
disguised
as a monster.

but who
were we
kidding?

she
was a monster
disguised
as a girl.

we are what
we pretend to be

caricatures of recycled
images and refashioned
motifs masquerading without
pretense of originality

carbon copies in dazzling relief
spun through cycles of roguish
vogue realities

you are what you Tweet

we've seen enlightenment dawn
and watched god die while
the planet relay-raced about
a decaying sun
drifting
children of the Digital Age

words are less than wind
they are fingertips tapping
luminous screens
spineless
lackluster and vain
beyond belief

we run our mouths
while the world burns
here's more Tinder for
the fire of distraction
GoFundMy upstart disaster

vegan hippie child of nature
punk anarchist activist
academic film enthusiast
novelist critic intellectual
psychologist pathologist anthropologist

will we practice a
discourse on delusion
or find solidarity with Sisyphus?

we are what
we pretend to be

dawn's rays peek like a ******
through my blinds, refracting
kaleidoscopic sunlight
through the window pane.
the succulents on the sill
reach out, needy,
craving the kiss
of photosynthesis.
motes of dust float
melancholic. detritus
pirouettes off the ceiling fan—
whispering languidly,
dancing as i stare blankly
at the space in bed
next to me. i'm sick
to death of mourning
every morning, wishing
i didn't wake up.

we are not
who we are
at our best
anymore
than we are
the sum
of our worst
aspects.
we are
what we pretend to be:
misanthropes
possessed of empathy.
walking paradoxes.
amalgamations.
spectrums
in multicolor.

the globe is warming
it's sickly sweet beneath
these thin sheets we share
as water levels rise
with every breath spit
into the atmosphere
by planes trains
and automobiles

maybe it's an inevitability
all i know
is that we've passed
the point of no return
it is irreversible
no denying a shifting climate
elevating seas and oceans
as seasons slip haphazardly
sending blood rushing
to our heads

let's live for today
since we could very well
be dead and buried
by the week's end
we won't go meekly
into the black holes
awaiting our solar system

apathy an enemy we'll transcend
hand-in-hand as champions
vanquishing impotent ideologies
steadfast sentinels
ancient as trees
guarding sacred mysteries
of this infinite cosmos

i was already
teetering
on the brink
of disaster.
watch me sink, an anchor
hurled into choppy,
shark-tooth seas.

my mind is a millstone
dragging me beneath.
they bored holes in all
the lifeboats. frigid
water numbs both head
and heart. atrophy.

whether waking trapped between
restless dreams in knotted, sweaty
sheets or fighting fascists
in the city streets, everywhere i look
i see no justice, no peace.
constant war. searching
for self-love in the rising
tide of violence. romance
has vanished in a time
where friends become lovers
only to become strangers again.

your hand was the cup
i dipped into a well-spring
of courage, nurturing
and revitalizing.
when your fingertips etched
the word "love" on my wrist
in cursive script, i could've died
amidst that field of bliss.
and when my tongue sampled
your nectar—a faint
haze of bruised star-fruit, bloomed hibiscus,
and Marlboro light cigarettes—
i found freedom hanging on your lips,
a refreshing elixir of hope
to combat my fearful mess.

but now the glass
is more than half-
empty. your absence
has me fashioning
myself a noose
from my anxiety.
so string me up
from the outstretched limbs
of a heartwood tree.
let me die serene,
serenade me with one last glimpse
of your nebulae irises.

this crisis shows
no signs of abating.
and even while i feel
the constant weight of death
bearing down on me, i choose
to live deliberately.
so mute my Twitter feed
if it helps you flee.
sometimes i wish
i was still naïve,
if only to get
some ******* sleep.

in school they told me to keep politics and cursing
out of my poetry. from elementary education
to post-graduate work at the university,
no one really cared to teach me how to write.
certainly not the pretentious prats
who'd somehow forgotten
our words are swords
in the flesh of the State.

they told us flowery metaphors
were welcome, but critiques of the systems
that would eradicate flowers from planet earth
were choked by the weeds
of existential philosophies,
too much
for the average reader
to comprehend.

i was taught to keep polysyllabic words like "neoliberalism,"
"xenophobia,"
and "corporatocracy"
out of rhythmic verse
because the bourgeoise
want to read something ****.

witness the revolt of the proletariat.
i'm embracing a literacy
anointed in Angela y Davis's legacy,
"i am changing the things i cannot accept."
i'll fight like hell and bleed
the imagery from every stanza
if that's what it takes to show
that all art is always already resistance.

to be an anarchist
in the twenty-first century
is to refute practically every vestige
of contemporary society.
to embrace paradoxes and be skeptical,
practicing critique, an endeavor
Foucault termed "reflective indocility."
liberty and equity in equal measures,
an individual amidst a community.
hopeless, but still fighting.

the answer to the ills afflicting us
are available if we avail ourselves
immediately, parting ways
like divorcees,
finally severing all ties
with this American sham
of false democracy.

the answer is neither on the left
nor the right. we've peeked behind the scenes
and seen the corporate-state is held
on a short leash by the oligarchy,
bound and gagged, nothing but a plaything
satisfying the master-slave binary.

if we're to triumph over the bigotry
rising like seas bloodied by refugees
fleeing the endless wars the U.S. has instigated,
we'll have to get creative again.
dare to dream utopically, living
as if we're already free,
seeking liberty, equality, and solidarity.

so consider this a manifesto of sorts:
until i go to greet death as an old friend,
happily released from daily suffering,
i'll sit at my typewriter and bleed
for the least of these,
then climb to my feet and fight
to take back the ******* streets.

she has
half-a-dozen
nicknames

christened
humanity's helper
it fits her like
an old maroon hoodie
warm and cozy and snug

she goes by
Lexi
for the sake
of brevity

her surname
a monument
of stones
memorializing
philanthropy
steadfast and
resolute through
eons of anguish

LC
lines of code
ones and zeroes
connecting lines
between the dots
of geometric shapes
in interstellar space

she'll extend a
helping hand
to any and all
who ask
she is my
best friend and

she says
i am the
only one
allowed to
call her
love

if god is love and
god is dead then what does that
tell us about love

vote for nobody
because nobody cares
that you're a wage-slave
that healthcare is astronomical
and college is unaffordable

nobody tells the truth
about global warming
nobody gives a ****
about smashing the patriarchy
nobody understands that
black lives matter

and since nobody
has an ounce of
integrity it's in our
own best interest
to let nobody have
all the power

if nobody can stop
the endless war and
ubiquitous surveillance
apparatus that subjects
the world to invasive
violations of privacy
then i will give
nobody my support

nobody pledges allegiance
to all brothers and sisters
and organisms on planet Earth
and feels the weight
of each life crushed
by the gears of capitalism

nobody sits alone in
the school cafeteria
nobody begs for change
on the front-steps
of Goldman Sachs
nobody pirouettes atop
a Charging Bull

nobody stares
back at you
in the mirror

a vote for nobody is
a vote for everyone

her shivers
have nothing to do
with the weather.

i hold her as we sit in the back of an SUV
headed northbound for Gainesville.
she sleeps restlessly, waking
intermittently. breaths short
and forced. her mother sings
pop hits that pour from the radio,
a melody that rings somewhat discordant.

i run my hand
through her hair. still damp.
i wonder,
for not the first time,
if this gesture means
as much to her
as it does to me.

from the driver's seat, a mother sings,
"stand by me when you're not strong,"
but her daughter is asleep and can't
hear the song. i lean over, lips
a hairsbreadth from her ear,
whisper, "i love you,
Lexi." she smiles subtly.

maybe i was wrong all along.

prisms breathe rainbows  
but i can only see in monochrome.
colorblind, i can’t grasp
much beyond shades of gray photographs,
chewing shards of broken glass
while i confine knife-sharp memories
in the fragile corners of my mind.

buried every evening in the sludge
of tedium, i trudge to the beat
of a broken drum, struck dumb
by the knowledge that all of this
is completely ******* meaningless.
too weak to pretend i possess
any semblance of control.

rise like the walking dead
from the open tomb
of a cold and empty bed.
yearning for the bliss of oblivion,
embrace the infinite abyss
of nothingness that awaits us all
just around the bend.

yesterday, my mind was a landslide,
an earthquake instigated
by platonic fates.
i nursed a headache, reeling
from the repercussions
of unrequited affection
and a planet spiraling
towards complete annihilation.

today, my heart is leaking uranium,
a radioactive time-bomb,
primed to explode.
the nuclear codes
have been plugged in,
the key has been turned
in the ignition.
Houston, we have lift off.

tomorrow is far too late. the warheads
are already en route to their destination.
now nothing can stop our obsessive compulsive
disorder, our pining for the sixth extinction.
from the horizon, i watch the nukes eclipse the sun
and i rage, furious on the precipice of the abyss,
desperate for death's sweet kiss
and the utter bliss of oblivion.

we sit amidst a haze
of marijuana smoke,
chasing esoteric ghosts
on the front-porch
of your abuela's house.
the rest of the city is asleep,
but these streets still remind me
of painful memories
i thought i'd left buried
with the ashes of the bridges
i'd burned and friendships
i'd left in tatters.

2:00am comes and goes
as you pack another bowl
and we shoot the ****
and reminisce
about the old days—
back when we were naive
and still believed in god.
how we'd sneak
through rich,
white kids' lawns
and sit at the docks,
bare feet spinning
in the lukewarm pond
as we traced the Big Dipper,
contemplating the boundless.

now we make reverse-suicide-pacts
and promise not to **** ourselves,
if only for those we'd leave behind.
we share a laugh.
there's not much else to do.
contrary to popular belief,
dawn may bring a new day,
but things won't suddenly be o.k.
and we're learning how to live
despite that fact.

we're all armed
with an appliance
of emancipation
we can nurture non-violent
defiance in a
non-compliant ethos of
antiauthoritarian self-reliance

we have the ability to eliminate the
vestiges of imperialism and
dominant dogmas that choke
and impede our creativity and shackle
our imagination to impotent ideologies

fragmented unrealities augmented
by fractures in our psyche
tendrils of theology that prey
upon our fear and exacerbate
conditioned responses that are
at once
unnatural and irrational
and lead
inexorably
to infantile expressions of
regression and fantasies of an
aggression rooted in the
suppression of dissent and
the oppression of dissidents

deities
as impotent
as our terror
of the unknown

by the promise of security and prosperity
a cabal of brutish thugs have erected an
imaginary hierarchy and demanded our
subservient obedience and reverence for
this malfeasant apparatus that leeches
our paychecks and robs all of our dignity
while somehow retaining the illusion of liberty
a delusion that festers like an open wound
a tumorous ulcer oozing foul fluid into our minds
blotting out our capacity for cultivating a
future divorced from misanthropy

so pour kerosene on this fluttering
flame of revolt before it sputters out
if we'd quit looking back and forth at
one another rotting in the gutters
checking to see if we have more to
our name than our sisters and our brothers
we might just muster the courage to overthrow
the vapid and misguided fictions that
divide and segregate us into pawns
trapped in this unending rat race
they've deemed the American Dream

harness the revolutionary tenacity
dormant in humanity's most important *****
infinite potential latent in every molecule
each neuron dancing across synaptic
gaps and fanning the embers of an engine
that gives motion to this evolutionary frame
the human brain is omnipotent

she is a kaleidoscope. an ephemeral array
of dazzling multicolor. an LSD trip,
a hint of DMT, a tableau of ecstasy.
Thoreau once said, "all good things
are wild and free." i penned those lines
in the leather-bound journal i gave her
alongside a host of lineated iterations of empathy—
the first of many sloppy attempts at poetry,
earnest ideas penned to arouse
and amuse my muse.

a hopeless romantic, through and through,
but wise enough to recognize the folly
of storming a castle barricaded by a dragon.
she's going to have to save herself. after all,
she has always been the heroine in her own story
and ****** in mine. so i'll bide my time,
organize and strategize. i'll build bridges
faster than the dragon can burn them.
i will raise an army and wait patiently
at the gates, soulful if not entirely sober.
after all, she is as mesmerizing as fine wine—
and just as intoxicating.

when she chooses to kick down the door
and tear down the walls, i will yield
no ground when the barricades fall.
i've long since abandoned the sword for the pen
and bear only a shield to protect
and secure the health and safety
of the one who stole the stars from the skies
and adorns her eyes with the irises of nebulae.

'till then, i opine.

i am a pendulum
oscillating between
ostensible antitheses,
elapsing like a ticking
time-bomb.

most days
i want to save the world.
but sometimes
i want to destroy
the entire cosmos.

ball up my fists and break
up the regimes
of bigots, rapists, and racists.
smash the militarists, misogynist
pigs, and Islamaphobes.

but that's the problem, isn't it?
in our self-indulgent belligerence
and fatuous ignorance, we utilize violence
deposing one tyrant just to install another,
eternally entombed in shackles.

i am too weak
to cure this suicidal impulse
and, in my obeisance,
i've stained my hands
red with crimson.

this death-drive sends us
spiraling into an abyss
we wrought for ourselves.
maybe we just want to watch
the world burn.

the ruptures we've torn
in mother earth
are eerily reminiscent
of our own fractured
mental health

and this sickness leaves me bipolar,
vacillating between two extremes:
fantasizing about the end of the world
and simply wanting to **** myself
to be done with this wretched hell.

time is a flat circle
and we are trapped
upon its cyclical surface
the collapse of string
theory and quantum
physics marks the
dissolution of the
multiverse

as the dragon eats
his tail and
tall tales of
moral absolutes
disintegrate
we return eternally
cursed to relive
our worst mistakes
ad infinitum

Søren Kierkegaard
calls it infinite recession
trapped within an
ambivalent cosmos
constantly existing
at once everywhere
and nowhere
simultaneously present
within our most
blissful memories and
sinking in the abyss

doomed to repeat
our failures and endure
our fears over and
over again and again
etcetera

they say god is perfect.
that holds true for me, too.
no concept contains me in totality.
Stirner wrestled with the undefinable:
an indefatigable Unique,
anarchic,
lacking category.
Camus perhaps said it best,
"i rebel, therefore i exist."
i strive to personify resistance.

i find the answers
in harmony with Counterparts,
defining The Difference
Between Hell
and Home:
"i am what i am
and i am an outcast."

an outlaw,
a nobody
akin to Nietzsche,
returning infinitely—
stretched like so many grains of sand
on time's flat surface, orbiting
eternally around the creative Nothing
at half-past 3:00 in the morning.
a singularity,
deconstructing
Derrida's Différance.

a nomad on the margins,
wandering aimlessly,
roaming perpetually
with Deleuze and Foucault,
an astronaut arranged
along the endless frontiers
of an ever-expanding cosmos.

Vonnegut recognized
the periphery affords
a radical view
to the few who choose
to embrace that which cannot be Known.
a zero-sum game
between Death and me,
staving off manic-depressive ennui
if only momentarily.

these serotonin sentiments seem
to be sustained by sick fantasies
of misplaced affection  

dopamine deficiency disrupts delinquency
reminding me that
lackluster lusts are only passing passions

and we here are all unlucky passengers
harbingers of each other's suffering
stowaways on this interstellar starship
called planet Earth
where perception signifies
the faulty frailty of unreality
all the while
exchanging integrity for a fragrance of hope
that we might somehow terminate strife

tacit tactics can't alleviate anguish
only forestall future fractures behind
a flimsy facade of fortune-teller fairy tales
but we all know how the stories end
and no happy ever after exists
in this blissful ignorance you call a life

so when you stand at my grave and weep
when they lower me 6 ft. deep
know this promise is yours to keep

it's too late
now
i'm already gone

the black and white photographs you took
five years past still hang framed in my room,
just above my turntable. Deja Entendu
spills from the stereo as the needle finds its groove.
a shelf filled with all the records
we used to listen to for hours
lines the wall and succulents
adorn the windowsill, waiting patiently
for the rare rays of sun, golden
and flossy as your hair,
which somehow manage
to peek between the tenement rooftops
every now and then.

we still live in the same town. sometimes,
people bring you up. they ask me how you are,
how long it's been since i've heard from you.
i neglect to tell them that, aside from absentee
notifications popping up on my phone
at intermittent variations, we've only spoken once,
in a crowded, little coffee shop
in the city we both love to hate.

you pretended you didn't see me, but i felt your eyes
notice me at the bar as i sat typing another story,
bobbing my head, listening to Daughter.
if i hadn't approached you, i imagine
you would've acted like i was invisible.
the conversation was terse, abbreviated.
i find it strange how once
we were the best of friends
and now we can sit twenty feet apart
and act like we never knew each other at all.
i can't really recall why
our friendship collapsed in the first place.
have i suppressed it? or was it just the casual
slip, like Pangea, elapsed time
fracturing our continent.

some people are sharp
as shattered glass.
they’re shards
that draw blood
at the slightest touch.
wounded by the world,
dashed by stones
thrown by dying gods.
but piece together
the scattered fragments
and you’ll find stained-glass,
crystalline cathedrals, burgeoning
like a molten parison.

the first time i said, “i love you”
we were lying in bed
at your apartment.
your skin held the hue
of the afternoon sun,
but a frown
pulled at the corners of your mouth.

a chill that had nothing
to do with the Florida summer
came like a cold-snap
and, in an instant,
covered us in hoarfrost
smothering as a blanket
racked with smallpox.

the scars in the crook of your elbow
had all but healed, but an itch
crept across you—insistent
and incessant. for a while,
i read The Myth of Sisyphus
aloud, moved by Camus,
wrestling with the one
true and serious
philosophical question:
suicide.

i searched desperately
for the right string of words
to convince you
the razor isn’t a solution.  
i made “prayers of my hands
on your body” and sang hymns
like honey. i sampled
salted, caramel apple—
you hung precariously
on the tip of my tongue.

wishing i could wrest my eyes
from my skull so you could see
yourself from a new perspective.
Beloved, this may well be
your war to win,
but in every struggle,
we need comrades.
in solidarity, i remain.

i refuse to leave you alone
to fight the shadows
lurking in back-alley
neuroses. in a world
that is utterly absurd
only three words
make sense anymore.
three words. a song
that fills our lungs:
“i love you.” partner,
dance with me
to the beat
of a new drum.

i used to watch
the clock
tick-tock, rocking
me to sleep.
dreams these days
don’t come
so easily.
lay awake,
listen—
the fan hums
while i wait
for a song
that won’t slip free,
a treasure chest
opening just for me.
but i lost the melody
and can’t seem
to find the beat.
death is the promise
we cannot help
but keep.
loss is all
that’s permanent.

some days it seems sorrow
stems like thorns beneath
the leaves of intellect. sun-starved petals
wilt for want of water, desperate
to slake their thirst on summer-showers.
the process of photosynthesis forestalled
by the ambivalence of the heavens.
hedge rows turn to labyrinths in the mind,
droughts sap the vigor that bleeds
from trees we planted like solemn columns
in this temple we call the human psyche.
a pestilence has settled in, a dank fog
that rankles our resolve and strips bark
like armor from the human spirit.
weeds rose from fecund soil, strangling
all that once grew here.

i feel a phantom vibration
where my phone usually rests.
i hear the Mockingjay chime
each time, as if i've received
an imaginary text.

weeks have passed. still,
the moments creep past.
no word. i wonder
what you're up to.
are you feeling any better?
when can i expect
to see you next?
i miss you.

i'm afraid my last letter
might've been misconstrued,
so here's the truth:
no higher power exists
to protect you. the 12 steps
cannot save you from the ghost
of addiction. i'd resurrect god
just to **** him again if it meant
i could help you. but i, too,
am powerless.

you've got two hands
on the steering-wheel.
white knuckle vise-grip.
liberty or death,
this or the apocalypse.
only you can save yourself.

your god lies dead and buried
in an unmarked grave. a radical—
a terrorist charged with treason.
for defying the Roman Throne,
they shoved a crown wove from thorns
onto his brow and called him "traitor."

but two thousand years later,
if the homeless rabbi
walked the Earth,
he'd be in the streets
with the anarchists,
fighting to end the wars
that plant kids' corpses
like seeds in the ground
that only yield new bombs.

he'd call your president
a ******* fascist.
he'd denounce Israel for bombing
his homeland and try to cease
the genocide in Palestine.
your savior would stand
shoulder-to-shoulder
with water protectors
in North Dakota, shouting, "mni wiconi!"
in the faces of cops guised in riot gear.

can't you see, pharisee? or is the log
in your eye blurring your vision?
snakes like you, who stand on street corners
preaching the "Good News," were the very same
self-righteous fools he detested.
you can't white-wash the legacy of the Nazarene.
you stand on the wrong side of history.
if Jesus walked this earth right now,
your hands would hold him down
while the State drove nails through his palms.
i only wish the fantasy was true,
that i could see your face as he said,
"away from me, evildoer.
truly, i never knew you!"

i see the words floating on
message boards or perched
upon the lips of jocular hypocrites
double-standards that demand
sensual chastity and virginal sexuality
in endless iterations of irony

the concussive
monosyllabic words
slung like stones
cast like arrows

****
*****
*****

all labels for
women possessed of
the courage to pursue
their own passion

once upon a time a
Nazarene insisted a ******* had
more integrity than a rich
statesman throwing self-serving parties
so tell me why so
many Christian politicians
propagate patriarchal notions of depravity
in blanket attempts to regulate
the bodies of women

if being anti-choice was really
about preventing abortions
why do rich right-wing conservative
Republicans spend all their time
and money picketing free clinics
when the solution lies in comprehensive
****** education universal healthcare
complimentary birth control
and comprehensive child support

don't dare use the reprehensible
rhetoric of pro-life unless you're
at once anti-war
and anti-death penalty

riddle me this
what pray tell is the
difference between a jealous
religious misogynist
and a secular sexist

it's rather simple actually
while the former bases his
****-shaming on the edicts of
a two thousand year old letter to
the Corinthians inconspicuously
sandwiched between a celebration of
love and a section on speaking in tongues
the latter’s learned behavior is
birthed by a hyper-masculine culture
grounded in dominance

either way we await the day
when wild women raze
these ideologies  
with torches before
rising like phoenixes
from the ashes of
decimated passages
dismissed by intellectuals
as archaic and outmoded
deaf blind and dumb to
the vestiges of modernity
that sap unscientific
philosophies of their potency
and render them utterly obsolete

in their wake
these proud women
erase the hate
from words like

****
*****
*****

and reclaim equality
with a far more
comprehensive term

feminist

i found them
while i was
digging
through old boxes
covered in dust
hidden
in the shadows
beneath my bed

i'd been searching for LPs
Lost in the Sound of
Separation on vinyl
record
its sentimental value
binding memories of
my favorite band
countless shows
a myriad of friends

it was there that i
found exactly what
it was i wasn't
looking for

who knows
maybe i hid them
because they
reminded me of things
best left forgotten

the blue sticky note
read in purple ink
"my favorite prints
for my favorite person.
thanks for believing
in my work."

in every photograph was a
little bit of you
dead friends
broken homes
dark rooms with
hardly any light
a child looking for love
the beach palms
skateboards and surfboards

in every photograph was a
little bit of you
shot in black
and white
refined in their
aesthetic but
only one photo actually
had you in it

three windows
light filtering through
closed blinds
an air vent in the bottom
right-hand corner

you stand in the center
and it is evident that
you are shirtless as you
look over your shoulder
at the camera suspended
in the room

what thoughts crossed your
mind when the shutter
shuddered shut

in every photograph was a
little bit of you
and if we’re being honest
there was a little of
me too

the Florida sun and i
baked your memory
into the bricks of Winter Park
i built a home for you
amidst the concrete and stucco
off Mills and Thornton Avenue
outside a crowded little tea-house

we'd read our poetry out front
to choruses of snapping fingers
well after dark
before driving aimlessly
through Orlando streets
with a melancholy soundtrack
keeping us fixed firmly apart

i'd lay my hand like a fallen palm frond
well within your reach
praying to a god i don't believe in
that you'd tease the ink staining my wrists
with your pinprick fingertips

i remember when we
sat beneath the pine trees
i tried to look into your eyes
but the windswept clouds
drifted listlessly
and for a moment
i was blinded

i could've sworn that there
were constellations
where your
irises ought to be
a nebulous Andromeda
hurtling eternally

so send me a sign
through earthquakes
and light-waves
that i don't belong here
pining

the rain fell so i kept my head down
chance alone piqued my interest and
through water-logged glasses i saw
him sitting on the front steps of an
old Lutheran church built from stone
in 1886 if the proud sign on the front
lawn was to be believed

the oak doors were chained shut

it's been four years since i asked myself
what would Jesus do
instead i wondered
what she'd do in my shoes
so i offered him my last slice
of Karma Kollision and he said
god bless you and i replied
stay warm
this world is cold

placebos like religion
might work miracles for Atlanta's
rich white mannequins
but sugar pills can't fill
a broken man's empty stomach

happiness habitually tends toward apathy
permitting brainlessness to fester in the
throes of misanthropy while indefatigable
entropy saps the mind and heart
robbing the joyful of their shared humanity

emotion's heady debris linger in hapless
inanity while infatuation produces a stupor
unmatched by the strongest of spirits
reducing the compassionate to one-sided
and ambivalent caricatures of divinity

have we been deceived
force-fed untruth from birth
on celluloid silver screens
did we barter literature for
delusions of grandeur
in frivolous narratives manufactured
to distract from reality or detract
from the movement to abolish hateful
programs perpetuating poverty

or has cynicism left me jaded hating
that which is most precious in the human
experience because past horrors and
present woes cannot permit the possibility
of future redemption to overcome these
walls i've built around my dismembered soul

as is often the case i see the answer's far
from crystal clear it's amorphous and contorted
caught somewhere between two distant antitheses
which create a spectrum of relative ambiguity
amidst a reality neither certain nor secure

nevertheless i'll try to unearth the truth
whatever it may be and wherever it lies buried
harboring the knowledge in the back of my skull
that there may not even be such a thing
i'll salvage courage from
the wreckage of wistfulness
a wanderer waylaid in the chasm of gray matters

heat flushes pink cheeks
with each fleeting
transgression
another sinful taste
of this forbidden fruit
hidden in a lush garden
secreting sweet juices
secretly sprinkling scarlet lips
parted in desperate obsession

fingers slick and sticky
slipping beneath greedy creases
pleadingly penning treatises
with gushing ink
like fingertips on flesh
peeling back another
layer of skin
to savor the tantalizing
treasure buried within

orchestrate a climatic finale
intermittently violent and intimate
soaked with dew
spewing new seeds
pollinating a flower burgeoning
in endlessly fertile acres

positivity is a plant without root,
withered petals dangling acute.
obtuse excuses are abusive homes
with leaky roofs and we're spluttering
in the gutter as our lungs
fill with rainwater.
integrity is small and it is fragile,
but at least it's foolproof.
i critique, therefore i am.
engaging consistently
in an emancipatory endeavor,
a liberatory tour-de-force.
false hope is a ******* noose,
endangering our biosphere.
the anthropocene is here.
we will not survive
if we remain aloof.
pursue truth.

you scratched our initials
into the surface
of the polished wooden table
behind Redlight Redlight
with the key to my heart.

P + S.

a brief message
etched in time
for all to see.
you grinned up at me
when you'd finished,
ombré fluttering slightly
in the evening breeze,
and said, unabashedly,
"it was the first thing
that popped into to my head."

P.S.

sometimes, i still think
of how your hands clung insistently
to my windbreaker when we sat
on the pier, how our bodies
synced in quiet harmony.

maybe it's just the fact
that your eyes remind
me of nebulae but
i guess i just thought
we'd burn out like the sun

5 billion years on
before bursting
shattering supernova
undulating amidst
the Milky Way

but lately
we're nothing more than a solitary match
sputtering in the eye of a hurricane
flickering with hardly any fuel left
'cause this crisis has blackened our blood
and i couldn't seem to find
the gasoline to pour over this fading flame

so i'll scuttle this life-boat and set myself adrift
silently waiting to capsize
the old adage is true
the captain must go down with the ship
but our hands were interlocked
on that steering wheel
so i suppose it's only fitting
that i named this vessel after you
i'll sing your favorite tunes
as i keep sinking into this bottomless
trench of sleeplessness

we were both willing to
ram our Titanic into the glacier
if only to kiss the contours
of ice beneath the surface
the secret we hid from one another
pulling us with the magnetism of the planet's poles
a knowledge subliminally submerged

"i said i'd never let you go and i never did"
but Houston
we have a problem

and while all things end
i thought we'd go down
like the Challenger
erupting and scattering
bits of fiery debris across
these broken homes
sprinkled like memories
of Florida theme parks
and forbidden rooftops
and the corpse-blue cornfields of Iowa
illuminated at midnight by the halo
of all your Marlboro cigarettes

i didn't think
we'd spend
all these years
pretending
to still be friends

i prayed to god, but
the only one listening
was the NSA.

neither equal nor
free. merely prey. a morsel
wolfed down by the State.

while the donkeys bray
and elephants bluster, the
wolves of Wall Street feast.

and we are their main
course, mortal morsels on a
chessboard of happenstance.

survival? fat chance!
an American Dream, robbed
right beneath our feet.

the penalty for
refusing to acquiesce
is dire indeed.

you could very well
lose everyone you love and
all you cherish.

or you can choose to
refuse to play their game. be
the change you wish to see.

it's clear to all who
won't be blinded by borders:
we're what's for dinner.

if you don't like the
way the table is set, flip
it the **** over.

an intrepid inheritance
predicated on delusion
processing profuse refuse an
iconoclastic self-absorption suffusing
each and every molecule
we’re confusing consumption
with an inane ideology

as we choke the atmosphere with
CO2 and pump toxins into
our food will we pause as
the doomsday clock tick-tocks
closer to midnight
and the terror alert
goes code red
to consider that we
are at once
this planet’s cancer
and its cure

if Jesus is truly the
reason for the season
do you suppose he’d
impose on those
who do not
share your faith

for the love of Christ
let’s depose the overlords
the Nazarene opposed
hell
that’s something even
i could get behind

Mary
did you know
that your baby boy
was an anarchist who
practiced non-violence
and met death on a cross
as a terrorist rebelling
against the unjust

to those who deign to
name themselves Christians in
homage to the divine
why profane the memory
of a socialistic hippie who
bred an insurrection and
bled for the cessation
of human conflict
the negation of
self-serving intentions
disguised in capitalism

in the spirit of Christmas
defy the death drive
propelling us towards mass extinction
abandon corporate bookstores
protest in front of city hall
the kingdom of god is within you
so go home
kiss the ones you love for

“if we are not the word of god
then god never spoke”
it’s up to us to recognize
that we ourselves
are progenitors of the divine

the fissures spiderweb across
the glaciers, torn asunder
by invisible hands.
a rising tide doesn't lift all ships,
it capsizes them.
the fat cats will turn dead presidents
into sails to catch the earth's dying gasps,
but they will flutter, helpless
to progress in this disaster economics.

green business won't save us.
infinite growth on a finite rock,
a pale, blue dot circling until it, too,
burns up. the tires are spinning
in the mud. we've no other option:
we cannot reinvent the wheel—
we'll have to break it.

reformist logic leaves us soulless,
servants cowed by corporate forces
whose sole motive
is cashing in
on our projects.
they'll serve us up
without a second thought.
they'd raze the world
if they could make a profit.
fascism is capitalism
plus more ******.

we must admit our losses:
false hopes and letter-writing campaigns
are too little, too late.
a petition won't halt climate change.
beat their bombs with hammers
until they're shaped like plowshares.
the Earth will be consumed
by the sun long before
the State saves us
from our fate.
if we're to be prophets
of the future,
then it's time to ******* rage.

the donkeys bray
and panic
when bricks
fly through
bank windows.
gobsmacked,
the ***** ogle
the trashed Starbucks
and ask,
"but...who will serve us
cappuccinos?"

the elephants intone,
"violence is never the answer"
and neglect to add
that's why they pilot
remote-operated
predator drones:
you won't see those stomped
in the elephants' stampede.
their ***** wars are covert.
peace cannot interrupt
the cash-flow.

as pigs fit armor over
bellies buttressed
by doughnuts,
they stare down
the wolf pack—a bloc
awash in black—
and slap their sticks
in primitive percussion
shouting, "do not resist,"
punctuating the order
with concussion grenades
and tear gas.

the wolves howl back, "no cops,
no KKK, no fascist USA!"
equal parts bark and bite
in the fight for humanity,
solidarity with the least of these,
laughing in the face of the State.
each time the wolves show their teeth,
the pigs shrink back
and quiver in fear,
while the wolves roar,
"refugees are welcome here!"
we will make racists
afraid again.
antifa, here to stay
so long as there remain
Nazis to punch in the face.

if i were to ask
if you'd prefer the truth
over happiness, would you take
the red pill or the blue?

in Your Heart is a Muscle
the Size of a Fist, Sunil Yapa
writes, "care too much
and this world will **** you cold."
but there is no greater love
than this: i'll lay my life down
for both strangers and friends.

it's true what the adages say.
knowledge may yet yield power,
but most find bliss
in fictitious myths.
the tyranny of dead deities
cajoles the soulless, self-inflicted
ignorance claps the mind in shackles,
a brain neutered by obedient acquiescence.

there is a somber courage in sobriety.
i'll deny until i die, defying the urge
to idolize a substance that distracts
the mind from misery. i choose to question
everyone and everything,
even if a clear-head invites
utter agony. conviction is certainly
a long and lonely road, but our integrity
is the very last inch of us and—within
that inch—we are free.

so steadfast, i remain
a stone anchored to the riverbed
by the weight of gravity and the rushing
tides eroding me. we'll stand strong
in solidarity with all those suffering,
opposing the specter of dominance, illusory
as a phantom, ephemeral as the passage
of time. i'll unleash an omnipotent psyche,
inspired by the insight found in the closing lines
of a punk and artist's call-to-arms:

pursue what haunts you.

if the truth terrifies you, good.
that is precisely what veracity
ought to do.

two quarks
oscillate in patterns—
trapped and bouncing
within the shared prison
cell of an atom.

stitch me into the contours
of your garments, play
my tongue across your eardrum
‘till you quake like earth undone,
morning dew dripping
down flower petals
in your botanical garden.

hang me in the closet
with all of my skeletons,
fit the noose over my head
and wobble beneath
the weight of gravity,
balancing precariously—
an unstoppable force orbiting
an immovable object.

“how often can you come
to the edge
before you fall down?”
draw near to me
and dare the whims
of infinity.

Christmas lights dangle from the balconies
of skyscrapers off Highland and 50.
the wood of the dock is well-worn,
but firm beneath our feet.
our reflection is emblazoned
on the lake's dark surface over your shoulder,
a still-frame frozen momentarily
like a photographer's snap-shot.
stars wink hazily out beyond the city's smog, lazy
voyeurs surveying the crush of our forms.

those same nebulae must have conspired
to shape our bodies eons before,
back when the universe was first born.
what else could explain
the way you fit so perfectly,
furtively resting your head
in the nook between my neck and chest?

i place no faith in gods,
but distant suns, lightyears away,
deigned to reach
through parsecs of space-time
to smile down from above
as if they'd designed
this moment
just for us
and couldn't bear
to miss out.

the heady scent of Spirit Cigarettes clings
to your woolen sweater,
an incense of second-hand smoke,
shampoo, and Perfume.
i lose myself in an instant,
breathing in and out.
in and out.

i run my fingers through your hair,
lingering at your jawline,
circling infinitely beneath your earrings.
your hands cling insistently to my windbreaker.
wordlessly, we share an unspoken need
to simply be intwined
beneath a waxing moon,
staving off a chill
that has little to do
with this Florida winter.

wise enough to recognize
bliss like this interrupts our melancholy
only temporarily. ephemeral seconds
suspended like phone-lines between us.
but i yearn to share
moments like these,
however fleeting,
mutually wrapped in rapture.