Cash, card and mobile, please.*
Had his hood on and made a tough

Face of some sorts as he flashed
What looked like a blade, only

Smaller. Sorry, mate. My phone
Is in my hotel room, my money is

All somewhere between my kidneys
And liver, but I have these two

Fists, and I'm losing my girlfriend as
We speak, so PLEASE come closer

With that pathetic excuse for a knife,  
So I can use it to pick what's left of

Your heart from my teeth after
My anger is vented.

I don't care if it's Islington;
Did you hear about the Viking at

Stamford Bridge? I'm back. Don't
Ever mug a Norwegian.

Don't ever try to mug a Norwegian.
Don't ever try to mug a Norwegian

Poet. I still have £200 in
My pocket. And a tongue as sharp

As anything I've ever been
Threatened with. Boy.

I became a criminal when I fell in love.
Before that I was a waitress.

I didn't want to go to Chicago with you.
I wanted to marry you, I wanted
Your wife to suffer.

I wanted her life to be like a play
In which all the parts are sad parts.

Does a good person
Think this way? I deserve

Credit for my courage--

I sat in the dark on your front porch.
Everything was clear to me:
If your wife wouldn't let you go
That proved she didn't love you.
If she loved you
Wouldn't she want you to be happy?

I think now
If I felt less I would be
A better person. I was
A good waitress.
I could carry eight drinks.

I used to tell you my dreams.
Last night I saw a woman sitting in a dark bus--
In the dream, she's weeping, the bus she's on
Is moving away. With one hand
She's waving; the other strokes
An egg carton full of babies.

The dream doesn't rescue the maiden.

Your love
So beautiful
I feel so warm in between your thighs
Your deep breaths taking over my life
This is what I have longed for
Long phone calls, 4AM texts and writing poetry as your honor
You're like hip hop
My heart never stops racing in your presence, that's how powerful your love is
I love you

When the thunder collapses like my grandfather's love,
there's no one that can hate me more than I do now.
As the lights begins to stain and drain my eyes,
there's no one that can hate me more than I do now.
Skeletons fell with the sea shells in the air.
I hope I'm falling asleep.
To no longer be here
is to be fair to everyone.

Art gallery in my head,
where the paintings hang above
polaroids and used condoms.
Where it's okay that I'm there:
the picture of a *******.
Where it's okay to love me.
Where it's okay to be me.
Where it's okay to know me.
Where it's okay to be me.
Where it's okay to get close to me.
Where it's okay to be me.
Where it's okay to believe in me.
Where it's okay to be me.
Where it's okay to be me.

In 2003 I was molested.
I want it to be okay to be me.
I detached myself from lullabies
and sorry eyes, only to realize:
I could have been dead in March,
right before the summer glows
and everyone would know
It wasn't okay to be me.

Why did you have to do it
My flesh tastes tainted,
and my eyes are painted
with the disgust of distrust
and the disgust of your lust
that corroded my body
and ate my blood
Am I any good
I want to be good.
I want to be pure.
I want to be more
than what I am.
****
There's acid in my veins
There's ******* acid in my veins
My body ******* shakes
Even when in love, I shake
When I'm safe, I shake
Am I ever safe

God isn't real, and neither am I
I am about as real as the dream I can't even buy
My talent is irrelevant, my past dictates my decisions
My love is the only redeeming quality,
and even that lacks precision.
I want to be perfect. I'm sorry that I apologize for anxiety;
it's not so much that I'm asking for forgiveness,
I just want to hear that there's no need to be sorry,
because it's okay to be me.

Oh. Hey, my eyes are watering; isn't this cool?
We're all having fun. Yippee.

The sun bursts rays, and there are twenty-three different ways
to stay alive inside when I'd rather hide from the sun's naivety
Searching for warmth on the walls with blistered palms,
as I lay in bed, naked. Removed of clothes and hope.
Blood in my mouth, new starters with broken shoelaces on the floor
Dreaming of different places. I said: dreaming of different places.
Cryptic words. In other worlds. In fire, I learned to drown.

A-B-C-D-E-F-G
Reentering the room, drunk.
H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P
Hide behind the bloodied bunk.
Q-R-S-
T-U-V-
W-X-
Y and Z
Now I've learned my lack of harmony,
next time won't you spare me, please.

Roses fall from the ceiling. There's no way I'm feeling.
Detach yourself from this room, this nation, this planet.
"You're too fragile to talk to, Josh." Thank you.
Don't allow yourself to ever be hurt again.
Regain your focus after I count down from ten.

Ten.
Reasons to stay alive.
Nine.
I want to live, I don't want to survive.
Eight.
There's nothing about me that anyone should hate.
Seven.
There's no god, but right now, I can make my own heaven.
Six.
I detached myself from lullabies and sorry eyes only to realize I love you.
Five.
"You're still there, right?" Dial tone silence, followed by fist to wall violence.
Four.
And to know you, is to know everything.
Three.
Adaptation without reclamation I find you in my translation
as hurt yet elation.
Two.
I want to make love in love. I want to die and donate a part of myself;
my backbone, lack thereof.
One.
When I fall asleep my eyes meet yours.

Intermission:

Do you like hurt? Do you like pain? Is a happy poem not your game?
Well, read a poem by Josh Haines and never look at him the same again.
And don't look at yourself the same, because it's okay to be you!
For the price of absolutely nothing, you can look at his words!
Wait, and that's not all! Validate the 'beauty' of his words by
touching that heart and making it red!
Make it as red as the bloodied bunk that stained his back and heels!
Only for the price of absolutely ******* nothing!
Hurry, though! You only have until the end of ******* forever, so act fast!
The number is
1-800-I'M AVOIDING A LAWSUIT LIKE I DO THE PEOPLE IN MY LIFE

2nd.

Hey, do you like your parents?
Yes!
Trick question. Do you looove your parents?
Yes!!
Do you like seeing your grandmother in a wheelchair?
Yes!
Do you like being hurt by the people that you care about the most?
Yes!!
Then grab some popcorn and cola!

End of Intermission.


Trying like you're crying at the end of the film that documents your life
To divide a knife into your skin like it's a sin to feel this way
I just couldn't take it, bones in the corner of the room.
Inside a skeleton's eyes, flowers bloom.
Chicka-yay-no way. You swear? You say:
Ti-ta-time is on my side, but that's not how it feels inside.
An internal measure of the pressure of the world
and it's bound to run out like the sand in my hands
at the precious beach that would **** me if I stepped
into the blue, for me and you.

Let me turn back time to when I first met you.
Don't be afraid.

I remember everything. To never forget, is to realize every lie,
smile at every face, and to remember every goodbye.

I hurt my hands, I need to talk to you on the phone.

My insomnia lives off the thought, that I hurt you.
The room is blurry, and I'm sorry for being cold.
I am warm. I have the sun inside.
I guess I'm just afraid of burning you with it.

The drums pound into rhyme,
Diamond casualties
Rewind, wound, rewound
To scratch the surface
until there's nothing but sound.

It amazes me how people just...lose each other.
Every day.
Carelessly, as if it's...
Doing the laundry or making lunch.
It absolutely stuns me how people can just adjust to suddenly being cut off from somebody else.
Breakups, the ends of friendships,
They...happen.
To everyone.
To everyone on earth, and I don't understand how people just keep going.
Just live their lives as if they haven't lived them in tandem with another person for...years.
As if they haven't laughed, cried,
Shared secrets and dreams,
Spent countless hours with
This whole incredible other being, who is suddenly just...
Gone.
There's not a word for how I feel, thinking that people just go on, knowing that this person they loved and treasured,
Kissed and connected with,
That this person will grow old and die someday.
How do you face that thought every day?
That they will finish their days somewhere far away, somewhere completely different,
With a family or children that you'll never meet.
With lines on their face that you'll never see touch it gradually.
With stories and joys and traumas that you
Will never hear about.
With memories that you aren't a part of.
And they'll be lost to you. And you just...
You just throw that away, as if it's ordinary.
As if it's... easy.
People just cut their ties so **** carelessly.
Watching them... Mystified doesn't cover it.
Confused. Befuddled. Dismayed. Bewildered...
Betrayed.
There isn't a word. None of these come even close.
Thinking of it, I feel the way I feel when I pass the corpse of an animal on the highway
When I hear about a dear friend whose father has just died,
When I remember how many people on earth starve to death every day.
Me, the sculptor of words,
Always with a way to try and bridge the gap of empathy,
I have no word for it.
For how utterly I do not understand the human ability to
Write off someone you love.
I've tried every single one I know
And none rings as hollow as the feeling of remembering
That people lose each other without dying.
I've turned it over in my mind
Buffeted it with adjectives
Prodded it with metaphors
Trying to find a word that approaches how it feels to realize this
But the only one
I ever end up at is
*"Why?"

You are her favorite ,  her  no.1 poet
She is  your avid fan, your no. 1 admirer
But where are you now, are you hiding
From the one who promised to care forever?