The girl looked out the window and watched the world go by.
The train kept laboring as she watched the world go by.
~~chug chug chug chug chug chug~~
She lifted her hand to the window.
She felt the cool surface and spread her hand on it.
She closed her eyes and remembered…

Once upon a time…
Not long ago,
She had been innocent, without a care in the world.
Little did that little one know
What would unfold

She came back with a gasp as a tear slid down her cheek.
She felt the vibration as the train toiled on.
~~chug chug chug chug chug chug~~
She wiped her cheek with her fingertips and looked at her lap.
She grasped the hem of her dress to keep from shaking
As her gaze wandered to her shoes and she remembered.

Once upon a time…
Not long ago,
She had been in a shop, the best shoe store in town
Hand in hand with her mother and father
Skipping along, innocently

When the memory ended
She quickly looked up and watched a man reading the paper
~~chug chug flip chug chug sip~~
She watched with youthful curiosity and forgot her worries.
Though she knew, when the spell wore off, they would come back.
“Back” she thought as she remembered.

Once upon a time…
Not that long ago
She had been walking, walking through the snow
With her mother and father in boxes above her head
Lumbering along, numb to the world

This time she laid her head on the window watching the world go by.
She opened her teary eyes and looked at the sky
~~chug (sigh) flip chug (sky) sip~~
She looked at the ceiling of the train car and tried counting sheep
Anything to sleep
Anything to forget

chug.chug.chug.
chug to remember.
chug to forget.
chug it when in need of company.
chug it because no one is around.
chug to disappear.
chug it cause you're bored
in order to make things interesting.
chug when it seems like everyone
is having more fun than you.
Chug to feel warm.
Chug to make it better.
chug because it tastes good.
chug it because it doesn't.
chug it to speed up time
or slow it down.
chug.chug.chug.
don't let it rest on your tongue.

Cracks in cover let
Sun in hits like
Bullets

Unwrapped window
Gives solar epiphany
To cocooned child

Flee fluorescent,
Flee faux verve
Doorframe: portal
Extra-terrestrial
World through eaves
Like bug zappers
See-through walls
Most envious glass
****** passage

Cold shoulder, concrete, masonry
Phosphenes gleaming, staggering
Hotfoot, addled eyes
Inverted wavelengths
Gravel clinging, unwise
Scrutinized steps to grass
Great big sigh
Saluting sky
With micro pupils
Torrid shell
Swollen locks
Rejoice

Westside: Central Avenue
Pack up, load up
Truckpower to State Street
Beer, veggie dogs
Corn-on-cob
Bag-of-fruit
Checkout scandal

Three-in-the-front
State to thirty-three
Thirty-three to thirteen
Chauncey, Jacksonville,
Trimble, Glouster,
Bonnie’s Home Cooking
Opposite British Petroleum
Exhausted loan office
Opposite Coal Miner Emeritus

Burr Oak: closed
Margin parking
Bathroom clothes
Tasteful vest
Bathroom tissue to brim
Feet welcome
Pass up close up camp spots
I feel a pull to the valley
Clearing: stop, rest
Crack, chug, more wood
Fire, crack, chug, more wood
Chat, crack, chug

Copper detuned chime
Of that ephemeral vibrato
Drone of nine-volt synth
Into kaput tape deck
& we sing & chant & cackle

Campfire chatter:
Bitter pill
Naïve philosophy
Crack, chug
Empathy
More wood

“So when I was seventeen still going to church there were these events they were called “lock-ins” we stayed the night at the church they took our cells our watches took down every clock & covered the windows so we wouldn’t be aware of anything only God & so there would be lectures & guest speakers & bible readings and discussions & also these ******* bizarre activities like they would turn off all the lights light a **** ton of candles & they would blindfold us and give us a little piece of paper and a little pencil and they’d tell us in a omniscient little voice to write down one sin we’ve committed on the little piece of paper fold it & nail it (still blindfolded) to this huge wooden cross with this little hammer & I guarantee every one of us wrote down *******.  

Now that I think of it the whole thing was about ******* every speaker had some story of how they used to ******* all the time and how they were released of the devils hold and that ******* is a sin and will send you to hell and all of us kids were boys and every single adult was a woman they all looked at us like they read our paper like we were sinners like we would always be sinners just slimy ******* who would always ******* (like we would ever understand what it felt to be a woman or what a woman felt like) & their eyes were gleaming with such shallow sympathy that you knew they were true god fearing Christians”

(All at once)
Stab, chug, crack, chug
Stab, chug, crack, chug
Stab, chug, crack, chug

Bliss

i wrote you a letter last night
i was DRUNK
as i usually am at...                               2a.m. these days.

i don’t regret
empty bottles that were full
           when i had u           self-medication is
                 self-preservation
no chaser, no chaser.
click, sip, swallow
click, sip, swallow
click, chug, sip, chug, addiction kills identity

→ whoamiwithoutyou;←

SWALLOW. so then i wrote you
a letter…. last night…?

was it last night?

no chaser, no chaser.
click chug swallow.
chug swallow chug swallow. i’m filled with POISON
and i am drunk
like i usually am at

                 10a.m these days.
demonic awareness,
claws at my back
i see it all so clearly

and you… YOU
you, you’re a match

you’re the ******* match and my love lit you up and you burned me straight to the ground and i. sip chug sip chug swallow chug no chaser just the burnt taste of dad’s $100 bottle of mezcal and i sip, chug                          chug                               ­                         can’t believe we’re dead.


BLACKOUT.
wake up
            pencil scratches;  liquid diet.
love, victoria.

i loath that educational poetry that's intended to address you with scold or searching for a higher tier of morality, there are poems like that out there (rudyard kipling e.g.), with educational / instructional overtones in the way they're written, i always wonder though: did the poet remember the idea of solipsism and writing the poem as if to himself, a note to self, rather than for others to peer into the poem and learn something?

that's the thing though,
i'm a child of immigrants...
actually an immigrant
myself... no, wait, let's do
what the higher tiers of society
call it: i'm an expatriate,
a child of expatriates -
and they still talk with an accent,
me? self-taught english
from the age of 8, retained my
mother tongue nonetheless,
speak none of the two tongues with
an accent, unless i want to,
a friend of mine introduced me
to a greek cypriot, lovingly ridiculed
me as posh... and let me tell you,
sounding posh in essex is hard to do,
i admit it would be harder in
scotland or east london, but essex
is still a hefty mountain to climb -
it's like that crass joke i heard in
the edinburgh comedy club i used to
haunt once a week...
a guy stands up and with a mighty grin
announced himself with over-stressed
elocution: 'you might recognise my accent
(i.e. denoting where he came from,
a great conversation starter on these
islands)... it's *educated',
and that really crushed the hazelnut
in his **** -
well if it was a woman telling the same
joke, it would be a crushed hazelnut
between the legs - missionaries
in positions of ardent prayer
and christmas wrapping paper -
because a woman's strength in the leg department
is like the lips of oysters, or any over shellfish
for that matter - insects of the deep blue
(exoskeleton).

Sometimes talking feels like walking steadily towards a moving train,
The power,
Chug, chug, chug,
Volume rising like the temperature behind my eyes,
Pacing, pacing, feet floating heavily below my knees,
Like carrying the weight of both of us on my back where you touched me once and I jumped,
Chug chug chug,
Words fall like bags of sand,
Dry and broken from my mouth,
Lit by the lights of the choo choo locomotive that will grind my bones firmly into the track,
Breathlessly I watch the train
Stop,
I step on rushing with the light and the hope and the words ready to spill from my mouth like viscous liquid,
Ready to pour into you,
I love you!
I gasp for air and swallow the liquid down like medicine,
Maybe next time.

Sip sip chug
Wipe it under the rug,
When it forms a lump
Try to stand
And jump
jump
jump.
It's dizzy in here
It's worse out there
Sip sip chug
Lean in for the hug,
When it feels too tight
Try to walk
Take flight
Fight it
Fight.
Sip sip chug
Keep your look smug,
the love in their blinks
Maybe try
Don't think
Think
Drink
Chug chug chug
Wash down Wash
Away
Ride the wave
Stay in the car
Stay stay
Sta-

Waiting all alone
waiting on this cold table
waiting for the doctors and the drones

I feel the scratch
of the itchy cotton gown
on the narrows of my back
as it climbs up and down

Displayed I lye on the medical tables hard cold steel
It seers into the crevices of my bones
I ponder the lone window and wonder if it's real
I listen for the bleep and bloop of medical tones

Nurses walk by in a mechanical grace
poke and **** & tap and touch my face
and then proceed to leave without a trace
with no hint of knowledge of my medical case

Waiting all alone
waiting on this cold table
waiting for the doctors and the drones

I'm a big girl, I'm a big girl
I begin to chant in a simple rhythm
as small as a ball I begin to curl
I'm abandoned inside this glassy prism

The dead silence creeps inside my brain
I want to scream to fill the deadly gap
but the cold thick air of silence brings pain
I comfort myself and say it will be ok

My breathing begins to quicken
my eyes dart around the room
only comfort is the fear which I am stricken
my sight goes bleary as darkness looms

Waiting all alone
waiting on this cold table
waiting for the doctors and the drones

Tears sting the corner of my eyes
I want someone to hold my hand
Oh God how I want to cry
but the only thing there is the bleeding arm band

The test begins with the thickness of barium
It slides down my throat and clings to my esophagus
It tastes like chalk and pandemonium
they want me to suffocate I guess

I chug and chug as the pictures are snapped
x-ray upon x-ray of my stomach and my back
Drink more Drink more They tell me to do
Nervously I shake and say, anymore and I will puke on you

Waiting all alone
waiting on this cold table
waiting for the doctors and the drones

Even more poking and prodding ensues
but of my stomach, ribs and *******
I lay rigid as a board from the pain of each touch
I grow weary of this tiresome rues

The tests are done
and the coast is clear
I am left alone
to dress myself in fear

Dismissed and discharged to walk away
they file my chart with a robotic smile
now for the wait of endless days
I'm lost in my mind's land of emotional exile

Waiting all alone
waiting on this cold table
waiting for the doctors and the drones

Pins & Needles Pins & Needles
I wait for the results
Is it stomach cancer, an ulcer or both??
In the dark I am kept like followers in cults.

Drift off
Slower than the tide
And these hazy buttercups
On this Sunday morning
Drift off
And let your fears
Spill into the current
That passes you gently along.

Melodies take me
And light guitar strings murmur
Giving flow to my stiff bones
As they sigh in the sunlight
Staring lovingly into the bluest sky
Bluer than the green water
That sings its own harmony.

Hear the birds chant
Sparks into the air
Hear the water hush
The wind that will never come today
And the chug chug chug
Of that faithful riverboat
Keeping me steadily onwards
On its warm wooden deck.

All I am is a number
On a computer screen,
Three point seven nine,
Slowly going down
And all you are
Is a can of cheap beer
That you chug, chug, chug
Just to break my heart,
It seems.
You think I’m a criminal
But I said no to the cigarette,
I said no to the drugs,
I said no to the shady crowd
And I hang on to a boy
Who treats me like you treat me
Sweet when I behave
But never going out of his way
Since I’m not worth it
And I treat him
The way I treat you
With hopeful, bright eyes
Lying to myself
Maybe tomorrow
He’ll love me.