. she was 19, i was 21, and i guess i was the first boy who treated her decently, allowed her to slap me in the face and stood like a copper statue before her... she wouldn't have made it at university among all the English yuppies, being pregnant... turns out, she might have opted for the Juno (the movie) route... all i know is that she graduated with a masters in anthropology... she was up in Edinburgh, i was back in London, roofing with my father doing the Scottish Widows HQ and then some other project, trying to weave myself into a managerial position in some roofing company... but then? the psychosis spiral... oddly enough - no hammers, no hearing voices wielding a hammer running down the street naked... contained... walked into a church near King's Cross st., lay on beside a the side altar, pulled the cloth from the altar, and wrapped myself in it... then heard singing, had my iPod with me... turned it off... turned it on again, turned it off... the singing still echoed the church... got up, put the cloth back onto the altar and started running around the church aisles... then a great wind dispersed the singing... what kept my sanity? well... given that i was smoking marijuana and fasting? one word... sátān... the whole 40 days in the desert? cut short... in a concrete desert... i phoned my then ex-girlfriend to meet me at this spot outside the church - right across from a royal mail HQ - and i remember the words: can you bring me bread, and water? nothing... on my own then... no... that sort of experience is no cause for jubilation, there is no ******* euphoria: you're talking about ******* it - in my case? thankfully that's only metaphorical... and i'm not buying the psychiatric *******, the easy way out answer: ooh... but youz ver in a church... what?! what the **** are these people talking about? sober people are allowed to have these experiences? well, really?! so why so many of them are negating or doubting intellectuals?! negation is the new doubt... somehow i managed to fend off the atypical munchies routine while smoking marijuana while walking in public... never bothered me... i was a reggae ***** at the time... notably Israel Vibration, Stephen Marley, Damian & Culture... & ***** and the Maytals... cliche, i know... but **** and rap?! seriously? gangster whatever the hell that means... i've just read an article about cultural appropriation... so what has the Jamaican Rastafarian culture have to do with Old Testament prophets?! JAH... they're always singing about JAH... it's a ******* yak! yah! a german YA! cultural appropriation my ***! it's Jamie Oliver's **** sauce! ****'s sake! yeah, right, Bambi on Jamaica smoking a silly one doing the reinvention of king David's psalms... no cultural appropriation there... nope... none... nothing... nothing wrong with Alpha Blondy singing about Yerushalem... nope... no cultural appropriation.... nope... none... nothing! i mentioned these bands to my Jamaican **** seller... big on the Illuminati conspiracy theories, i liked to listen to him ramble... hardly a Charlie Temple paranoid... loved his ox tail broth, his grandma made it for him... and a pretty daughter, but no mother... eh? his Thai ****? i'd prefer the shorter span of a tobacco high... where? near my old high school, Canon Palmer R.C. - now a ******* academy! whoop! whoop! sound the klaxon! you don't experience what i've experienced and start a cult with *** ****** in mind... like **** if you think you do... you... lay low... you puncture the existentialist exodus from Cartesian doubt - namely outright negation - and you wait for the revitalization of doubt, namely the pop culture variant of belief... doubt is, oddly enough, a variant of belief... and belief? be a leaf... just remember you were once attached to a branch of a tree.

yeah...

        a catholic school isn't
exactly a Jesuit school...

but being asked questions
about abortion
and euthanasia

   aged 15 or 16?

in real life?
  you short-circuit, glitch,
become ronin -

    the personal life, details?
too messy...
   she tells you she's taking
contraceptives,
   she's ends up self-harming...
she says she was abducted
and held for ransom,
she's a russian citizen,
her ex-boyfriend is still
hanging around,
  a son of some Russian oligarch...
you've only dated for a
bunch of months that do not
even make it half a year...
you don't mind condoms,
because... hell...
you'd love to see her wearing
latex...

     you know, the usual bits & bobs...

voodoo...
    for some strange reason i woke
up, and the ring finger blister
on my left hand, made by burning
out a cigarette on it
started bleeding:
  close to the bone -
and look! you get a slot motion
of your body recovering!
  no disclaimer concerning
the pros to what sharp objects
women do, by cutting...

but you know...
      asking a 15 / 16 year old
about his opinion
  about either abortion
or euthanasia?
  bad ******* move...
           at this point i'm thinking:
thank ****...

what does it even mean,
when a woman says it,
she's not exactly point-break
on Cartesian logic...

'matt, i think i'm pregnant'
'well, you know what you should
do, get an abortion.'

mind you... i am a citizen of a country
where abortion is legal...
hell, it might have worked,
*** was good, she could
reciprocate that sentiment...

oh, but if there is a kid at the end
of the tunnel?
i **** sure hope he doesn't
contact me, like a kid from
a ***** donor clinic...
      there's something malicious
waiting for him for me
to add about his mamma -

   aligned?
oh you know... *****, Henny,
  Diana and the Egyptian...
   go Charlie go!

                  please please keep
your name... we need a Charles trinity!

so yeah... Roman Catholic school...
****! oh right, outer east end of London...
Paddy central...
               i wonder...
                  but i'll never know...
the Polish Catholics are leaving...
               good on 'em...
          (yadda yadda, yeah yeah, for them)...

i'll never know...
   am i angry?
               i listen to Byzantine and Templar
chants and drink to a well earned
excess...
               sometimes the odd Bulgarian
******* to hug...
    
oh right... that one last time?
i didn't forget my genitals...
   i did an uncourteous lax of etiquette...
****!
           now it makes sense!
i forgot to trim my ***** hair!
(mumbling out) ******* eureka.

People, they just ain't all golden, not at all.
Not even silver, magnesium or copper.
Maybe zinc, because it tastes like ink and it does your body good,
but you never get enough, even though you know you should.
But had I the means, and the ends were understood,
would I be zinc? Would I carry the common good?
Would I feign precious metal? Or am I nothing but wood?
I met today aluminum, he said, "I'm bad luck."
"I know it," I said, "You're out of your element."
"My melting point is 660.2°C!"
I told him my name was Kristian Huselius,
but that turned into a testament.
"You're just lucky you aren't a duck," he said.
"Maybe, but I find I've got too much will."
"You can't spread will on bread, my friend,"
he said, much to my Brazil,
"but lucky for you they make contraceptives in pills."
I didn't want children anyway, but when Boron arrived,
I was feeling less than sublime.
Boron said, "My name rhymes with '*****'!"
"No kidding, Boron," I replied.
"I can come in both the dark crystal and brown powder variety!"
"That may or may not be true," said Aluminum,
"but at least I benefit society."
Oh, yeah, he said it, he went there.
"I value correctness and propriety!" Boron shrieked.
"And you can be flimsy, squishy, and weak!"
I wanted no part in this, so I meandered.
Not too long after, I met Helium.
I told him my name was Carlton Deandre.
"I don't believe you, mealworm," he bombasted.
"You're gaseous," I said, "I wouldn't put it past ya."

A woman who dies in labour,
In the pains of pre-delivery
For no reason but poor midwifery
Is a martyr and a true martyr
Than religious charlatans,
For she has only died in heroic
Defense of life and its perpetuation,
She is better than you the user
Of contraceptives in odious fit of
Family planning frivolity,
With condoms and the stuffs
Weapons of your ****** war,

She is a true martyr
To allow live sperms to meander
The valleys and fountains of life
Without dodging them shrewdly  
Through wiles of science and tech,
Sperms and ova when in a duel they are
God’s intent of life, and human lives
Alack, suffocating them is heinous
A sin as big as murderer
Or a terrorism of the Twin towers
Or a **** agent armed with gas poison,

Let them, the sperms enter the walls of life,
Minus fear of deathly virus, let them enter,
They intent to give life naturally, Godly,
And if they have Aids, then you are
A martyr who died in support of life
Against the wiles of the evil one,
You are better than him that
Masturbates to waste the *****
Of life, God’s grand purpose of
Them to be the first stations of life,
You **** them, you commit ******,
Genocide, massacre, macabre,

Have you heard of one Humpty Dumpty
How he fell with a roll and a rumble
And curled up like Lord Olofa Crumple
By the **** of the Magazine Wall,
  (Chorus) Of the Magazine Wall,
           ****, helmet and all?

He was one time our King of the Castle
Now he's kicked about like a rotten old parsnip.
And from Green street he'll be sent by order of His Worship
To the penal jail of Mountjoy
  (Chorus) To the jail of Mountjoy!
           Jail him and joy.

He was fafafather of all schemes for to bother us
Slow coaches and immaculate contraceptives for the populace,
Mare's milk for the sick, seven dry Sundays a week,
Openair love and religion's reform,
  (Chorus) And religious reform,
           Hideous in form.

Arrah, why, says you, couldn't he manage it?
I'll go bail, my fine dairyman darling,
Like the bumping bull of the Cassidys
All your butter is in your horns.
  (Chorus) His butter is in his horns.
           Butter his horns!

(Repeat) Hurrah there, Hosty, frosty Hosty, change that shirt
   on ye,
Rhyme the rann, the king of all ranns!

Balbaccio, balbuccio!

We had chaw chaw chops, chairs, chewing gum, the chicken-pox
   and china chambers
Universally provided by this soffsoaping salesman.
Small wonder He'll Cheat E'erawan our local lads nicknamed him.
When Chimpden first took the floor
  (Chorus) With his bucketshop store
           Down Bargainweg, Lower.

So snug he was in his hotel premises sumptuous
But soon we'll bonfire all his trash, tricks and trumpery
And 'tis short till sheriff Clancy'll be winding up his unlimited
   company
With the bailiff's bom at the door,
  (Chorus) Bimbam at the door.
           Then he'll *** no more.

Sweet bad luck on the waves washed to our island
The ****** of that hammerfast viking
And Gall's curse on the day when Eblana bay
Saw his black and tan man-o'-war.
  (Chorus) Saw his man-o'-war
           On the harbour bar.

Where from? roars Poolbeg. Cookingha'pence, he bawls
   Donnez-moi scampitle, wick an wipin'fampiny
Fingal Mac Oscar Onesine Bargearse Boniface
Thok's min gammelhole Norveegickers moniker
Og as ay are at gammelhore Norveegickers cod.
  (Chorus) A Norwegian camel old cod.
           He is, begod.

Lift it, Hosty, lift it, ye devil, ye! up with the rann,
   the rhyming rann!

It was during some fresh water garden pumping
Or, according to the Nursing Mirror, while admiring the monkeys
That our heavyweight heathen Humpharey
Made bold a maid to woo
  (Chorus) Woohoo, what'll she doo!
           The general lost her maidenloo!

He ought to blush for himself, the old hayheaded philosopher,
For to go and shove himself that way on top of her.
Begob, he's the crux of the catalogue
Of our antediluvial zoo,
  (Chorus) Messrs Billing and Coo.
           Noah's larks, good as noo.

He was joulting by Wellinton's monument
Our rotorious hippopopotamuns
When some ****** let down the backtrap of the omnibus
And he caught his death of fusiliers,
  (Chorus) With his rent in his rears.
           Give him six years.

'Tis sore pity for his innocent poor children
But look out for his missus legitimate!
When that frew gets a grip of old Earwicker
Won't there be earwigs on the green?
  (Chorus) Big earwigs on the green,
           The largest ever you seen.

   Suffoclose! Shikespower! Seudodanto! Anonymoses!

Then we'll have a free trade Gael's band and mass meeting
For to sod him the brave son of Scandiknavery.
And we'll bury him down in Oxmanstown
Along with the devil and the Danes,
  (Chorus) With the deaf and dumb Danes,
           And all their remains.

And not all the king's men nor his horses
Will resurrect his corpus
For there's no true spell in Connacht or hell
  (bis) That's able to raise a Cain.

Multiplication, Tabled
by Michael R. Burch

for the Religious Right

“Be fruitful and multiply”—
great advice, for a fruitfly!
But for women and men,
simple Simons, say, “WHEN!”

Keywords/Tags: Christianity, religion, procreation, multiplication, fruitful, multiply, overpopulation, abortion, birth, control, contraceptives, ******, pill, creationists, global, warming, climate, change, pope, Vatican

All this criticism, persecution,
Hatred, scorn,
Thrown towards us,
Two women,
Two men,
Immoral relationship they say,
Against God's word,
That's not the way He wanted it,
But one woman, two men,
Two women, one man,
Nothing's wrong with that,
16 year old teenage girl sleeping with the married man,
Nothing's said about them,
And if something's said, it's done in whispers,
Rumshop or evening gossip,
But me,
Harsh words are thrown my way,
No one cares about the tears they cause,
But when the woman down the road slept with my ex-husband,
I deserved it because I did not do enough to keep him,
They say,
But when I had a one night stand with the woman from the other town,
Words were thrown my way,
Why?
Because when I have ***,
There's no product formed from the substrate,
Or because when two products come together, there's no reaction,
Othan than multiple ******* caused by erogenous pleasure,
Or because I use toys,
And you need none,
Or is it because God made Adam and Eve,
And destroyed ***** and Gomorrah,
But he did not make Adam and Eve and the next door neighbour Steve,
And last time I checked he was on the merge of destroying Nineveh.

You say we destroy the definition of marriage or family,
But the contraceptives you use contribute to Global Warming,
Which sounds better?
A home started by a relationship like mine,
Or an Earth that's on the merge of dying?

They say,
That relationships like mine add nothing to society,
But relationships like yours cause fatherless homes,
Contributing to prostitution and gang wars,
Or multiple abortions before the age of 25,
Talking about my acts of erogenous pleasure causing no reaction, no creation,
But relationships like yours cause abortions,
Destruction of life, right in the middle of creation,
You call it abortion I call it ******,
Termination of life,
So who's the criminal?
But because of the sexuality placed upon me,
I'm persecuted,
I'm scrutinized,
Verbally abused,
And people like you are easily accepted,
But don't forget,
I'm the product of a heterosexual relationship.

I’ve got a lock and key, what you got? You got a door,
                                      a shrapnel embedded cupboard
      Curiously covered up that there is, do you want go out?
      No I got a boyfriend, but I do have a few contraceptives
Or I could show you my funny parts and we could plateau on the platonic
Abstinence is on par with networking
                           Oh shipwrecks of relationships, your waters never looked safe, your shoreline so rocky,
                      but your sail, if you see what I’m saying. ******* that wind a high-inducing pitch of a stank
                                                                          You took me to the foreign lands and never brought me back,
                                                                          a souvenir got emailed. Which I have just picked up, it’s actually           rather beautiful,
especially if we picked it out together
It is a bullet and that is rather cliché in the expectable in this sense of the world,
but the copper lining is exquisite, insert random bit about consumerism
                                     Then spin a bit around voyeurism, then mention the outcome of the movies,
                                                                                  the moving bits. The back & forth where it all starts
But like I said, you want a contraceptive? Or maybe just a sock? How about a **** addiction?
This really isn’t a discussion we should be having,
                              I don’t like arguing about these things and I’m a transvestite and rather think they don’t apply
                                                See the bit you said was babies and the bit I said was from the bible
Jesus and Black Moses, walking down the street
Preaching for the freaks
Then the bit you said was more like, I don’t know what I’m saying, I mumble and moan
And think about *** and college and loans and the bit that really stuck out was
  
                                   “Babies, they really just freak me out.”

Systemic chlamydia correct.

Cervical chlamydia dissimulate.

Asymptomatic chlamydia doubt.

Nonprescription contraceptives own.

Dangerous medicines convert.

Artificial contraceptives stand.

Lethal doses swim.

Other coccidia discredit.

Usual immunizations perform.

Standard doses admit.

i don't have a conspiracy theory... i just have an encyclopaedia of adverts... western intelligence is squandered on pub quizzes and trivia knowledge shows... spies are like magicians, although a spy's audience is a bunch of journalists high on tarantula venom, quote: (uh... what's going on?) take any stoner to speak that bracket.*

when my parents were eight, they were still
blossoming in a natural environment,
using the inherited tongue like a hammer:
here's the nail, here's a plank of wood,
now hammer that thought of yours in.
aged eight i was thrown into the deep end,
having to learn a new language, as somehow
unlearn my mother's tongue, i didn't budge,
i kept it scheming, rather than subconscious,
i didn't repress it... thrown into the deep end
i didn't become like most migrants
"assimilated", i.e. losing heritage... i kept it
(just in case)... now the chameleon of me
is about... suit & tie... then tracksuit bottoms...
no little russian kakashka (little ****)
would dare **** me, all the information i have
is useless... it's too personal...
i was supposed to be the rebound guy...
she sort of faked using anti-contraceptives...
i ended up a boomerang after seeing all
the possibilities of education...
that's the thing with the west and education,
it, just, doesn't, work... because all the menial
jobs have been exported, the west is sort
of puzzle-box tied in terms of hands able,
with hands actually disabled...
this excess outpouring of poetry is one sign,
the obvious one, excess poetry as deviation
from a chronology of illiteracy and books left
in the shadows and dust and crematoriums...
you tend to write poetry when you're either
illiterate or haven't read much that's on offer...
read the least number of books, then you get
to write poetry, simple as Victoria sponge or
bechamel sauce for a lasagne, motto being:
just keep stirring that flour into the frying butter,
just keep stirring, then slowly keep adding
onion bay leaf nutmeg infused milk slowly...
just keep on stirring...
western society likes bureaucracy, by way of
exporting the ideal that's democracy,
but it's so ******* n'ah! keep slang as an expression
of encrypted onomatopoeia, keep slang
as disguised nouns in onomatopoeias...
russians love poetry, hence they tend to send poets
into the gulag... in western society they
take poets to be raw meat and send a dozen flies in
to **** sperms into it, to clarify:
pornographic actors get paid, poets don't...
O masters of this glorious sphere, what will
this Eden Project prove? a third eye that's Voyeurism
en masse? when the blow-over fringe was running
for president i just said (no, no hindsight):
i wouldn't laugh... imagine a female pope!
women are not supposed to wear the Kippah...
western society in crisis; today i was watching the
film Cleopatra (1963) and there was so much dialogue!
take a movie from 2015 or 2016 and the dialogue
you get is: TNT BOOM BOOM BOOM!
CGI that's a fake of pixels being arable for the original
intention... the great decline... it only too one hit...
one ******* hit... and it ended up being a K.O.
you'd think they'd be able to take more... but Islam
became a Mike Tyson... *******... take one more hit!
what you're seeing now is what's called
the paradox of treating democracy as Utopia,
democracy isn't Utopia (Churchill said)...
but this is the unravelling, treat democracy as
the sole expression of utopia and then watch when
something alien hits it... one smack and you're out...
treating democracy as utopian politics is false,
too many self interests and too much bureaucracy;
or i can example my father for you...
two Lithuanian labourers employed by a company
****** up his drill... they weren't electrocuted
(the drill was wet), because if they were
the effect of electrocution would be like that of
an electron cloud the glue of keeping the proton
and neutron nucleus intact, the thing electrocuting
would be like a crocodile's jaw snap, you wouldn't
be able to let go... instead they became Lithuanian
vandals... smashed the thing... and what about
being self-employed and having his wages cut
once in a while? self-employment is the norm in western
societies... because the boss of BHS took a big fat
pay-cheque for a yacht with Kate Moss on it
while employee pensions went down the drain or
into Hawking's theory of black holes colliding...
zero hour contracts to match up the statistics...
western powers are mad to export their ideals...
i wouldn't trust them with a water-pistol,
and you know why? they'd just want an Iraqi to
wear Nike trainers and eat a Big Mac.

The words I speak are unpopular, unwanted and uninvited
Oh Lawd, pray I not be misunderstood
But then if I am, that too is okay
For I speak not in the vulgarity of this regime
This regiment armed with ******* extensions calling me a renegade
To insinuate that I am dangerous because my body speaks from a position of anarchy

As though anyone was what they looked like
But then again, I am dangerous, deliberate and afraid of nothing
Praise the Lorde, the Audrey Lorde!
**** what I look like!
I don’t care that I look like I was hit by a speed train at the bend
I don’t care that my hair sits on my head uncombed and unruly as though it owns me
Because then if I do I will let you **** me over again, did I say again?
But if you can’t figure me out here please accept my apology for not being obvious
Take from my hand words for your Language Acquisition Device
And devise for your ilk ways of seeing, new ways of seeing me
This is the end of normal, arm yourself
Here an extra pair of eyes
Now drop the pretense and straighten the frown on your face
To act like ‘****’ is too sensitive a word to your senseless sensibilities is hypocrisy
The problem is, I said it and I ain’t no Rick Ross or Lil’ Wayne or some other brother
Whose ‘****’ comes to you as an endorsement to objectify women
To call her everything: a *****, a ****, a ****, a *****
To call a woman everything, but her name
And when you call a woman by name you mean to shame her
Assata Shakur, Angela Davis, Wangari Maathai, Martha Karua
Kingwa Kamencu, , Audrey Mbugua, Wambui Otieno-Mbugua, Sojourner Truth
And this is the truth, black women have not even began to be resentful
of the rise to power of black men but there is a problem
A certain school of thought crafted by Slave masters on the colony
Teaches Black men that for them to be strong black women must be weak
Fallacious reasoning! This here is a product of gross miseducation
And Black men have not even began to unravel their role in the empire

Their counter-revolutionary exertion of a “manhood” that tells women to step back
As though to break off from our colonial oppression, never meant the total involvement
of every man, woman, and child, every-*******-body
As though for us to get here didn’t take the breaking of a woman’s back


Women whose labour terms in developing political consciousness were cast in stone
A time ranging from I-can’t-see in the morning until I-can’t-see at night
O Lawd bless Malcolm X
So this is your to do list for every man
Every man who acknowledges 'Wangu wa Makeri' and Bi Mswafari
in the same sentence with no sense of irony
Every woman who joins in the patriarchal laughter of our television
making fun of the nameless woman in 'Budalangi' begging 'sirikal' (Government) to help
As though her pain wasn’t real and the state hadn’t ignored her, three floods later
Please do yourself a favor, stop laughing
and teach yourself something on capitalist oppression
Stop laughing at the propaganda being pushed around as the truth
About men having *** with cows and hens because it will not be marked in history
that in two thousand and thirteen Kenyan men became intimate
with their food, pets and *****
And stop wearing Christianity as a beautiful coat that covers  your hatred
Because I don’t care how many verses you have memorized to make your hatred effective
For you have a verse to pull out of your pile of cards to justify the way you treat women and gays and Muslims and atheists and people
You see the truth is if Jesus came back to the world, you are the type that would still **** him
Because Jesus was a rogue, a rebel, and a revolutionary who refused to conform to any laws
Your hatred, judgement and self-righteousness must disgust him
because you are the worst thing that ever happened to my poetry
Stop condemning women for abortion and teenage pregnancy
as though there weren’t rapists and ******* priests who still oppose the use of contraceptives
Stop passing down your hatred to your children and other people’s children in the name of Jesus
So look yourself in the mirror and imagine what would happen
Imagine what would happen if we were to be honest in this conversation
and for a minute tried to speak about love as though we invented it
Take off your prejudices as though they hang on your shirt and again,
again and again ask yourself  ‘Who am I?’
And when you take to the streets before you tweet jokes that humiliate real people
Please stop, instead, try to talk of the revolution of love
Like our mothers did, and their mothers before them
And when you raise your hand to hit a woman STOP!
She has been beaten before and your hand shouldn’t touch her the same way
Keep your hand mid air and in that breathe ******* thank a woman

One
I'm sorry.  
Of course, you'll never know it.
I'm writing poems to a ghost by proxy, 
Gone before you even had fingernails or looked like a
Tangible thing and not some alien parasite.  

I heard once
That a soul can't inhabit a body
Until it takes the first breath of
Oxygen into it's lungs,
And if that's the case,
I'm sorry I stole the taste from you.

Two
I built a monument for your martyrdom
In the city of my thoughts, somewhere
Between the Relationship Trauma District,
And Motherhood Gardens.
It is a bronzed sunflower held in a mangled fist.
Your older sister takes me there in her laughter.

Three
You have to understand,
The man that put us both in this predicament
Didn't know how to keep his hands to himself
Or know how to fight his own demons without drawing
Someone else's blood trying to shadowbox with them.
How could I choose to potentially
Give him the opportunity to ever draw yours?  

Four
I'm sorry that we were careless,
Played Russian roulette with a loaded pistol
One by one slid five bullets between six chambers,
Haphazardly I spun the cylinder.
Placed the barrel to the roof
Of my mouth for good measure
Pulled the trigger, heard the faint click
Of my future, and then it was his turn.
I didn't think through the repercussions of
Lying in a grave before it had even been dug.  
Sharing blame and co-dependency
Intrinsically fed off of each others pain,
We entwined and made something out of hatred,
And I'm sorry that was you.

Five
Even now I hear myself say these words and,
It sounds selfish parading itself as selfless
Why didn't I say no or protect myself with
Contraceptives or just not have *** with him?
******* adoption, HELLO?
Or at the very least swallow.  Right?  
Right. I blame myself a lot too, there's really no
Reason to tell me things I already scream
At myself about inside of my head.  
Or is it my mother's voice?  I can't tell anymore.
She had a lot of opinions about you,

Six
There are so many hoops I had to jump through,
Contortionist poses to assume, to do this.
I'm sorry it's the most flexible I've allowed
Myself to be in all my life.
But,
Do not think I didn't mourn you.

Seven
For  years after I will run my palm over my stomach
And feel the concave of your absence inside of me
The less than, The empty
A hollow cavern that crumbled bit by bit, eroded by
Wave after wave of guilt in hightide
During a tropical storm,  
The malestrom that howled within now
Only taunts me anymore, with a constant hum,
The echoes of the pitter-patter
Of a light rain. The heartbeat I only heard once.

Eight
Would you hold me in a different light
If I told you that despite
All the darkness surrounding how I feel
About it, I don't regret the choice?  
Lamentful, burdened with
Would-haves and could-haves
But rooted in affirmations, knowing full well
That the heartache would have been far worse
For everyone in the long run,  

Nine
That I feel like I saved you.
That I feel like I saved both of us.
I'm sorry.

Ten
Sorry.
The word  falls from my lips like a void purport
To a forgiveness that I will never receive.

64,500 words have never meant so much.
Read enough books and you'll find your out of touch.
The rest of them can't know what it's worth.
They don't read enough.

I've been meaning to reread A Brave New World.
Something haunts me about the ending.
Between slaying lions for loved ones and belts of contraceptives,
I've taken on a whole new perspective.

*** without love,
and love dismissed with ***.
In high school I thought this world would be best,
but all of a sudden, it's happened too fast.

I used to relate to Bernard,
with his inferiority complex,
but now I fear I'm just like John;
one day my feet will swing from the north,
to the east,
south,
and then west.