In Farmington the misfit suffers the jukebox and dances to an unknown song. He dances on the pool table. He wears black—black skull cap, black
duster, black shirt, black slacks, black boots. He's in Farmington and
the women here drink Bud Light. He dances slow. It's similar to a dance
you've seen before. You have that friend that climbs on couches after a few and half staggers, half sways. The women here watch him with unhappy eyes and hands stained blue from the textile mill. He seems to mouth the words although he clearly doesn't know the song. They, the women, dig their elbows into the bar. Pocked and graffiti'd, the bar soaks up spilled beer and ash and nail polish. Behind the bar a sign reads: Free Beer Tomorrow. And for some reason, you must admit, this sign's effect never dulls. The Misfit pantomimes a dance with a pool cue. His face is severe, serious. He's in Farmington dancing with a pool cue on a pool table to a song he doesn't know like a drunk friend of yours and the women are watching. Next, he does something amazing. He removes his cap. He's got shocks of bleached hair and burn scars run like rivulets between the patches. He tosses the cap toward the bar. One lucky woman catches it and summons herself to the pool table. You want them to have a bit of dialogue here, to say something oblique and innocent. Instead the lucky woman dances at the man's feet. He surrenders a smile and he's got small tracts of bleached hair and burn scars and he's in all black and he's dancing. The lucky woman, she's in a canary yellow patch dress. Her dance, although clumsy, still mesmerizes you. It's without ego, without shame. She is a child. She is the light in the room. She is, in this moment, the world entire. He pulls her onto the table. It's time to appoint the Misfit and the lucky woman names, you think. His name shall be Joshua. Her name shall be Anna. Palms together, her head resting on his chest, they sway. The smoke and the tracers of light meld and Joshua and Anna's outlines become muddied. Their bodies merge and they are both yellow and black and covered in burn scars and bleached hair and the women are still watching. As the song starts to fade, someone—maybe it's you—drops a few coins in the jukebox and it begins again.

Where lives are saved and lives are lost,
Transparent waves simmering and smoking,
Festering natives shouting 'bon voyage,'
Against the colossal empty carcass of stone.

We were alive, we were one.
Like you said in the sloppy mud,
The surreptitious metal clashing,
Screaming its choiring shout of affirmation.
The deity that strung us by the neck,
Forcing us to choke on our natural *****.

The door has closed.
Let it be heard in a whisper
In the evanescent air.
Like the pairing of two great crashing waves.

I remember that twilight tulip's lip,
The cupid's bow puckered earnestly yet forsaken.

And with our bodies braced
We raise the anchor,
Bearing our scopes far beyond the horizon.
A never ending sail in the wind.

I want to softly whisper
incomplete poems
on your collar bones
that don't rhyme with anything
but your heavy breathing.

I want to bury my face
in the curves of your neck
because you smell like the winter clouds
and I've been gazing at the sky
since you left.

when i was young
i drew hearts that looked like the letter "B" -
B for battle
- for bullies
- for boys who would sting me
a thousand times over
and i worry about my allergies.
when i was eight i was a cub scout
enlisted in a group on how to become a man
i didn't want to play dodgeball,
you stupid ****
i just wanted to sit back and look
at the other boys in their uniforms
my heart pounding like a moth on glass
i promise that i will do my best
to keep it inside of my chest
to try and suppress the urge
to walk over to peter
and kiss him like i ought to kiss girls
well, i didn't earn many activity badges
and i never won a game of dodgeball
but i've washed away the shame,
come to learn it's okay to kiss boys
like i ought to kiss girls
infact,
it's
*******
great

you wrote the book on being an *******.
i read it twice.
and i find myself alluding to it
all the time.

you told me the definition of high art was broke.
if i wanted to succeed,
i needed to trash my collection of huxley
and memorize
every action sequence
in every jerry bruckheimer film.

you based the last six years of your life
on a ghandi misquote,
you ripped from wikipedia.

you told me love was just mankind kidding himself.
only trust in what you can feel,
"like *******."

i wrote an article about you,
i asked  if you believed in god.
your reply,
"god is a concept
by which we measure our pain."
i thought that was clever.

it took me 3 months to remember
that's off lennon's Plastic Ono Band.

sara left me on the 14th of may,
while my mentor laid dying,
while my debt went unpaid.

over routine coffee and cigarette,
she watched the flimsy fabric
of my flesh
catch flame.

she floated away
to ricochet off summer lions,
whose pride lies between their
worn thighs.

i planted heavy.
aged a century in a week of
wine, infomercials, and hospital
calls.

every mutual friend i asked
about sara's condition,
told me to leave her be,
cast me in creep status.

my beard grows gnarly.
my smoldered remnants
held together by cobwebs.
and everything i ever loved
is on its deathbed.

sorrows,
shaved scalp,
sorrows,
forehead heavy with ash,
sorrows,
scabs scraped with broken pottery,
sorrows,
all the gods stopped playing fair,
sorrows,
with cold sons and contradictory friends,

sorrows,
for the saints,
sorrows,
for the satans,
sorrows,
for citing both.

sorrows,
at the sound of laughter,
sorrows,
at the touch of neighbors,

sorrows,
for losing my mind,
my maker,
my family,
sorrows,
while everyone else is content
to live in ****** sitcoms
and safety-net salvation.

here we go again
i **** my head
and ready my
mouth to fire
back
rebuttals.

the smoke of
silence,
following
your verbal
onslaught
pours through
my pores
and pulls
my
trigger.

the anger-driven
bullets
fly fast and
pick apart
your metal
heart.

your eyes grow
heavy and shaky.

there's sorrow and
violence tucked behind
them.

part of me is
frightened.

part of me
is aching
for return
fire.

your volley is
scattered.
as if you are grasping
for straws.
desperate to wreck
me
for the
sheer
drama
of the event.

i drop my gun.
give peace a chance, i suppose.
i turn, decide
it's
time
to
go.

but before i retreat
you ask me,
"how many others have you said
i love you to?

this is you at your most masochistic.
the answer is an automatic grenade
to the heart.
you know that.
yet you ask that.

"four"
i lie.
the number is much higher.

"who were they?"

god,
you're just asking
for it.

i **** my head
and we go
to war.