Either peace or happiness,
let it enfold you

when I was a young man
I felt these things were
dumb, unsophisticated.
I had bad blood, a twisted
mind, a precarious
upbringing.

I was hard as granite, I
leered at the
sun.
I trusted no man and
especially no
woman.

I was living a hell in
small rooms, I broke
things, smashed things,
walked through glass,
cursed.
I challenged everything,
was continually being
evicted, jailed, in and
out of fights, in and out
of my mind.
women were something
to ***** and rail
at, I had no male
friends,

I changed jobs and
cities, I hated holidays,
babies, history,
newspapers, museums,
grandmothers,
marriage, movies,
spiders, garbagemen,
english accents,spain,
france,italy,walnuts and
the color
orange.
algebra angred me,
opera sickened me,
charlie chaplin was a
fake
and flowers were for
pansies.

peace and happiness to me
were signs of
inferiority,
tenants of the weak
and
addled
mind.

but as I went on with
my alley fights,
my suicidal years,
my passage through
any number of
women-it gradually
began to occur to
me
that I wasn't different

from the
others, I was the same,

they were all fulsome
with hatred,
glossed over with petty
grievances,
the men I fought in
alleys had hearts of stone.
everybody was nudging,
inching, cheating for
some insignificant
advantage,
the lie was the
weapon and the
plot was
empty,
darkness was the
dictator.

cautiously, I allowed
myself to feel good
at times.
I found moments of
peace in cheap
rooms
just staring at the
knobs of some
dresser
or listening to the
rain in the
dark.
the less I needed
the better I
felt.

maybe the other life had worn me
down.
I no longer found
glamour
in topping somebody
in conversation.
or in mounting the
body of some poor
drunken female
whose life had
slipped away into
sorrow.

I could never accept
life as it was,
i could never gobble
down all its
poisons
but there were parts,
tenuous magic parts
open for the
asking.

I re formulated
I don't know when,
date, time, all
that
but the change
occurred.
something in me
relaxed, smoothed
out.
i no longer had to
prove that I was a
man,

I didn't have to prove
anything.

I began to see things:
coffee cups lined up
behind a counter in a
cafe.
or a dog walking along
a sidewalk.
or the way the mouse
on my dresser top
stopped there
with its body,
its ears,
its nose,
it was fixed,
a bit of life
caught within itself
and its eyes looked
at me
and they were
beautiful.
then- it was
gone.

I began to feel good,
I began to feel good
in the worst situations
and there were plenty
of those.
like say, the boss
behind his desk,
he is going to have
to fire me.

I've missed too many
days.
he is dressed in a
suit, necktie, glasses,
he says, 'I am going
to have to let you go'

'it's all right' I tell
him.

He must do what he
must do, he has a
wife, a house, children,
expenses, most probably
a girlfriend.

I am sorry for him
he is caught.

I walk onto the blazing
sunshine.
the whole day is
mine
temporarily,
anyhow.

(the whole world is at the
throat of the world,
everybody feels angry,
short-changed, cheated,
everybody is despondent,
disillusioned)

I welcomed shots of
peace, tattered shards of
happiness.

I embraced that stuff
like the hottest number,
like high heels, *******,
singing,the
works.

(don't get me wrong,
there is such a thing as cockeyed optimism
that overlooks all
basic problems just for
the sake of
itself-
this is a shield and a
sickness.)

The knife got near my
throat again,
I almost turned on the
gas
again
but when the good
moments arrived
again
I didn't fight them off
like an alley
adversary.
I let them take me,
I luxuriated in them,
I made them welcome
home.
I even looked into
the mirror
once having thought
myself to be
ugly,
I now liked what
I saw, almost
handsome, yes,
a bit ripped and
ragged,
scares, lumps,
odd turns,
but all in all,
not too bad,
almost handsome,
better at least than
some of those movie
star faces
like the cheeks of
a baby's
****.

and finally I discovered
real feelings of
others,
unheralded,
like lately,
like this morning,
as I was leaving,
for the track,
i saw my wife in bed,
just the
shape of
her head there
(not forgetting
centuries of the living
and the dead and
the dying,
the pyramids,
Mozart dead
but his music still
there in the
room, weeds growing,
the earth turning,
the tote board waiting for
me)
I saw the shape of my
wife's head,
she so still,
I ached for her life,
just being there
under the
covers.

I kissed her in the
forehead,
got down the stairway,
got outside,
got into my marvelous
car,
fixed the seatbelt,
backed out the
drive.
feeling warm to
the fingertips,
down to my
foot on the gas
pedal,
I entered the world
once
more,
drove down the
hill
past the houses
full and empty
of
people,
I saw the mailman,
honked,
he waved
back
at me.

2 cups of insecurity
4 ounces of comparison
1 cup of dinner not eaten.
5 cups of a mind in shackles
6 tablespoons of incomprehension
2 ounces of oblivious peers
3 cups of dinner not eaten.
3 teaspoons of phantom numbers
2 cups of anxiety
4 cups of mirrors smashed to bits
1 pint of self-hatred
4 cups of dinner not eaten.
1 tablespoon of depression
6 ounces of anger
2 pints of hopelessness
3 cups of self-inflicted scars
4 teaspoons of ribs in the mirror
5 cups of fainting on the stairs
1 gallon of dinner not eaten.
6 cups of grieving families
4 tablespoons of words unspoken
3 teaspoons of tears unshed.
2 cups of dusty belongings
4 gallons of friends never made
3 teaspoons of kisses never stolen
a lifetime of words left unsaid.

Melt insecurity and comparison and mix thoroughly with dinner not eaten. Mix a mind in shackles, incomprehension, and oblivious peers and add three more cups of dinner not eaten. Crush phantom numbers and anxiety and sprinkle over batter. Take each piece of mirrors smashed to bits and poke them carefully through self-hatred. Mix with four more cups of dinner not eaten. Melt depression, anger, and hopelessness and spread them thoroughly throughout the batter. Meticulously place self-inflicted scars visibly on top of the mixture. Cover with ribs in the mirror and fainting on the stairs. Mix with one gallon of dinner not eaten. Haphazardly toss in grieving families, words unspoken, and tears unshed. Mix with dusty belongings, friends never made, and kisses never stolen. Gather a lifetime of words left unsaid in a separate container. Take it outside and bury it. Do not mark the grave site.

This heart isn’t hallow
This emptiness is just
As full as it can get
Like drowning a sealed
Water bottle full of
Oxygen

My heart breathes like a water boarding
Screams for first dates
That don’t come
Crushes over girls
Who ask me out to coffee so
They can brag about having coffee
With a cute guy to me
While the two of us
Have coffee

Smile
Do not show the hallow
Do not let the wind being knocked out of you
Whistle off of your rib cage
Like love notes being shredded

Remember
This is just coffee
Don’t pay attention to the fact that
Coffee hardly ever happens
Don’t pay attention to the fact that
You’ve literally had a crush on this girl since
Before you actually met her
Don’t pay attention to the fact that
There might not ever be another
Coffee

Remember
This is just your life
They don’t write love stories for hallowed out hearts
Or at least hearts that are only full of an outlining
Of oxygen
With skin singed from dysphoria
I hear it’s not good theater
If the main character looks like
A burn victim—
A bit indistinguishable
Like someone threw
Scalding coffee over your gender
Or tried to fill your heart with it

Breathe

Remember getting over her
It wasn’t hard
After all
It was just coffee
And it wasn’t like you
Had hope to fill your heart with
It was too full of out-linings
It’d be like stuffing a net with sand
Or trying to pour coffee into a
Shattered cup

Breathe

Let the broken shards of the
I-guess-this-really-is-just-coffee cups
Fill your lungs
It’s easier than breathing in another night
Of lonely
At least then you know
There was coffee
And glasses that fell apart
In tune with the shattering
Of your heart
So human
To lose something
By breaking it

Breathe

Remember
There was another coffee
And another girl
And this time we didn’t drink
From busted cups
But in something sturdy
Like a glass of hugs
That held the future of more time together
And had teabags of hope attached to strings
Of fingers that interlocked with hers
On the couch during our
Second date

My god
I know we had on shoes
With rubber souls
But that night your
Fingertips felt electric
Like a coffee cup with
An outlet in it
And the fork of my fingers found
The shock inside of you
It was warm like
Body heat
Or setting yourself on fire
*******
I never knew holding hands could make
My burned heart
Feel like a bonfire
Of shredded love notes
And shattered cups

I squeezed your hand a bit too hard
Like ripping coffee out of a sponge
I hoped you didn’t feel
How desperately I needed to hold
Onto the lifeboat rope of your arm
Because I’ve been drowning
In shards of glass from
I-guess-this-really-is-just-coffee cups
My whole life

I wish that second dates
Came with instruction manuals
Because I had no idea what to do
So at 2am
When you said you needed to leave
I walked you out to your car
And while I never read an instruction manual
I know that was the right move
Because you turned
And smushed your face into mine
Like I was stealing cotton candy in my mouth

I’m glad you were a good kisser
Because I know that kissing cotton candy
Has to be awkward as ****
But I hope that you at least found
Something sweet somewhere between
My lips

My god
How great a thief you were
When I checked my breath
The next morning
It was gone
Electrocuted from my lungs
And now I knew why kids
Keep shoving forks
Into outlets
It’s because the electric feels ******* incredible
Like taking a bath in oxygen
Or drowning in an ocean of inhales
Or fighting off a horde of dragons by
******* breathing on them

So Breathe

Remember
Cotton candy may seem sweet
But it doesn’t last forever
Eventually
Everyone can’t bare to have
Another bite

Awkward-at-first-kisses became
Awkward kisses
Breath kept coming home early
And dragons began to breathe
Back at me

I wasn’t surprised when you told me
You started seeing someone
It made sense
I always kept too many dragons around
With screaming hearts
And shattered coffee cups
Burning everything

I wasn’t surprised when I cried that day
It made sense
I had all of my oxygen back now
It was the only kind of breath
I knew

You see, oxygen flows through the heart and
Circles through the veins
I know oxygen
Like shattered coffee cups
And broken hallows
Filled with oceans of air

I guess that’s why
I set my heart on fire
Because maybe
It was never
There.