i've been through nuclear winter
wishing to vanish, believe me -
wanting to let it consume me -
and no one suspected a thing

i've stifled every bone tremor
and denied every visitor
for nothing. a slow kind of death
with lucky days sewn into it

fragments of time are dissolving
every hour inside my head
leaving only outlines in dust
leaving all the damages done

the evil's been born already
across cold water, luminous
all of its wounds on the surface
all of its scars in their glory

I don't write that kind of poetry
you know the type,
pretty flowing words that trickle down the page like a quaint little waterfall in a fancy garden
while daisies open themselves up with so much confidence
without any doubt

and I say something about myself without saying anything at all

the three dimensional poems that you could take a stroll through
and you can lay in the summer grass by the lake
you could get lost in the meaning

even though you're not so certain what the meaning is,
at least not for sure

no, I'm not so good at that

my words are more like...
running through the forest while it's dark and cold
because you want to get home and you're positive
you just heard something rustle in the dead leaves behind you

like telling your blaring warning signs to calm the **** down,
it's just an uneasy feeling

like telling the paranoiac to grow up and walk the **** pathway

it's shameful, annoying,
it's just some dumb feeling

no,
I don't write the sweet paintings kind of poem

I write my heart out into my notebook before I scribble it out and decide I had better not bother

my poems are regret-
regretting putting something good in my butchered understanding of art and words

every piece is the best I can do
and that's about it

I needed to write something

Maybe about how after you went I was only left with smoke dancing in the streetlights

Or about how the stars were so pretty when my eyes couldn't make out your silloette anymore and all I could do was look up

I thought about writing about a dying lover, a ghost that I could still feel clinging to my body

But that's just not right

You're still here, my halcyon boy

You didn't smile like thunder and go away,
No funeral blues today

tether holding me to earth, I can still reach out and hold on tight

My boy, we won't see each other much

And it'll take some time

But somewhere down the line

We won't be alone

can you touch me and pretend like the fat doesn't gather around my chest and hips? can you touch me like a boy would touch a boy?
can you hear me like it's a polite young man talking? can you hear the shrill, nasally drone and remember that it's supposed to be me?  
can you stop looking into my eyes? can you sew them shut? can you stop pretending to know all that I am?
can you come up behind me and smash my head in with a glass bottle?

seeing the dead body of someone you do not know
feels like committing a great betrayal of intimacy
I did not mean to gaze upon thee, I just wanted to know what the commotion was
I apologise dearly for the intrusion

there was definitely a spark
it could have been a match to a gas leak
the striplights could have all blown at once
everyone else in the world besides you and me could have gone up in flames

I didn't hear it, I didn't see it,
but I know something happened

because god,
my heart is on fire

my net worth is three sheets
of crumpled paper and
an empty shot glass.
i am not pretending to be
anything refined, sophisticated,
worth your time.  

i’ve ruined the best things in my life
without even realizing it, absence the
only clue; there was no bother to tell me.
i am left with flaws but i am not sure
what they are because I’m too
much of a liability to be told.

there are empty matchboxes strewn
all upon my cluttered mattress
with holes burnt into it.
i have a tin lunch box full of
dead lighters; six years worth.
i never throw them away.
my bad habits exist in
every flameless flick.

will you increase my net worth
by leaving a pack of Marlboros in
my mailbox? i might not be deserving
of an explanation, but it would be
a nice peace offering. if you add
a lighter to the mix, i’ll make sure
the amethyst fades and you
no longer dream of me.

fingers flirt with the flames
of a feeling I don’t understand.
lighter fluid coats my hand and
I don’t bother to wash it off.
tears begin when my parents yell
because twenty years of
abuse, alcohol, and neglected anxiety
takes its toll on the adult mind.
‘i’m over it,’ i say as i drink
my second beer of the day
at nine in the morning.
i light a cigarette and
catch on fire and hope
my parents forgive me enough
to realize not everything is my fault.