Why scream in darkness,
everybody screams there;
It is for cowards and idiots
thinking they can change.

I tell her I need her and I want
her
compass, her train pass, her
watch-
ful eye directed toward my city.

She tells me that she loves me,
and cries.

It was the first time. It was in the dark
night. Then I realized:

Crying is like screaming
in the day.

Journal Entry 1
I have not much to write today
a time in life where all's ok
I'm going to die and that's alright
I don't even care to try or fight
I've lost before the battle's done
and every victor in the sun
will forget to stop and search my corpse
to judge if I am worth remorse
because I stopped trying and took orders instead
Today's a day where I'm better off dead

******* crazy man, I hear you
It’s sad to think about it
What opportunities were available back then!
Insanity to forego the pleasures of flesh
Such reason is often demanded by choices
But to say what is better is not to question
Our existence
And why we’re here
Can’t be determined
As everything surrounding us quickly decays
And leaves in its stead a flaccid, moist eminence
Straight from the plane beyond
More despicable than death
And intolerable under pleasant conditions
Which never exist
For the world’s forsaken
And we’ve killed our king
Before he could ward off our enemies

And we see when we were younger lying in the grass below
The hills were high and we were under the heavens which glowed
I saw the clouds white and silver passing above our heads
I looked you in the eyes and you stuttered where do we go next
We took a step holding hands
You released mine, I looked away
You embarrassed me in front of my friends, I still remember it today
You chased me crying through the ally
I laughed at you aloud, I’m sorry that it ever came to that
I wasn’t ever proud of how I treated you that night
But I asked you for forgiveness, we made up and we kissed
You gave me birthday presents
I think it’s funny how it goes, how life fades away
Those times were o so long ago, but I think of them today
And I see that you’ve made friends, you’ve moved on
I shouldn’t even think of you
It’s pathetic really that I’m talking to the ghost inside my head
Those days were sunny, my car was warm
We rolled down the windows, still we sweat
I lifted hair off of your cheek, I kissed you
It was tender it was sweet, my fingers were inside of you
I grabbed your bosoms I held them, I licked each ******
And I pressed myself against you
Can you forget these days the way I do?
Can you forget these days and yet have them inside of you?

They installed locks
handed you keys.
Hold them, silver, golden,
shaking with dis-ease.

A vision of the Earth outside.

Squinting in a dark hallway,
why not turn the ***,
nudge yourself inside?

Someone paid for you to live here,
a father, mother, or friend.

Your chain of life extends far backwards
but on this side it must end.

You may have felt forever,
trapped with your despair,
between rough crust,
precious residue
floating in air.
Pressure can't hold us
with clouds
and shapes from dreams.

We'll soon be gone, and you will too.
Don't waste your voice with screams.

It, too, is faltering,
our voice,
our atmosphere,
hopes for exploration.
Heaving, chest
uncompensated by oxygen,
raided like sarcophagi
with your timid, spinning brain
having no peddler,
to whom to sell it?

No, your home waits here
on solid ground.
Keep your voice wrapped around you,
not in the heavens, as you'd wish.

Take off both shoes,
sit down.
Patiently inhale.
Feel worlds shifting their weight
skin, becoming pale.
Shake off saw-dust covering
your day-clothes.

Stretched
dissected.
Carpet does this to frame,
taking you through thresholds
and mindsets.

Evaporate,
see no more today.
Rain down until tomorrow
in this never-ending night
given to trees
collecting your purple-pink
and blue
dews.
Leaves bending
with gratitude
holding drops of you
aloft
before
no heat can take you up
and they,
becoming coffins
for you,
weep
and cover your dis-may.

A dashed possibility.

Like a dust moat in the sky,
preventing
a window past your mind,
what you saw standing atop
brittle decrepitude
through saccharine eyes
is shifting, impermanent,
time cannot be mistaken.

Relax.
A tear pulls
the horizon,
lightning
rips your sight.

Breathe as long as it takes
to stop breathing.

Alone, shaking.
Silver, golden.
in this eternal night.

No one re-writes directions to that fixture
out in space, yet near.
But you know it once was twirling
because you followed its light
to here.

Turn the keys they gave you
and look, inside the frame
of consciousness.
There is one artwork you create
with every facile, blinking motion
every extended being,
your thick paints of colors,
never able to be seen.

There once was chaos in man
he wanted so much to scream.
Instead he reconciled to whisper
and laugh.

Open-mouthed, blind and plodding--
there's no one to teach him how to dance--
he falls through space
alone on his rock.

Rusted, thrown
                          Brown
onto the walls of
                          Subsequent
                         ­ Possession
We feel, blindly
Our tips rubbing plaster
and soliloquy. Dodging             meandering
                          despair from
torridly ambitioningly mild forms
of lower-
                          Back
                          A­rch.
You scallion, you
                          You
and yours.
                          Those shoes

Throw away the ashes

Pull the sutures out

Wipe away the dust from pictures

Start to scream and shout



One last look for this lifetime

One more final glance

Tomorrow’s coming and I’m leaving

I’m not coming back



I took the garbage out today

Nothing to report

Just faded dreams and rotting meat

Not difficult to sort



My heart was in that bag too

My brain falls from my hand

I think it will remain with you

Kick it if you can



It’s like a dream that’s gone away

A picture I can’t sketch

An idea lost in my head

Unsteady hand, lit match



Dry earth seeping noxious gas

Melancholy rays

Shining down from up above

Dispirit me today



The burning wood

Falls to the floor

As trimmers split the cracks

It all blows me away

What for? For what am I waiting so long?
It makes absolutely no sense. Without you I felt
the walls built out of plaster and tasted
coffee from countries that I haven’t visited, with soft hands
I am planted in the earth on the edge of your river.
Yes, so even, yet outflown as I am, degraded and unnecessary.
A thousand thorn centered tributaries.
I would like to feel your thoughts on me and
mys-- “mys,” what does it mean to adhere?

Yes, I know you have them still, these whispered thoughts
they are the seams that hold my feathers beneath your head.
You can lie the same way as yesterday, but without follow up.
“I am not flying toward you!” I call. But it’s no use
You escape me. Shame, Sweet, that we
are together so short.

Amidst anticipation and preparation
I could hardly hum along
Years since
I hear as the last few months of high school
Moss-strewn desert
Floral, perfume-clouded memories
Drip on
Down the walls, damp musty and alone
That chorus, repeat others
In our hollow cave reflections,
Holds no melody
More sufficient
Shattered, prattled teeth
Vibrate within

Initially, a glistening syringe
Punctured our sullied vestigial
Denoting words withered and wispy
Also being barren, tapped as well as empty
That canister of pithy remembrances
Now outright, unique and unencumbered
Still
The torridly measly, meek and
Reflective dripping silver needle
Forgoes my waking-dream and other alibis
For fluids fleeting from us to
Be lapped up by the sun then bottled in the clouds
“Forever?”
…Yes, because time means nothing…
“So that’s where we are, when all they see is weather”
Goodbye to consciousness

If you were here
--as I would like that you were
we’d take this bath
that I've prepared
you'd wash my genitals, which
need soap and soft moisture
from your sponge and dimpled
thighs
I hold apart

Yes, when you're not here
I’m a bit putrid
The water is cold
and I'm afraid to go in
thinking of the black ocean
bottom
that's as many miles away
as you

There is a certain art in relinquishing your spirit to emotions quelling from the breast
Stumbling haphazardly through the hallways of an academy surreptitiously pristine
Encountering locked doors, painted walls, lowered eyes and agony
The menial labor of a janitor picking up after the crowd has released every last yelp
And the pain
Of a boy stooped in an empty corner
Old enough to be a man
Helpless as an infant
Too poor to enter, too meek to escape
Trapped in the corridor between sunny landscapes and dimmed memories
Struggling to hoist his frame up from its stupor
Afraid it may just as well falter once restored
And hoping someone may notice
There is a certain art in relinquishing your spirit to emotions quelling from the breast
Sincerity and compassion need not be amongst them
But, just as breath escapes, so do tears
Splashing from the drowning pool in which the soul thrashes
Bending, grabbing and tossing
Discard,
Discard
Stoop
Obtain
Discard
Each day a variation of the past
Unique in subtle differences imperceivable to visitors
You’ve seen the man, the child, the infant
Tear down the fourth wall
Walk in his corridor
I implore you to bend, grab and discard
Your thoughts of superiority
Take your mud stains and apathetic steps
Carry your able body to a place more receptive
More deserving
Less reflective
And gleaming
Remember the path I made for you in my corridor
It mirrors your face, ambivalent

Every day is
Going to be different
But also the same

Minutes, seconds and hours
Fleeting and innocent
Conveniently avoiding our grasp
They beckon to us
Separate us from our holdings
Declare war on our values
Alluring, provocative
Raising our pleasure
By supplying a deadline
A moment of finality
A time of reckoning
Reasoning
True love
Divided by passion

Forget the apprehension,
Let your clouded breath hang
On the rearview you see from
Your memories
Move in that direction
As tears
Dangle, restless, longing for solid earth
Dewy, un-coiffed grass
Emblazons today, still
Underneath can be beyond…
Above can be behind…
Shrouded horizon spins unnoticed
And all-encompassing endeavors
Bending light ‘twixt fate’s fingers
Like moments through a color-arch
Acrid rumors, sweat
Spew from our stolid, misshapen bodies
Soaring, metal box with wheels
Over holt, into the harbor
Hence comes the tide;
Hence comes the tide!
Underneath becomes beyond
Above becomes behind!
Anxious melody of air-springing
Pervades the cacophony of living
Can you forget asphyxiation,
So long
As saturated lungs keep breathing?

Words hissing through links of spine
Shake his skull’s base
Plunge into a pool of melancholy
So vacuous and contemptible
That’s been
Flooded by nihilism and avarice
Her dead notion gestating
Open case indefinitely
You chose this,
Sinking
In my shallow waters
Displacing fondness
Evaporating on the banks
In serotonin’s stolid drought
Crinkled blueprints for what might have been
Were trembling lips adverse to apathy
And chances had been taken

Holding my arms around my knees I gaze out the window toward a horizon interrupted by buildings
I look out at them, as they face me in an un-assuming posture, ambivalent to my existence
On either side are people, scurrying in the glimmering afternoon sunlight. They gather possessions to hide in their closets. And every parcel is an amount of pollution. What if there were fewer of us? Unnecessary ones, incompetent ones.
I suppose there’d be fewer yard sales

ashtrays, mugs and
moments: rattle within, outside their place.
our brittle, needy bones
support head,
appetite-shorn body: Bouldering.
Walking. |Wicking. Mushing bridges
churning-over water, tide.
High-regard neighbor’s children re-
move plastic decorations while that grandpa
hangs-- alive,
stayed-- in unused gutters, -o! Wind and
snow-flaked, grassy yardstomps lead us
with body-**** coats to-
doors, somedays-ies and happenstance
below mortuaries, toe-
tags, dangling shoe-string,
draping clothes'-
line our spindly, warrowed hallways
between blankets, sweaty
feelers lie, their
harrowed, heaving trunks hold night-trees/
palms aloft and hopeful.

a glint, a chance, a something.
wicker furniture, lace.
a bed, a "yes." Please,
a you.

Each song is like a bookmark for the book of your life’s memories.

Each thumping bass line, each crescendo and every change in voice tone of the singer makes you cognizant of a time in the past during which you identified at some level with the musician.

To some degree, the words are clearer now than they ever were; in other aspects it’s like viewing a piece of art with younger eyes.

Likely, upon first hearing the song you did not completely empathize with the message.

Maybe you envisioned yourself in their place, wondering what you would feel or do.

Often times, upon hearing a favorite song from days past anew, our cumulative experiences since last hearing the song have made it possible for us to appreciate the meaning.

Sometimes we’ve actually been through the same thing as the singer.

At this point it’s almost like having a psychiatrist there asking you how the situation made you feel.

It compels you to think back to the incident and contemplate the momentousness of the occasion.

It allows you to grieve alongside the artist, to work through the problems which persist in your life as a result and hopefully, under the right circumstances listening to music can allow us to remove the bookmark and turn to the next page.

"Do you two know each other? Well, then get to know each other."

I, with my skin around the neck, your hands on my blue dress-shirt.

Yes, it's no regular dress-shirt; it's really a v-neck t-shirt.

But, girl, you don't actually have hands either.

In the normal sense, that is, you do-- of course. But not around me, or my dress-shirt
or v-neck t-shirt.

They are on your arms, by your sides and, without love, you carry them through the desert each day.

And your feet ply my shoulders-- because I am sand beneath clouds.

I am sand beneath hate, under t-shirts and under blue dress-shirts which are actually v-neck t-shirts.

I am sand, with your hands on my surface and my skin around the neck.

And sand does not find itself in the desert-- it just is.

Two shards of the same stone, eternally separated, though resting on each other.

now--
i'll be here a while
falling like a star
people of the big brown sun
looking in your eyes
from the airtrain window
in the middle
of a song about
bonnie and clyde;
what's in a prayer,
if i ever leave this world?
you're alive
--this day belongs to you

I’m sorry your football team lost, state.
Maybe you should invest
more time and
focus
on the things within your borders
that make any difference at all.
Like the thoughts of a young man
sitting at his table
watching ******* all day
                                            waiting
for a woman
who knows what it feels like;
He worries so much
                                                    For
a country
that spends more energy getting
drunk
and eating bleacher food
than wondering
if there’s any reason to be
Anything
Anything
Anything
                                   ANYTHING
at all.

--You are like that man
                                   wearing red,
shouting at your tv
and cursing;              only
you are without an
idea.

And you'll be that way on Monday
and Tuesday.
You'll have a thought
of where to eat on Wednesday
or decide to have a baby on Thursday
and forget on Friday
while you're dancing.

But you won't ever ask why;
not even on Sunday, when you're
sitting in church
and thinking about Kansas City
Chiefs' scores
or whatever worthless *******
you people think about.

I'm *******.

Tell me of a day without struggle, a day without pain
If there be such a day, let it remain a secret to no man
Let it fill our ears and tremble in our own throats
For such a day is a gift from the universe
Bequeathed upon the masses
An approximated apology, focused on redeeming malice
The brightly shining sun would focus its strength on its object
Taking aim at his soul, meaning to warm it, looking to extract it
Taking from him all that was harmful from tarrying seconds
Replacing cruelty and hatred with thoughts that resemble forgiveness
But in themselves they are not forgiveness
Forgiveness, being but a specter, usurped by memories grown grainy
Forgiveness is so sallow and downtrodden, unconvincing
No, the thoughts projected by the early year’s sun are not so
They are empty of reminisces, void of meaning
Shining and new, redemptive and rejuvenating
Yet we approach them with a quiver of arrows fastened from our past
Expending ourselves in fighting its gaze and retreating to our caves
Where our memories are sheltered
To ponder what it means that this intruder has returned
Stroking the identities it tried to quell and weeping until overtaken by slumber
If ever there has been a day without pain and without struggle
Verily, the night which followed has it cast asunder

I need you
to combat dreams
I can’t control;
to keep me warm
in-between
seasons and days.
You help me see.
I’m not addicted.
I just have high ex-
pectations for my mind.
The connections
you fasten;
the faltering awareness
you calm and persuade
to remain.
I do want you here,
boiling with the pressure
of my stomach
like the worries which
brought you into me
from a cup
poured by my hand,
shaking.
While you were emptied,
I smiled, and thought of
the focus I’m gaining.
Please disperse yourself
throughout my body.
And tell the thoughts you bring
along with you to
leave me in peace
with my imaginings.

Tireless hours fleeting away with more vigor now than before
Tedium, wallowing helplessly, while I use my pick and keep digging
I’m digging to find the hidden agenda, the reason for me to survive
I’m digging to bury my past incarnation, I’m digging to conceal my life
My actions don’t follow me, they’ve blocked off the exit from the mine
And the shafts that hold the lumbering earth at bay seem indifferent
My self is the true menace
It despises my flesh and recants my existence
It lunges at me in the darkness, striking at me with its claws
My eyes glow ice blue in the reflection when I see him
And I tepidly back into the wall
As clods first break off and larger chunks follow
The grey skin of my self shimmers and the beast broadens its shoulders
He pounces as the ground crashes in all around us
My death is his beginning

I can’t think
Because I hear the noise
And the noise interrupts my thoughts
So I play music
To cover up the noise
And the music creates more noise
In my head
I’m not safe
From my thoughts
With all this noise
I will never hear them coming

I’d like to hold my head beneath the water of youth
Drown myself as the chloranic waves washed over
Burning my throat
Tingling
Happiness, and the effervescent smell of sunscreen
Luscious, half forgotten years
Water of innocence
Water of peace
Cleansing me with its toxic malnourishment
Of hope, forgiveness
Love
Trifling and deliberate
Half forgotten, half begotten
Aimless
Timeless
Harlequin sunshine

If you think it will stop
Don’t
Hold on to the railing
Jump
Over the edge
Onto the sidewalk
Separated from streets
Marauding, rubber tires pummel
Surveying alleyways neglected and
Trash cans brimming with disregard
It’s lonely here, as if each pebble were a
Reveler
Ambivalent toward you
Unkempt and stiff
As if petrified and disavowed at once
Ignored, timid
Apathetic discharge
Free,
Fallen
From a short, raised canopy
Of steel
And wood and
Bones and
Dust
Chalk; dried on a lesson
Conveyed
Battalions, battalions
Marching
Avid miscreants
Scurrying
The masters couldn’t paint as fast
And each trifling matter
Marches past with
Battalions
Battalions
Battalions
And Stones

Anhänger of bands
Parades in here
Your voice
Feverously
Dancing
In my skull
Coming from our mouths
Each ****** idea we think
Careening through my body
Embedded in my DNA
Spelling out and adding up to somebody
Who somehow
Is,
Just …
Holding on

I can’t think of myself as anyone else
I haven’t the slightest idea
After six months, I shall do what you wish
That’s not true
It’s not true. I tell you it’s not true!
Not another word
What’s the matter with him?
I feel that he is my equal
That’s all right, then! That’s all right, then!
Let’s say I’m not worthy of it
When I look a man in the eyes
I become incapable of giving him orders
I’m going out
Don’t believe a word of it
You’ll be more comfortable
“There you’re really yourself”

I want to end my life
In search of where to go
The subtle reverberations
Of faint murmurs from fantilion futile flagella
As if to escape their murky repose
Flap, furiously
At once distant, then endlessly so
From the warmth of what it must be
To be free; aye, lifeless
As if their yearning made it so
And our flagellum steered us true
But we're embedded now
There's only two things we can do

Other worlds have hopes,
for plants, for trees and
dogs walking by, panting
soaking in humidity like carp
above water.
Not ours.
Dead ends, parked cars supplanting
serenity with passion, desire
crammed into
row upon row of heartless
dwellings expunging sunglass-wearing
**** suckers
blocking their emptiness from the world
with reverse blindfolds.
I know their eyes still glare at me, scoffing at
them. Walking, I
walk past
their barricaded kennels, under-
construction housing
impersonating natural climes
with sushi and slushy shops.
People like them have admiss-
able drives, hankering after
freedom; they're indoctrinated
to believe admission is
monthly cable bills
wired in beneath concrete slabs
maintained compliance
through lines painted on grass
where overlords can tell livestock
what to do.
Bus chutes form
hillsides, beside lines of
trees which perfume these
feedlots
we call
cities.
**** oozes below streets
walked on, they stared at me
like cows, watching a ranch-hand
suspicion toward anything
beyond bistro fences.
"What the **** are you looking at,
you filthy animal?
Have you no idea which species your greed
feeds?
Do you know where this ends
for you?
Who's tazing your ***,
who's making you sit there?"
Moo, mooo.
Mooooooooooooooooooo.
Receipts, a cudgel on each table,
more cudgels ring
from pockets
telling them what time it is,
where they're to be.
Sunday's almost over,
back to blocks of houses!
Graze on painted grass,
then die,
but not before you stare at me
with empty eyes,
you pathetic, miserable
creatures.

My birth’s eve is enigmatic
A day I shan’t relive
Tugging on my piety
As the light flooded my eyes
Both have witnessed heave and **
Finesse and outright folly
As I stumbled throughout life’s corridors
Prodding walls with eager palms
I screamed out at perceived darkness
Then fell once more unabashed
This time further than before
Through the stony grasp of destiny
Into an incubation tub
Turning anxiously to and fro
My pupils dilate once more
As I part my lids, take light in
I reach to touch, to understand
And feel a plastic wall
But I dare not wonder where I sit
For my heart is renewed innocent
I wish to stay wrapped in this cloth
Until my body is dispossessed
Deteriorating in time and space
But my soul would be perplexed

I shouldn’t be drinking coffee.
I shouldn’t be reading the news.
It makes me anxious, and it’s not only the chemical interaction.
Somehow, I associate it with “adulthood”—reading the news,
Drinking coffee—I can’t tell you how many days of the last few
Years have been spent entirely in this fashion. The coffee
Growing cold and the news colder still. I don’t even taste the
black, fluid drops. I don’t hear the screams of people I read
about. I just want to hold on to something—so I raise the glass
to my lips. I can’t say

the shocking words when my mouth’s full; I can’t tell

about my experience, my privilege, when I’m drinking it.


The production of the commodity

creates a line from some equatorial region
to central America, and my mouth.
I think about the Autumn I worked in a corn-seed
sorting facility. What a short experience—
and yet,
something that weighs heavy on my imagination.
I was a temp worker.
I chose to work there out of shame and guilt for having
missed the deadline for college enrollment.
I could have done anything else; but there were people
there who wanted nothing more than a job. They needed
to be
there.
And I think of the people involved in producing coffee beans

in much the same way.
Removed
from the thing they’re making, as the raw materials are shipped
to places you pay workers more.
Why shouldn’t I swallow with difficulty when faced with the pro-
spect of a person supporting their entire family with the type
of work
I did
reflexively, as a choice?

Now I sit here, reading about North African riots,
a region, where coffee is produced—
ARABICA COFFEE— and I think about what’s sitting
in my cup, how I have
spent more money than they make in a day
to buy
one container
…
and sit here
for an afternoon
doing nothing but reading about their families’ misery.

I am a human parasite.

And like the bedbugs that have crawled meticulously
between my mattress and bedframe, hiding in a safe spot
until they can come out, undetected, and **** my potency.

I sit here, in the comfort of an apartment furnished
and paid for by my father who grows corn in a highly-
mechanized, agricultural society. I take more and more,
festering to the size of a blistering, red dot
blinking in the dark, in the form of the record light on
my voice recorder.
I expect so much more from myself, simply because of
this position of luxury.

But I don’t take time to think about my reaction to these
stories or how I am involved in them, in shaping their plots.
I’m even eating more now
as I’ve nearly lost my concern with avoiding certain super-
markets.
I smile at the greeters, make small talk with the cashiers
whom I am openly exploiting. But it’s ok, because
I worked for a month at a cornseed manufacturing
facility
and I read Marxist Ideology,
and I know about the Arab Spring
and I was against American intervention in Libya
and I disdain the air strikes from robotic planes
(unauthorized by congress)
and I disdain congress
and I support gay marriage
(I stopped eating chicken).
I don’t drive to the suburbs of my city.
I walk and ride my bicycle as much as I feel like.
I use public transportation at times.
I try to get to know women.
I practiced safe ***, once.
I write poetry.
I tell my mom I love her.
I bought my nieces birthday presents.
I’m not overly nice to people of different
ethnicities.
I voted for Obama.
I’m trying.
All these things make it seem less bad
to smile at the cashier.
But then I think about my black studies Professor
who used a walker to come to class
because she fell
and spelled the word Amendment “Admendment”
on the board when talking about Reconstruction.
I think about the war in Syria.
I think of people dying from cholera in Haiti, in 2012
A.D.
I think about fracking and oil spills and …
irrevocable damage to Indian reservations.
I think about football coaches molesting children
and people eating fried butter.
I read about people
upset
with a movie
who protest in the streets for days.

It makes me realize I shouldn’t smile at anyone.
I shouldn’t be drinking coffee.
I shouldn’t be reading the news.

Terrible illness
Anxious, irrational fear
Putrid malignance
Lack of warmth, sterile air
Earth nourishes her daughters

Nebraska has over 6 million head of cattle
and is perhaps the largest beef producer in the world.
This is strange, juxtaposed to my neighbors
who are Hindus, from India.
On all sides, I am surrounded by young, attractive,
friendly Indians
living in Nebraska,
studying information systems.
I rarely eat beef, but I joke, for them,
this place must be some kind of sacrilege,
or purgatory
where they go before returning home to join the "growing middle class"
we hear so much about.

They have gatherings, food,
language and ways
of maintaining hegemony among their group
while they are here, in my hallway,
and I am alone.
I have no information to manage,
no home to return to.

They gather in my neighbors’ apartment
talking, late into the night
I once made friends with two of them
who, unlike the others, were both atheists
instead of Hindus.
They told me that Hindu women, like the ones next door
do not have *** before marriage,
but the men do.
This seemed like a paradox, but I believe them to this day.
And when I hear this platonic conversation, muffled by the walls
it sounds like pigeons
cooing
flapping their wings in an alleyway
And having nowhere to go.
The countless, devout Hindu men
visiting my charming neighbors
remind me of adolescence
how I used religion as a cover for my shyness
I admired these men, in their pursuit
of something I was told to be obtainable
and then I remembered all the people
who were not devout
******* the religious girls I tried to flirt with
while I was in high school.
I laugh.
I wish there were a high minded reason I stopped believing in the zombie Christ,
but it was the fact that no one from my church was having *** with me, because
of God and all that, but they were having *** with other people.
**** christians, really, you can have them all.

It’s easier to imagine my neighbors as trapped birds
subtly fighting for scraps
without ****** desire
than to imagine them as people like me,
who know what they want but assume it’s out of reach.
The alternative, to know that they are having ***,
and I am not,
is too upsetting.

I want them to sound like cooing birds,
shy and timid and lost,
because that is how I feel.
But, if their voices, distorted by the walls,
sound like pigeons to me,
what must my silence sound like to them?
How do they want me to seem?

Lonely people, quiet people,
sad people, fending for scraps of trash.
That is not them, but it is me.

I realize it is easier to be a Hindu
than an atheist
in Nebraska,
and it doesn't matter what (or if)
you eat
when you're alone.

Finding peace in this life
Takes effort and strain
Feelings of hopelessness
Lead to the place
That it is kept
In a clearing, beneath the sky
Far away from the city
The gravestones
The gravel’s edge
Left behind
And the sun warms your skin
As the rain clouds gather
Dust swirling in anticipation
Plugging your nose
Despite the lovely smell
Your lungs deflate
Reconciled
That is peace

Her profile reads “I dance for tips,
                                downtown in Portland.”
Most are looking for the next pair of lips
to kiss
between their legs.
But I'd like to hold
                                her hands
                                behind her back
as she bends over
                                realizes I don't drip ink,
or cash,
                                and wimpers.
A sugar-daddy?
With tattoos? No,
you might get an insurance salesman,
                          or occasional sports equipment re-saler
a single father or two
                         to pay for your tired, old
opinions.
Or you might stop dancing,
                          sell real-estate
your creativity decaying inside a white,
metal box
                         like those bloodied
tampons         janitors were
embarrassed--
ashamed-- to pick up
in junior high bathrooms.
                          She might move back in with her parents
and fly
             like some silken night-robe flapping on a clothesline all day Friday,
all day Saturday. Until lunch on Sunday,
when she pulls it down.
Or she'll flap that way
              for years, on a line in Portland.
Until one day,
                         one day,
that man who won't hold her
                          in the shadows
                          will
                          come
with money,
                     tattoos abounding
and watch her dance
with tears
                  streaming
into the sheath of her time-worn robe
in afternoon sun.

I hold your hand, young one,
you are torn apart.
I am the beating spirit inside us all;
I am the earth, the air, the heart.
Take time, youth is fleeting and
tempered by flames.
Your breath escapes ears through misheard rumors
and your claims go unfelt.
Shush.
Be calm, I promise someday to leave you
torn by others and scarred.
But for now you are handsome, young--
I hold your hand.
Telling you I love you is my charm,
my piercing beauty is forged by your ***** gaze.
It’s ok, young man. I hold your hand,
and leave you,
returning with fire, soldering the wound.
Taking you into the earth, the air, the heart.

Walking past the playground at the park
in the center of my grown up city

I hear children, but do not look at them,
their parents’ eyes seem to glare at me.

As I carry on, earbuds infecting my head
their vibrant laughter derides my shady afternoons indoors,
the things my mother said.

Once I wanted to drink grape Kool-Aid, but my mother wasn’t home
and even though she’d told me not to, I decided to make myself some.

I climbed up in the cupboard and took the faded pitcher
then I took the translucent canister below, in which my mother stored her sugar.

I mixed the sugar and synthetic flavor with a knife
a cloud of purple powder rising up.

Despite the fragrant odor, I couldn't be sure I’d added enough.

After the ingredients dissolved, I was ready to drink.
I took a big boy, breakable glass cup from the counter and washed it in the sink.

I dried the cup and set it there, beside the pitcher on the table
But when I raised the pitcher up to pour juice in the glass,

my little arms were just too feeble.

The pitcher slipped, as I lost grip and everything got wet.
As I took white cloths to sop up what I'd done,

the Kool-Aid fell in torrid sheets from the table's edge into my mouth
as warm Summer rain did years later, inhibiting a game I didn't want to play.

The water falling was relaxing and sweet for me both times.
Each accident was my momental, purple rain delay.

Malicious compliance
Resting your head
To the tune of children’s songs
You waiver on the precipice
Of eternity and present
But we each know you’re secure
With the daftness of scavengers
And grace of a statesman
You fool me again
Aim for my heart, smile
Fire
And fall off

Being beloved must be pleasant
Depended upon yet carefree
What it must be like to deliver
Subtle nods, vague affirmations
Lacking regard of another’s interest
Seeing into you, from a skewed angle
Hoping to get recognition
While ostensibly unaware
Of the microbial ambivalence
Pervading the room from your eyes
Each morsel shared ‘twixt each
Whether intimate or scrupulous
Swept away with a shrug and a call
From a waiter and an ex
Like an invitation to despair

That which would not follow you into the night
Will not be there in the morning
That which will not be there in the morning
Will be hard to find in the afternoon
And when you’re searching before the sun goes down
You’ll stumble on a log
You’ll trip and fall into a marshy wetland
And you’ll be wet
You’ll be consumed by nature
Taken into her heart
Ripped into shreds
You’ll miss her, but she won’t even think of you
You’re a part of her in the same way that her breath is
Each time she expels you
You return to her
So why should she worry?
You’re in her hands now
And she can squeeze you if she wants to
When you hold your breath
Where does it lead?
Where are your feet taking you?

If naming is to ****, you remain a rose to me, or consciousness of Spring and thunderstorms with lightning strikes on green hills sporting tiny, yellow triangles on poles.
They pulsate in windy gusts of hail. The others would **** you out of the short grass, just to play on.
You have no value to them in their minute, diesel-powered, plastic cages.
Mowed shortly, rose, is the grass, so that their ***** can roll, unimpeded by friction with you-- your shape
and your form.
Your red, in the aftermath of a gray cloud is pernicious and sodry.

They don't want you, rose. They value you less than the sand they fall into. You are something outside of their game and they don't smell your odor at all. You could be the shortest tree, they'd chip away from you, regardless.
Why, rose, do you insist on planting yourself on their putridly pristine links?
Why not, rather, lie beside me, unraveled and plucked, on my bed? I get more pleasure from your dissection and thorny vulnerability.
I will cut your stem, yet feed you in a vase;
You'll grow before I take you apart.
Rose, we're all going to unravel-- some with fewer petals, some with fewer strokes.
But why be decimated by those who swing aimlessly the metal rod?
My lips, rose, and my tongue, don't play golf.
And aren't you glad?
When the thunder clashes and the rain comes, they can't play
but we can.

Cowering, we hide our faces behind capes
Salvage what we possess:
The beginnings of a yawn
Could such an unsuspecting time of year fool a person into feeling more at ease?
Treasured memories are trifles
Chewing away at our eardrums
Pricking our ears with that contentious voice
Impertinent to life
Toward starvation, the fallow, snow covered hills and untenable shacks
Sway
That which has been taken will never be returned
Nothing we can do will save our remains from being stolen by the earth
Dusty bones will dry the Summer sun as wild dogs chew at our flesh
He sits there now, knees toward bare chest
Edging near the frozen water canal
Release
A short, cautionary, nearly hopeful sigh